In August 1945, the Soviet Army invaded Manchukuo and took control of the Beihei Line. When the Heilongjiang River froze that winter, they built a temporary bridge over the ice to connect the line to the Soviet Railways at Blagoveshchensk on the other side of the border. The Soviet Army used this temporary connection to ship equipment stolen from Manchuria, and prior to the withdrawal in April 1946, the Beihei Line was ransacked, with anything moveable - locomotives, rolling stock, bridge components, tracks, etc. - being shipped to the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1949, basic repairs were undertaken on the line, but due to the difficulty of running trains, the tracks were removed in the autumn of that year.