The Trans-Siberian, the Trans-Siberian Railway (modern names) or the Great Siberian Way (historical name) is a well-equipped railroad across the entire continent, connecting European Russia, its largest industrial regions and the country's capital Moscow with its middle (Siberia) and eastern (Far East) districts. This is the road that binds Russia, a country that stretches across 10 time zones, into a single economic organism, and most importantly, into a single military-strategic space. If it had not been built at the time, then with a very high probability Russia would hardly have kept the Far East and the Pacific coast for itself - just as it could not keep Alaska, which was in no way connected with the Russian Empire by stable means of communication. The Trans-Siberian is also the road that gave impetus to the development of the eastern regions and involved them in the economic life of the rest of the vast country.

Some think that the term "Trans-Siberian" should be interpreted as a route connecting the Urals and the Far East, and literally passing "through" Siberia (Trans-Siberian). But this is contrary to the state of affairs and does not reflect the true meaning of this highway. What about the title? This name was given to us by the British, who dubbed the path not “Great Siberian Way”, as the literal translation from Russian should have been, but “Trans-Siberian Railway” - and then it took root and took root in speech.

And now "Transsib" as a geopolitical concept makes sense as a path connecting the Center and the Pacific Ocean, Moscow and Vladivostok, and more broadly - as a path connecting the ports of the West and the capital of Russia, as well as exits to Europe (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Brest, Kaliningrad) with ports of the East and outlets to Asia (Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Vanino, Zabaikalsk); and not a local route connecting the Urals and the Far East.

The narrow interpretation of the term "Transsib" suggests that we are talking about the main passenger route Moscow - Yaroslavl - Yekaterinburg - Omsk - Irkutsk - Chita - Vladivostok, the exact route of which is given below.

The length of the Trans-Siberian.

The actual length of the Trans-Siberian Railway along the main passenger route (from Moscow to Vladivostok) is 9288.2 km, and according to this indicator, it is the longest on the planet, crossing almost all of Eurasia by land. The tariff length (according to which ticket prices are calculated) is somewhat larger - 9298 km and does not coincide with the real one. There are several parallel cargo bypasses in different sections. The track gauge on the Trans-Siberian is 1520 mm.

The length of the Great Siberian Route before the First World War from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok along the northern passenger route (through Vologda - Perm - Yekaterinburg - Omsk - Chita - Harbin) was 8913 versts, or 9508 km.
The Trans-Siberian Railway passes through the territory of two parts of the world: Europe (0 - 1777 km) and Asia (1778 - 9289 km). Europe accounts for 19.1% of the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Asia, respectively - 80.9%.

Beginning and end of highway.

Currently, the starting point of the Trans-Siberian Railway is Yaroslavsky Station in Moscow, and the final point is Vladivostok Station.
But this was not always the case: until about the mid-1920s, the Kazan (then Ryazan) railway station was the gateway to Siberia and the Far East, and in the very initial period of the Trans-Siberian Railway's existence - at the beginning of the 20th century - the Kursk-Nizhny Novgorod (now Kursk) railway station in Moscow . It should also be mentioned that before the 1917 revolution, the starting point of the Great Siberian Way was considered to be the Moscow railway station of St. Russian Empire.

Vladivostok was not always considered the final destination: for a short time, starting from the very end of the 90s of the 19th century and up to the decisive land battles of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, contemporaries considered the naval fortress and the city of Port to be the end of the Great Siberian Way. -Arthur, located on the coast of the East China Sea, on the Liaodong Peninsula rented from China.
About the geographical limits of the Trans-Siberian (extreme points in the west, east, north and south), you can.

Construction: milestones.

Start of construction: May 19 (31), 1891 in the area near Vladivostok (Kuperovskaya Pad), Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Nicholas II, was present at the laying.

The actual start of construction took place a little earlier, in early March 1891, when the construction of the Miass-Chelyabinsk section began.
The bridge of rails along the entire length of the Great Siberian Way took place on October 21 (November 3), 1901, when the builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway, who were laying the rail track from the west and east, met each other. But there was no regular train traffic along the entire length of the highway at that time.

Regular communication between the capital of the empire - St. Petersburg and the Pacific ports of Russia - Vladivostok and Dalniy by rail was established in July 1903, when the Chinese Eastern Railway, passing through Manchuria, was put into permanent (“correct”) operation. The date of July 1 (14), 1903 also marked the commissioning of the Great Siberian Way along its entire length, although there was a break in the rail track: trains had to be transported across Lake Baikal on a special ferry.

