The Trans-Siberian Railway is officially completed.
As you’d expect with a project of this size, complexity, and scope, officially is a relative term. Trains were already operating on parts of the line, while other sections weren’t up and running for years.
The idea of rails connecting European Russia to Siberia and the remote Far East had been kicked around for years. Despite the pleas of Siberian provincial governors, the powers that be in St. Petersburg (the Russian capital at the time) were not enthusiastic. Czar Alexander II green-lighted the project in 1881 but was assassinated soon thereafter. Alexander III restarted it in 1886, but construction didn’t begin until 1891.
It was one of the most ambitious engineering projects of all time. As with the transcontinental railroad in the United States (see here), the Trans-Siberian built from both ends toward an eventual meeting point. Thousands of workers hacked through dense forests, bridged fast-moving rivers, negotiated vast swamplands, dynamited the permafrost layer, and blasted tunnels through mountains.
Most construction lacked the benefit of heavy machinery. Shovels and picks, along with a little dynamite, made up the railroader’s basic tool kit. Besides extreme cold, workers faced floods and landslides, armed bandits, cholera, anthrax… even an occasional tiger.
The Trans-Siberian hauled under steam. Conversion to electricity began in 1927, but the last steam engine wasn’t retired until 1987. The railway opened Siberia to the rest of the country. People flowed east, and Siberian agricultural products flowed west.
The modern Trans-Siberian Railway is actually four different routes, although the name is usually associated with the Moscow–Vladivostok run: 6,000 miles, seven time zones, six days. The train to Pyongyang, North Korea, runs 6,400 miles and is the world’s longest single continuous rail service.—TL