The Severomuysky tunnel is located in the Republic of Buryatia. Commissioning took place in 2003. It is the longest railway track laid through rocks in Russia. The length is 15,343 meters. The tunnel got its name from the ridge through which the highway passes. In terms of the degree of difficulty of construction and excavation work, it is considered the most difficult in the world. Construction took twenty-six years and began at a time when the entire region was a lifeless rocky expanse. The climatic conditions were harsh, the average temperature in the North Muya Range region varied around -50 degrees Celsius. It was necessary to import not only equipment, it was necessary to build residential settlements and infrastructure to ensure the normal life of the personnel.
Difficult area
The Severomuysky tunnel became the last point connecting the Baikal-Amur Mainline into a single whole. The idea of building a railway along the Amur River arose in Tsarist Russia, but the amount of funds and work required to implement the project, even with rough estimates, turned out to be exorbitant at that time. The idea hung in the air; it received real outlines only in 1938, when the construction of the railway began. The first workers were prisoners. Construction was carried out intermittently, the grand scale and movement of the masses on the BAM began in the 70s of the last century. Volunteers from all over the Soviet Union went to lay the railway.
The most difficult section of the route turned out to be the North Muisky ridge. In Transbaikalia this is one of the most beautiful, but harsh places. The mountain formation consists of granite-schist rocks; glaciers are located on its slopes; the highest point of the ridge reaches 2561 meters. There is practically no vegetation on the rocks; after the earthquakes they were not fully explored, and seismic activity was unpredictable. Digging the tunnel became a challenge for engineers and builders.
There were many projects that proposed solutions for the passage of the site. From the most insane: to blow up the ridge and thereby clear the way, to the most decadent - to abandon and not build, because it is impossible. After hesitation and deliberation, the decision was made to go through the ridge. Preparations for the passage began in 1975, the main work took place in the 90s, and only in the next century the Severomuysky tunnel was put into operation. The date of construction, or rather, completion of construction, was March 30, 2001, and the first trains began running on December 5, 2003.
Project development
The general developer of the project was JSC Lenmetrogiprotrans. According to the project, construction was carried out from two points: western and eastern, two teams of tunnelers walked towards each other. The work was carried out by two organizations. The company OJSC Bamtonnelstroy was engaged in the construction of underground facilities, OJSC Nizhneangarsktransstroy erected above-ground structures. At the time the project was approved, no one knew what difficulties and surprises would be encountered. During the work, changes were made to the original plan; work was stopped twice due to collapses and landslides.
The passage of the tunnel resulted in casualties; according to various sources, from 30 to 57 people died during construction and emergency response. A monument was erected in their honor near the entrance to the tunnel. During the entire construction period, several dozen machines from all over the world were tested, a unique technology for fixing soil in tectonic fault zones using a chemical method was developed and implemented. This completely new invention helped tunnelers successfully dig a tunnel in the most difficult and unpredictable conditions of granite rock fractures.
To ensure non-stop work for the builders, two workers’ villages were built: at the western entrance, Tonnelny, and at the eastern entrance, Severomuysky. Today, the village of Severomuysky remains operational, where Russian Railways employees who provide maintenance for the tunnel live.
Peculiarities
At the time of the start of work, the geological state of the ridge was unknown, so exploration work took place simultaneously with construction. To reduce risks, construction of an exploration adit began in parallel with the main line. Its development was several hundred meters ahead of the main tunnel, and this provided information about the condition of the rock. The branch line was developed at a distance of 30 meters from the main construction; its size is sufficient for the passage of a metro train. Moves were made from the reconnaissance tunnel into the main channel, which facilitated work and ventilation.
The construction of the structure took place in a seismically active zone, where earthquakes reach 9-10 points; the geological conditions of the passage showed four tectonic faults. Simply put, these are rock fracture sites filled with stones, sand and water, their width ranged from 5 to 900 meters. Water constantly flowed through the ruptures in the amount of hundreds of cubic meters per hour. Part of the tunnel passed through permafrost zones; hot water was used to construct these sections. The surprise was the presence of radioactive rhodonium gas, which escaped from the depths during the construction of the tunnel; its concentration was three times higher than permissible standards, which led to exposure of workers. For this they paid a decent premium, which the miners dubbed “coffin money.”
The Severomuysky tunnel in Buryatia, according to the project, involved drilling exploration wells every 0.5 kilometers, but, having decided to reduce the cost of work, they were drilled in 1 kilometer increments. This method of saving resulted in several disasters that resulted in human lives, work stoppage due to landslides, flooding, etc.
Construction
The Severomuysky railway tunnel experienced two long construction stoppages. The first occurred in 1979, when a mine excavation encountered quicksand in a granite monolith. Mining developers have never encountered such a phenomenon either before or since. Water under high pressure broke through the rock and, carrying stones, sand, mud flows, swept away everything in its path: several workers died, a twenty-three-ton loading machine was washed away. Restoration work and conservation of the rock fracture site were required.
To eliminate the cause of the collapse, concrete was poured into the fault and drying took two years. During this time, thirteen thousand tons of collapsed rock were removed, and additional exploration work was carried out. As a result of reconnaissance, an underwater lake was discovered in the area of the tunnel. To solve the problem of excess water flows, an innovative solution was required; no one has ever encountered such a phenomenon in world practice.
Resumption of work
Strengthening the fault areas was carried out using chemical consolidation of the soil; the internal lining of the tunnel was carried out with cast iron tubing and metal structures. An additional layer of concrete was poured on top of this lining, which improved waterproofing and provided increased support for the tunnel roof. Thus, the critical zones of the structure received several layers of “pipes” constructed and moving independently of each other. In a seismically active zone, this increases the level of safety and stability of the building.
They started excavation again in 1981, and to do this they had to break through a concrete plug. During further passage, all detected faults were filled with concrete through drilled vertical shafts. World-renowned foreign experts were invited to work on the project, but no one agreed. During construction, the most advanced technology of that time from Japan, the USA, and Germany was used. Professionals from foreign companies, getting acquainted with the situation, gave only one piece of advice - quit and start somewhere else. To ensure constant work, delivery of equipment, dumping and removal of rock was required; an emergency route was needed, since it became clear that construction would drag on indefinitely.
Bypass highway
Before construction of the Severomuysky Tunnel began, there was already a road going around the ridge. Practice has shown that it is unsuitable for operation in the harsh conditions of the work that has begun, so in 1984 it was decided to build a new bypass. Today, this is no less a unique structure than the tunnel itself. Many tourists flock to the ridge in search of opportunities to travel along the road. They are attracted by picturesque views and breathtaking heights, bridges over which they have to drive.
The highway winds through serpentines and passes over man-made viaducts and bridges. One of them, called the “Devil’s Bridge,” laid across the Itykit River, has a sharp turn and, according to eyewitnesses, sways a little as the loaded train passes. The length of the road is 64 kilometers; on its way, the passenger enters two loop-shaped tunnels laid inside the rocks. The highway is used in parallel with the operation of the tunnel, allowing the movement of some freight trains. More active passage of trains is planned in the event of an increase in railway traffic along the Baikal-Amur Mainline.
The maximum speed does not exceed 20 km/h, the gradient in some places is 40%, and an additional locomotive is used to advance on steep sections. The bypass road is currently used for maintenance and repair work trains. Construction was completed in 1989, the road was used for passenger and construction traffic until the Severomuysky tunnel was built. Photos of the bridge and landscapes taken from the windows of cars traveling along the bypass road fascinate with their beauty and give an understanding of the extreme nature of the construction.
