New Railway Branch in Chornobyl to Connect Existing Lines with Centralized SFSF

Railway branch will be built in Chornobyl for direct approach to the construction site of the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility (Centralized SFSF).

Hennadii Riabtsev, Director of Special Projects in the Psychea Scientific and Technical Center, informed HolosUA reporter about this.

The expert commented information that a railway will be constructed in Chornobyl for transport of spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants and stated that it is planned to build 6-km long railway branch for direct approach to the construction site of the Centralized SFSF.

“New railway branch will be built in Chornobyl for direct access to the construction site of the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility, because there are no railway lines around the constructed storage facility”, commented Hennadii Riabtsev.

According to his words, automobile road will be built for access to a new storage facility. The road will be laid from existing branches to the site of storage facility.

“Construction of this railway branch is needed for the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility to connect it with the existing transport infrastructure. Therefore, this means the special railway lines will be constructed, for example, from Rivne NPP to the Chornobyl zone for transport of spent nuclear fuel in one carriage every six year”, the expert commented.

“It is necessary somehow to connect the construction site of the Centralized SFSF with existing roads and existing infrastructure to transport spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian NPPs without any problems. Spent nuclear fuel cannot be transported by unsurfaced dirt roads”, explained Hennadii Riabtsev.

The expert told that spent nuclear fuel would be transported from Ukrainian NPPs to the Centralized SFSF using existing roads and existing railway infrastructure, and further by the new 6-km long railway branch to the storage place.

The Energoatom Company and Ukrenerhomontazh Company, which is a part of the Ukrbud Corporation, signed a contract on the construction of a railway section in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone to transport spent nuclear fuel from operating Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Photo by Oleksandr Syrota

“Golos.UA”