Second Severomuysky tunnel: how to save BAM from traffic jams

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) is one of the largest railway routes in the world. This route passes through Eastern Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation. One of its most difficult sections is the Severomuysky tunnel, which was put into regular operation only in 2003. For a long time there has been talk about the construction of a second tunnel, which will increase the carrying capacity of this section of the BAM from the current 16 million tons to 100 million tons of cargo per year.

The Baikal-Amur Mainline began operating on a regular basis in 1989, becoming the most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the Soviet Union. The cost of its construction was 17,7 billion rubles in 1991 prices. The length of the route is 4324 kilometers, most of the highway lies in the permafrost zone.



As already mentioned, one of the most difficult sections of the BAM is the Severomuysky tunnel, which was completed only in 2003 (its construction, with interruptions, lasted 26 years). Until this time, trains used bypass routes, which were much longer and had serious speed restrictions. In 2010, Vladimir Yakunin, who at that time was the president of Russian Railways, first announced plans for the reconstruction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. They included the construction of the second Sevromuy tunnel. By 2018, the technicaleconomic justification for this project, it was assumed that its implementation in addition to today’s 19 pairs of trains per day will allow an additional 34 pairs of trains to pass through. The planned cost of construction, taking into account inflation until 2024, could be 260,79 billion rubles.

In addition, according to some media reports, there was an option with a concession agreement (a form of public-private partnership). Thus, the Sibanthracite group, controlled by businessman Dmitry Bosov, planned to use its own investments to build the second Severomuysk tunnel in just five years in exchange for access to the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian Railways for 25 years for priority transportation of 50 million tons of its own cargo per year. The cost of the project was estimated at 60 billion rubles. In 2019, preparatory work began, a contract was signed involving the purchase of two tunnel boring systems from an American company, but already at the beginning of 2020, all activities on the project were stopped due to the suicide of Dmitry Bosov.

It is also worth noting that in 2021, RAS scientists made a proposal to revise the tunnel construction project, stating that priority should be given to the construction of the ground route. The reason for this decision is the seismic activity of the area and the migration of groundwater, which makes the operation of the underground site very expensive. An important argument in this matter are issues related to traffic safety.

In the same year, Deputy General Director of Russian Railways Andrei Makarov emphasized that there are currently seven different options for constructing a tunnel and two more options for overland bypassing this section - 90 and 200 kilometers long. At the same time, the construction of bypasses is estimated to be approximately two to three times more expensive than underground alternatives. The estimated cost of the main version of the tunnel was about 170 billion rubles.

It is necessary to understand that the construction of the second Severomuysk tunnel should be carried out as part of the project for the development of the railway infrastructure of the Eastern range. The key goal of all its activities is to eliminate problem areas on the highways of Transbaikalia and the Far East. Solving this issue will allow us to increase the volume of cargo transportation by domestic companies, which is especially important in the current geopolitical and geo-economic conditions, when our country’s export routes are being restructured to the Asian market.

In the spring of 2023, it became known that private funds would still be attracted for the construction of transport facilities at the Eastern training ground, using the same concession mechanism. Thus, several companies from Russia have already expressed a desire to take part in the implementation of four projects on the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway. We are talking about the bridge over the Amur, Kodarsky, Kuznetsovsky and the second Severomuysky tunnels. It is expected that their total cost will be about 600 billion rubles. The appearance of business representatives at such large venues can have a positive impact on the entire industry. It is possible that entrepreneurial efficiency will allow the domestic railway sector to avoid problems with constant delays in most infrastructure projects and economically illiterate methods for their implementation.

Later it became known that Gazprombank, Russian Railways and Bamtonnelstroy-Most, within the framework of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, entered into a cooperation agreement in the implementation of projects for the construction of railway infrastructure facilities at the Eastern Polygon. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bamtonnelstroy-Most JSC, Ruslan Baysarov, then clarified that the Eastern Railway Test Site is currently operating at the limit of its technical capabilities. The geographic turn of the domestic economy has demonstrated the need to increase the capacity of the railway infrastructure to ensure the transportation of goods from the European part of the Russian Federation to the markets of the Asia-Pacific region. To do this, according to Ruslan Baysarov, it is necessary to jointly build several unique transport facilities on the BAM and Trans-Siberian Railway (which includes the second Severomuysky tunnel).

To summarize, I would like to add that the Baikal-Amur Mainline includes several sections that are in dire need of technical modernization in order to increase their capacity. One of the most striking examples of this is the Severomuisky Tunnel. This problem requires an early solution, because building a new effective model for exporting domestic products directly depends on this.