Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

88 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. difficulties. The cost of the 1,186 miles be- tween the Obi and Lake Baikal, though the first 367 miles was over open plains, amounted to £11,743,901, or £9,902 per mile. The prin- down the connecting branch from the little settlement of Taiga (“In the wood ”) to Tomsk, the same “ dispute ” arose between the surveyors and the local people, and LAYING THE RAILS OF THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY. oil must be The Penalties of Independ- ence. cipal towns on this section are Tomsk, the most populous town of Siberia and capital of the government of the same name, Krasnoi- arsk, and Kansk. Tomsk, lying at the end of an inconvenient branch line 56 miles long, furnishes the most glaring instance of the official methods followed during the survey for the railway. The surveying engineers, it is well established, approached the Tomsk town authorities, and hinted that under certain conditions the main line would be laid to the town, but that possibly an alternative route might be chosen. The townspeople were given to understand that to secure the carry- ing out of the former project the usual “ palm forthcoming. The citizens re- fused, however, to be treated in that way, and the painful result of their independence was that the Siberian Railway- passed nearly sixty miles south of their town. Again, when the question arose of laying the former took their revenge by allow- ing the line to approach Tomsk within two miles, and then taking it carefully round the town at an equal distance, to a terminus a couple of miles distant on the farther side. It would seem that no Siberian town of any importance was complaisant enough to escape punishment of this kind entirely. Perhaps Irkutsk is the most fortunate, for there the station is but on the other side of the river. Other towns generally have to use from one to three miles of road, and it must not be forgotten that in Siberia roads are no roads. Two or three feet of slush or dust take the place of road-metal when the frost is out of the ground. From Taiga the line runs 300 miles through virgin pine-forests until Krasnoiarsk is ap- proached. This is another important depot, employing fifteen hundred workmen in the various shops and engine-sheds, while vast stores of railway material are kept there.