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RADIOACTIVE RAILROAD


ters of track are abandoned, and the only service they see are the illegal explorers that sneak into the zone and follow the tracks to Pripyat.


REBORN IN SLAVUTYCH Despite the disaster, the Soviet Union


needed Chornobyl, meltdown or not. Al- though work on the fifth and sixth reac- tors was canceled, the three remaining Chornobyl reactors


were eventually


brought back online, while the damaged fourth reactor was encased in a concrete sarcophagus. The thousands of plant workers displaced from the city that had been built for them needed a new place to live where they could easily commute to the plant. Again, the railroad proved


its worth. About 50 kilometers east of the plant a relatively barren, and not heavily contaminated, tract of land was chosen to build a new city. The railroad had a siding at this location called Ner- afa, but after 1986 it would be called Slavutych, an old Slavic name for the nearby Dneiper River. The announcement that a new city would be built for the workers of Chor- nobyl was made in October 1986, and construction began a short time later. Built on a two-meter-deep layer of uncon- taminated soil, Slavutych was a creation of the entire Soviet Union. Construction workers and architects from eight Soviet republics contributed to the city’s design, and the different districts of Slavutych


are named for the capitals of these re- publics. Throughout the whole process, the rails were instrumental in moving both workers and materials to build the city. By March of 1988 Slavutych was ready for its new residents. For those residents who relocated to Slavutych and don’t work at the plant, the line connects them (and a few more remote villages) to the far more popu- lated city of Chernihiv in the east. But for those who still worked at the plant, the railroad became an integral part of their day. Along with the construction of Slavutych, considerable upgrades were made to the railroad after the disaster, including the electrification of the line from Chernihiv to Semikhody. Highly


LEFT: Inside the demolished cab of a DR1P diesel multiple unit passenger train abandoned at Yaniv. Scavengers have destroyed anything of value since these trains were left behind nearly 30 years ago. MIDDLE LEFT: Hidden among the foliage is a rusted-out TEM3 locomotive, displaying the crest of the Soviet Union (CCCP). BOTTOM LEFT: The identification plate of one of the DR1P units is another relic from the Soviet era. The text translates as “Ministry of Heavy Machinery of the USSR, General Directorate of Car Building. Constructed Speed 120 km/h.” BELOW: Two DR1P locomotives sit nose to nose, in poor condition after being neglected for the past 28 years. Sets of DR1Ps were normally assigned to passenger operations since electrification of the main line was not completed until after 1986.


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