A continuous rail track between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok appeared after the start of the working movement along the Circum-Baikal Railway on September 18 (October 1), 1904; and a year later, on October 16 (29), 1905, the Circum-Baikal Road, as a segment of the Great Siberian Way, was put into permanent operation; and regular passenger trains for the first time in history were able to travel only on rails, without the use of ferries, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean (from Western Europe) to the shores of the Pacific Ocean (to Vladivostok).

End of construction on the territory of the Russian Empire: October 5 (18), 1916, with the launch of the bridge over the Amur near Khabarovsk and the start of train traffic on this bridge.

The cost of building the Trans-Siberian from 1891 to 1913 amounted to 1.455.413 thousand rubles, about the cost of building specific sections of the Great Siberian Way.

The modern route of the Trans-Siberian.

Since 1956, the Trans-Siberian route has been as follows: Moscow-Yaroslavskaya - Yaroslavl-Gl. - Danilov - Bui - Sharya - Kirov - Balezino - Perm-2 - Yekaterinburg-Pass. - Tyumen - Nazyvaevskaya - Omsk-Pass. - Barabinsk - Novosibirsk-Main - Mariinsk - Achinsk-1 - Krasnoyarsk - Ilanskaya - Taishet - Nizhneudinsk - Winter - Irkutsk-Pass. - Slyudyanka-1 - Ulan-Ude - Petrovsky Zavod - Chita-2 - Karymskaya - Chernyshevsk-Zabaykalsky - Mogocha - Skovorodino - Belogorsk - Arkhara - Khabarovsk-1 - Vyazemskaya - Ruzhino - Ussuriysk - Vladivostok. This is the main passenger passage of the Trans-Siberian. It was finally formed by the beginning of the 30s, when the normal operation of the shorter Chinese Eastern Railway became impossible due to military and political reasons, and the South Ural route was too overloaded due to the industrialization of the USSR that had begun.

Until 1949, in the Baikal region, the main course of the Trans-Siberian Railway passed along the Circum-Baikal Road, through Irkutsk - along the Angara coast - the Baikal station - along the Baikal coast - to the Slyudyanka station, in 1949-56. there were two routes - the old one, along the shore of Lake Baikal, and the new one, the pass. Moreover, the pass route was initially built in a 1-way version (1941-1948), and by 1957 it became a 2-way and main one.

Since June 10, 2001, after the introduction of the new summer timetable of the Ministry of Railways, almost all long-distance Trans-Siberian trains were launched on a new route through Vladimir - Nizhny Novgorod with access to the "classic course" in Kotelnich. This move allows trains with a higher route speed to pass. But the mileage of the Trans-Siberian still passes through Yaroslavl - Sharya.

The historical route of the Trans-Siberian.

Before the revolution of 1917 and some time after it (until the end of the 20s of the XX century), the main route of the Great Siberian Way passed:
From Moscow, starting from 1904: via Ryazan - Ryazhsk - Penza - Syzran - Samara - Ufa - Chelyabinsk - Kurgan - Petropavlovsk -

- (Great Siberian Railway), w. e. line Chelyabinsk Omsk Irkutsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok (about 7 thousand km), connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Built in 1891 1916; electrified for a considerable distance. ... ... Russian history

- (Great Siberian Mainline) railway line Chelyabinsk Omsk Irkutsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok (about 7 thousand km), connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Built in 1891 1916 ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Trans-Siberian Railway- (Trans Siberian Railway), railway, which facilitated the development of Siberia and the penetration of Russia into the East. Asia. The building began with money received from the French. loan in 1891, and was practically completed in 1904. The concern that it caused in Japan was ... ... The World History

The Great Siberian Mainline, the railway line Chelyabinsk Omsk Irkutsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok (about 7 thousand km), connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Built in 1891 1916. * * * TRANSSIBERIAN LINE… … encyclopedic Dictionary

Trans-Siberian Railway- The Trans-Siberian Railway, the Great Siberian Railway, the largest transcontinental double-track railway connecting the central regions of the country with Siberia and the Far East (Moscow - Ryazan - Syzran - ... ... Dictionary "Geography of Russia"

