Moscow Metro
 |
A current official map of the Moscow Metro. |
The
Moscow Metro, which spans almost the entire
Russian
capital, is
one of the world's most heavily used
metro systems. It is well known for the ornate design of many of its
stations, which contain stunningly beautiful examples of
socialist realist art.
In total, the Moscow Metro has 278.3 km of route length, 12 lines and 171 stations; on a normal weekday it carries 8.2 million passengers. Passenger traffic is considerably lower on weekends bringing the average daily passenger traffic during the year to 7.1 million passengers per day. The Moscow Metro is a
state-owned enterprise.
Each line is identified by a number, a name and a colour. The voice announcements refer to lines by name, while in colloquial usage they are mostly referred to by colour, except the
Lyublinskaya Line (number 10) and the
Kakhovskaya Line (number 11) which have been assigned shades of green similar to that of the
Zamoskvoretskaya Line (number 2). Most lines run radially through the city, except the
Koltsevaya Line (number 5), which is a 20-km-long ring connecting all the radial lines and a few smaller lines outside. On all lines, travellers can determine the direction of the train by the gender of the announcer: on the ring line, a male voice indicates clockwise travel, and a female voice counter-clockwise. On the radial lines, travellers heading toward the centre of Moscow will hear male-voiced announcements, and travellers heading away will hear female-voiced announcements (a good mnemonic rule here is: ‘your boss calls you to work; your wife calls you home'). In addition, there is an abundance of signs showing all the stations that can be reached in a given direction.
The system was built almost entirely underground, although some lines (numbers 1, 2 and 4) cross the
Moskva river, while line number 1 also crosses the Yauza river by
bridge. Other exceptions include the
Filyovskaya Line, which has a long surface section (seven stations) between
Kievskaya and
Molodyozhnaya stations, and the
Butovskaya Light Metro Line (L1) with 4 elevated stations. Two further surface-level stations exist on the
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line and on the
Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya LineThe Moscow Metro is open from 5:35 until 1:04 (the time may vary at different stations according to first/last train schedule). During peak hours, trains run roughly every 90 seconds on most lines. At other times during the day, they run about every two to three and a half minutes, and every six to ten minutes late at night. As trains are so frequent, there is no timetable available to passengers.
The colours in the table correspond to the colours of the lines in the map above.
Metro lines
Notes
1 – 4 central stations of Filyovskaya Line –
Komintern,
Arbatskaya,
Smolenskaya and
Kievskaya – were originally opened in 1935/37, when they were a branch of Sokolnicheskaya Line. Between 1938 and 1953, they were part of Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line. The stations were closed between 1953 and 1958 and then reopened as part of the (new) Filyovskaya Line.
2 – All 3 stations of the Kakhovskaya Line were built in 1969; initially, they were an integral part of the Zamoskovoretskaya Line until 1983, becoming a branch of it until 1995. In 1995, they were split off from the Zamoskovoretskaya Line and used to form the Kakhovskaya Line.
* –
L in
L1 does
not stand for
Light Rail but, somewhat confusingly, for "Light Metro" â€" lines that are built mainly above-ground. These lines, as a result, do not need expensive tunneling and are supposed to be
financially "light". However, "light" and "normal" metro lines use interoperable rolling stock. See
Butovskaya Light Metro Line for further explanation.
The 4.7 km, 6 station
monorail line between
Timiryazevskaya and
VDNKh is currently in "excursion mode": trains leave once every 20 minutes, tickets cost about four times more than usual (50 roubles - about $1.70), and the hours of operation are 8:00-20:05. It is not yet known when (or whether) it will become fully operational.
Tickets are available for a fixed number of journeys, irrespective of the distance of travel and the number of lines changed. Monthly and yearly tickets are also available.
The Moscow Metro uses magnetic cards (contact cards) for tickets with a fixed number of journeys (up to 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 60 and 70 journeys for 30 days from the day of the first journey). Magnetic cards were introduced in 1993 as a test and were used as unlimited tickets between 1996 and 1998. For all other cases the Moscow Metro uses a Transport Card (or 'contactless smartcard'). Smartcards are available as 'unlimited' and 'social' tickets. The unlimited card can be programmed for 30, 90, and 365 days. The social cards are free for pensioners and other privileged citizens of the City of Moscow; they are available to school pupils and students at a heavily reduced price. Transport Cards were introduced in 1998 along with a new type of magnetic card. The Moscow Metro became the first metro system in Europe to fully implement
smartcards on September 1 1998. The sale of tokens ended on 1 January 1999 and they stopped being accepted in February 1999.
|
Kurskaya Koltsevaya Station |
The Moscow Metro was initially built under the 1930s Moscow general plan designed by
Lazar Kaganovich and was named after him ("Metropoliten im. L.M. Kaganovicha").[
1]
The first line opened on
15 May 1935 between
Sokolniki and
Park Kultury with a branch to
Smolenskaya which reached
Kievskaya in April
1937 (crossing the
Moskva river by bridge). The construction of the first stations was based on other underground systems, and only a few original designs were allowed: (
Krasniye Vorota,
Okhotniy Ryad and
Kropotkinskaya). Kievskaya station was the first to use national motifs.