Gold buckle
The entire BAM was awaiting the full launch of the railway service. By 1999, the Severomuysky tunnel was almost completed. There were only 160 meters left between the teams going towards each other in the tunnel. Suddenly, a rock collapse occurred, and construction work on the site had to practically start all over again, which took several more months.
The meeting of the mining teams, the so-called golden meeting, took place on March 30, 2001. The excavation was carried out by two teams of tunnel builders under the leadership of V. Gatsenko and V. Kazeev, symbolic keys to the tunnel were presented to the Minister of Railways. The connection of the two parts of the tunnel occurred at a depth of 300 meters, the deviation of the axes of the two arms was only 69 mm in the horizontal plane, and the vertical error of the joint was 36 mm. It was the best day for everyone who built BAM. The Severomuysky tunnel was put into operation only in 2003, it was called the “golden buckle” of the BAM, which completed the grandiose construction.
Twenty-three years of construction resulted in victories, discoveries, and new technologies. Sometimes it seemed that the project would never be realized, but, despite all the difficulties, the Baikal-Amur Mainline brings economic and political benefits to the entire country; the final connection point was the unique Severomuisky Tunnel. The photo of the structure surprises with its power, grandeur and evokes a feeling of pride.
Construction facts:
- The total length of the Severomuisky tunnel is more than 15 kilometers; together with the internal workings, the length is 45 kilometers.
- During construction, more than two million tons of soil were processed.
- More than 700 thousand cubic meters of concrete were used.
- More than 70 thousand tons of metal structures were installed.
- More than 55 thousand cast iron tubes were installed in the tunnel lining.
- At different times, 6 teams with a total staff of 8,000 people worked on the construction of the tunnel.
- The construction of the tunnel cost the treasury approximately 9 billion rubles.
- The Severomuysky tunnel on the BAM in the excavation is 67 square meters.
- More than 850 units of equipment were used in production processes.
- The tunnel lining consists of two, and in fault areas of three, independent structures, which guarantees safety in a seismically active zone.
- The guaranteed service life is 100 years; experts are convinced that the first major overhaul will be required no earlier than 50 years after launch.
- The automated process control system of the Severomuisky tunnel allows you to monitor in real time the state of the microclimate inside the structure, the level of radiation, the movement of trains and other operational factors.
For many areas of engineering, chemistry, mining and construction, the Severomuysky Tunnel became a springboard for inventions. All excavation methods were tried that were known at that time; completely new approaches were also invented, which became the leading innovation of Russian science. The main problem in the operation of the tunnel is the formation of ice; this process occurs almost all year round and the formed ice has to be removed manually.
Meaning
The launch of non-stop traffic along the Baikal-Amur Mainline was ensured by the Severomuysky tunnel. The history of construction goes back twenty-six years and two eras in the life of the state. The opening of the tunnel reduced the transit time of trains by six times. Now it takes only 25 minutes, while trains traveled along the bypass route for 2.5 hours. The operation of a direct and safe route made it possible to abandon the double locomotive traction that had to be used on the high-mountain route. The level of safety has increased significantly: the bypass road winds between the hills, where there is a constant danger of avalanches.
Freight traffic along the Baikal-Amur Mainline increased by 35%; the growth rate is planned to increase over the next years by an average of 30% per year. We managed to unload the choking traffic flow. In addition to economic benefits, Russia received a second access to the Pacific Ocean, the railway infrastructure was expanded with reliable and economically profitable routes. Today, the tunnel carries 14-16 freight trains per day.
Control systems
The control system of the Severomuisky tunnel is a new word in monitoring and managing the microclimate inside the building. It consists of two levels of control, each of which carries out specified functions, which include monitoring, tracking, and storing information about all technical devices of the structure. It also ensures the operation of tunnel communications.
The state of the air is monitored in real time, the drainage of groundwater is monitored, and the condition of all systems of the structure is monitored. Paired with automatic tracking systems, portal gates are used to guard the microclimate. They open only for the passage of a train, firmly preserve the atmosphere inside the tunnel from hypothermia, but in the event of unforeseen circumstances, the locomotive can knock them out without the threat of damage to the entire train.
The construction of the Severomuysky tunnel helped make several scientific discoveries, develop and implement unique technologies that have no analogues in the world. The experience gained during excavation is invaluable. The structure is designed for the construction of another similar tunnel is being considered in the very distant future.
Today I’ll tell you not about recent trips, such as Odessa-Vienna-Samara, but something from the old ones - which I promised a month ago for my birthday.
In June 2001, we, together with mikka
made a 17-day expedition along the Baikal-Amur Mainline, traveling from Taishet to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, with the goal of inspecting and photographing the most interesting areas and places during the daytime. So we visited Lena, Vikhorevka, Bratsk, Severobaikalsk, Chara, Kunerma, Kuanda, Tynda, Khani, Dipkun, walked along the Davansky bypass, etc. One of the most memorable moments of that expedition was a trip through the Severomuysky bypass on the VL85 electric locomotive (the mega-tunnel was not yet fully completed).
I’ll tell you about this part of the expedition here. The story is long and easy to read.
BAM, Taksimo village. Monument to the Conquerors and Pioneers of the North
Since these places are remote from civilization and remote, it would be correct to first show where this pass is located.
Look at this map: the Trans-Siberian Railway runs through the south; BAM runs parallel to the north. To the east of Lake Baikal, the BAM climbs into the mountains and overcomes a number of mountain ranges. One of these sections is from Novy Uoyan to Taksimo, between which lies the Severomuysky ridge, which has very complex geological conditions. The red dots are the starting and ending points of the segment (of this post). The smaller blue dots indicate movement along the Severomuysky bypass, which is the subject of the lion's share of photographs presented in the report.
When the Baikal-Amur Mainline was designed, it was assumed that the ridge would be passed through a 15-kilometer tunnel. However, its construction began relatively late before the collapse of the USSR (of course, no one knew about this in advance), and in addition, it was accompanied by many emergency situations that complicated and delayed its commissioning. Therefore, by 1989, a single-track electrified bypass was put into operation, which was adapted for the movement of heavy trains (in one of the sections - with electric locomotives-pushers). Bypassing a very complex profile, with many serpentines and two shorter (up to 1 km) tunnels.
The presented diagram is from af1461
shows both the route of the main passage of the BAM (through the tunnel) and (in gray) the electrified bypass along which we moved in June 2001. The Severomuysky tunnel was opened to traffic only in December 2003, already in the post-Yeltsin era.
You can also see the kilometer bypass layout on this page of the Transsib Directory.
The pictures were taken on two film cameras, mine and Mikhail’s. Times were different then in terms of photo accessibility, and there was much less money for such delights, so - as they say - what are you rich in? The quality is also lame in many ways - we are not photography professionals, but simply travelers. Three days after this shooting, my rather simple Canon camera, purchased for the expedition, disappeared without a trace in Yakutia, somewhere at Khani station; It’s good that this and the following films have already been transferred to the backpack and have been preserved. Therefore, later we filmed only on a colleague’s point-and-shoot camera, using his and my stock of films. Pictures marked (MK Photo) - taken mikka , the rest are mine.
Well then. On the road? :-)
1. Around noon on one of the days in mid-June (14-16th) we found ourselves at the Novy Uoyan station. This station was the final station for suburban “cigarette butts” from Severobaikalsk (“cigarette butts”, “remnants” are the short 1-2-car commuter trains under the locomotive there), and then you had to wait for the work train through the bypass, which left Uoyan long after lunch.
Novy Uoyan station. Almost all of the stations on the BAM were built according to individual projects - it was believed that every major city of the USSR and the Union Republic made their common contribution to this matter, perpetuating national architecture.
New Uoyan was built by the Lithuanian SSR.
