NARVA - Russian and Estonian railway officials met in Estonia's border town, Narva, to discuss ways to increase cargo traffic between the two countries, with Viktor Stepov, the new director of Russia's Oktyabrskaya Railroad, saying that capacity of the Narva-Ivangorod line could be increased.
The Oktyabrskaya Railroad, the northwestern section of Russia's vast railway network, with main routes such as St. Petersburg-Murmansk and St. Petersburg-Moscow, is the only railway that connects Russia with Europe and is the vital artery hooking up the country's export industries to Estonian ports.
Last year Estonian Railways, which owns the railroad tracks and is a leading cargo operator, handled some 19 million tons of cargo, or almost half the total, through Narva. This year the company expects to increase that to 22 million tons, Herbert Payne, the outgoing managing director of Estonian Railways (see brief on Page 8), said.
Payne and Riivo Sinijarv, deputy managing director of Estonian Railways, met Stepov in Narva to discuss how to boost transit through Narva and Ivangorod, which straddle the Narva River. Currently the railway serves 22 trains per day, in each direction, and both sides want to increase this capacity to 24 trains.
They also discussed how to increase the maximum allowable weight per train.
Payne said the growth of the two border train stations would have a positive impact on the development of Estonian-Russian economic cooperation. He said that prospects for Narva-Ivangorod transit growth looked promising.
"We want to keep on investing into Narva," said Payne.
He explained that the city government has to issue a license for reconstruction of the Narva cargo train station located in the city. Delays in issuing the license has been caused by a number of complaints filed with the city administration by the local residents.
Narva residents who live next to the station and the railway track are supposedly concerned about the environmental risks - oil products make most of the transit - and the greater noise level that will accompany increased transit. One group of locals is even prepared to ask Estonian Railways for compensation in order to move to another part of the city.
The company has assured Narva city officials that all conditions set by the city will be taken into account and that the reconstruction plan includes the required safety facilities.
Too close for comfort
The recent explosion of a fuel and chemical train in Iran that took the lives of over 300 people raised security concerns over railway transit in Estonia, particularly in the capital, the daily Eesti Paevaleht wrote this week.
A significant part of a residential district and the Old Town, which are located close to the Kopli cargo train station in Tallinn, would be demolished should an explosion of a train loaded with fuel occur, according to the Tallinn Fire and Rescue Department.
An explosion of just one tank loaded with fuel would reportedly create a heat wave of 800 meters around the explosion and a lethal shock wave of some 300 meters. A government building standing on a hill just 500 meters away from the cargo train hub (behind the passenger railway station) would be demolished.
A spokesman for Estonian Railways, the company controlling the majority of the railway transit in Estonia, said the cargo train area has a fence around it, as well as a network of security cameras and security personnel.
Last year the Tallinn city government proposed to completely redirect transit of environmentally dangerous cargo to railway hubs outside the city by 2007. However, a consultative board of city officials and transit companies found it impossible to carry out the recommendation by the proposed deadline but agreed to begin working on the rerouting.
(Aleksei Gunter)
