Trans-Siberian Railway

Trans-Siberian line in red; Baikal Amur Mainline in green.

The Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad in Russian, or Transsibirskaya magistral', Transsib) is a network of railways connecting Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces, Mongolia, China and the Sea of Japan.

History

The main route, the Trans-Siberian, runs from Moscow to Vladivostok via southern Siberia and was built between 1891 and 1916. It is often associated with the main Russian train that connects these two cities. At 9,288 kilometres (5,772 miles), spanning 8 time zones and taking about 7 days to complete its journey, it is the third longest single continuous service in the world, after the Donetsk - Vladivostok and Moscow - Pyongyang services, both of which follow the Trans-Siberian.

Demand and Designing

The Trans-Mongolian train passing through the Gobi Desert

A second primary route is the Trans-Manchurian, which coincides with the Trans-Siberian as far as Tarskaya, about 1000 km east of Lake Baikal . From Tarskaya the Trans-Manchurian heads southeast into China and makes its way down to Beijing . The third primary route is the Trans-Mongolian, which coincides with the Trans-Siberian as far as Ulan Ude on Lake Baikal 's eastern shore. From Ulan-Ude the Trans-Mongolian heads south to Ulaan-Baatar before making its way southeast to Beijing .

In 1991, a fourth route running further to the north was finally completed, after more than five decades of sporadic work. Known as the Baikal Amur Mainline (BAM), this recent extension departs from the Trans-Siberian line several hundred miles west of Lake Baikal and passes the lake at its northernmost extremity. It reaches the Pacific to the northeast of Khabarovsk , at Sovetskaya Gavan (i.e., Soviet Haven, a.k.a. Sovgavan, Sovietgavan, and earlier Imperatorskaya Gavan, i.e., Imperial Haven). While this route provides access to Baikal's stunning northern coast, it also passes through some rather forbidding terrain.

The first projects of railroads in Siberia emerged since the creation of the railroad Moscow-St. Petersburg.[1] One of the first was Irkutsk-Chita project, intended to connect the former to Amur river and, consequently, to the Pacific Ocean. By the Muravyov-Amursky's initiative, surveys on a railroad in Khabarovsk region were conducted.

But before 1880 the central government almost not responded to these projects, because of weakness of Siberian enterprises, heavy and clumsy bureaucracy, and fear of financial risk. Financial minister count Kankrin wrote:

The idea of covering Russia with a railroad network not just exceeds any possibility, but even building the railway from Petersburg to Kazan must be found untimely by several centuries.

The abovementioned Irkutsk-Chita project, proposed by an American entrepreneur W. Collins, was rejected by the government, and a lesson was given to the major-general Muravyov-Amurskiy who thoughtlessly showed benevolence to the American project. Thus the government tried to prevent the involvement of Siberia in the American and British sphere of influence in the Pacific region.