Arctic Railway | |
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Overview | |
Locale | Lapland, Finland Finnmark, Norway |
Termini | |
Service | |
Services | Rovaniemi - Vuojärvi - Sodankylä - Petkula - Vuotso - Saariselkä - Nellim - Rayakoski - Nikel - Kirkenes |
Technical | |
Line length | 526 km (327 mi) |
Number of tracks | Double track |
Track gauge | 1,524 mm (5 ft) |
Electrification | 25 kV 50 Hz AC overhead lines |
Arctic Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Arctic Railway (also Arctic Ocean Railway) is a planned railway line linking the Norwegian Arctic port of Kirkenes with the Finnish railway network.
Proposals for a rail link between Lapland and northern Norway began serious consideration in 2017, [1] with the aim of linking the Finnish railway network to Arctic shipping routes. [2] In light of global warming making an ice-free Northeast Passage a possibility within the 21st century. Russia has also been re-investing into its fleet of nuclear icebreakers, replacing older ships which had plied the Arctic sea routes since Soviet times with newer models. There are widespread expectations that the Arctic ports of Murmansk, Kirkenes and Narvik will grow in importance in the coming decades, thus necessitating better hinterland infrastructure. Railroads are widely regarded as the most efficient way to transport goods to and from ports, and railroad access is often seen as an advantage in the competition between ports. [3] Furthermore, improving links between Russia and Norway would allow goods travelling by land along the Eurasian Land Bridge to get from China to Norway via only one transit country, Russia, and with – depending on the gauge chosen for the Arctic Railway and the final destination in Norway – only one or two breaks of gauge. Thus problems with additional transit countries such as Iran (southern route) or Belarus/Ukraine (Central route) could be avoided.
Route options under consideration included starting at Rovaniemi or Kemijärvi in Finland to either Kirkenes in Norway or Murmansk in Russia, or from Kolari or Tornio in Finland to Narvik (via Sweden) or Tromsø in Norway. [4] The Rovaniemi to Kirkenes route has been determined to be the most feasible, [5] with an estimated cost of €2.9 billion. [6] €2 billion would be covered by the Finnish government, with the remaining €900 million covered by the Norwegian government. [7]
In early 2019, a Finnish-Norwegian working group assembled by Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications stated that the volume of cargo was too small to justify the project's costs. [8] After plans for the railway stalled, entrepreneur Peter Vesterbacka announced an alternative plan for the project in May 2019, claiming the railway could be built through private investments from China and the European Union, and with an underground route. As of March 2020, Vesterbacka and Chinese investors are aiming to build an undersea railway tunnel with a route between Helsinki and Tallinn. [9] [8]
Environmental and cultural sensitivities exist which affect these plans, with concerns from the indigenous Sámi people that the proposed line would pass through reindeer grazing lands. [10] Indigenous reindeer herders have criticized the plans, arguing that a railway would cut off reindeer migration paths and cause accidents, killing herds. [11] [8] Tiina Sanila-Aikio, the former president of the Sámi Parliament of Finland, has stated that section 17 of the Finnish constitution legally prohibits the approval of the railway, since it "assures the Sami's right to maintain and develop their own culture", which she states includes "reindeer herding, fishing and hunting in the area". [8] In 2018, Greenpeace, Sámi youth organization Suoma Sámi Nuorat , and Sámi activist and arts group Suohpanterror staged protests to block the railway's path. [12]
Rovaniemi is a city and municipality of Finland. It is the administrative capital and commercial centre of Finland's northernmost province, Lapland, and its southern part Peräpohjola. The city centre is situated about 6 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle and is between the hills of Ounasvaara and Korkalovaara, at the confluence of the river Kemijoki and its tributary, the Ounasjoki. It is the second-largest city of Northern Finland after Oulu, and, together with the capital city Helsinki, it is one of Finland's most significant tourist cities in terms of foreign tourism.
Kirkenes is a town in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, in the far northeastern part of Norway. The town lies on a peninsula along the Bøkfjorden, an arm of the large Varangerfjorden, and is located just a few kilometres from the Norway-Russia border.
The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is bordered by the Barents Sea to the north and by the White Sea to the east and southeast. The city of Murmansk, the most populous settlement on the peninsula, has a population of roughly 270,000 residents.
The Norwegian railway system comprises 4,109 km of 1,435 mm track of which 2,644 km is electrified and 274 km double track. There are 697 tunnels and 2,760 bridges.
Enontekiö is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. 1,800 inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very sparsely populated area of about 8,400 square kilometres (3,200 sq mi) between the Swedish and Norwegian border. Finland's highest point, the Halti fell with a height of 1,324 metres (4,344 ft) above the mean sea level, lies in the north of Enontekiö, where the municipality occupies a part of the Scandinavian Mountains. The administrative centre of Enontekiö is the village of Hetta. About one fifth of the community's population are Sami people. Enontekiö's main industries are tourism and reindeer husbandry.
