On my trip to Europe I paid a visit to the world’s deepest railway station – Arsenalna (Ukrainian: Арсенальна) on the Kiev Metro in Ukraine. At 105.5 metres below ground, the trip back to the surface takes some time! The odyssey starts at platform level, when you step off the train.
A trio of escalators lead up to the surface.
For the world’s deepest Metro station, the escalator ride doesn’t seem much longer than the other ones I encountered on the Kiev Metro…
So I was surprised to reach the top in just two minutes.
But little did I know – this was just the midpoint of the climb!
Time to step onto the second set of escalators to climb the next 50 metres to the surface.
With such a long ride to the top, there is no point in standing to one side to let other people through.
I finally reached the top level concourse five minutes after leaving the train.
Finally – the surface!
Great pics!
Do you know why the platforms are so deep? Is this one of many in Kiev/Moscow metros?
In the case of Arsenalna, the extreme depth is due to geography – the station entrance is at the top of a steep valley, looking down on the Dnieper River which flows through Kiev. The platforms needed to be deep because the railway returns to ground level at the next station down the line, where it crosses the river on a bridge.
As for other deep level stations, during the Cold War the Soviets built their metro systems to double as bomb shelters – the Moscow Metro is one example of this:
http://www.alexeygoncharov.com/alexeygoncharov.com_mos_metro_depth_2012-english.gif
Saint Petersburg was the same, but they did have another reason for deep stations: the city is located at the mouth of the Neva River, with the difficult geology meaning they had to dig down to put the tunnels in solid ground:
http://www.alexeygoncharov.com/alexeygoncharov.com_spb_metro_depth_2011-english.gif
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