To the Edge of the World
Page 11
Even in the summer, passengers could be held up for days at the ports, waiting for a crossing as the ships were marooned by bad weather, and in the winter on many occasions passengers had to make the thirty-mile crossing in a sledge; a perilous journey on ice that occasionally would suddenly break up, creating gaps that would prove fatal for anyone falling into them. On other occasions, journeys were curtailed, the passengers having to disembark and continue by tarantass across the ice because the Baikal could not force a way through. The other option, of driving trains across temporary tracks on the ice, proved fanciful and was not even attempted until the Russo-Japanese War (see chapter 6), with fateful results.
Of course, building the railway was more than just laying tracks across the Siberian steppe and involved setting up a ferry service. Railways need stations, sidings, signalling systems, depots, locomotives, rolling stock and much more. The advantage of this massive project being initiated and developed by government was that these facilities could be standardized and built to set specifications. Stations had to be at most fifty versts (thirty-three miles) apart – which actually was double the distance allowed on the rest of the railway network – to ensure that facilities were available for passengers in the event of breakdowns and for maintenance of the track, and there had to be a small repair depot every 100 miles – essential given the unreliability of the locomotives.
The stations and other buildings had to comply with the railway’s own architectural style, created by a special design-drawing workshop that had been part of the ministry of transport since 1842. It created a typology for the industrial, passenger and office buildings that were part of the railway. That did not mean the buildings were identical, but rather that they had the same design features. It was, in modern-day parlance, a brand, rather like that created for the London Underground a few years later. Passengers waiting for trains will have been grateful that double glazing and strong insulation were, right from the start, provided as standard.
There were no fewer than five categories of stations. Initially there were no first-class stations, as even established towns like Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and Chita were categorized as second class, but at least they were provided with stations that were built in brick with eclectic combinations of Russian and Western motifs. Apart from a few third-class stations, all the rest were built in wood. They did not lack charm and individuality: ‘The architecture was spared from presenting an overall impression of boring predictability. This meant there was a great variety of modified versions to be seen. These wooden buildings were the closest to the traditional native architecture and were constructed in the same manner as the houses in villages and towns.’24
The design team did not always get it right. Many country stations lacked covered space to store grain awaiting shipment, which meant it spoiled when there was heavy rain, and was easily stolen. Nor did the two lowest categories of station have any waiting rooms. Passengers were allowed to wait in an employee’s house, which was precisely a mere 592 square feet, but that was probably sufficient since there were rarely hordes waiting for trains in these remote places.
Railway colonies quickly developed around the stations to house employees. The railway was effectively creating new communities with a distinctive style: ‘The whole of the complexes, buildings and structures of the Trans-Siberian formed a huge architectural entity, a sort of ensemble. The use of the same design, materials, details and decoration along the entire track created an architectural unity and integrity, which was further strengthened by the application of identical colours. Wooden buildings were painted in green and light brown, while others were in red and white, using brick and plaster for decorative details.’25
Although there was corruption, incompetence and shoddy workmanship, the railway was completed remarkably quickly. Yet there was a tendency among Western writers, from whom much of our information about the line’s construction emanates, to decry the Russian efforts, a contempt that long predated the building of the Trans-Siberian. Martin Page, writing in the 1970s, encapsulates that well: ‘Holy Russia, belonging neither to the industrialized West nor to the exotic East, and understanding neither, seemed to imagine that the building of the railway would somehow miraculously make it a major power in both. As it was primarily an exercise in chauvinism, foreign experts were rigorously excluded from even the smallest participation in the project from the outset through to its completion. The Russians lacked the human resources to carry it through competently by themselves, and the results of their attempting to do so were deplorable (and faithfully recorded in the railway journals of the West, whose editors appear to have viewed the prospect of the project’s failure with relish).’26