Kemi is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located very near the city of Tornio and the Swedish border. The distance to Oulu is 105 kilometres (65 mi) to the south and to Rovaniemi is 117 kilometres (73 mi) to the northeast. It was founded in 1869 by a decree of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia because of its proximity to a deepwater port.
The siida is a Sámi local community that has existed from time immemorial. A siida, or 'reindeer pastoralistic district,' is a Sámi reindeer foraging area, a group for reindeer herding and a corporation working for the economic benefit of its members. The reindeer-herding siida has formed as an adaptation of ancient siida principles to large-scale nomadic reindeer herding. It is termed a sameby in Swedish law, reinbeitedistrikt in Norwegian law, and paliskunta in Finnish law. The pastoralist organisation differs slightly between countries, except in Russia, where kolkhoz replaced these earlier organisations.
Operation Silver Fox from 29 June to 17 November 1941, was a joint German–Finnish military operation during the Continuation War on the Eastern Front of World War II against the Soviet Union. The objective of the offensive was to cut off and capture the key Soviet Port of Murmansk through attacks from Finnish and Norwegian territory.
Northern Norway is a geographical region of Norway, consisting of the two northernmost counties Nordland and Troms og Finnmark, in total about 35% of the Norwegian mainland. Some of the largest towns in Northern Norway are Mo i Rana, Bodø, Narvik, Harstad, Tromsø and Alta. Northern Norway is often described as the land of the midnight sun and the land of the northern lights. Further north, halfway to the North Pole, is the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, traditionally not regarded as part of Northern Norway.
The Finnish railway network consists of a total track length of 9,216 km (5,727 mi). The railways are built with a broad 1,524 mm track gauge, of which 3,249 km (2,019 mi) is electrified. Passenger trains are operated by the state-owned enterprise VR that runs services on 7,225 km (4,489 mi) of track. These services cover all major cities and many rural areas, though the coverage is less than the coverage provided by the bus services. Most passenger train services originate or terminate at Helsinki Central railway station, and a large proportion of the passenger rail network radiates out of Helsinki. VR also operates freight services. Maintenance and construction of the railway network itself is the responsibility of the Finnish Rail Administration, which is a part of the Finnish Transport Agency. The network consists of six areal centres, that manage the use and maintenance of the routes in co-operation. Cargo yards and large stations may have their own signalling systems.
The Northern East West Freight Corridor, usually referred to as the N.E.W. Corridor, is a project organized by the International Union of Railways UIC and Transportutvikling AS to connect the East Coast of the United States to East Asia by rail and maritime routes.
The Kirkenes–Bjørnevatn Line, or the Sydvaranger Line, is a 8.5-kilometer (5.3 mi) long railway line between Kirkenes and Bjørnevatn in Sør-Varanger, Norway. Owned by the private mining company Northern Iron, the single-track railway is solely used to haul 20 daily iron ore trains from Bjørnevatn Mine to the port at Kirkenes. It was the world's northernmost railway until 2010, when the Obskaya–Bovanenkovo Line in Russia went further north.
Liinakhamari is an ice-free harbour and a rural locality in Pechengsky District of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. The harbour belonged to Finland from 1920 until 1944 when it was ceded to the Soviet Union.
The border between Norway and Russia consists of a 195.7-kilometer (121.6 mi) land border between Sør-Varanger, Norway, and Pechengsky District, Russia, and a 23.2-kilometer (14.4 mi) marine border in the Varangerfjord. It further consists of a border between the two countries' exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Between 1944 and 1991 the border was between Norway and the Soviet Union. There is a single border crossing, on E105, located at Storskog in Norway and Borisoglebsky in Russia. The Norwegian side is patrolled by the Garrison of Sør-Varanger and is under the jurisdiction of the Norwegian Border Commissioner, while the Russian side is patrolled by the Border Guard Service of Russia. Two-thirds of the border follows two rivers, the Pasvikelva and Jakobselva.
Leif Rantala was a Finnish-Swedish linguist, and a specialist of Sami languages, cultures of history, especially of the Kola Peninsula.
Arctic Ocean Highway was a 531 kilometre-long highway in Lapland, Finland connecting the town of Rovaniemi to the port of Liinakhamari by the Pechenga Bay of the Barents Sea. It was opened in 1931 as the first highway in the world reaching the Arctic Ocean.
The Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) is the official body for inter-governmental co-operation in the Barents Region. It seeks solutions wherever and whenever the countries can achieve more together than by working on their own. Cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region was launched in 1993 on two levels: intergovernmental Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) and interregional Barents Regional Council (BRC). The overall objective of Barents cooperation has been sustainable development.
Valentina Vyacheslavovna Sovkina is a Russian-Sami politician and chair of the Kola Sámi Assembly.