2. Under the canopy of Christmas trees, we had a snack with supplies purchased in Severobaikalsk. As is usually the case in remote places, where every new person is visible, a cop came up to us and checked our documents, then went home. However, we were the only passengers at the station not assigned to “business,” so everyone stared at us and looked around.
3. It was somehow not good to sit in Uoyan for another 5-6 hours, so I went to the station and found out from the duty officer whether anything would go east along the bypass, and if so, when. The attendant turned out to be a kind woman and “leaked” me the two closest freight trucks that I could supposedly fit into. However, she warned:
- Negotiate with the drivers yourself! They take responsibility!
- Okay, thanks for that!
"Niva" is the most popular car on BAM. The most popular color is white.
4. The first train slowed down very briefly, I didn’t even have time to really react. But the second, heavy one, under VL85, stood under red and I ran with the driver to try to negotiate, leaving Misha with both backpacks.
- Take it to Taximo, huh!? It's very necessary!
- What kind of Taksimo are you? Taking passengers is prohibited!
- So nothing happens until the evening, but we have to go! We will pay!
- I don’t know, it’s not my problem. Why do I need your money? It's not you who will be fired from work, but me. It's strict here.
In the end, however, I managed to arouse some interest from the driver in our persons and show him a certificate from the Far Eastern Railway Museum, which I was provided with in Khabarovsk. He turned and looked:
- I will think...
- There’s also a Far Eastern Railway stamp there! Everything is legal!
- Yes, I see, I see... - returning the xiva back to me, - I’ll think about it.
The agonizing wait stretched on. Two minutes, three, five, seven. I'm standing, waiting.
Suddenly the train radio announced that they were ready to depart. I lost heart and mentally swore, deciding that was it. It was in vain to persuade. And the next cargo, as the duty officer said, is in two and a half hours.
The driver looked out:
- Hey, take your carifan and run to the aft cabin! Now let's go to the pass!
He doesn’t say anything about money, he’s silent. Okay, we'll find out later. I ran after Mikhail and we ran back to the electric locomotive, then squeezed into the non-working cabin.
They gave me the green light. Let's go!
This is the driver who made this trip happen. Unfortunately, I could not find his last name, superficially rummaging through the archives of my Trans-Siberian expeditions. But I’ll definitely find it and write it down. And his name was Vladimir, apparently (from memory). I wrote it down then. He's probably already retired...
5. We squeezed through long sections with rattling hot thyristor groups and drives, with backpacks, and settled into a non-working cabin.
An assistant came, a young guy:
- You sit here carefully, don’t touch the instruments. And don't look too much. Otherwise they can tell you.
- Fine.
We look at the devices around us with curiosity.
The brake valves are painted red, and in the foreground there is a speedometer clicking. Now it shows 64.
6. A photo for memory in the VL85 cockpit. Otherwise, when will it happen again, and even at BAM?
[at the beginning of 2004, after the launch of the Severomuysky tunnel, heavy-duty freight VL85 were removed from the BAM and transferred to the Trans-Siberian. So never again]
7. Electric locomotive “steering wheel” (with which the driver sets power positions).
8. At full speed, about 75 km/h, we pass the Kuchelbekerskaya station, also a beautiful individual project.
9. The assistant comes running again:
- Vladimir invites you to the front cabin! Come here!
Well, I think, pay, go ahead. Let's go.
We squeezed again through the long hot sections along the narrow passage forward.
The driver smiles:
- Well, guys, how do you like our barmaley? :-)
- Like. Powerful car!
- It's true. Beast machine! The trains are huge. Only here he is harsh on pushes.
View forward, through the front windows. Now let's cross the bridge.
10. Angarakan station. Here they slow us down in order to pick up a pusher in the middle. We're standing there, it's already green.
To the left is a valley of a small river, in front are mountains. That's where we'll climb up.
The assistant left to uncouple, I asked the driver:
- So what, with the money? How do we separate?
- Yes, that’s it... what am I going to charge you, travelers... go with God. Look at our distant lands, few people get here. I’m not the one carrying it, the barmaley is carrying it.
- Okay, thank you. Or maybe you'll take it?
- No, everything is fine. No need. I’m even pleased to chat. Go ahead.
11. A crucial moment, a fork: we go to the left to climb, and to the right - a shorter path, into the Severomuysky tunnel (not yet ready then).
12. Below us is the western entrance to the Severomuysky tunnel. We walk along the edge at the top.
13. The serpentines have begun, the height is growing before our eyes, the electric locomotive is deviating first to the right, then to the left. The speed is good, the barmaley pulls powerfully, the lateral acceleration is decent. Here is our previous path below, the first loop.
14. Since there was soon to be the First Loop Tunnel and the Devil’s Bridge, I went back again to take pictures, and Misha remained in the front cabin.
We arrived on time: the speed slows down to about 30 km/h and our huge kilometer-long train carefully passes the curved Devil's Bridge.
15. Intersection with a disassembled temporary bypass, gallery, we pick up speed again.
16. Having passed through the First Loop Tunnel in the belly of the hill, we again emerge into the light of God, and then continue to rise.
The view is absolutely enchanting, I lean out almost half a body to take pictures.
17. The most picturesque curve with a bridge, and a view of a 2-kilometer mountain. In the distance in the middle of the train (on the left of the frame) you can see the electric locomotive-pusher that was attached to us at Angarakan.
18. One more loop - and the Devil’s Bridge is visible far below! (see frame 14).
Misha comes running into the aft cabin:
- Listen, why are you firing the brigade? The driver is swearing there, you lean out too much, the tunnel guards might ring the bell. Let's go back, he says, shoot from the front, under control, so he can at least tell you where you can and where you can't, or be careful.
- Okay, let's go...
19. We level off and pass a saddle with a blue lake.
20. And we’ll rise again. Now we are walking at the level of the tops of the mountains of the ridge parallel to us. The spectacle is absolutely cosmic, simply breathtaking: firstly, we had amazing weather with clouds, and secondly, a gorgeous vantage point (from the electric locomotive). Alas, the films we shot in imperfect, simple cameras do not convey even a tenth of the beauty that opens in front and from the sides.
21. The route is leveling out and we are now walking steadily along the edge of the mountain slope. The vegetation is suppressed: they have risen high, and some snow tongues now reach almost to the road line. This is the transition part. The photo shows our train, 88 cars.
22. We pass a junction with the eloquent name Pass, then the path collapses again to a single track. However, as you can see, the embankment is designed for two paths.
23. On the side you can see the railway serpentines, where we will soon be descending.
The driver is not yet concerned with us, he is watching the road and periodically communicates with the pusher driver.
24. Now let's go to the curve, to the right. The descent begins.
25. Below you can see the line where we will go down in a few minutes. Far below is the village. Severomuisk.
26. Goryachiy Klyuch junction.
27. We are descending slowly, carefully, about 50 km/h. Below you can see some tunnel structures and workshops.
28. Serpentine: on the opposite slope the previous train in front of us is visible.
29. I went into the rear cabin again, promising the driver to remove it carefully.
The descent began, so steep in slope that it was even visible from the electric locomotive. Locomotives slow down as they descend with a heavy train. Speed is about 35-40 km/h. The hole in the Second Loop Tunnel is visible on the right.
30. There is ice on the rivers, despite the middle of June. It's cool here, the climate is really harsh.
31. We pass the main passage of the BAM (below), emerging from the Severomuysky tunnel, which was unfinished at that time. He did not remove the second loop tunnel, remembering the driver’s concerns about this.
32. Severomuisk crossing. Here we slow down again, for 15-20 minutes: they will uncouple the train, the pusher leaves us. The mountain section is over. The driver allows you to go down, take a breath and walk around a little.