Trans-Siberian Railway- The world's largest transcontinental railway line with a total length of 9332 km (in the Amur Region, the length is 1104 km). It connects countries with the Far East, passing through the whole of Siberia, which determined its name: Latin ... ... Toponymic Dictionary of the Amur Region

Trans-Siberian Railway- Russia. The world's largest transcontinental railway line with a total length of 9332 km. It connects the countries with the Far East, passing through the whole of Siberia, which determined its name: Latin trans - “through, through” ... Geographical names of the Russian Far East

Transcontinental d., double track throughout. Connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East along the route: Moscow - Ryazan - Syzran - Samara - ... Geographic Encyclopedia

Trans-Siberian Railway- Trans-Siberian Railway al ... Russian spelling dictionary

Trans-Siberian Railway - … Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language

Books

• Trans-Siberian Railway. The history of the creation of the Russian railway network, Volmar Christian. The book of the famous British journalist Christian Volmar "The Trans-Siberian Railway. The history of the creation of the Russian railway network", the author of over a dozen various publications in the field of…
• The Trans-Siberian Railway The History of the Russian Railway Network, Volmar K.

There are various types of transport - road, water, air, pipeline - they all form a single transport system of the country. In this system, the railway occupies a special place. It is indispensable when transporting a huge number of passengers, especially in the suburban areas of megacities, in addition, the railway allows you to transport any cargo.

The Trans-Siberian Railway (or, as it was called before, the Great Siberian Railway) surpasses any railway line on our planet, it was built for almost a quarter of a century - from 1891 to 1916, and its total length is more than 10,000 kilometers.

History Trans-Siberian Railway

At the beginning of the 20th century, the gigantic regions of Western Siberia remained cut off from the European part of the Russian Empire, so there was a need to organize a route that could get there with minimal time and money. It became necessary to build railway lines through Siberia. In 1857, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia N. N. Muravyov-Amursky officially voiced the need to build a railway on the Siberian outskirts of Russia.

The government gave permission for the construction of the road only by the 80s. Moreover, it agreed to independently finance the construction, without the intervention of foreign sponsors. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway required huge investments. According to preliminary calculations by the Committee for the Construction of the Siberian Railway, its cost was determined at three hundred and fifty million rubles in gold.

In 1887, a special expedition was sent under the leadership of N.P. Mezheninov, O.P. Vyazemsky and A.I. Ursati in order to determine the optimal route for the passage of the future railway.

The most acute and intractable was the problem of providing the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway with labor. The way out was to send the so-called "army of a permanent labor reserve" to compulsory work. A significant part of the builders were prisoners and soldiers. were unbearably hard living conditions workers. They were housed in cramped, dirty barracks without floors.

Here is how one of the newspapers of that time described the place of residence of the workers: “Thirty workers were placed on a space of three sazhens wide and seven lengths. The bunks were laid in one row at a distance of up to half an arshin from the ground. The dirt on the bunks was terrible, and the people sitting on them constantly scratched their sides, chest and head, since, apparently, the insects did not give them rest ... "

All work was done by hand, the tools were the most primitive - an ax, a saw, a shovel, a pick and a wheelbarrow. Despite this, about 500 - 600 kilometers of railway track were laid annually. Despite the daily and exhausting struggle with the forces of nature, construction workers and engineers coped with the task of building the Great Siberian Way in a short time.

By the 1990s, the Central Siberian, Trans-Baikal and South Ussuri railways were practically completed. In February 1891, the Committee of Ministers recognized the possibility of starting work on the construction of the Great Siberian Way.

The highway was planned to be built in three phases. The first stage is the road. The second stage is the Trans-Baikal road from Mysovaya to Sretensk. The third stage is the Circum-Baikal road from Irkutsk to.

The construction of this gigantic highway began simultaneously from two terminal points. In 1898 the western branch reached Irkutsk. Here, passengers had to transfer to a ferry, overcoming 65 kilometers along the waters of the lake. In winter, when the lake was ice-bound, an icebreaker pierced the way for the ferry - this colossus, weighing 4267 tons, was made to order in England. Then, stage after stage, the rails gradually ran along the southern shore of the lake, and the need for a ferry disappeared.

The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway took place in harsh natural and climatic conditions. For almost the entire length, the route was laid through sparsely populated or deserted areas, in impassable. She crossed the mighty Siberian rivers, numerous lakes, areas of increased swampiness and eternal. The site around Lake Baikal presented exceptional difficulties for the builders. To pave the way, they blew up rocks and erected artificial structures.

