East Siberian Railway

The idea of building a railway across sparsely populated and almost unexplored areas of East Siberia was first expressed in the 1870s–1880s. The need for constructing a railway line became particularly evident after the completion of the Ural Railway from Yekaterinburg to Tyumen in 1884. In 1887, three expeditions were organised to explore the route for the future Trans-Siberian Railway. In May 1893, the Committee for the Construction of the Siberian Railway was created. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was launched simultaneously from its two extremities, namely Vladivostok and Chelyabinsk. By 1895, the construction of the section of railway from Chelyabinsk to the railway station of Ob near the small settlement of Novonikolaevsky (today's Novosibirsk) was complete. On December 6, 1895 the first train arrived at Krasnoyarsk, which would become a starting point for the construction of the East Siberian Railway towards Irkutsk and through Nizhneudinsk (the first train arrived on December 9, 1897) towards Tulun. In 1897, the construction of the Irkutsk–Baikalsky and Mysovaya–Sretensk sections was under way. Railway stations were built along almost the whole of the railway. In 1898 the construction of the Tulun-Irkutsk section was finished. In 1900 the Transbaikal sections from Mysovaya to Sretensk and from Irkutsk to the Baikal railway station were completed. The Circum–Baikal section (between the railway stations Mysovaya and Baikal) of the East Siberian Railway was under construction until 1905, opening non-stop train traffic along the whole railway when construction ended.

At first, the East Siberian Railway was a single-track railroad. In 1907, they began the construction of the second track, which would end in 1916. Administratively, the main line was divided into four railways: the Siberian Railway (from Chelyabinsk to Innokentyevskaya railway station with a line towards Tomsk), the Transbaikal Railway (from Innokentyevskaya railway station to Sretensk with a line towards Manchuria railway station), the Ussuri Railway (from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk), and the Amur Railway (from Kuyenga railway station to Khabarovsk). In 1915, the East Siberian Railway was divided into five railways, the Omsk Railway, Tomsk Railway, Transbaikal Railway, Amur Railway, and Ussuri Railway. In 1934, the East Siberian Railway became an independent administrative and economic unit extending from Mariinsk railway station to Mysovaya railway station. In 1936, the Krasnoyarsk Railway was excluded from the East Siberian Railway. In the 1920s–1930s, technical reconstruction of the railway was carried out and its locomotive and rolling stock were upgraded. Several new lines were also built over the ridges of Sayany, Alatau, taiga, and swamps towards coal and iron ore deposits, woodlands, and banks of large rivers. In 1922–1926, the Achinsk–Abakan line was constructed, which connected the southern areas of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Khakassia, and Tuva with other economic regions of the country. In 1940, train traffic began from Ulan-Ude to Naushki, significantly improving economic relations with Mongolia and providing access to the Gusinoozyorsk coal deposits.

During the Great Patriotic War, the authorities of the East Siberian Railway provided volunteer units to be dispatched to the front (20 railmen would be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union), found resources for repairing military equipment, prepared rolling stock, and gradually increased the amount of freight from Siberia to the European part of the country.

In the post-war years, the amount of traffic carried continued its increase along with the reconstruction of transportation facilities and introduction of new technology. In 1948 the East Siberian Railway reached its pre-war loading and cargo-turnover level. In 1958 they commissioned the new Taishet-Bratsk-Lena railway, which connected the basins of the Angara and Lena Rivers with the rest of the Siberian railroad network, providing immediate access to mineral deposits in the Angara basin (e.g. the Korshunovskoye iron ore deposit) and abundant logging regions and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of cargo to the northern areas of Irkutsk Oblast and Yakutia. At the end of 1965, a 647 km (402 mi) long Abakan-Taishet section of the East Siberian Railway was commissioned, an electrified high-class railroad with modern means of communication, electric interlocking of railroad switches, and a remote dispatching system. This section of the railway provided a new access to the Kuzbass, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia from the regions of the Russian Far East and Siberia. The early 1970s saw the completion of construction of the northbound line from the Khrebtovaya railway station to Ust-Ilimsk Hydroelectric Powerplant (214 km or 133 mi).