The second stage was completed before the war. In March 1938 the Arbatskaya branch was split in two and extended to
Kurskaya station (now the dark-blue
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line). In September
1938 the
Gorkovskaya Line opened between
Sokol and
Teatralnaya. Here the architecture was based on the most popular of the stations already in existence (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotnyi Ryad and Kropotkinskaya) and the compositions followed the popular art deco style, though merging it with socialist visions. The first deep level Column station
Mayakovskaya was built at the same time.
Building work on the third stage was delayed but not interrupted during the
Second World War, and two Metro sections were put into service:
Teatralnaya -
Avtozavodskaya (3 stations, crossing the Moskva river in a deep tunnel) and
Kurskaya -
Partizanskaya (4 stations) were inaugurated in 1943 and 1944 respectively. War motifs replaced socialist visions in the architectural design of the stations.
During the Siege of Moscow, in the autumn and winter of 1941, metro stations were used as air-raid shelters and the
Council of Ministers moved its offices to the platforms of
Mayakovskaya, where Stalin made public speeches on several occasions.
Chistiye Prudy station was also walled off and the headquarters of the Air Defence installed there.
After the war, construction started on the fourth stage of the Metro, which included the
Koltsevaya Line and a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from
Ploshchad Revolyutsii to
Kievskaya, and a surface extension to
Pervomaiskaya in the early
1950s. The exquisite decoration and design of so much of the Moscow Metro is considered to have reached its peak in these stations.
The
Koltsevaya Line was planned first as a line running under the
Sadovoye Koltso (Garden Ring), a wide avenue encircling the borders of Moscow's city centre. The first part of the line - from
Park Kultury to
Kursakya (
1950) - follows this avenue. But later plans were changed and the northern part of the ring line deviates 1-1.5 km outside the Sadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for 7 (out of 9) rail terminals. The next part of the
Koltsevaya line opened in
1952 (Kurskaya -
Belorusskaya) and in
1954 the ring line was completed.
There is an interesting
urban legend about the origin of the ring line. A group of engineers approached
Stalin with plans for the Metro, to inform him of current progress and of what was being done at that moment. As he looked at the drawings, Stalin poured himself some coffee and spilt a small amount over the edge of the cup. When he was asked whether or not he liked the project so far, he put his cup down on the centre of the Metro blueprints and left in silence. The bottom of the cup left a brown circle on the drawings. The planners looked at it and realized that it was exactly what they had been missing. Taking it as a sign of Stalin's genius, they gave orders for the building of the ring line, which on the plans was always printed in brown. This legend, of course, may be attributed to Stalin's
cult of personality.
|
Kievskaya Koltsevaya station |
The beginning of the
Cold War led to the construction of a deep part of the
Arbatskiy line. The stations on this line are very deep and were planned as shelters in the event of nuclear war. After finishing the line in
1953, the upper tracks between
Ploshchad Revolyutsii' and
Kievskaya were closed and later reopened in
1958 as a part of the
Filyovskaya Line. In the further development of the Metro, the term "stages" was not used any more, although sometimes the stations opened in
1957-
1959 are referred to as the "fifth stage".
During the late 1950s, the architectural extravagance of new metro stations was significantly toned down, and decorations at some stations, like
VDNKh and
Alekseevskaya, were greatly simplified compared with original plans. This was done on the orders of
Nikita Khrushchev, who favoured a more spartan decoration scheme. A typical layout (which quickly became known as "Sorokonozhka") was developed for all new stations, and the stations were built to look almost identical, differing from each other only in colours of the marble and ceramic tiles. Most of these stations were very poorly built. It was not until the mid-1970s that architectural extravagance was restored, and original designs once again became popular.
|
The ornate museum-like interiors of Arbatskaya Station on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line. |
The Moscow Metro has a
broad gauge of 1520 mm, like ordinary Russian
railways, and a third rail supply of
825V AC. The average distance between stations is 1800 m, the shortest (515 metres) section being between
Aleksandrovskiy Sad and
Arbatskaya and the longest (3,413 metres) between
Volgogradskiy Prospekt and
Tekstilshchiki. The long distances between stations have the positive effect of a commercial cruising speed of 41.6 km/h.
Since the beginning of Moscow metro,
platforms have been built to be at least 155 m long, so as to accommodate for 8-car trains. The only exceptions are certain stations of Filyovskaya line:
Delovoi Tsentr,
Studencheskaya,
Kutuzovskaya,
Fili,
Bagrationovskaya,
Filyovskiy Park,
Pionerskaya, which only allow for 6-car trains (note that this list includes all of ground-level stations of Filyovskaya line, except
Kuntsevskaya).
