ST. PETERSBURG, April 20. /TASS/: The Russian Geographical Society (RGS) continued the Trans-Polar Railroad expedition to install geo-thermal equipment in the Yamalo-Nenets and Krasnoyarsk regions. Collected data will be used to evaluate the expediency of the project to build a railway line between Korotcheyevo, Igarka and Norilsk, RGS’s press service said in a statement.
"In order to evaluate the prospects and specifics of this railway line's construction, RGS’s specialists installed geo-thermal measuring equipment in various locations along the planned line, sometimes in extremely hard-to-reach places," the press service quoted the society’s department head, Sergei Chechulin as saying.
The expedition members registered measurements at 19 locations, where the equipment was installed in autumn. Two new locations can be found in the northernmost (Dudinka) and southernmost (Krasnoselkup village) points of the surveyed area. The explorers covered 3,800 km across snow, river ice and mountains between Snezhnogorsk and Norilsk.
"The expedition’s area is a huge triangle with vertices in Urengoi, Turukhansk and Norilsk. The shortest, southern, side is at least 500km long," the scientist said. "The Polar Circle divides the triangle in two almost equal parts, where there are practically no roads, only ice roads that in winter connect oil and gas deposits."
Construction of a railway line between Korotchayevo, Igarka and Norilsk began in 1949. The labor force was Soviet prisoners. After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the construction was terminated.