Traffic along the Trans-Baikal Mainline was opened in 1900. And in 1907, the world's first building was built at the Mozgon station, which still stands today. A new method of building buildings on permafrost was adopted in and in Alaska.

Location of the Trans-Siberian Railway

The train departs from Moscow, crosses, and then turns southeast towards the Urals, where it - about 1800 kilometers from Moscow - passes the border between Europe and. From, a large industrial center on, the path lies to Omsk and to Novosibirsk, through one of the mighty Siberian rivers with intensive navigation, and further to Krasnoyarsk on. Then the train goes to Irkutsk, overcomes the mountain range along the southern coast of Lake Baikal, cuts off the corner of the Gobi and, passing Khabarovsk, heads for the final point of the route - Vladivostok.

There are 87 cities on the Trans-Siberian with a population of 300,000 to 15 million people. 14 cities through which the Trans-Siberian Railway passes are the centers of subjects Russian Federation.

In the regions served by the highway, more than 65% of the coal produced in Russia is mined, almost 20% of oil refining and 25% of commercial timber production is carried out. More than 80% of deposits of the main natural resources are concentrated here, including oil, ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals.

In the east, through the border stations of Khasan, Grodekovo, Zabaikalsk, Naushki, the Trans-Siberian Railway provides access to the railway network, China and, and in the west, through Russian ports and border crossings from former republics Soviet Union- in .

Features of the Trans-Siberian Railway

The longest railway in the world connected two parts of the world - Europe and Asia, its length is more than 10,000 kilometers. As on all railways in Russia, the track here is wider than the European one - one and a half meters.

The entire Trans-Siberian Railway is divided into several sections:

1. Ussuri road;
2. West Siberian road;
3. Central Siberian road;
4. Transbaikal road;
5. Manchurian road;
6. Circum-Baikal road;
7. Amur road.

The Ussuri railway, with a total length of 769 kilometers with thirty-nine separate points, entered into permanent operation in November 1897. It became the first railway line in the Far East.

The construction of the West Siberian road began in June 1892. With the exception of the watershed between Ishim and, it passes through the area. The road rises only at the approaches to the bridges across. Only for bypassing water bodies, and when crossing rivers, the route deviates from a straight line.

The construction of the Central Siberian Railway began in January 1898. Along its length there are bridges over the rivers Tom, Iya, Uda, Kiya. The unique bridge across the Yenisei was designed by an outstanding bridge builder - Professor L. D. Proskuryakov.

The Trans-Baikal Railway is part of the Great Siberian Railway, which starts from the Mysovaya station on Lake Baikal and ends at the Sretensk pier on the Amur. The route runs along the shore of Lake Baikal, crosses numerous mountain rivers. The construction of the road began in 1895 under the guidance of engineer A. N. Pushechnikov.

After the signing of an agreement between Russia, the construction of the Manzhur road began, connecting the Siberian Railway with. new road with a length of 6503 kilometers made it possible to open through railway traffic from to Vladivostok.

The construction of the Circum-Baikal section was the last to begin (in 1900), since this is the most difficult and expensive area. The construction of the most difficult section of the road between capes Aslomov and Sharazhangai was headed by engineer A.V. Liverovsky. The length of this highway is an eighteenth of the total length of the road, and its construction required a fourth of the total cost of the road. Throughout the journey, the train passes twelve tunnels and four galleries.

In 1906, work began on the route of the Amur road, which is divided into the North Amur (from the Kerak station to the Bureya river with a length of 675 kilometers with a branch to Blagoveshchensk) and the East Amur line.

The creation of the Trans-Siberian Railway was a great achievement of the Russian people. With difficulties and joys, the builders finished the road. They paved it on their bones, blood and humiliation, but still coped with this incredibly hard work. This road allowed Russia to transport a huge number of passengers and cargo. Every year, up to 100 million tons of cargo are transported along the Trans-Siberian railway. Thanks to the construction of the highway, the deserted territories of Siberia were settled.

The Trans-Siberian Railway (Great Siberian Way) surpasses any railway line on our planet, it was built for almost a quarter of a century - from 1891 to 1916, and its total length is more than 10,000 kilometers. The Trans-Siberian Railway reliably connects Russian western and southern ports, as well as railway outlets to Europe (St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Novorossiysk), on the one hand, with Pacific ports and railway outlets to Asia (Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Vanino, Zabaikalsk). The history of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway will be discussed below ...

