Krasnoyarsk, August 2 (RIA Novosti, Boris Ivanov) - Two Stalin-era locomotives have been stolen from a depot near Igarka, a town beyond the Arctic Circle. The director of a local museum said Tuesday that the vehicles weighed 40 metric tons each, and the thieves' apparent motive was to sell them for scrap metal.
The locomotives were used to drive trains along the Salekhard-Igarka rail line dubbed "Stalin," after Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who forced Gulag inmates to build it. Construction work stopped after his death in 1953, with only 700 kilometers commissioned out of the planned 1,200. Depots, bridges, and other logistical facilities were left unfinished. Given the locomotives' historical value, the Igarka authorities banned their removal in the 1990s.
Russia's national rail monopoly, Russian Railways (RZhD), is now contemplating rebuilding and extending the Stalin railroad to provide easy access to the large number of operational oil and natural gas wells on both sides of the track.
