Donetsk Railroad

The Donetsk Railroad was established in 1953; its administration is in the city of Donetsk. The railroad runs mainly through Donetsk and Voroshilovgrad oblasts as well as through parts of Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozh’e, and Kharkov oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR and Rostov Oblast of the RSFSR. It borders with the Southern Railroad (Svatovo, Bukino, Lozovaia, and Starobel’sk stations), the Dnieper Railroad (Chaplino, Krasnoarmeiskoe, Tsarekonstantinovka, and Lozovaia stations), the Southeastern Railroad (Ol’khovaia, Izvarino, and Krasnaia Mogila stations), and the Northern Caucasus Railroad (Nesvetai and Martsevo stations).

Sections of the Donetsk Railroad are some of the oldest of the Soviet railroad network. The main line Lozovaia (Kharkov)-Martsevo (Rostov-on-Don) was put into operation in 1869; the lines Dolzhanskaia-Debal’tsevo-Nikitovka, Debal’tsevo-Rodakovo-Lugansk, and Debal’tsevo-Popasnaia-Slaviansk in 1878; the line Mariupol’-Dolia-Iasinovataia between 1872 and 1882; the line Chaplino-Krasnoarmeiskoe-Iasinovataia in 1884; and the line Krasnyi Liman-Rodakovo-Likhaia between 1911 and 1916. New railroad construction has been carried out in the Donbas region from the first years of Soviet power. The Lugansk-Lutugino line was put into operation in 1921, the Krasnoarmeiskoe-Dobropol’e line in 1935, the Starobel’sk (from ValuikiKondrashevskaia in 1940, and the KondrashevskaiaDolzhanskaia line in 1941. The operating length of the Donetsk Railroad is 2,860 km, or 2.1 percent of the total length of the Soviet railroad network (1970).

The Donetsk Railroad links the Caucasus and Lower Volga Region with the southern, southwestern, western, and central parts of the country. It services the largest industrial region of the country: enterprises of the coal, metallurgical and heavy machine building, railroad car construction, diesel locomotive construction, chemical, cement, and nonmetallic materials industries. Trains from Moscow and Kiev and from various cities in the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasus connect with the Donetsk Railroad in transit.

The Donetsk Railroad ranks first among the railroads of the national network in quantity of freight dispatched. In 1970 it handled 12 percent of all freight shipped on the national network, 34 percent of the coal, 19 percent of the ferrous metals, and nearly 10 percent of the industrial raw goods and mineral building materials. The freight traffic of the Donetsk Railroad totaled 81 billion ton-kilometers, or 3.2 percent of the national network’s total (1970). Ninety-nine percent of the railroad’s freight is carried using electric and diesel locomotives (1970). Of the total volume of freight traffic, through transit accounts for 24 percent, incoming freight for 16 percent, outgoing freight for 40 percent, and local service for 20 percent. Ferrous metals, petroleum goods, the machine-building industry’s output, and grain constitute the largest share of through transit cargo. The railroad’s principal incoming freight comprises ore, metals, building materials, various petroleum products, and products of the light and food industries. The outgoing freight includes coal, metals, chemical products, and machine-building products. The Donetsk Railroad’s local service mainly carries construction cargo, coal, and agricultural goods. The railroad’s average freight density is 1.6 times higher than the national average. The largest dispatching and receiving points are Sartana, Alchevskaia, Lasinovataia, Enakievo, Donetsk, Mariupol’, Rutchenkovo, Trudovaia, and Krasnyi Liman. The Donetsk Railroad coordinates its work with maritime transport at the Mariupol’ station (Zhdanov port). The passenger turnover in 1970 totaled 2.1 percent of the national network’s turnover. The Donetsk Railroad was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1966.