Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 87 this. The convict trains, still sufficiently numerous, are said to be somewhat less com- fortless. The Russian peasant’s standard of comfort is, however, so low, that he appears to suffer little, if any, hardship while travelling in this style. From the Urals to the Obi the far-reaching plain is broken only by marshes and salt-lakes, with an occasional cluster of snow - white birches. At every verst is a signal- box, each in sight of the next on either side, worked with little green flags by stolid peas- ants or good-con- duct convicts. Red - painted sta- tions break the monotony every twenty or thirty miles, and at every one a halt is made by the ordinary trains for tea, vod- ka, and food to be taken. There is always a buffet, and the provisions supplied are gen- erally excellent. When the journey is to be resumed a bell rings thrice, and then the locomotive whistles thrice at Stations. }ong intervals. After the last whistle there is again a long wait before the train starts off slowly. After Tchelyabinsk the first important station is Kourgan, on the Tobol, a considerable distance from the town of the same name. In this region the Govern- ment has reserved a belt of land 67 miles wide alongside the railway for the exclusive INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH CAR WHICH TRAVELS ON THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY. use of colonists. Petropavlovsk, on the river Ichim, is next reached, a rapidly developing town, which again has been left more than a mile from its station. Crossing the great stream of the Irtysh by a six-span bridge, 2,259 feet in length, the line passes, still at a respectful distance, the large town of Omsk, the capital of its government. Omsk railway station is one of the most important centres in Siberia. It contains over seventy railway workshops, a large locomotive shed, a great network of sidings, and the general stores for the railway. There are also a hospi- tal, churches, and schools for the use of the railway men. With the cross- ing of the Obi, by a bridge 2,613 feet long, some 400 miles beyond Omsk, the central section of the rail- way is entered upon. For rather more than a hundred miles the line runs through a well-wooded, slightly hilly region lying between the steppes and the “ Taiga,” the impassable Important r Towns, region of virgin forest, stretch- ing away northwards to the verge of the Arctic zone. Skirting the northern spurs of the Altai Mountains, which separate Siberia from China, the route now has to traverse the Ala Tau and Saian Mountains, and here the work of construction began to meet with embarrassing