Behold the just launched $6.6bn longest underground rail line in Moscow

Russia has just made history, launching the world’s longest underground rail line.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the new line of the Moscow metro on Wednesday. It is a 70 kilometre long Big Circle Line, the longest in the world, 13 kilometres ahead of the previous record holder, the Line 10 of the Beijing Subway.

According to Xinhuanet, the metro line was constructed from 2011 to 2022. The first section of the BCL opened in 2018, and another 20-km section, which is the longest in the history of the capital’s metro, was launched in December 2021.

The BCL has 31 stations, with 24 of those providing 47 interchanges to existing and future stations of the capital’s metro.

Maksim Liksutov, deputy mayor of Moscow for transport, said that the BCL would serve as an impetus to the capital’s development for decades to come, adding that it would help decrease the traffic flow on the city’s highways by up to 15 per cent, and would decongest metro lines by up to 25 per cent.

The Moscow metro, first opened in 1935 with a single line and 13 stations, has since expanded to encompass a sprawling underground network of over 250 stations.
The new Moscow metro, costing an estimated $6.6 billion to build, is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Russia in recent decades, The Moscow Times reports.

Passengers explore Sokolniki station of the newly opened subway line in Moscow, Russia, on Mar. 1, 2023.

“The line has become the world’s largest underground subway ring,” President Vladimir Putin said via video link at the line’s opening this week.

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