Trans siberian

The Trans-Siberian Railway (Russian: Транссибирская магистраль, Транссиб, pron. Transibírskaia magistral, Transsib) is a freight and passenger rail network connecting European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces to the Pacific Ocean, as well as Mongolia, China and North Korea. The original line, with a length of 9,288 km, was completed in 1904. Subsequently, three other routes and several more branches have been built, covering 10,267 km.

Operated by the Russian Railways (RZhD), the Trans-Siberian is the world's largest single land transportation system and the second longest rail route, after the Madrid-Yiwu complex. It forms an essential part of the so-called New Silk Road. The entire journey by passenger car requires just under a week.

Features

The main route was inaugurated after thirteen years of work, on July 21, 1904. With an extension of 9,288 km, it links Moscow with the Russian coast of the Pacific Ocean, more precisely with Vladivostok (located in the South Sea). Japan, and whose meaning in Russian is "power over the east"), traversing most of what was once Czarist Asia. This route, which crosses eight time zones and whose route requires about 7 days of travel, constitutes the longest continuous railway service in the world, with the exception of the route that runs twice a month regularly, and serves as a connection between Moscow and Pyongyang. There are branches to China, through Mongolia and Manchuria, with continuous service to North Korea.

Another important branch of this extensive railway network is the Transmanchurian, whose route coincides with the Trans-Siberian up to Társkaya, about 1000 km east of Lake Baikal. From the city of Társkaya, the Trans-Manchurian goes southeast towards China, and continues its journey until it ends in Beijing.

The third of the primary routes is the Trans-Mongolian route, which coincides in its route with the Trans-Siberian up to Ulan Ude, on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. From Ulan-Ude, the Trans-Mongolian runs south to Ulaanbaatar, after which it continues southeast to Beijing.

In 1991, a fourth route was completed, whose route is further north, after more than five decades of sporadic works. Known as the Baikal-Amur Railway, this extension separates from the Trans-Siberian railway several hundred kilometers to the west of Lake Baikal, and crosses it at its northern end. This route reaches the Pacific Ocean northeast of Khabarovsk, at Sovetskaya Gavan. Although it provides access to Baikal's remarkable north coast, this branch is also characterized by crossing areas considered dangerous.

Branches

Trans-Siberian

Transiberian

Legend 0 Moscow 73 Sérgiev Posad Moscow/Vladimir limit 112 Aleksándrov Vladimir Limit / Yaroslavl 224 Rostov 284 Yaroslavl 289 River Volga Ramal to Vólogda and Arkhangelsk Yaroslavl Limit / Kostroma 501 Gálich River Vetluga Limit Kostromá/Kírov 957 Kírov Kírov Limit / Udmurtia 1432 Cheptsá River Udmurtia Limit / Perm 1432 Kama River 1436 Perm Limit Perm/Sverdlovsk 1777 Intercontinental Hito Europe - Asia Ural mountains River Iset 1816 Ekaterimburg Limit Sverdlovsk / Tiumén 2144 Tiumén river Ishim Limit Tiumén / Omsk 2712 Omsk Limit Omsk / Novosibirsk 3331 Obi river 3335 Novosibirsk Limit Novosibirsk / Kémerovo Ramal to Tomsk 3602 Anzhero-Súdzhensk Limit Kémerovo / Krasnoyarsk 4098 Krasnoyarsk 4101 Yenisei River Limit Krasnoyarsk / Irkutsk 4516 Taishet 4520 link Baikal-Amur 5160 Angarsk 5185 Irkutsk 5311 Sliudianka 5358 Baikalsk Irkutsk Limit / Buriatia 5642 Ulán-Udé 5655 link Transmongolian Limit Buriatia / Krai of Zabaikalie 6199 Chitá 6312 link Transmanchuriano 7075 Zabaikalie Krai Limit / Amur 7273 union to the Baikal-Amur 7306 Skovorodinó 7875 branch to Blagovéshchensk Limit Amur / O. A. H. 8351 Birobidzhán 8515 River AmurOr. A. H. / Krai de Jabárovsk 8521 Jabárovsk Jabárovsk Krai Limit / Krai Primorie Ramal to Nakhodka 9289 Vladivostok

The main route, served by the No. 1 train, which is known as Rossía ('Russia' in Russian), passes through the following cities:

• Moscow (0 km, Huso Time of Moscow). Most of the formations leave the railway station of Yaroslavsky.
• Nizhny Nóvgorod (442 km, HHM) on the Volga River; to this day, the main station of this city carries its former Soviet denomination, Gorki-Moskovski (although the name of the city was changed in 1990), and thus appears in many hours.
• Perm (1436 km, HHM+2) located on the Kama River.
• Official border between Europe and Asia (1777 km), marked with a white obelisk.
• Ekaterimburg (1816 km, HHM+2) in the Ural Mountains; until today it appears with which it was its former Soviet denomination Sverdlovsk in many hours.
• Omsk (2712 km, HHM+3) located on the margins of the river Irtysh.
• Novosibirsk (3335 km, HHM+3) on the river Obi.
• Krasnoyarsk (4098 km, HHM+4) on the banks of the Yeniséi River.
• Irkutsk (5185 km, HHM+5) near the southern tip of Lake Baikal.
• Ulán-Udé (5642 km, HHM+5).
• Intersection with the Transmongolian (5655 km).
• Chitá (6199 km, HHM+6).
• Intersection with the Transmanchuriano in Társkaya (6312 km).
• Jabárovsk (8521 km, HHM+7) located on the margins of the Amur river.
• Vladivostok (9288 km, HHM+7), near the Pacific Ocean.