Trains on lines 2, 6, 7 and 9 consist of 8 cars, on lines 1, 3, 8, 10 of 7 cars and on lines 4, 5 and 11 of 6 cars. All cars (both older E-series and newer 81-series) are 19.6 m long with four doors on either side.
The Moscow Metro train is identical to those used in all other ex-Soviet Metro cities (
St. Petersburg,
Novosibirsk,
Minsk,
Kiev,
Kharkov, etc.) and in
Budapest,
Prague,
Sofia and
Warsaw.
Line L1 is called the "Light metro". It was designed to its own standards and has shorter (96 m) platforms. It employs newer
Rusich trains, which consist of 3 articulated cars, but it can also be served by traditional 4-car trains. Rolling stock on the Filyovskaya line is also replaced with 4-car Rusich trains.
|
Originally developed for the Light Metro lines, the Rusich trains, on the left, now can be found on the oldest stations, among the oldest serving E-series cars |
The Moscow metro currently comprises 171 stations, of which 70 are deep-level, and 87 are shallow. Of the deep stations, 53 are pylon-type, 16 are column-type and one is "single-vault" (Leningrad technology). The shallow stations compromise 65 of the pillar-type (a large portion of them following the infamous "sorokonozhka" design), 19 "single-vaults" (Kharkov technology) and 3 single-decked. In addition there are ten ground-level stations and four above ground. Two of the stations exist as double halls, and two have three tracks. Five of the stations have side platforms (only one of them-subterranean). The station
Vorobyovy Gory is situated on a bridge. Three other metro bridges exist, but are covered or hidden. In addition there are two closed stations and one that is derelict.
There are also 3 abandoned station:
Volokolamskaya of Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line and
Delovoy Center of Kalininskaya and Solntsevskaya lines. As well as also one station without service -
Park Pobedy of Solntsevskaya line.
Numbers of Moscow Metro
2005 numbers from
official site.
| Passengers | 2,603.2 mln |
| â€" paid a trip | 1,958.6 mln |
| Incomes from tickets | 15,997.4 mln p. (~$562mln) |
| Route length | 278.3 km |
| Lines | 12 |
| Stations | 171 |
| â€" transfer stations | 57 |
| â€" transfer points | 26 |
| â€" surface/estacade | 14 |
| Longest line | Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya, 41.5 km |
| Shortest line | Kakhovskaya, 3.3 km |
| Longest stage | Volgogradskiy Prospekt - Tekstilshchiki, 3,413 m |
| Shortest stage | Aleksandrovskiy Sad - Arbatskaya, 515 m |
| Deepest station | Park Pobedy, 84 m |
| Station nearest to the surface | Pechatniki |
| Longest station | Vorobyovy Gory, 282 m |
| Stations with one entrance | 68 |
| Entrances | 263 |
| Escalators | 613 |
| â€" including monorail | 18 |
| Total length of escalators | 64.9 km |
| Longest escalator | Park Pobedy, 126 m |
| Depots | 15 |
| Average trains per day | 9702 |
| Average operating speed | |
| â€" commercial | 41.57 km/h |
| â€" technical | 48.85 km/h |
| Inventory car park (average per day) | 4415 |
| Service car park (average per day) | 3379 |
| Total run of cars | 669.3 mln car km |
| â€" with passengers | 641.6 mln car km |
| Average day run of cars | 542.6 car km |
| Average passengers per car | 53 |
| Ventilation shafts | 393 |
| Local ventilating systems in service | 4965 |
| Employees | 35,029 |
| â€" male | 17,651 |
| â€" female | 17,378 |
| Timetable fulfilment | 99.94% |
| Average minimal interval | 90 sec |
| Average passenger trip | 13.0 km |
Although this has not been officially confirmed, many independent studies suggest that a second, deeper metro system exists under military jurisdiction and is designed for emergency evacuation of key city personnel in case of attack. It is believed that it consists of a single track and connects the
Kremlin, chief HQ (Genshtab), Lubyanka (FSB Headquarters) and the Ministry of Defence, as well as numerous other secret installations. There are also entrances to the system from several civilian buildings such as the
Russian State Library,
Moscow State University (MSU) and at least two stations of the regular metro. It is speculated that these would allow for the evacuation of a small number of randomly chosen civilians, in addition to most of the elite military personnel. The only known junction between the secret system and normal Metro is behind the station
Sportivnaya of the
Sokolnicheskaya Line. The final section of this system was completed in 1997.([
2])
Although the Metro is a complex system, remarkably it has a very low rate of accidents, and only a few times throughout its history was there any serious ones.