33. This is our Barmaley, on which we overcame the mountain section. Power - 10020 kW, weight - 288 tons.
At that time, the VL85 was still considered the most powerful serial electric locomotive in the world (the USSR held the palm here), but life does not stand still - in 2002, the Norwegians launched an even more powerful electric locomotive IORE on the Narvik-Kiruna line. I tell you this too, in the story about “Polar Dawn”.
34. Our VL85 in front. We'll leave soon.
Finally, they gave the green light, and we drove off as normal.
The tension subsided, we all gathered in the front cabin again and the driver began to tell us about the surroundings, commenting:
- And here is a good river! Lenok, he took taimen.
“I once shot a goat on that hill.”
- And here we are pulling gorgeous grayling.
- Look, these are lingonberry places.
In general, he turned out to be a good conversationalist, an avid fisherman and hunter, who knew those places perfectly.
As for the fact that he didn’t take us at first, it also became clear: it turns out that not so long ago he was demoted in class, for some offense, and he traveled with the 2nd class. Naturally, I played it safe just in case.
- Fuck my problems, right? But I decided to take a risk with you, okay! I see you guys are interesting.
35. We pass the Muyakan River. That's it, the mountains are behind.
Closer to Taksimo, we began to think about an overnight stay, which was not clear. We decided to contact the depot by radio to try to fit into the brigade house (at the Taximo depot) - this would be an ideal solution, with a guaranteed high-quality 24-hour canteen. However, the head of the depot was drinking somewhere, and no one wanted to take responsibility for us, outsiders, to fit us in. The driver swore at the depot slobs for a long time, scolded the boss (apparently he had a grudge against him), and finally said:
- Okay, guys, don't worry. We'll come and figure something out. I'll try to come to an agreement.
36. At about seven in the evening we arrived in Taximo. This is a junction station, and here BAM electrification ends: beyond that there are only diesel locomotives. The station here is huge for such a small point, which is typical for BAM. And of course, an individual project. The taximo was built by the Latvian SSR, a Riga project.
37. Taximo. On the second track there is a suburban one-car “cigarette butt”, next to the car - mikka
and our driver.
38. Not far from the station there is a very beautiful and memorable monument with a model of a seaplane, one might say, a symbol of these places.
39. It was not possible to fit into the depot hotel; our driver drove the electric locomotive to the depot and soon picked us up in a Niva:
- Sit down, let's go to my place! I’ll write you in at my place. He, bitch, is drinking somewhere ( it's about the boss)
- Thank you. We won't embarrass you too much there?
- It's okay, it's okay. Night is not a problem. Let's go, load your backpacks!
We had a great evening, although we were tired from a very long day - after all, it started at 6 am in Severobaikalsk. The driver's wife prepared dinner, broth with game, and moose cutlets, mashed potatoes with butter, and the owner of the house pulled out a liter bottle of homemade cedar tincture from below, from the cellar.
- We need a drink, guys. The path is so long, and we traveled well. How?
We didn't refuse :)
Then we sat and talked for a long time, the owner pulled out photographs from the 1970s and 80s and showed them to us.
- I came here back in 1976, at the beginning. Then life was in full swing here, there was prospects, many benefits. Now we are gradually weakening and dying. But I hope BAM survives. Does the country really need BAM to die? Are they really (he raised his finger meaningfully) does it matter now? Eh, guys? What do you think?
I couldn’t answer this question, which I honestly admitted.
The photographs were really very interesting, and he gave me 10-12 cards from the early 1980s, with him, I promised to scan them and use them somewhere.
* * *
Early in the morning we said goodbye to the owner and departed further east - to Chara.
But that's another story :)
The fire in Severomuisk, like several other recent man-made disasters in the North of Buryatia, show a worsening situation from year to year. The Buryat section of the BAM is bursting at the seams. The infrastructure is being destroyed before our eyes, villages freeze in winter, houses burn all year round, and local authorities, operating with a bare budget, have long been unable to cope on their own. Last weekend Severomuisk almost burned down. And oddly enough, this fire could be a salvation; the local residents finally paid attention. The head of Buryatia ordered the allocation of 10 thousand in compensation and 100 thousand from the emergency reserve fund to everyone who lost their home, and the Moscow authorities of the Ministry of Emergency Situations promised to rebuild the burnt microdistrict.
It is important to understand that this is not the last such disaster. The legacy that BAM left to the republic has reached all conceivable and inconceivable expiration dates. The village of Severomuisk, like many Bamov settlements, was conceived for a specific task - infrastructural support for the construction of the legendary Severomuisk tunnel - a symbol of courage, strength and perseverance of the inhabitants of the entire country. In general, there were three such villages: Severomuisk, Tonnelny and Razliv, all of them were considered temporary, that is, they were needed exactly until the end of construction. The tunnel took almost three decades to build under difficult conditions and was completed under the new government, in a new state. During this time, the grandchildren of the first builders had already grown up in the “temporary” settlements.
At the beginning of the 2000s, there was little money in the country, the federal program for resettlement from dilapidated and dilapidated housing had just begun to operate, but Razliv and Tonnelny were still liquidated, relocating residents in all sorts of places. They decided to leave Severomuisk, as the largest village near the tunnel, despite the fact that most of the village was already unsuitable for normal life. This part is called “old Severomuisk”. It burned out almost completely on June 3. And it’s as if only now the country learned about the existence of Severomuisk and its problems.
But the problems of the North of Buryatia began to appear in the media back in the 90s. Strikes did not stop, BAM workers and utility workers went on hunger strikes. First, because there was simply nothing to eat, then, when the country became relatively well-fed, the question of resettlement arose. Many who went young to build BAM thought that in 30 years they would live in a new bright world. No one spared effort and their youth for this. What was it like to learn that all the work turned out to be a failure, and BAM turned into a world of ruins and panel barracks, from which it was no longer possible to leave.
All kinds of resettlement programs from dilapidated housing and areas equated to the north have been going on for more than 15 years. Someone was able to use them and go to at least Taksimo, Severobaikalsk or Ulan-Ude. To be clear, this is very little money; it is impossible to buy something alternative on the “mainland” with it, so people had to pay extra to buy something more or less worthy. But most of the Bamovites remained living in barracks, waiting for a “bright future.” And every year there is less and less hope that it will come. Without a fundamental development program, without federal funding, BAM is doomed. And the village of Severomuisk is the most striking example of this.
Today, the residents of Severomuisk have a unique opportunity to raise the question of their future existence head-on. Within a few days, people began to demand, so far only from the republican authorities, new housing to replace the old one out of turn. They understand that now, while the attention of the feds is focused on the situation, they have a chance. Which, for example, was not the case with the fire victims from Taksimo. Let us recall that at the beginning of the year an apartment building burned down in Taksimo, leaving 30 people homeless, including young children and disabled people (not much less than in Severomuisk, where 43 people were injured). Residents received mandatory compensation of 10 thousand rubles only after 4 months. They could not even dream of the 100 thousand that are now allocated to fire victims from Severomuisk, since that fire was not recognized as an emergency. Many of the Taksim residents were in line to be relocated from dilapidated and dilapidated housing, but the administration told people that they were no longer in line, since there was nowhere to move them. At the same time, the administration also does not have municipal housing to at least temporarily resettle fire victims. Six months later, the issue has not moved forward.
The residents of Severomuisk may have better luck, as well as the Buryat authorities. For the government of Buryatia, the fire in Severmuisk is also a great chance to draw Moscow’s attention to the problems of the BAM and, possibly, to extract additional funding
The bypass of the Severomuysky tunnel is considered, perhaps, the most beautiful section of the entire BAM. In order not to exceed the maximum permissible slope when ascending the Angarakan Pass, the railway line winds in knots along the mountain slopes, serpentinely rising to the pass saddle. Where the daytime surface is only 22 km, the train covers almost 57, ascending and descending almost half a kilometer.
