Talk:Amur Railway

The Main Reason To Built the Amur Railway

This published version is a product of "Rewritten Stalinist Russian History". The main reason was pure strategic, to secure railway connection to Russian Far East, in case the Japanese would occupy also Northern-Manchuria, after the lost Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905. There is a real version available from Imperial Russian sources published in 1912-1916 which gives the detailed history of building the Amur Railway. And that history is different what is now published in Wikipedia. When the decision to build Amur Railway was made, it was not even decided which branch lines would be build from the main line.

JN

Expenditure on Railway Construction 1911

According to the estimates of the Ministry of Ways and Communications (MPS) for 1911, the total amount to be expended by the State on railway construction is said to be 95.105.000 roubles or 32.418.996 roubles more than for 1910 of which 40.638.900 roubles is budgeted for construction of Amour Railway which was estimated to become cost, when completed, a total 256.631.300 roubles in 1910 budged. Additional sum of 961.700 roubles has been directed to "Expediture connected with the construction of Amour Railway."

In 1911 the following new lines were under construction:

On the Amour Railway:

Main section: Kuenga - Ourium 183 versts

Western section: Ourium - Kerak 595 versts

- Branch line from Bolshoi Never to Reinovo 64 versts

- Branch line from Taitugari to Chasovenskaja 26 versts

Middle section: Kerak - Dia 615 versts

- Branch line to town of Blagoveshchensk 103 versts

Eastern section: Dia to Habarovsk 480 versts

JN

Amour Railway 1912 Repport

As it is now being built, the railway follows a somewhat different route to that originally intended, by Srjetensk and the Shilka. It now leaves the Karimskaja-Srjetensk branch - which was constructed before war - where this crosses the Kvenga River and bears inland, following the valleys of the Aleyur and Ourioum and northern slopes of the Ksenjevskij mountains.

It consists of four sections, namely:

Head section from Kvenga to Ourioum 182 versts (194.2 km)

Western section from Ourioum to Kerak 596 versts (635.9 km)

Middle section from Kerak to River Dyla 633 versts (675.4 km)

Eastern section from River Dyla to Habarovsk 480 versts (512.2 km)

Total 1891 versts (2017.7 km)

It will, when completed have five, peharps six, branch lines, counting as one of them the short piece between Kvenga and Srjetensk. work was begun on the Head section in 1907, and towards the end of the 1910 season this section was opened to traffic. Prepatory work was started on the Western section - from Ourioum to Kerak - in the autumn of 1908.

The Middle section extends from Kerak to a point some 35 versts to the west of Boureja. Preparatory work was commenced upon it in 1910.

The route for the Eastern section - terminating to Habarovsk - was only definitely fixed towars the end of 1910 after prolonged surveying.

What is known as the southern variant, which crosses the Boureja at the village of Kamenka, was finally adopted. Preparatory work was begun upon it at the biginning of 1911, and it is now calculated that it should be completed in 1915. work was being carried on during the 1911 season over the whole lenght of the line, and some 50.000 men were employed upon it.

On the branch lines, the eastern one shown on the map - to Chasevinskaja - was completed before the end of 1910, and the one to Reynova was to have finished in 1911. The longest of the branch lines, which runs from Bochkarjova on the main line to Blagoveschensk, is also in progress, but is reported to be very backward. It may be said that generally the wotk has advanced so far much slowly than was anticepted. and it is doubltful if any of the sections will be finished to time. Oving the lack of usual railfall in June 1911 there was no water in the Amour and its tributaries in the early summer. Consecuently transports arrangemants were upset, provosions and supplies for the workmen falled and materials were unobtainable. When the rain did finally come, it came in floods and rendered work impossible. The difficulties have, indeed, all through been more serious than was foreseen. In the first place very large areas of the country to be traversed lie within the region of perennial frost, where the ground is frozen from 200 to 300 feet down. The soil consists very largely od a peculiarly sticky and elastic clay which newer thaws to the depth of more than 3ft; on the surface it is covered with coarse grass or scrubby vegetation. When the torrential rains of early summer fall the water cannot run off,being retained by the peculiar nature of the ground. The men, therefore, have to work in from 2 to 3ft. of ice-cold quagmire,standing all the while on the frozen sub-soil, which the heat of the sun continues to thaw as they go deeper. Sickness, especially rheumatism, is the inevitable result. the "marj", as this frozen quagmire is locally termed, has proven a most formidable obstacle, and experience has shown that it can best be handled in the wintter, since it is then amenable to blasting especially when it contains a considerable admixture of stone. In making cuttings it is indispensable to dig and face with deep trenches parallel to the permanent way,and on each side of it so as to run the water off. In some places two or even three lines of trenches are necessary. Again, the extremes of temperature are very trying, for men on the Western section the thermometer falls to 82 degrees (Fahrenheit) below the zero in winter, and the rivers freeze to the bottom; it rises to 93 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the shade of June. Very hard rains and a plague of mosquitoes, midges, and horseflies have to reckoned with.