So, we continue the series of stories about the construction of the century on LifeGlobe. This highway is one of the longest in the world, and the most difficult in the world in terms of construction. The Trans-Siberian is one of the most important achievements, along with DneproGes, BAM and other construction projects of the century, which we have already talked about. Let's turn to the history of the highway: They started talking about construction in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1857, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia N. N. Muravyov-Amursky raised the question of building a railway on the Siberian outskirts of Russia. He instructed the military engineer D. Romanov to conduct surveys and draw up a project for the construction of a railway from the Amur to the De-Kastri Bay. The first practical impetus for the start of the construction of the grandiose highway was given by the Emperor of the Russian Empire Alexander III. In 1886, the sovereign imposed a resolution on the report of the Irkutsk governor-general:

"I have read so many reports of the Governor-Generals of Siberia and I must confess with sadness and shame that the government has so far done almost nothing to meet the needs of this rich, but neglected region. And it's time, it's time."

Alexander III

The merchants of Russia were especially active in supporting the idea of ​​construction. So, in the most loyal address of the Siberian merchants in 1868, it was emphasized

“We alone, Sovereign, Your Siberian children, are far from You, if not in heart, then in space. We suffer great need from that.
The riches of the arable land lie useless for Your throne and for us. Grant us a railroad, draw us closer to You, estranged from You. They ordered that Siberia be introduced together in a single state.

At the same time, there were also principled opponents of the construction of the railway in Siberia. They frightened us with rotten swamps and dense taiga, terrible cold and the inability to develop agriculture. They even urgently demanded an urgent medical examination to determine the mental abilities of the defenders of the idea of ​​building railways in Siberia. Acting Governor of Tobolsk A. Sologub, in response to a government inquiry about the possibility and necessity of building a highway in Siberia, replied that all sorts of swindlers, buyers and the like would come to the province with railways, that a struggle would flare up between foreigners in Russian merchants, that the people would be ruined, and all the benefits will go to foreigners and crooks. And the most important thing: "Observation of the maintenance of order in the region will become impossible, and, in conclusion, the supervision of political exiles will become more difficult due to the facilitation of escapes."


The Committee of Ministers considered on 18 December 1884 and 2 January 1885 the submission of the Ministry of Railways. As before, the voices were divided. Therefore, the Committee of Ministers came to the conclusion that the indication of a specific direction of the road within Siberia, due to the lack of information about the economy of many regions of Western Siberia, especially the movement of goods along them, is premature. At the same time, he recognized that it was possible to allow, without starting the construction of a road from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan, the construction of a road from Samara to Ufa. This decision was influenced by the statement of the chairman of the State Council, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, about the importance for the country of state-owned artillery factories in the Zlatoust district. The decision of the Committee of Ministers was approved by the emperor on January 6, and on January 25 he also allowed the construction of the road to begin at the expense of the treasury. Construction work began in the spring of 1886, and in September 1886 the road to Ufa was opened. The well-known engineer K. Mikhailovsky supervised the work. In the same year, under his leadership, the construction of the road to Zlatoust began. Construction work had to be carried out in a mountainous area. Many artificial structures were erected. In August 1890, trains went along the entire Samara-Zlatoust road


According to estimates by the committee for the construction of the Siberian Railway, the cost of the project reached 350 million rubles in gold. Almost all work was done by hand, using an ax, saw, shovel, pick and wheelbarrow. Despite this, about 500–600 km of railway track were laid annually. History has never known such a pace. The most acute and intractable was the problem of providing the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway with labor. The need for skilled workers was met by the recruitment and transfer to Siberia of builders from the center of the country. At the height of construction work on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, 84-89 thousand people were employed. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was carried out in harsh natural and climatic conditions. For almost the entire length, the route was laid through sparsely populated or deserted areas, in impenetrable taiga. It crossed the mighty Siberian rivers, numerous lakes, areas of increased swampiness and permafrost (from Kuenga to Bochkarevo, now Belogorsk). Exceptional difficulties for the builders were presented by the area around Lake Baikal (Baikal station - Mysovaya station). Here it was necessary to blow up rocks, lay tunnels, erect artificial structures in the gorges of mountain rivers flowing into Lake Baikal.