On the detour you can see several unique engineering objects. The most famous, undoubtedly, is the “Devil's Bridge” - a high overpass on two-tier supports over the Itykit riverbed, curved and located in an incline. They say that when heavy trains passed, this bridge even swayed a little.
There are loop tunnels on both sides of the pass - the terrain did not allow making a serpentine bend on the slope, and this turn was made inside the mountain. The western (1st) tunnel is especially interesting - the train enters the portal, and after a while it appears from another portal above or below the first, making a 180-degree turn. When freight trains passed through the bypass, the empty trains could be quite long. In this case, the locomotive emerged from the tunnel quite soon after the last carriage was hidden in it.
Unfortunately, passengers of fast and passenger trains hardly see this beauty - they pass through the tunnel, and in the dead of night. Only work trains Taksimo - Novy Uoyan, transporting mainly railway workers, follow a detour twice a day in each direction, meeting at the Pereval crossing.
When designing the Buryat section of the BAM, it became clear that the Severomuisky tunnel could not be built quickly. Therefore, to pass construction cargo as quickly as possible, from August 1982 to March 1983, a temporary bypass was built - the Angarakan - Kazankan line with a length of 24.6 km. His project was drawn up according to greatly simplified standards (slope up to 40 meters per kilometer of distance), as a result of which the average length of a freight train was only a few cars - no diesel locomotive could lift more weight on such a steep slope.
The construction of the Severomuysky tunnel, carried out in difficult geological conditions, was greatly delayed. In November 1985, the construction of a modern bypass began - length 54.3 km, slope up to 18 m/km, completed by 1989. At the same time, the old bypass was dismantled, and now only an embankment and concrete bridges indicate its route.
Nowadays, despite the successful completion of the quarter-century construction of the Severomuysky tunnel, the high-mountain bypass is still in progress - the high seismicity of the area may still bring an unexpected surprise.
Despite the beauty of the surrounding area and man-made structures, very few tourists come to this area. To fully explore the Severomuysky bypass from the train, you need to spend the night in Novy Uoyan (there are no hotels or camp sites, only the station), and then take the morning work train to Taksimo. The opposite option does not include an overnight stay at the station, but is less preferable due to small parking lots at the sidings.
But it’s best to come here in the summer with a tent, disembark at the Pereval crossing, and slowly walk along the line in one direction or the other - to Kazankan or Angarakan, where long-distance trains stop. This will allow you to fully enjoy the beauty of the mountain peaks and be amazed at the human genius who laid the railway in the most difficult conditions of mountain valleys...
At the Osypnaya junction.
Work train No. 5610 Novy Uoyan - Taximo at the Pereval junction.
Passage Pass.
Angarakan junction - this is where the detour begins.
View of the Angarakan Pass from the west.
Path booth.
The bypass line branches off from the main route for 4 km. from Angarakan, and begins to climb, crossing the main passage even before it disappears into the tunnel.
Angarakan Valley.
Osypnoy crossing.
The rivers had not yet frozen.
Work trains must include a platform. As needed, railway workers and signalmen load their equipment and materials onto it for delivery to the line.
Loop tunnel No. 1 (western). Both of its portals are visible in the picture.
BAM line in the Angarakan valley.
General view of the detour on the western side of the pass. The line goes up the Angarakan (there is the Osypnoy crossing), returns back, passes the “Devil's Bridge” (on the right, behind the scenes) and rises to the loop tunnel (the portal on the left, behind the scenes). The photo was taken immediately after leaving the loop tunnel.
"Devil's Bridge" - a viaduct in a curve with a rise.
Disembarkation of workers near the pass.
The Pereval crossing is located on the saddle, not far from the highest point of the pass.
Station building.
Work train No. 5610 at the Pereval crossing.
Stone placers near the highest point of the line.
At such altitudes the landscape becomes subalpine.
Goryachiy Klyuch junction. How strikingly different it is from the station of the same name on the Krasnodar-Tuapse section!
The village of Severomuisk and the Muyakan valley.
Old bypass overpass.
Here the lines from the tunnel and the pass converge.
Overpass near the village.
Overpass over the eastern portal of the tunnel.
The Kazankan crossing is the end point of the bypass.
Located on the Baikal-Amur Mainline; opened on December 5, 2003. It got its name from the Severomuysky ridge in Buryatia, which it crosses right through. In terms of length (15,343 m), it is the longest railway tunnel in Russia. Its construction continued intermittently for 26 years.
A report made a quarter of a century ago:
“The North Muisky ridge did not allow our helicopter to approach: it was tightly wrapped in clouds. Halfway, from Uoyan to the Western portal of the tunnel, we drove through the taiga, thrown up on the potholes of the temporary highway. Along the roadsides there are bright lilac flashes of wild rosemary. And higher up the mountain, although it was already the end of May, there was snow. The road fits deeper and deeper, as if into an open book of nature, cutting through the taiga. After more than three hours, the first living speck of human presence appeared. Several log houses form the village of Yanchukan - the woodworking base of the 18th tunnel detachment. The silence was cut by the sound of a chainsaw: a forest was being cut down nearby.
When leaving Yanchukan there is a roadside sign: “The strong will remain, the weak will go.” Anyone who doesn’t like BAM or who doesn’t like BAM won’t fit in here. To survive, you need the highest qualities.
The village of Tonnelny, which grew up at the western foot of the North-Muysky ridge in a basin squeezed by hills, was met with flakes of snow. Wild picturesque char peaks crown steep cliffs. The clouds driven from Lake Baikal linger on them for a long time.
To the left, the rapids of Angarakan rustle, sometimes hiding under swollen snowdrifts. To the right, multi-ton orange dump trucks are roaring as they dump soil. Excavators, bulldozers, cranes - everything is painted in this color, recognized as optimal for modern industrial aesthetics.
Tonnelny has a past - single residential trailers covered with timber. Among the prefabricated panel houses stands the two-story “skyscraper” of the Department, built in the style of Siberian wooden architecture. The wooden box of the heating main bends rectangularly from house to house (it cannot be buried in permafrost conditions). It’s a stone’s throw from work: a 250-meter covered gallery leads to the tunnel (protection from the local frosts), which still retains the fragrant smell of wood.
And here it is - “M” above the portal. Two tunnels are cut into the rock, the main one, with a diameter of eight and a half meters, and the exploration-transport-drainage tunnel, with the parameters of a metro tunnel.
The ridges of Northern Transbaikalia are mountain formations over two billion years old (which gave rise to calling them the “ancient crown of Asia”), and at the same time young sedimentary deposits. The North Muisky tunnel is being built in a seismically active, so-called rift zone: in 1959, an earthquake of 10 magnitude was recorded here. Ancient mountains “breathe”. Traces of this breath are already at the construction site near the tunnel: frequent boulders, crystalline blocks crushed into many blocks.
“Rare hydrogeology,” says our guide Alexander Aleksandrovich Tyurin, acting chief engineer, “I haven’t seen anything like it in twenty years.” In the first hundred meters of the tunnel, the technology and organization of work were changed three times. Sand with large inclusions was first replaced by permafrost sandstone, then by highly fractured granite gneisses. Aggressive thermal waters are expected.
The arches of the portal section were covered with powerful cast iron rings. Next - support made of reinforced concrete tubes. They were installed by selecting the rock literally in pinches: boulders scattered along the contour of the excavation threatened to start moving, like balls in sports lotto. It was necessary to abandon the crushing of stones with explosives. The hydrocline came to the rescue. Drilling with a shield for fifty meters was carried out so that the contour of the developed calotte was outside the contour of the unit. The longarines were wound at the top of the shield, which, naturally, did not contribute to speed, but ensured safety.
