page_title: East Siberian Railway
section_title: Construction history
hierarchical_section_title: East Siberian Railway / Construction history
caption_attribution_description: Irkutsk, Passenger, train, railway, station
context_page_description: The East Siberian Railway is a railway in Russia, which runs across Irkutsk Oblast, Chita Oblast, Buryatia, and Yakutia. The railway administration is located in Irkutsk. The East Siberian Railway borders with the Krasnoyarsk Railway, Trans-Baikal Railway, and Baikal Amur Mainline. To the south, the East Siberian Railway runs close to the Russo-Mongolian border. As of 2008, the total working length of the East Siberian Railway was 3,848.1 km; number of employees – 46,233; net weight hauled – 76 million tonnes; long-distance passenger traffic – 3.6 million people; suburban traffic – 29 million people. Annual cargo turnover is 278 million tonnes.
  The East Siberian Railway consists of four divisions, namely the Irkutsk Railway Division, Severobaikalsk Railway Division, Taishet Railway Division, and Ulan-Ude Railway Division. The railway connects the regions of East Siberia, Transbaikal, and Russian Far East with the rest of the railroad network nationwide.
context_section_description: 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 
caption: Irkutsk railway station
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