Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 83 last-named being the region between Lake Baikal and the Pacific Ocean. Western Siberia extends from the Ural Moun- Features of , . , ... . tains to the Yenisei River, m Siberia. a vast plain of good agricul- tural soil in the middle and southern parts, destined, many people think, to become the greatest granary of the world. Eastern Siberia, thrice as large, is mostly hilly or mountainous. The climate is severe, with extremes of temperature, and abrupt changes from winter to summer and the reverse. From St. Petersburg to Vladivostok the total distance is 5,800 miles ; to Port Arthur, 6,000 miles. Leaving the modern capital, the irx. traveller reaches Moscow in Distances. eleven to twelve and a nali hours by an almost dead straight line of 404 miles. From Moscow the route lies through a rich country dotted with some of the most prosperous villages of the empire. Samara is reached in thirty-four hours. This town lies in the famous “ black earth ” region, known to the Russians as the “ Tchernoziom,” peopled by a strange medley of races and tribes. At this point comes in the railway from Oren- burg, bringing the trade of Khiva, Bokhara, and Central Asia. From Samara the line runs north-east through a flat country to Ufa (95 miles), and after passing Zlatoust ascends the wooded slopes of the Ural Mountains, the great mining region of European Russia. At the highest point of the range a triangular stone pyramid, bearing on one side the word “ Europe,” and on another “ Asia,” marks the frontier. The line follows the curves and contours of the gentle slopes with few cuttings and no tunnel whatever throughout its course, and so slides down to the important junction of Tchelya- binsk, the actual starting-point of the Siberian trunk line, and also the terminus of a railway now running northward through Ekaterinburg towards Archangel on the White Sea. The problem which faced the Russian engineers and financiers in 1891 was to con- nect, by means of an uninterrupted line of rails, this station of Tchelya- ___ „ " The Task. binsk with Khabarovsk on the lower Amur, and so with the port and fortress of Vladivostok. The work naturally divided itself into sections presenting widely different degrees of engineering difficulty. The great plains of the west lend themselves peculiarly to railway construction ; but half way, roughly speaking, is the very formidable obstacle of Lake Baikal, throwing its full length across the path. East of this lake the broken valley of the Amur promised trouble enough, a promise which still holds good. The Vladivostok- Khabarovsk section was fairly simple, and eventually the difficulties of the Amur valley were turned, as will be seen, by diverting the track across Chinese territory, which afforded easy going. During the three last years of Czar Alex- ander’s reign much progress was made in mapping and surveying the route, and a scheme for laying down the line in sections was formulated. Thus Purveying. shortly after his accession in 1894 the Czar Nicholas, who retained his pöst of president of the committee directing the railway, was able to say to the members : “ With your assistance, I hope to complete the construc- tion of the Siberian line, and to have it done cheaply, and, most important of all, quickly and solidly.” The work was now vigorously put in hand ; but from the outset the enormous sums of money required, and the fact that the scanty population and backward state r , • n-T • Specifications, of agriculture m Siberia ren- dered a return of profit very problematical, compelled the Imperial Commission to keep the initial outlay as low as possible. Euro- pean methods of railway construction had to be modified very greatly. It was decided that a single track should be laid down, with a through carrying capacity of only three