Escalator accident in 1982
The first fatal accident took place on
17 February 1982 on due to an
escalator collapse on
Aviamotornaya station of the
Kalininskaya Line. That day 8 people lost their lives and 30 more seriously injured due to the pileup caused by the faulty emergency brakes. [
3]
As evening rushhour approached the escalator #4 was turned on at 16:30 Moscow time. As the first commuters began to use it the thread for descend a poorly attached step came loose, completing the cycle of coming all the way down and then back up on the opposite end of the chain. At 17:00 as it passed the upper mechanism, it got stuck and the deformed the upper working gears and rods. This broke the clutch between the driving gears of the engine, and the thread now free to move in any direction, began to accelerate from the weight of the passengers. Automatically the engine was immediately turned off and the brakes were applied. However in the standard working brakes lacked the momentum to stop the passenger laden thread working in a rushhour regime, or to even slow down its accelaration.
In such a case, all escalators are equipped with additional emergency brakes, and Aviamotornaya's escalators received completely new models three months prior. Moreover two days before the accident there was a routine safety check, and it was found that the configuration of the emergency brakes were incorrect throughout and after necessary ammendmeds a simulation deemed all of the four escalator's emergency brakes as satisfactory.
It was not the case, the chief mechanic in charge lacked the correct instructions how to apply the new brakes (which were being introduced on all escalators in the Metro at the time) to the particular escalator model that Aviamotornaya had. As a result the wrong configuration in both mechanical and circuitry did not allow for them to automatically turn on. Even when the escalator supervisor saw that the thread has accelarated to 2.4 times faster its maximum rate and attempted to manually operate the brakes, nothing happened. 110 seconds after it began the accident was over.
The state-controlled Soviet press with the exception of one newspapper made no reference to the event. This resulted in thousands of rumours and panic immediately spreading thoroughout the city. Despite their persistance, no person was actually sucked into the machine bay. All of the eight casulties were crushed at the base of the escalator by other passengers who did not have time to move away forming a bundle. Some did attempt to jump out of the way by climbing onto the balustrade, but the thin plastic coating could not withstand the weight and collapsed (thus the rumours), yet those that did fell thorough would have hit a solid concrete foundation with no moving parts of any sort a few metres under the ballustrade with most suffering minor injuries.
As the wounded were carried off, at 17:10 the station was put on exit only and 17:35 closed altogether. Immediately an investigation was launched where it was determined that the speedometer was wrongly wired to the emergency brake and that all of the three other escalators were prone to like disaster on the station.
On
January 8 1977, twenty-nine people died and many more were injured when Armenian separatists planted a bomb in a train which exploded between
Izmailovskaya and
Pervomaiskaya stations [
4] [
5].
On
February 6,
2004, an explosion wracked a train between
Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations on line 2 of the metro, killing 42 and wounding 250.
Chechen terrorists were immediately blamed. Later investigation concluded that a
Karachay-Cherkessian resident, an
Islamic militant, had committed a suicide bombing.
On
March 19,
2006 at 14:29msk (1129 GMT), a pile from the unauthorized construction of a billboard was driven into the tunnel and train between the
Sokol and
Voikovskaya stations on the
Zamoskvoretskaya Line. No injuries were reported.
Source:
Official site2006 -
Delovoi Tsentr -
Mezhdunarodnaya,
Filyovskaya Line, 0.4 km
2007 -
Chkalovskaya -
Trubnaya,
Lyublinskaya Line, 3.7 km
2007 -
Park Pobedy -
Kuntsevskaya,
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, 4.9 km
2007 -
Krylatskoe -
Strogino,
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, 6.6 km
2008-2009 -
Trubnaya -
Marina Roshcha,
Lyublinskaya Line, 3 km
2008-2009 -
Ulitsa Starokachalovskaya -
Bitsevskiy Park,
Butovskaya Light Metro Line, 4.3 km
2010 -
Vykhino -
Zhulebino,
Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line, 3.4 km
2010 -
Novogireevo -
Novokosino,
Kalininskaya Line, 3.2 km
2010 -
Krasnogvardeiskaya -
Brateevo,
Zamoskvoretskaya Line, 2.9 km
2010 -
Marino -
Zyablikovo,
Lyublinskaya Line, 4.3 km
2011 -
Strogino -
Mitino,
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, 8.3 km
2011 -
Solntsevskaya Light Metro Line, 11.95 km
*
List of rapid transit systems*
Moscow Metro 2 Official Website Metro.ru — Information, history, maps, art
MetroWalks Moscow Photos of all metro station
Metro.Molot.ru — Lines, stations, plans, articles
Moë Metro ("My Metro") — Stations, cars, links
Metronews — News of Moscow metropolitan
Moscow Metro 81-717 Pictures about 81-717 type trains
UrbanRail.Net Moscow Metro Photos — "faithful rendering of the decorations of the Moscow metro, through some 450 photos and 27 panoramas"