The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway required huge funds. According to preliminary calculations by the Committee for the Construction of the Siberian Railway, its cost was determined at 350 million rubles. gold, therefore, in order to speed up and reduce the cost of construction, in 1891-1892. for the Ussuriyskaya line and the West Siberian line (from Chelyabinsk to the Ob River), simplified specifications were taken as a basis. So, according to the recommendations of the Committee, they reduced the width of the subgrade in embankments, excavations and in mountainous areas, as well as the thickness of the ballast layer, laid lightweight rails and shortened sleepers, reduced the number of sleepers per 1 km of track, etc. It was envisaged capital construction only large railway bridges, and medium and small bridges were supposed to be built of wood. The distance between stations was allowed up to 50 miles, track buildings were built on wooden poles. Here builders first encountered permafrost. Traffic along the Trans-Baikal Mainline was opened in 1900. And in 1907, the world's first building on permafrost was built at the Mozgon station, which still stands today. The new method of building buildings on permafrost has been adopted in Canada, Greenland and Alaska.


In terms of the speed of construction (within 12 years), the length (7.5 thousand km), the difficulties of construction and the volume of work performed, the Great Siberian Railway was unmatched in the whole world. In conditions of almost complete impassability, a lot of time and money was spent on delivering the necessary building materials - in fact, everything except timber had to be imported. For example, for the bridge over the Irtysh and for the station in Omsk, stone was transported 740 versts by rail from Chelyabinsk and 580 versts from the banks of the Ob, as well as by water on barges from quarries located on the banks of the Irtysh 900 versts above the bridge. Metal structures for the bridge over the Amur were manufactured in Warsaw and delivered by rail to Odessa, and then transported by sea to Vladivostok, and from there by rail to Khabarovsk. In the autumn of 1914, a German cruiser sank a Belgian steamer in the Indian Ocean, which was carrying steel parts for the last two trusses of the bridge, which delayed the completion of work by a year.


Trans-Siberian Railway already in the first period of operation revealed its great importance for the development of the economy, contributed to the acceleration and growth of the turnover of goods. However, the capacity of the road was insufficient. Traffic along the Siberian and Trans-Baikal railways became extremely tense during the Russo-Japanese War, when troops poured in from the west. The highway could not cope with the movement of troops and the delivery of military cargo. During the war, the Siberian railway passed only 13 trains a day, so it was decided to reduce the transportation of civilian goods and, a few decades later, to build the Baikal-Amur Mainline (for more information about the construction of BAM, follow the link)


The train leaves Moscow, crosses the Volga, and then turns southeast towards the Urals, where it - about 1800 kilometers from Moscow - passes the border between Europe and Asia. From Yekaterinburg, a large industrial center in the Urals, the path lies to Omsk and Novosibirsk, across the Ob - one of the mighty Siberian rivers with intensive navigation, and further to Krasnoyarsk on the Yenisei. Then the train goes to Irkutsk, overcomes the mountain range along the southern coast of Lake Baikal, cuts off the corner of the Gobi Desert and, passing Khabarovsk, heads for the final point of the route - Vladivostok. There are 87 cities on the Trans-Siberian with a population of 300,000 to 15 million people. 14 cities through which the Trans-Siberian Railway passes are the centers of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In the regions served by the highway, more than 65% of the coal produced in Russia is mined, almost 20% of oil refining and 25% of commercial timber production is carried out. More than 80% of deposits of the main natural resources are concentrated here, including oil, gas, coal, timber, ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. In the east, through the border stations of Khasan, Grodekovo, Zabaikalsk, Naushki, the Trans-Siberian Railway provides access to the railway network of North Korea, China and Mongolia, and in the west, through Russian ports and border crossings with the former republics of the Soviet Union - to European countries. The Trans-Siberian Railway is marked with a red line on the map, the BAM is marked with a green line


The entire Trans-Siberian Railway is divided into several sections:

1. The Ussuri railway, with a total length of 769 kilometers with thirty-nine separate points, entered into permanent operation in November 1897. It became the first railway line in the Far East.

2. West Siberian road. With the exception of the watershed between the Ishim and the Irtysh, it runs through flat terrain. The road rises only at the approaches to bridges over large rivers. Only for bypassing reservoirs, ravines and when crossing rivers, the route deviates from a straight line

3. The construction of the Central Siberian Road began in January 1898. Along its length there are bridges over the rivers Tom, Iya, Uda, Kiya. The unique bridge across the Yenisei was designed by an outstanding bridge builder - Professor L. D. Proskuryakov.


