The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-21
THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY
AN ENGLIsHMAN's LONG JOURNEY
FROM IRKUTsx TO MOSCOW.
The Construction of the Line--Modi-
fed Plans TO Reach Port Arthur
The Promise of the Country.

brief account of the journey of the editor
of an English newspaper in Singapore from
Peking to London overland by the route Of
the tea caravans through Manchuria to r.
kutsk in Siberia, and thence by the Siberian
Railway into Russia itself. The editor, Mr..
Arnot Reid, has now told the story of his
journey at length in the Times, and the
larger part of it makes the first detailed
account of the Siberian Railway by West
ern handksince it was opened to Irkutsk and
it began to seek travellers from all Europe.
Mr. REID joined the railway at Irkutsk,
or rather at the station on the opposite
shore of the river, for the line does not yet
reach the city, and the traveller must reach
the terminus, five miles away as best he
may by a. crowded ferry. MY destination
was Moscow" he says, ''about $500 miles
distant, and the time 1 had estimated for
the journey was twelve days. The actual
time, as it turned out, was three hours less
than my estimate-2S5 hours of continuous
travel, unbroken save by two ferries, and
at each ferry a change of carriage. 1t may
occur to some to ask why speak of my
estimate'-where were the railway time
tables? There were none The railway to
Irkutsk has only been opened a few weeks
before 1 arrived there, and timetables for
that section did not yet exist. train was
started only every second day. and
when it would arrive at any par
ticular place no one appeared to know
We started an hour late, and with
twenty-six persons in a second-class car
riage, which seated for fifteen, and
which for all-night travel would have been
comfortable for ten. The fact is that for
the comparatively newly opened section
aoc t OfT oIo
as yet been provided, while on the still
newer section between Irkutsk and the town
of Eczema, on the River Okla, there is an
insufficiency even of second-class cars. The
explanation of that, of course is that part
ly to oblige the public, the railway has been
opened sooner than was intended and be-
fore it is fully equipped. 1t is reason
able explanation but none the less the first
twenty-four hours on the Siberian Railway
were passed in a muddle of travel. l had
not gathered that it was necessary to form
party, to make rush for compartment,
TO fill 1t with your baggage and to hold it
against all corners. Later, and under the
able tuition of a party of engineer students,
learned to take my share in that and
other arts Of Siberian travel but at the
offset was out of it, Alone, with my bag
ing an expression of patient discontinue,
| must have looked the picture of the help
less foreigner. That was my salvation.
The wife of a government official, address,
ing me in French. made seat room for me.
The engineer students made room for my
baggage. An Odessa Jewess gave me a cup
of tea. Everybody, indeed, was as nice as
could be; but twenty-six persons cannot
comfortably dine, sup, sleep and play cards
in q carriage berthed for ten.
A WEARY WAIT.
However, the night wore through. and in
the early afternoon of the following day
the train drew up on the banks of the River
Okla in a snowstorm, and we all proceeded
1oNI ~ -
boat. Shelter there was none. OF knowl-
edge as to when we would get across there
was none. But after some three hours we
did get across and were rewarded with an
excellent dinner at Eczema station and the
news that in place of half car for the
second-class people we should now get two
half cars. My diary, I find, contains the
significant entry: only thirteen persons in
the car. Slept sOundiy all night" Let me
here add that most of these discomforts
ended at Krasnoyarsk, which is ego miles
from Irkutsk. and which we reached after
exactly one hundred hours of continuous
travel. Immediately before entering Kras-
noyarsk station, on our fourth day out, we
had to cross in the dark two arms of the
great river Yenisel. finding our own trans
port and conveying our own baggage. On
the Yenisel. as at the Okla, the railway sim
ply dumped us out and let us find our own
way. But after we entered Krasnoyarsk
station in blaze of electric light we found
everything changed; We got flrst-class
through to Moscow; we found buffet, with
walters in evening dress. and a menu in
unfinished to a completed railway system.
The administration, it appears, does not yet
run. it's weekly train de luxe, already de-
scribed in these letters over the newest
and scarcely finished parts of the line. 1t
will be a year or two, in Mr.. Reid's view,
before it will convey travellers to Irkutsk it.
self and beyond. On all the divisions of the
line he found the fares surprisingly low:
highest on the newly opened portions, where
accommodations We're poorest and travel
sloweSt. and steadily diminishing westward.
until for SecOnd-claSS carriages. more COM
Portable than those of the best English rail-
ways. they were only a farthing a mile
CONSTRUCTION OF THE LINE
The construction of the line impressed Mr.
Reid favorably: "The Transsiberian Rail-
way, travelling from Europe, begins at the
town of Cheliabinsk, about 100 miles east
of the frontier line of Russia in Europe
and about $50 kilometers east of st. Peters
burg From Cheliabinsk to Vladivostock
on the original survey (now much reduced
by the Manchurian route). is 4,74O miles, and
of that distance the line is complete to r.
kutsk, distance of about 1000 miles About
500 miles of that were opened this autumn
and throughout the autumn and summer the
rails We're laid at the rate of four miles a
day. This is rapid work. and is said to ex-
coed anything that has hitherto been done
on a big scale in any part of the world
Inc track IS IaId on the standard broad
gauge, the same as that of the Russian rail-
ways, so that for military purposes every
thing fits. The one defect is that on the
eastern sections the rails are too light to
permit of trains being run at high speed
The rails are about forty-seVen pounds to
the yard, as against eighty-pound rails that
are in use in England and America and the
sixty-pound rail which is the customary
weight on the Russian lines. It seems OBJ
vious that ultimately. and probably soon.
these light rails will have to be replaced by
something much heavier. Nevertheless, [
am not prepared to suggest that any error
OF judgment has been made In a country
upheaVal of the track, it is probable that
within year or two after the opening of
railway general relaying of rails may be-
come necessary. 1t may, therefore, be quite
wise to begin with light rails and to replace
these by heavier ones when relaying. The
metal is not lost, but can be remelted at the
local foundries.
The works of the line generally have
been carried out in very thorough fashion.
me stations, of which there is one every
nfteen to twenty miles, are we'll built of
brick and stone, and are well equipped with
all necessary offices, including invariably a
water tower. Everywhere the station huild-
ings are on a siding allowing the main line
TO be left clear for through traffic. That
main line, OF course, is q single line hut
within the last few months an order has
been issued that siding shall be built every
seven versts. or, say, each four miles AS
my informant put it: We intend to be able
to keep the line clear. lest we have 10 send
an army over it. Further. sixty new en-
glnes and forty old ones stand waiting to
be used. They are officially allocated to
the transbaikal section-the section not
yet laid-but, of course, they are available
Tor any use In emergency These new en-.
GlneS. / told XUp locally do