The next eighty rings were laid in permafrost. The section was drilled and blasted. The supplied hot water washed away the holes.
A dark face, glittering with quartzite, in cracks. The explosion clearly exposed the tectonics of the fault. Here, on the 164th ring, under the protection of its own shell, the shield was dismantled. Another geological “whim” - the requirement of new technology.
Next we’ll use a tubing layer and re-equip it to roll away from the explosion,” Tyurin explained. -From the retractable platforms you can simultaneously drill the upper part of the face. We will replace manual hammer drills with high-performance SBU-2.
The adit tests “in miniature” (and the large tunnel repeats) all the embodied diversity of methods, techniques, materials, forms. She went further into the firmament of the mountain. A freshly laid section of the route is in monolithic concrete. Mobile metal formwork and pneumatic concrete feeders were delivered from Moscow.
In the face, the drilling frame of the Japanese company Furukawa, varying with three manipulators, aggressively bites into the rock. Loading and transportation of rock in the tunnel is carried out using domestic equipment. PNB-Zk machines use raking paws to remove rock into universal self-unloading mining trolleys with a capacity of up to ten cubic meters. A chain conveyor is built into their bottom. And in the port area the breed is accepted by capacious all-terrain vehicles.
If we are talking about the construction of the century, then it has the means, style, and methods of the century. BAM tunnelers use the best examples of modern domestic and foreign mining and road construction equipment. Powerful motorized power plants, mobile compressors with a capacity of 50 cubic meters per minute, bulldozers with a capacity of up to 310 horsepower, hydraulic excavators with a bucket with a capacity of one and a half cubic meters, crawler cranes with a lifting capacity of 63 tons, tunneling shields, pneumatic and rail-mounted drilling carriages, exploration drilling rigs , extracting core from wells up to 250 meters deep... Competent and efficient operation of this equipment requires high professional skill. There is a technical school at BAM with branches in Nizhneangarsk and Severobaikalsk.
In the 18th tunnel detachment - metro builders from Moscow, Kharkov and Tashkent, miners from Voroshilovgrad. On the eastern portal, the veteran unit Shch-15, brought from the Krasnodar - Tuapse line, was settling into its new location, leaving behind the sixteenth ring. A month ago, in a solemn atmosphere, champagne was broken on the shell of the shield, as if on the side of a ship at the beginning of its journey. Happy sailing!
In TO-11 the first meters of penetration are counted. At the 136th meter, the adit using the ShchN-lc shield went under a thick layer of quicksand. Quicksand in a rock... Destroyed crystalline rocks, ground to the state of sand, acquire quicksand properties when groundwater is opened. Quite heavy drops of “rain” drum on their helmets and backs and wash away the ink in the notebook. The influx of thermal waters is up to two hundred cubic meters per hour. The temperature of the surrounding rocks is plus 26 degrees.
Chief engineer of TO No. 11 Ariy Evgenievich Ptushkin - from the Leningrad Metrostroy. This must be why a reinforced concrete jacket and a cage was installed in the tunnel, as during the conquest of the famous washout near the Ploshchad Muzhestva station on the Kirov-Vyborg line.
The mountainside, cut through by an adit, was entangled with dewatering pipes.
Geological exploration predicted coarse sand, notes Ptushkin, but in this area they encountered dusty sand. The filters sucked in the pulp, forming funnels, rendering the pumps inoperable. We had to change the design and spacing of the wells.
The village of Severo-Muysky is covered in pine trees. Behind the club, the Muyakan River ("kan" - son, a tributary of the Muya) rumbles, rolling stones, and above the cliff, as if covered with moths, are bright wild rosemary bushes. A joyful, sunny impression. On stands and on the walls of houses there are posters: “BAM means excellent”, “For every mechanism - maximum performance”.
Leaving Severomuisky, we could not pass the majestic towers of mine shafts in the harsh frame of the mountains and not look into one of these grandiose wells: at a dizzying depth, with its blades opening, a grab buried itself in the wide bottom. Touching the sides of the cast-iron support, the suspended staircase swayed rhythmically, reacting, like a Foucault pendulum, to the rotation of the Earth.”
Svetlana Ponomarenko.
Severomuysky Tunnel Higher School
The Metrostroevets correspondent met with the first deputy head of the Tunnelmetrostroy Construction Department, S.I. MILLERMAN, and asked him to answer several questions clarifying the history of BAM.
You, Semyon Isaakovich, directly participated in the construction of the Severomuysky tunnel, and from Tunnelmet-rostroi you supervised its construction until its launch. In addition, you went to BAM as a representative of the Moscow metro construction, and we are very interested in the contribution of Moscow metro builders in the creation of this highway. You remember how it all began then, more than twenty-five years ago?
For us, it all began in 1976, when I was deputy chief engineer of SMU-3 of the Moscow Metrostroy. During that period, SMU-3 accumulated extensive experience in tunnel construction. Naturally, not railway or metro tunnels, but in rather difficult geological conditions. We made and implemented bold and extraordinary engineering decisions. For example, at that time we had just completed the construction of the stages between Tushinskaya and Skhodnenskaya, where in one section the route ran literally a meter from the bottom of the diversion canal, which maintains the sanitary condition of the Moscow River and supplies water to the Skhodnenskaya hydroelectric station, which is included in the unified energy system of the capital . We assembled two 80-meter tubing pipes on its banks, immersed them in water, and then simply filled up this section of the canal. Water continued to flow through the pipes, and the miners calmly installed subway tunnels underneath them.
And as for BAM...
As for BAM... It all started with the fact that Yuri Anatolyevich Koshelev was appointed head of the Main Directorate at that time. In September 1976, he visited BAM on his first inspection trip and realized that the launch of the entire three-thousand-kilometer road would depend on the tunnels located almost at its very beginning. No wonder the slogan was born there that tunnels are the keys to the BAM.
At that time, our Metro Construction volunteers were already working at BAM, having gone there first in 1974 to cut clearings, make temporary roads, and build bridges to provide access to future portals. And there, from populated areas, completely undeveloped territories with virgin forests, mountain ranges, and many rivers stretched for thousands of kilometers... From Ulan-Ude to the eastern portal of the North Muisky tunnel, it was necessary to cut clearings with a total length of about a thousand kilometers.
With the first landing of volunteers, Moscow metro builder Valery Zinovievich Kogan left for BAM, who became the chief mechanic of Tunnel Detachment No. 11 there, then the chief mechanic of Bamtonnelstroy, Vladimir Samuilovich Usenko - the head of the section...
And then events developed as follows. In Tunnel Detachment No. 11 and the Construction Administration that was just organized at that time, Bamtonnelstroy, there were Leningraders and Kharkovites. The first skeleton. But Yuri Anatolyevich immediately realized that Muscovites were needed to excavate the Severo-Muysky Tunnel, because such complex geological conditions as during the construction of the Moscow metro had never been overcome by any metro construction company in the country.
In addition, having become acquainted with Tunnel Detachment No. 11 and learned what this organization was at the end of 1976, he realized that it was not able to solve any of the tasks assigned to the tunnelers. Not a single one.
And, among other things, they still did not know anything about the nature of the upcoming work - besides the severity of the climatic conditions and the uninhabited nature of hard-to-reach places. There were no assessments of the route. The design documentation appeared after the builders and was very crude, because due to the inaccessibility of the terrain, practically no one studied the engineering and geological conditions. Only the portal areas, about 100 meters long, were studied. It was assumed that Severo-Muisky would have complex geology, but what exactly it was, how many faults there were, what they were, nothing was known.