Between 1956 and 2001, the Rossia train followed a route via Yaroslavl instead of Nizhny Novgorod. Other trains still run on the Yaroslavl route, or the more southern Kazan route.

Most travelers travel only part of the journey on the Rossía, as this train performs a relatively fast service between major cities, such as Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk or Irkutsk.

Transmanchurian

The Trans-Manchurian follows the same route as the Trans-Siberian between Moscow and Chita, to then pass through the following towns on its way to China:

• Separation of the Transiberian branch in Társkaya (6312 km from Moscow)
• Zabaikalsk (6661 km), Russian settlement on the border
• Manzhouli (2323 km from Beijing), Chinese settlement on the border
• Harbin (1388 km)
• Beijing.

Transmongolian

The Trans-Mongolian follows the same route as the Trans-Siberian between Moscow and Ulan-Ude, to then pass through the following towns on its way to Mongolia and China:

• Separation of the Transiberian branch (5655 km from Moscow)
• Naushki (5895 km), Russian settlement on the border
• Frontier between Russia and Mongolia (5900 km)
• Sühbaatar (5921 km), Mongolian settlement on the border
• Ulán Bator (6304 km), capital of Mongolia
• Zamiin Uud (7013 km), Mongolian settlement on the border
• Erlyan (842 km from Beijing), Chinese settlement on the border
• Datong (371 km)
• Beijing.

History

Context and design

Its construction began at the end of the 19th century, when Tsar Alexander III was still in power. The development of Siberia was hampered by poor transport communications within the region, as well as with the rest of the country. Apart from the Siberian Route, there were no good roads suitable for wheeled transport. During about five months of the year, the rivers were the main means of transportation. During the cold half of the year, cargo and passengers traveled in horse-drawn sleighs over roads in winter, many of which were the same rivers, but covered with ice.

The first steamboat on the Ob River, Nikita Miasnikov's Osnova, was launched in 1844. The beginnings were difficult and it was not until 1857 that steamboat navigation began to develop in the Ob consistently. Steamboats began operating on the Yenisei in 1863, on the Lena and Amur in the 1870s.

While the relative flatness of West Siberia was at least fairly well served by the gigantic Ob-Irtysh-Tobol-Chulym river system, the mighty rivers of East Siberia—such as the Yenisei, the upper reaches of the river Angara and the Lena—were mostly navigable only in the north-south direction. An attempt to partially remedy the situation by building the Ob-Yenisei Canal was not particularly successful. Only a railway could be a real solution to the region's transportation problems.

The first railway projects in Siberia arose after the completion of the Saint Petersburg-Moscow railway line in 1851. One of the first was the Irkutsk-Chita project, proposed by the American businessman Perry Collins and supported by the minister of Transport Constantine Possiet with a view to connecting Moscow to the Amur River and, consequently, to the Pacific Ocean. The Governor of Siberia, Nikolai Muraviov-Amursky, was eager to advance the colonization of the Russian Far East, but his plans failed to materialize as long as the colonists had to import grain and other food from China and Korea. from Muravyov that surveys were carried out for a railway in the Khabarovsk region.

Prior to 1880, the central government largely ignored these projects, due to weak Siberian business, a clumsy bureaucracy, and fear of financial risk. In 1880, there were a large number of rejected and future applications for permission to build railways to connect Siberia to the Pacific, but not eastern Russia. This worried the government and made connecting Siberia with central Russia a pressing concern. The design process lasted ten years. Along with the route finally built, alternative projects were proposed: a southern route, through Kazakhstan, Barnaul, Abakan and Mongolia; and a northern route, through Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yeniseysk and the modern Baikal-Amur line or even through Yakutsk.

The line is divided into seven sections, all or most of which were worked on simultaneously, using a workforce of 90,000 men. The total cost is estimated at £35 million; the first section (from Chelyabinsk to the Ob River) was completed at a cost of £900,000 less than estimated. Railwaymen offered suggestions for saving funds, for example, by installing the ferries instead of bridges over the rivers until traffic increased. The designers insisted and secured the decision to build an uninterrupted railway.

Unlike rejected private projects that intended to connect existing cities and needed transportation, the Trans-Siberian had no such priority. Therefore, in order to save money and avoid clashes with landowners, it was decided to establish the railway outside the existing cities. Tomsk was the largest city and the most unfortunate, since the swampy banks of the Ob River near it were considered unsuitable for a bridge. The railway was laid 70 km to the south (instead of crossing the Ob at Novo Nikolaevsk, later called Novosibirsk); and simply a dead-end branch connected it with Tomsk, depriving the city of prospective transit rail traffic and trade.

Gallery

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  Novosibirsk station.

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  Krasnoyarsk station.

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  View from km 2914.

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  Transiberian train to Novosibirsk.

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  Tunnel west of Kultuk.

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  Chulym station.

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  The Kama River from the railway bridge.

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  Chinese train K3 in the Transiberian, in Mongolia.

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  Monolith pointing at km 9288 in Vladivostok.

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  The express train Rossijawhich runs between Moscow and Vladivostok.

Movies

• Panic in the Transiberian1972 film.
• Transsiberian2008 film directed by Brad Anderson.

Series appearances

• Masha and bearThe transiberian passes a few meters from Masha's residence.

Video games

• Trans-Siberian Railway SimulatorNo official departure date.