Dnieper Railroad

a railroad in the southern Ukraine. The Dnieper Railroad began functioning in 1958. Its operating length is 3,275.9 km (1974), 2.4 percent of the USSR rail network’s total length. The first section, measuring 208 versts (222.6 km), was put into operation in 1873. It connected Lozovaia with Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozh’e), and had a branch line to Nizhned-neprovsk, near Ekaterinoslav.

The railroad’s operation is controlled from the city of Dnepropetrovsk. The line has four sections—the Dnepropetrovsk, Krivoi Rog, Zaporozh’e, and Crimean sections—and connects with the Donetsk Railroad at the Krasnoarmeiskoe, Chaplino, and Kamysh-Zaria stations; with the Southern Railroad at the Lozovaia and Krasnograd stations; and with the Odessa-Kishinev Railroad at the Vadim, Novoveselaia, Dolinskaia, and Vysokopol’e stations. The railroad serves the Dnepropetrovsk, Crimean, and Zaporozh’e oblasts, a large part of Kherson Oblast, and parts of Kharkov Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. It also connects with the Black Sea-Sea of Azov Steamship Line at the ports of Berdiansk, Kerch’, Feodosiia, Sevastopol’, and Evpatoriia and with the Dnieper River Steamship Line at Zaporozh’e, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikopol’, and Dneprodzerzhinsk.

Two east-west main lines connect the Donbas with the Krivoi Rog Iron Ore Basin. They are the Chaplino-Sinel’nikovo-Nizh-nedneprovsk-Verkhovtsevo-Piatikhatki line and the Kamysh-Zaria-Pologi-Zaporozh’e-Apostolovo-KrivoiRog-Sortirovoch-naia-Dolinskaia line. The railroad serves such major industrial centers as Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozh’e, Dneprodzerzhinsk, Krivoi Rog, Pavlograd, Nikopol’, and Novomoskovsk, as well as a number of agricultural regions.

The Dnieper Railroad handles an important share of the nation’s rail freight. Despite its relatively small extent, it surpasses many other lines in freight shipped, exceeded only by the Donetsk and Western Siberian lines. In receipt of freight the Dnieper line ranks fourth after the Donetsk, Moscow, and West Siberian lines. Because of the relatively short hauling distances, however, the railroad’s share of the national freight turnover is relatively small, 82.1 billion ton-km, or less than 3 percent (1974). The principal freight is iron and manganese ore, coal, coke, ferrous metals, machines, building materials, fusing agents, and grain. The freight density is more than 24 million ton-km per km.

The Dnieper Railroad also handles a large amount of passenger traffic (7.7 billion passenger-kilometers in 1974). The railroad connects the national health resorts of the Crimea with all the USSR railroads joining the line from the north, east, and west. Passenger traffic is especially heavy to the Crimea from the north on the Lozovaia-Zaporozh’e-Melitopol’-Dzhankoi line and continuing to Simferopol’, Kerch’, Feodosiia, Sevastopol’, and Evpatoriia. Passenger connections are most frequent with the Moscow, Odessa-Kishinev, Donetsk, Southwestern, Southern, Northern Caucasus, October, and L’vov lines. Traffic between the Crimea and the Caucasus was increased by the establishment of a railroad ferry across the Kerch’ Strait between the Krym and Kavkaz stations; this substantially shortens the train run. Suburban passenger traffic is heavily developed on the Dnieper line, accounting for more than four-fifths of all passenger departures. However, owing to the shortness of the distances covered, the ratio of suburban traffic to total passenger traffic is relatively small, ranging from 20 to 22 percent.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, the Dnieper Railroad was heavily damaged, and the major bridges over the Dnieper were destroyed. After the war, the line was completely rebuilt and modernized. The main north-south Lozovaia-Zaporozh’e-Simferopol’-Sevastopol’ route was electrified, as were the chief east-west routes and the suburban sections. In 1973, 77.7 percent of the freight turnover was handled by electric traction and 22.3 percent by diesel. Many sections of the railroad are equipped with automatic block signal systems and centralized dispatching of switches and signals. The main classification yards have the most modern equipment, and several major new terminals have been built. The Dnieper Railroad was awarded the Order of Lenin (1971).