The story
The Treaty of Portsmouth following the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 placed the northern half of Sakhalin under the control of the Russian Empire, whilst the southern half (Karafuto) was under control of Japan.
On the Japanese half of the island, a 42.5-kilometre-long (26.4 mi) railway was built from Korsakov (大泊 (Ōtomari)) to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (豊原 (Toyohara)), with a gauge of 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in). This section was later converted to the normal Japanese railway gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in).
In 1911, a 64 km (40 mi) branch was built from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Starodubskoye (Sakaehama). Between 1918 and 1921, the towns of Nevelsk (本斗 (Honto)), Kholmsk (真岡 (Maoka)), Chekhov (野田 (Noda)) and Tomari (泊居 (Tomarioru)) were also connected to the network. The Japanese railway network consisted of the Western Karafuto Railway from Naihoro (Gornozavodsk) to Tomarioru, and the Eastern Karafuto Railways from Otomari to Koton (Pobedino) until 1944. Its total length was over 1,225 km (761 mi).
After the Second World War, control of the whole of the island passed to the Soviet Union, including the island's complete rail network and rolling stock. Wagons from the Soviet railways were re-gauged for use on the island. The locomotive factory in Lyudinovo produced diesel locomotives of the models TG16 and TG21 specifically for use on the island's narrow gauge network. Additionally, trains were imported from Japan, such as the purpose-made A1 sets made by Hitachi Rail and Teikoku Sharyo (1958-1960), followed by the D2 sets made by Fuji Heavy Industries (1986) and ex-JNR KiHa 58 railcars, purchased second hand in the early 1990s.
The Soviet era saw the network extend into the north of the island, with a total extent in 1992 of 2,500 km (1,600 mi). By 2006, little-used sections such as Dachnoye–Aniva and Dolinsk–Starodubskoye had been closed, but the network still had a total length of 2,025 km (1,258 mi).
In 1992, the Sakhalin Railway was split from the Far Eastern Railway and made its own administrative entity. It reverted to being part of the Far Eastern Railway in 2010.
In 1994, the treacherous Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Kholmsk route was closed. Its "Devil's Bridge" remains a tourist attraction. Trains from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Kholmsk have since taken the circuitous route via Tomari.
In order to allow regular Russian trains to run on the island, the island's rail network underwent conversion to Russian broad gauge starting from 2003. Russian Railways formally completed the regauging work in August 2019. Last scheduled train on 1067mm line Holmsk-77km pk9 was run at 30 September 2020.
From Wikipedia’s article on Sakhalin Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3