Trans-Siberian Railway

On the night of June 3,1989, a pipeline carrying liquefied natural gas began to leak close to the Trans-Siberian railway track between the towns of Asma and Ufa. A flammable doud of leakage covered the railway track. At the moment two trains passed through the cloud shortly after midnight, it was ignited. The blast was enormous, and considerable portions of both trains were derailed. The death toll was approximately 650. 

It wasn t an easy journey. The Trans-Siberian Railway did not yet exist. Fifteen years previously a large network of railroads had been proposed, but Russia s minister of finance, who believed that rail travel was a threat to public morals, rejected the idea. Railroads, he said, encouraged frequent purposeless travel, thus fostering the restless spirit of our age. ... 

Measurements were made in the travel of the Russian-German experiment TROICA-2 along Trans-Siberian railway during July-August 1996. Used instruments included a DASIBI-1008AH analyzer for ozone concentration measurements, a chemiluminescence gas analyzer AC-30M for NOx measurements, a solar radiation... 

The building of the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad was a major engineering feat when the western portion of the 2,000-mile railroad across the United States was built in the 1860 s. Logistics was a major part of the project, with the need to transport steel rails and wooden ties great distances. An even more formidable task was construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the world s longest railway. It was built from 1891 to 1904 and covers 5,900 miles across Russia, from Moscow in the west to Vladivostok in the east. 

A leak had occurred in the pipeline between the towns of Ufa and Asma at a point 800 m (0.5 mi) away from the Trans-Siberian double railway track. The area was a wooded valley. Throughout the area, there had been a strong smell of gas a few hours before the blast. The gas cloud was reported to have drifted for a distance of 8 km (5 mi). 

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