The railway is 84 km long. It includes not only russian engineering design of that time but also of the hard work of Russian, Polish, Italian and English workers. The Circumbaikal Railway needed 200 bridges and 33 tunnels. Only within the section of 56 miles from Kultuk to Port Baikal there are 48 arches and tunnels. It is no coincidence that this part is righteously regarded as the museum of Russian engineering thought, and foreign tourists respectfully name it the golden buckle of the Great Siberian Trail.
Some stretches are the heaviest used railway in the world.
Work on the line began in 1891. Most of it was built without any form of machinery. In some permafrost areas the ground had to be dynamited before rails could be laid. Work gangs suffered from floods, bubonic plague, extreme cold, cholera, landslides, anthrax, bandits and tigers. The line was completed at the bridge at Khabarovsk in 1916.