Moscow Little Ring Railway
| Little Ring of the Moscow Railways | |
|---|---|
| Overview | |
| Type | Heavy rail, Commuter rail |
| System | Moscow Railways |
| Locale | Moscow |
| Stations | 12 stopping points with freight yards (15 including stations on branches) |
| Operation | |
| Opened | July 1907 |
| Owner | Russian Railways |
| Operator(s) | Russian Railways |
| Character | Aboveground, surface, partially underground |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 54 km (34 mi) |
| Track gauge | 1,520 mm (4 ft 11 27⁄32 in) |
| Electrification | 3 kV DC overhead line |
The Little Ring of the Moscow Railways (MK MZD, Russian: Малое кольцо Московской Железной Дороги), is a 54.4-kilometre-long (33.8 mi) orbital railway in Moscow.
Built between 1902 and 1908 as MOZD (Moscow Encircle Railway, Russian: Московская Окружная Железная Дорога, or just Encircle Line, Russian: Окружная линия) for mixed use railway traffic, after 1934 the railway was only used for cargo traffic. During the 2010s, the railway was converted to be used for commuter rail service and allows free transfers with the Moscow Metro; the passenger service on Moscow Ring Railway started on September 10, 2016, as the Moscow Central Circle. The line is operated by Russian Railways' Moscow subsidiary.
In 1800, the Kamer-Kollezhsky Val became the legal outer border of Moscow. In 1879, some additional areas, including Sokolniki, were appended (annexed) to the city; however, at the time Moscow was encircled by a number of further settlements forming an urban agglomeration. Transport connections between these suburbs were poor. A number of proposals to build a ring railroad around the center to solve this were made in the 1860s and the 1870s. One such project was rejected in 1877 by the Moscow City Duma which cited inefficiency. However, the transportation problems became increasingly obvious, and in 1898 after Tsar Nicholas II sent a message to the City Duma declaring that it was desirable to build a railroad, a project competition was opened. The project by Pyotr Rashevsky, who proposed to build a ring of the total length of 54.4 kilometres (33.8 mi), won the competition.
Construction started in 1902, and the railway was completed with the first train running in July 1907. In 1908, the railroad was declared to be completed, and it became part of the Nikolayevskaya Railway, the main line of which ran between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A Passenger service was organized of four trains per day. The trains first stopped in Nikolayevsky Railway Station before joining the ring at the Presnya Station. Here trains were divided into two, with one train running clockwise, and the other one running counterclockwise.
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