Considering this state of preparation for excavation and wanting to have specialists at Severo-Muisky who could more competently approach all possible difficulties there, Yuri Anatolyevich, having returned to Moscow, began to call under his banner those whom he knew, with whom he worked, being the head of the Moscow Metro Construction. And, remembering the difficult penetrations at SMU-3, he invited the three of us - Vladimir Aslan-Bekovich Bessonov - chief engineer, Rudolf Ilyich Kasapov - head of the production department, and your humble servant.
I went there as the head of the technical department of Bamtonnelstroy, then worked as deputy chief engineer, then as first deputy for construction.
After three or four months, other representatives of SMU-3 followed us there. For example, the head of the site, Nikolai Mikhailovich Rener, went as the head of the construction site of the western portal of the North-Muysky tunnel. Well, the tunnelers who thought they would immediately start mining. There were a lot of people willing.
I worked there until 1987, worked for 11 years, Bessolov - 15. When I moved to Glavtunnel-Metrostroy, as deputy for tunnels, from here I continued to supervise Severo-Muysky, and supervised until the winning bell. And now a test train has passed. A whole chunk of life has been lived.
Is there much more to do in the tunnel?
There remains work related to reclamation, liquidation of settlements, and completion of underground mines that were created there in parallel. The tunnel itself is only 15.3 kilometers long, and there are more than 100 kilometers of workings, including 4 vertical shafts with a depth of 270 to 360 meters, a multifunctional adit parallel to the tunnel with the diameter of a metro tunnel - during excavation it was used simultaneously as transport, drainage and exploration, and now it will be useful for operation. The approach adits there are of considerable length: due to the inaccessibility of the terrain, the shafts could not be brought closer to the route, so the distance from the shaft to the tunnel route in some cases reached two kilometers. Add to all this powerful mine yards, demining areas, pumping...
Please tell us about the difficulties of excavation.
The complexity of the construction of this tunnel has no analogues in world practice.
In general, excavation began in May 1977 from the eastern portal and in May 1978 from the western portal. At the same time, trunks were built. And, you know how it was under Soviet rule. Give me meters! But the meters didn’t work out. And no one higher up there wanted to understand why. It was only later, with the advent of space photography, that our eyes opened...
The first collision happened when we left the western portal and entered the notorious Angarakan washout. There was a powerful ejection of pulp, and there were the first victims. Well, imagine how there could have been no casualties if a heavy rock-loading machine was thrown three hundred meters away. This is how we first encountered faults. And in 1983, the scientific and production association “Priroda” presented us with the results of space surveys, and we began to have some clarity. It was scary to look at the pictures back then: the ridge looked like a broken plate. But powerful regional faults immediately became clearly visible. And that very heavy “Fourth” fault zone, which, as it turned out, reached 800 meters in thickness. In general, it was the main obstacle. The hardest thing for us was these 800 meters.
And yet, by 1987, 80 percent of the tunnel had already been completed. And we have been pushing the remaining 20 percent for the last 15 years - already out of lack of money.
The North Muisky ridge is considered a seismically active place. Is there any concern that this activity will affect the condition of the tunnel in the future?
I don't think so. The entire science of the Soviet Union took a very large part in the construction process. There was a lot of science there. And basically, of course, the legislator of everything was the Institute of the Earth's Crust. Even then we had endless debates about the future of the tunnels, since this area is not just seismic, there are earthquakes every day. For example, in 1958 there was the famous, unknown North Muya earthquake, which is recorded in the book of world catastrophes.
Rumor has it, 10-point...
We have a limit, 9 points, but no one knows how much it was, 15, 12 or 10. There was no one to measure. But the earthquake entered the book of world disasters. Why? Yes, it’s just that the North Muisky ridge in an instant moved along the base by one and a half meters. There were no casualties, so this is not a disaster as such. But there were no casualties, because this area is not inhabited at all, there are no people there. Well, the ridge has moved, and God be with it.
And it shakes there all the time and constantly. But the Institute of the Earth's Crust has a theory that says: yes, the portal sections of the tunnel are susceptible to destruction without a load or with little backfill, so these 100-meter sections, naturally, during the structural design were strengthened taking into account the highest seismicity. Otherwise, there is no danger, since, according to scientists, the ridge has a block structure of the earth’s crust, and nothing happens in the blocks themselves during an earthquake. If there is an earthquake, the block will rise and fall. Without any consequences
There were opinions in the press that the route was chosen out of ignorance, and it should have been moved a little to the side.
This is a controversial issue, but at first, of course, no one thought about it. Nobody knew that this would happen. And when it turned out, you can’t abandon the tunnel you started. In addition, they chose for it the lowest place of the North Muisky ridge, the shortest and most correct direction, the optimal length of 15.3 kilometers. From a track point of view, this is an ideal location.
We practically bypassed the Severo-Muysky tunnel, because the time to open the BAM was approaching. In three years, they built three bypass tunnels and opened traffic along the BAM. But they continued to build the North-Muysky tunnel, because this bypass was completely different according to the standards - with an 18-thousand-meter slope and double diesel traction. And 50 kilometers longer.
So, if we build a bypass route there with slopes within, well, not 18, of course, meters per thousand, but at least 11, consisting of open sections and 4 or 5 tunnels, then the overrun would be 54 kilometers, and the costs operation of this section would exceed construction costs. Therefore, from the point of view of the route, everything is correct. From the point of view of the torment that we experienced during the construction period, this is now not taken into account.
Such penetration requires special equipment...
Of course, at that time, unfortunately, there was no such technology in the country. We bought it all. But it was not adapted to our conditions. Where did the first mechanized shields and mining complexes with a closed “chest” like “Weissa” and “Lovat” come from? All this was preceded by BAM. Tunnels at Severo-Muysky are a high school of tunneling. It gave impetus to adapting imported machines and mechanisms to the most severe conditions, modifying them depending on the breed category, the influx of water and other features. It was an excellent school.
Then, during the construction process, high-performance equipment was purchased abroad and design was carried out taking into account the new equipment. There was nothing more we could do. We had such a drilling frame from the Japanese company "Furukawa", we brought it there and used it where possible. So, one of the institutes of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences tried for 12 years to make a Soviet “furukawa” - but nothing happened. They drew it up in a moment, then it took 5 years to implement it, then they waited 5 years until the release of the first production model...
Can we say that the experience of Severo-Muisky has now become the property of tunnel construction all over the world?
Of course, this object helped make a significant contribution to the science of tunneling and metro construction. Absolutely everything was found there. In general, there is nothing in nature that is not there. The first experiment with the method of chemically securing horizontal workings was carried out there. The method has found further development now, but this was the first time there.
What is a fault? Here is one block of the earth's crust, here is another, there are 60-70 meters between them. What is this space filled with? Rocks, clay, ground to granules - with the presence of fissure-vein pressure waters under such pressure that when a well was drilled from the surface to reduce water, they flowed out on their own like an oil fountain. Not only that, they are also thermal, up to 70 degrees. Can you imagine how to overcome this? Freezing? We tried in separate areas, on small faults. But this is thermal water. Where there was cold water, horizontal nitrogen freezing was used for the first time. What about hot water? That’s when we switched to chemical consolidation of soils. And also at random: they invited everyone, all kinds of foreigners. And the first compositions, the first components were introduced with the participation of the Kyiv Institute of Macromolecular Compounds. They developed the kind of materials that were used to lubricate Zhiguli cars - and made them last forever. These are domestic developments. At first they were very expensive, but an experiment was underway, which made it possible to move on to optimal components.
