Why do they need this extra capacity? People who are working night shifts — nurses, guards and representatives of other professions — definitely know the answer. What are the views of the Minsk metro about this?
We asked the chief engineer of Minsk metro, Igor Shestakov, “When there’s no movement: from 1am (when metro is closed) to 5.30am (when the Minsk metro starts working) — we service routes and trains. We have two routes: in one way and back the other. In the West there’s usually a third route, so when one route is being repaired the movement of trains is organised along two other routes. Taking into account that we have only two routes the Belarusian underground has no technical opportunity to organise day-and-night movement. In total, across the CIS states, there are no circumstances when the metro could work day and night, even in Moscow. Moreover, Minsk doesn’t have such large passenger flow as in London, so to work our metro at nights would not be economically viable.”
By Alina Kasel
