The Salekhard-Igarka Railway, known as the Dead Road, was an uncompleted and subsequently abandoned Soviet railway project built by Gulag forced labor between 1947 and 1953.
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Was the Salekhard-Igarka Railway ever completed to Igarka?
That was Stalin's notorious Project 501 / 503, the Dead Road (Мёртвая дорога), built by Gulag prisoner labour between 1947 and 1953 to link Salekhard on the Ob to Igarka on the Yenisey.
The eastern section (Building 503) pushed west from the Yenisey towards the Taz and Pur rivers, with its headquarters and main depot right near Yermakovo, just upriver from Igarka. Construction was instantly abandoned the moment Stalin died in March 1953.
It was never connected through or opened for through-traffic. The permafrost buckled the unballasted tracks almost immediately, bridges rotted or washed out, and the abandoned steam locomotives were left sitting out in the taiga. Today Igarka has no rail connection whatsoever.