Therefore, everything that was there was passed, everything that was used there developed tunnel construction globally. Firstly, specialists in different fields appeared. Secondly, the latest technologies were developed, which are now being successfully implemented. This is truly a global achievement now.
Have you been to the test and the first trial? Do you still have a holiday feeling?
I went there for the first trial. The tunnel looks like a picture: cleaned, painted, on the 800-meter section of the Angarakan washout there are tubings, reinforced concrete clips, metal insulation - everything is covered with red lead. It looks very nice. The ideal way, ours were laid. Essentially, with the launch of this tunnel, the BAM was connected. The last golden link at BAM was laid by tunnelers, it just so happened
Holiday? Of course it was a holiday. They brought a comfortable train from Irkutsk with tables in the cars, and the television was sparkling with spotlights. We determined the speed of movement through the tunnel. And when we passed the most critical places, we remembered those who left their lives there.
Conducted the conversation
V.MELIK-NUBAROV.
Having completed the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, the longest tunnel in Russia, the Severo-Muysky Tunnel, took a quarter of a century to build.
The excavation had to be carried out in perhaps the most difficult tectonic, hydrographic and radiation conditions in the world, never encountered before. Even the most modern imported equipment could not save us. The best foreign specialists were promised any money, but they refused. Russian miners managed not only to overcome exceptional hardships and dangers, but also to innovatively solve complex technical problems. When the teams moving underground from the West and the East met, the deviation from the axis amounted to a jewel of 5.4 mm for 15.3 km of the tunnel. Underground surveyors - mine surveyors - verified the path using a laser.
Dungeon Passion
The interior of the North Muya Ridge resembles a layer cake or a piece of mica destroyed by a hammer blow - continuous cracks.
Having gone deeper into the mountain, the builders could not even imagine what awaited them: the geological and hydrological structure of the ridge was little known. Wells drilled every 500 m did not clear up the picture. When it all started in 1977, there were no rigs for horizontal drilling up to 400 m with core collection.
There was another danger - radiation. When talking about the history of the tunnel, participants and construction organizers prefer not to mention the high concentration of radon gas. But it was precisely because of this that leading foreign companies abandoned the tunnel.
As evidenced by the State report “On the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Russian Federation in 1997” discovered by Popular Mechanics, “high values of the equivalent equilibrium volumetric activity of radon were found in... the Severo-Muisky tunnel under construction (up to 3000 Bq/m3), which leads to significant overexposure of workers..." Three thousand becquerels per 1 m3 (becquerel is a unit of activity of a nuclide in a radioactive source) is a very high dose. The radiation safety standard in production for group “A” (including x-ray exposure) is no more than 1240 Bq/m3, and in residential premises the radon content should not exceed 200 Bq/m3.
In short, one could expect anything from Northern Mui, and it was decided to conduct exploration simultaneously with construction. Aerospace photography revealed 4 main faults (ruptures in rocks that arose during the movement of the earth's crust). Typically such zones do not exceed 5% of the tunnel length. Of the 15,343 m of Severomuisky (the total workings stretched for more than 40 km), 860 m fell on faults. Having drilled through granite slabs, from which, due to powerful internal stress, pieces of stone flew out at the speed of a cannonball, the miners “failed”: from the “forehead” “at the face, under a pressure of more than 30 atmospheres, water mixed with sand and clay began to gush out. During the excavation, the dungeon claimed 31 human lives.
"Horseshoe" under the ridge
Stretching 300 km long and 20-30 km wide, the North Muya mountain range is young and hot-tempered. The tectonic processes occurring in its depths are echoed by powerful earthquakes. (In 1936, a magnitude of 9.6 on the Richter scale was recorded here, and the strongest earthquake in the world over the past 50 years is considered a natural disaster of 9 points, which on May 28, 1995, claimed the lives of two thousand people, wiping out the city of Neftegorsk on Sakhalin.) Magnitude nine earthquakes can cause vertical rock displacements of up to 1-1.2 m in the ridge, and magnitude 10 earthquakes can cause up to 5-7 m. It happens that the earth shakes several times a day.
In addition, there is a watershed between Lake Baikal and the Vitim River. Once, about a hundred years ago, after a shift in tectonic layers, the ridge shifted by 1.5 m. The Imangra River flowed in the opposite direction, and the surrounding trees dried up.
To reduce the dangers, an exploration transport and drainage adit with a cross-section of 18 m2 was installed parallel to the horseshoe-shaped tunnel (68 m2) at a distance of 15 to 30 m from its axis. Its advancement into the depths of the rock should have been ahead of the tunnel by 200-300 m, making it possible to clarify the geological conditions of the work, draining water from the mountain range and improving the ventilation of the entire workings. In addition, additional faces were opened from the adit for tunneling. And in order to make the excavation sections shorter, the tunnel was driven simultaneously from both sides of the ridge - from the eastern and western portals, as well as in both directions from vertical shafts with a diameter of 7.5 m, drilled from the top of the ridge (depths of 302, 334 and 162 m). Drilling from three shafts provided more than half the length of the tunnel. And the 4th shaft, 242 m deep, had to be built between the western portal and shaft No. 1 after the builders unexpectedly stumbled upon the old underground bed of the Angarakan River.
Made of steel, glass and concrete
The advanced construction of an exploration adit from the west showed a small fault. When they approached it from the tunnel, more than 25 thousand m3 of water mixed with sand and clay burst into the face, sweeping away heavy equipment and people. A loading machine weighing 23 tons was thrown away like a feather. The breakthrough was stopped by pumping concrete into the already completed tunnel. And work in this direction was frozen for two years. Then, in order to continue excavation, we had to break through the concrete “plug” again.
Subsequently, to strengthen the soil above the tunnel in the fault zones, “walkers” were drilled from the adit and chambers were installed above the roof of the tunnel, which were filled with monolithic concrete. The walls of the tunnel itself were made in the most earthquake-prone places with 3 layers and even 4 layers, covering them first with rough concrete reinforced with metal anchors, the second layer was prefabricated - tubing (a tubing coating resembling a metal honeycomb can be seen on the walls of subway tunnels), followed by additional layer of reinforced concrete. And in some places the lining was completed with metal insulation. Thus, the tunnel space was enclosed in several “pipes,” each of which was quite mobile relative to the others.
At the same time, a team of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg scientists developed a unique method of strengthening especially loose rocks. Liquid glass, concrete and chemical additives were poured into the drilled wells in two streams (so as not to set prematurely), which, when frozen, formed a kind of hard “spacesuit” around the workings.
During construction, several generations of tunneling equipment changed. A huge “hole” from the side of the western portal began to be dug by a tunneling shield made in 1936, which was still in use during the construction of the Moscow metro. Gradually, the most modern imported equipment was delivered to Northern Muya - the Japanese drilling frame "Furukawa", the German tunneling complex "Wirth", the Finnish "Tamrok".
Equipped with the most modern equipment and experienced domestic personnel, the general contractor BAMtonnelstroy became over time perhaps the best tunneling company in the post-Soviet space. And yet, due to difficult conditions, a significant part of the production had to be done the old fashioned way.
When the 250-ton American Robbins complex was installed, the head of the company, Dick Robbins, flew to BAM. They say that when he saw the ridge that was to be drilled, he said in Russian: “Shitty rock!” And he advised me to abandon the idea and start somewhere else. Nevertheless, domestic craftsmen managed to squeeze everything possible out of the “American”, and it completed its task - excavation of the most difficult 4-kilometer section of the adit with a diameter of 4.62 m. It was replaced by the German “Wirth”, which received 5 km of adit of the same diameter. But the next complex “Virt”, which came from the western portal (5.26 m), did not survive, and it was sent to build a metro in Yekaterinburg. In the most critical conditions, only jackhammers did not fail.