4. The Trans-Baikal Railway is part of the Great Siberian Railway, which starts from the Mysovaya station on Baikal and ends at the Sretensk pier on the Amur. The route runs along the shore of Lake Baikal, crosses numerous mountain rivers. The construction of the road began in 1895 under the guidance of engineer A. N. Pushechnikov.


5. After the signing of the agreement between Russia and China, the construction of the Manzhurskaya road began, connecting the Siberian Railway with Vladivostok. The new road with a length of 6503 kilometers made it possible to open through railway traffic from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok.

6. The construction of the Circum-Baikal section was the last to begin (in 1900), since this is the most difficult and expensive area. The construction of the most difficult section of the road between capes Aslomov and Sharazhangai was headed by engineer A.V. Liverovsky. The length of this highway is an eighteenth of the total length of the road, and its construction required a fourth of the total cost of the road. Throughout the journey, the train passes twelve tunnels and four galleries. The Circum-Baikal Railway is a unique monument of engineering architecture. On May 17, 1891, Tsar Alexander III issued a decree on the start of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, "ordering now to begin the construction of a continuous railway through the whole of Siberia, which has to connect the Siberian regions abundant with gifts with a network of internal rail communications." At the beginning of 1902, the construction of the Circum-Baikal Railway began, headed by engineer B.U.Savrimovich. The railway track along the shore of Lake Baikal was built mainly in 2 years 3 months and put into operation almost a year ahead of schedule (which was largely facilitated by the outbreak of hostilities in the Far East). On September 30, 1904, the working movement along the Circum-Baikal Railway began (the Minister of Railways, Prince M.I. Khilkov, traveled from the port of Baikal to Kultuk on the first train), and on October 15, 1905, permanent traffic was opened. In the photo: tunnel No. 8 punched through the rock of Cape Tolstoy.

7. In 1906, work began on the route of the Amur road, which is divided into the North Amur (from the Kerak station to the Bureya river with a length of 675 kilometers with a branch to Blagoveshchensk) and the East Amur line.

In the 1990s - 2000s, a number of measures were taken to modernize the Trans-Siberian Railway, designed to increase the throughput of the line. In particular, the railway bridge over the Amur near Khabarovsk was reconstructed, as a result of which the last single-track section of the Trans-Siberian was eliminated. Further modernization of the road is expected due to obsolescence of infrastructure and rolling stock. Preliminary negotiations are underway with Japan, aimed at the possibility of building Shinkansen-type tracks, which will reduce the total travel time from Vladivostok to Moscow from 6 days to 2-3. January 11, 2008 China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany entered into an agreement on the Beijing-Hamburg freight traffic optimization project


The creation of the Trans-Siberian Railway is the greatest achievement of the Russian people. With difficulties and joys, the builders finished the road. They paved it on their bones, blood and humiliation, but still coped with this incredibly hard work. This road allowed Russia to transport a huge number of passengers and cargo. Every year, up to 100 million tons of cargo are transported along the Trans-Siberian railway. Thanks to the construction of the highway, the deserted territories of Siberia were settled. If the Trans-Siberian Railway had not been built, then Russia would certainly have lost most of its northern territories.

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The Trans-Siberian Railway is a powerful double-track electrified railway line with a length of about 10 thousand km, equipped with modern means of information and communication. It is the longest railway in the world, a natural continuation.

In the east, through the border stations Khasan, Grodekovo, Zabaikalsk, Naushki, the Trans-Siberian Railway provides access to the railway network of North Korea, China and Mongolia, and in the west, through Russian ports and border crossings with the former republics of the Soviet Union - to European countries.

The highway passes through the territory of 20 constituent entities of the Russian Federation and 5 federal districts. These resource-rich regions have significant export and import potential. In the regions served by the highway, more than 65% of the coal produced in Russia is mined, almost 20% of oil refining and 25% of commercial timber production is carried out. More than 80% of the country's industrial potential and main natural resources are concentrated here, including oil, gas, coal, timber, ferrous and non-ferrous metal ores, etc. There are 87 cities on the Trans-Siberian, of which 14 are the centers of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

More than 50% of foreign trade and transit cargo is transported via the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The Trans-Siberian Railway is included as a priority route in communication between Europe and Asia in the projects of international organizations UNECE, UNESCAP, OSJD.

