Over the past few months I’ve been working on a big project in secret… and today is finally the day that I get to present it to all of you. Most of you are aware that I was recently in Ukraine, but the real intent of my visit was to see the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. For many years I’ve wanted to write an article about the railroad that ran through the Exclusion Zone, half of which is now abandoned. I have finally fulfilled that goal.
Built by the Soviet military in 1927, the line connected the city of Ovruch in the west, to Chernihiv in the east, crossing the Pripyat, Dneiper, and Desna Rivers, and traversing a small portion of Belarus. The territory between the two cities was not especially valuable, nor heavily populated – yet railroad access could be useful from a military perspective, as railroads were considered the cheapest way to transport both soldiers and equipment.
Were it not for a chance event, the Ovruch to Chernihiv line could be operating in obscurity to this day. The chance event I’m mentioning, of course, is the Chernobyl disaster. This little rail line played a part in where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’s very first nuclear power pant would be built. Around sixteen sites were investigated as potential candidates, and one about 100 kilometers north of Kyiv fit the bill perfectly – it had a rail line with reliable train service, it had the nearby Pripyat River as a natural water source, and it had a lot of infertile land that could be taken over and turned into a cooling pond for the reactor.
If you’d like to read the entire story, which I’ve titled “Radioactive Railroad” – head over to the special site that I built, which can be found here:
RadioactiveRailroad.com
Here’s just a preview of some of the things you’ll find there – an abandoned city, a graveyard of trains too contaminated to use, a city rebuilt for the refugees of the disaster, and a little piece of the abandoned rail line that still operates…
What a fascinating story. And so well told. Congratulations!
Great job. Very fun read!
Radioactive Railroad is fascinating. Great site!
Yes, fascinating, and an ambitious project to create a site about the radioactive railroad. I take it that the radiation at the railroad graveyard has subsided enough for you to safely visit?
Well done.
Yes, the contaminants have mostly decayed by now, so it is safe to visit. Unfortunately it has been far too long for most of the trains that got left there.