In some parts, too, the water is so impregnated with lime or salts that it is impossible to employ it for (steam) locomotives without artificially softening it. In other places no water is to be had at all, and the artesian wells which have been sunk give little or no result. With the extreme cold which prevails, it is obvious that this obstacle is the most serious one, for the conveyance of water in winter is a matter of extreme difficulty, requiring a complicated system of artificially-warmed pipes.

The ecomomic troubles, too, have been serious. The system followed up till 1910 was to let the building of the various portions of the railway to contractors, who received advances on the amounts becoming due to them, and had to find treir own men, provisions, and supplies. In 1910 this system finished in a fiasco, for when tenders were called for in the autumn for building the Middle section, no one came forward to compete. All had lost money on the year´s working, and many were in financial straits. The principal source of trouble had been misunderstanding with the workmen, who found the work much more laborious than they had anticipated, while they were often unfit or not prepared for the hardships they had to undergo, and found that the barest necessaries of life could be obtained at extravagant rates. The whole western half of the railway passes through territory which is quite wild or in which the population is extreme sparse. All the labour, therefore, had to be brought from afar, the great majority of the men being brought from European Russia. The rule to exclude Chinese labour from work on the railway construction has been rigidly adhered to, and the men were probably emboldened by the knowledge that they could not be replaced to make unacceptable demands. The contractors even arranged so called "mobile brothels" available for them to satisfy their demands of women. The nearness of the Chinese frontier and the facility with the cheap contraband spirit could be obtained and Chinese brothels on the Manchurian side of the frontier had also demoralizing influence upon them, and large number were induced to abandon the railway for more remunerative work on the goldfields. The outcome of all this has been that the Russian Government has been obliged to abandon the contractor system for the Middle and Eastern sections, and to carry on the work directly under the orders of its own engineers.

The notable engineering features of the railway line will be the bridges over the Amour at Habarovsk, over the Zeya at the new town of Alexeijevsk (called after the heir to the throne, and tobe the headquarters of Amour Railway and the depot for locomotive and rolling stock repairs), and at Blagoveschensk, over the Boureja and over the Beera. The first-named involves very great fifficulties, and there is an alternative proposal to construct a tunnel under the Amour River. The right bank of the Amour is at a considerable elevation, while the left bank is a low mud flat, bordering a wide expance of swamp. Consequently very important approach work will be necessary. It is contemplated that 18.000.000 to 20.000.000 roubles will have to be spent on this bridge. A liberal use of tunnels is being made, and there will be two of a mile in lenght, one close to Kerek on the Western section and the other on the Eastern section, through the watershed between the Ouril and the Mutnaya. On the whole Eastern section there will be eight tunnels of a total lenght of 32.5 furlogs. It has been found possible to avoid along the whole railway gradients exceeding 0.008, and curves with radii of less than 350 yards.

The Amour Railway has a great strategical importance as completing the line of communications within Russian territory between European Russia and Russian Far East, and will be of valuable economic asset, inasmuch as it will be hasten the opening up of very large areas which to all intents and purposes have remained till now unknown. The Western section and nearly all the Eastern section are most unpromising; the country is wild and rough, and theclimatic conditions are extremely severe. It is believed, though, that there exist very rich mineral deposits, which the construction of the railway will render accessible.