• See also the photo gallery "History of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway"

Advantages of Trans-Siberian transportation in comparison with the sea route

• Reducing the time of cargo transportation by more than 2 times: the transit time of a container train from China to Finland via the Trans-Siberian Railway is less than 10 days, and the transit time by sea is 28 days.
• Low level of political risks: up to 90% of the route passes through the territory of the Russian Federation - a state with a stable democratic system of state power, a stable political climate and a steadily growing economy.
• Reducing to a minimum the number of cargo transshipments, which reduces the costs of cargo owners and prevents the risk of accidental damage to cargo during transshipment.

At present, a significant part of the cargo flows in the East-West direction goes by sea. The dominant or almost monopoly position of sea carriers in this direction does not allow shippers to count on a reduction in the transport component in their costs. In this regard, rail transport is a reasonable economic alternative to sea transport.

The main routes of container trains running through the Trans-Siberian

• Art. Nakhodka-Vostochnaya - st. Martsevo (delivery of Hyundai Motors Co. components from Busan to the car assembly plant in Taganrog).
• Nakhodka - Moscow.
• Nakhodka - Brest.
• Zabaikalsk/Nakhodka - Kaliningrad/Klaipeda.
• Beijing - Moscow.
• Kaliningrad/Klaipeda - Moscow ("Mercury").
• Helsinki - Moscow ("Northern Lights").
• Berlin - Moscow ("East wind").
• Brest - Ulaanbaatar ("Mongolian vector - 1").
• Hohhot - Duisburg ("Mongolian vector - 2").
• Baltic States - Kazakhstan/Central Asia ("Baltic - Transit").
• Nakhodka - Alma-Ata/Uzbekistan.
• Brest - Alma-Ata ("Kazakhstan vector").

Service

• The use of modern information technologies, providing full control over the passage of trains and informing customers in real time about the location, following the entire route, the arrival of a container or cargo at any point in Russia.
• The use of electronic cargo declaration technology: due to this, the time for cargo inspection has been reduced from 3 days to 1.5 hours.
• Simplified procedure, according to which all containers in a container train follow one transport document. This customs practice is used when transporting components from South Korea to the car assembly plant in Taganrog.
• The use of advanced technology for the operation of commercial inspection points (PKO), which are equipped with modern means of monitoring the condition of wagons and containers in trains.
• Monitoring the safety of goods in transit.

Prospects for the Trans-Siberian Railway

The Government of the Russian Federation and Russian Railways have developed and are implementing a set of measures to further increase the transit potential of the entire transport corridor between Europe and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, formed on the basis of the Trans-Siberian Railway, namely:

• large-scale investment projects in the eastern part of the Trans-Siberian to ensure the growth of rail traffic and transit between Russia and China;
• the necessary development of railway stations on the border with Mongolia, China and the DPRK is being carried out;
• approaches to seaports are being strengthened;
• container terminals are being modernized in accordance with international standards.
• a comprehensive reconstruction of the Karymskaya - Zabaikalsk section is underway to ensure the growing volumes of cargo transportation to China (primarily oil).

In accordance with the "Strategy for the development of railway transport in the Russian Federation until 2030", it is planned to specialize the Trans-Siberian Railway for the passage of specialized container trains and for passenger traffic.

The Coordinating Council for Trans-Siberian Transportation (CCTP), together with the management of Russian Railways, is preparing concept for the development of trans-Siberian transportation for the period up to 2020 but. The concept provides:

• formation of a systematic approach to the development of trans-Siberian container transportation on railways, sea sections, in ports with the participation of forwarding associations of Europe, Russia, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Austria, as well as forwarding companies;
• development and application of competitive tariffs for the transportation of foreign trade and transit cargo, taking into account the directions of cargo flows and the conditions for transporting goods along alternative routes;
• further improvement of the technology and organization of transportation of transit and foreign trade goods along the Trans-Siberian route (TSM);
• improvement of the conditions and principles of joint activities of railways, shipping companies, ports, forwarders and operators - members of the CCTT to attract cargo to the TSR;
• ensuring a high quality of service in order to attract cargo to the FSR based on international coordination of the activities of participants in the trans-Siberian transportation of goods (observance of delivery times, safety of goods);
• information support of the transportation process along the TCM (providing customers with real-time information on the movement of goods to their destination);
• increasing the processing capacity of ports in the east and west of Russia;
• creation of modern logistics centers with warehouse complexes in the Moscow hub, in other industrial centers and in the Far East;
• further development of transport links between the countries of Asia, Russia, the countries of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltics.