Sokolnicheskaya line

As the line was the first formal one in the system, its history of development coincides with the history of the Moscow Metro's first stage altogether. In short it was to cut Moscow on a northeast-southwest axis beginning at the Sokolniki Park and continuing through the Three railway terminals and then past the city centre's main traffic junctions: Red gate junction, Kirovskaya, the Lubyanka and the Manege Squares. From there, a separate branch carried off into the Arbat Street and later Kiyevsky railway station, before it became in 1938 the distinct Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line and, later, in 1958, the Filyovskaya line. The remaining part of the Frunzenskaya Branch went along the Kremlin's western wall past the Russian State Library to the future site of the Palace of the Soviets on the bank of the Moskva River and terminated near the Gorky Park.

Although Moscow Metro prides itself on the best Stalinist architecture and the earlier Art Deco attempts, the stations of the first stage are very far from those. Instead they have a very classical taste to them, which blends nicely with the neo-classical atmosphere of the mid-1930s. It is also true that the overall construction of these early stations allowed the palaces of the 1940s and 1950s to evolve from them. Most of these stations are now officially listed as architectural heritage.

Further development was seen in the latter half of the 1950s during the construction of the Frunzensky radius. The line extended into the Khamovniki District in 1957 coming up to Luzhniki Stadium and then in 1959 reached the Moscow State University on the Sparrow Hills. This required crossing the Moskva river on a combined auto and Metro bridge including a station on it. However, due to the necessity of reconstruction in 1984, the station was closed, and not reopened until 2002. The Frunzensky radius was completed in 1964 upon the last extension into the new bedroom communities along the Vernadsky Avenue of southwestern Moscow.

At the opposite end, there were two extensions: one in 1965 across the Yauza River (also via an open bridge) to Preobrazhenskaya Square, and another in 1990 into the Bogorodskoye District.

Two depots are assigned to the line, the TCh-1 Severnoye and the TCh-13 Cherkizovo. Starting in 1997 both depots have been upgrading to the new 81-717.5M/714.5M trains (all factory fresh). Currently all carriages of the old Ezh, Ezh-1, Em-508 and Em-509 have been retired.

When the line opened in 1935, trainsets included only four cars. By the middle of the 20th century, trainsets expanded to seven cars. In 2018, the Metro became extending trains of Cherkizovo depot to eight cars. This will add additional capacity to the system of more than 186,000 passengers per day.[6]

Subway car types used on the line over the years:

- Series A, B: 1935 - 1951

- Series V: 1946 - 1958

- Series D: 1956 - 1986

- Series E: 1966 - 2002

- Series Ezh, Em-508 and Em-509: 1970 - 2008

- Series 81-717.5M/714.5M: 1997 - present

- Series 81-717.5A/714.5A: since 2010 (only one train)

- Series 81-765.3/766.3/767.3: 2019 (only one train)

- Series 81-765.4/766.4/767.4: 2019 - present

- Series 81-765/766/767: 2020 - present

- Series 81-740.1/741.1: 2020 - present

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• Winchester, Clarence, ed. (1936), "Moscow's underground", Railway Wonders of the World, pp. 894–899 illustrated contemporary description of the Moscow underground