The prospects on the Middle section are much brighter, for it will improve communications with important goldfields in the Zeya and Boureja systems, will traverse the very fertile region watered by these rivers and already largely settled with peasants and Cossack communities, and by means of the proposed branch line running to Blagoveschensk will develop relations with North Manchuria.

The line will ultimately be carried on along the north bank of the Amour to Nikolaijevsk, while the navigation of the Lower Amour and the Amour estuary is to be improved. A complete system of communications by water and by rail will be thus established, uniting the centre of Siberia with the Pacific.

A law fixes the cost of construction of the Eastern section of the Amour Railway, viz, from River Dia via Chernoberezovaija to the town of Habarovsk, including two branch lines at 70.887.316 roubles; this sum does not include the cost of rolling-stock. The law also authorized the expenditure, during 1911, by the State Treasury for construction work on this section of the railway, of 4.500.000 roubles.

JN

Additions in 1913

Degrees have been issued which authorized (1) a supplementary vote of 11.515.000 roubles in 1913 towards the construction of the Western section, and (2) a supplementary vote of 1.607.400 roubles towards the construction of the Main section of the Amour Railway.

The branch lines to be built and opened to public traffic on Amour Railway:

- Branch line from Bochkaryojo to Blagoveschensk 103 versts

Short branch lines run to:

- Chasovinskaja 28 versts

- Reynovo 63 versts

- Chernajevo 40 versts

JN

Additions in 1914

Traffic on the Head section has been open since 1910 and the Western section was opened in the autumn (August) of 1913. The whole of the Middle section was to be handed over for working in the autumn of 1914. Work on the Eastern section has been pushed forward rapidly, and the whole line was expected to be in use for local traffic by the end of 1914. The completion of the Amour Railway will, however, be impossible before the bridge - the proposal for building the tunnel was rejected - over the Amour at Habarovsk is finished, and this - an engineering work of real magnitude, for the bridge is to be 7.038ft (2.145 metre) in lenght - cannot, at the earliest, be before the autumn 1915. It is intented ultimately to divide the whole line into two parts, the western part to be known as the Amour Railway and to have its headquarters at Alexeijevsk on the eastern part, known as the Ussuri Railway, having its headquarters in Habarovsk. The problems in construction were under-estimated at the beginning, and that expidenture has exceeded the original apropriatons by some 40.000.000 roubles or 20 per cent. All work in the Eastern section, Dyla River to Habarovsk will be completed in 1915.

JN

Additions in 1915

The Ministry of Ways and Communications (MPS) has dispatched a prominent official to inquire the present state of the work and to estimate the total excess expidenture over the estimated cost of construction of the line. This official estimates the excess expenditure on the Western section at 22.558.000 roubles, not including a sum of 5.780.000 roubles to be spent on the establishment of an additional water supply and the conversion of working sidings into permanent branches. The excess cost of the Central section is estimated at 12.000.000 roubles. and in addition there will be further expenditure of 4.000.000 roubles for an additional water supply, the construction of wharves, and the conversion of sidings into permanent branches.

JN

Additions in 1916

Traffic on the Eastern section was started on 14 March 1915. The bridge over the Amour at Habarovsk - an engineering work of real magnitude, for the bridge is to be 7.038ft in lenght - is not yet finished, owing the lack of material (note: not a word of missing two spans which went to the bottom of Indian Ocean in 1914) and labour caused by the war.

According to the Bulletin of Laws 18/31 January 1915 the State Treasury was authorized to spent 5.416.000 roubles during 1915 for the temporary working of the railway. Through communication along the whole lenght if the railway line will possibly be opened on 1/14 January 1917. Actually the opening seremony of the Amour bridge was on 18 October 1916 (old calender). The main motive power for Amour Railway will be powerful new locomotives now being constructed in United States of America.

In 1916 credits only sufficient to cover expenditure incurred in excess of estimates, and to construct the bridge across the Amour were asked for. It is now estimated that total construction of the Amour Railway, excusive of expenditure in connection with the water supply, will amount to 322.500.000 roubles.

As one can see the sources published in Imperial Russia were much more reliable than those which were introduced later by the Bolsheviks and during Soviet period which were influenced by Stalin´s order in 1936 to show the greatness of the Russians and to neglete all foreign and non-Russian influence in development of Russia.

JN