There were many other similar comments, both contemporary and more recent, born of ignorance and prejudice. This attitude, particularly prevalent at the time of the building of the Trans-Siberian, has survived, despite the fact that its completion in less than a decade was an achievement on a par with any of the other great engineering projects of the nineteenth century which do not attract the same churlish criticism. A more accurate view was expressed by the authors of a book on the role of the railway in the Russo-Japanese War: ‘In many respects, the railway-building involved with both the Trans-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern Railway was the acme of planning, execution and technology. The construction of the railways was carried out economically, with noteworthy achievements in planning and engineering.’27 As proof of this, the Trans-Siberian was built around fifty per cent more quickly than the Canadian transcontinental which had inspired it. Indeed, The Engineer magazine in Britain praised the Russian bridge-building skills in an article in 1897, observing that ‘the Russian engineer is rapidly rising to a place amongst the better engineers of Europe’.28
Moreover, as we have seen and contrary to what Page says, there was much foreign expertise called upon to help design many features of the railway, such as bridges and other structures, stations and depots. The building of the Trans-Siberian, as befitted a project of this size, was, in fact, a truly global enterprise involving European and, in particular, American suppliers, and it had a lasting impact. Much of the steel for the line was actually manufactured in the United States and many Americans made their fortune producing rails, locomotives and bridge components for the railway. Braking systems, for example, came from Westinghouse and the New York Air Brake company: ‘American steel-rolling mills, machine-shops and forges for the manufacture of rails, locomotives and bridge components expanded and grew rich on the contracts that were negotiated with the Russian government for this mammoth enterprise.’29 The Russian industrialization stimulated by construction of the railways, particularly the Trans-Siberian, was based on American expertise: ‘The Trans-Siberian Railway, it was calculated, was supporting no fewer than 128,000 American family members.’30 The impetus given by the construction of the Trans-Siberian to the American metallurgical industry had, indeed, a long-lasting effect, helping the Americans to overtake the British in many parts of the world as the main suppliers of materials for railway construction. British engineering input, on the other hand, was largely confined to the building of the Baikal, though Royal Engineers did supervise some of the more complex building tasks; also, like the French, the British supplied considerable capital to the Russian government, some of which undoubtedly helped to fund the Trans-Siberian.
In other words, the Trans-Siberian was a great stimulus to the global capitalism that was still establishing itself as the dominant economic ethos at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no little irony in that since in many respects the construction of the line was more Soviet than anything the communist dictators would later achieve. It was a monument to state planning and state funding of major projects. Witte may have strengthened capitalism and private industry in Russia through his adept handling of the economy as finance minister, but that was in the name of furthering the interests of his Motherland, not to boost the profits of private enterprise. He understood tha
t a measure of capitalist enterprise was needed, but that ultimately it had to be subservient to the needs of government, and the Trans-Siberian is a testament to that philosophy.
The cost of the railway was undoubtedly increased by corruption – that deep-seated ill of tsarist (and, indeed, modern) Russia. With the committee overseeing the project thousands of miles away in St Petersburg, tight financial control was an impossibility. Nevertheless, the routine nature of the corruption and waste was still remarkable. The extensive use of contractors was at the root of much of it. A few large contractors monopolized the work and were often responsible for a wide variety of tasks which were specified vaguely, allowing for a lot of leeway. Supposedly, any contract worth more than 5,000 roubles (£500) was supposed to be authorized by the Committee, but in practice this rule was avoided by simply allocating lots of identical contracts, each below the threshold. Marks cites the example of a supplier of wood for the Western Siberia section receiving ‘36 separate contracts for a total of 180,000 roubles’.31
The work of the contractors, who were mostly local peasants with a bit of entrepreneurial nous, was essentially unsupervised. They were simply handed contracts to build a particular stretch of track without any competitive tendering process and even then they often asked for extra payment, once work had begun, as they knew that there was no alternative supplier because the imperative was to get the job done quickly: ‘Having set his own high price, the contractor then called for even larger payments, and to keep him on the job, the construction chief often approved the requests without higher authorization.’32 Advance payments were routinely made and were often, as we have seen on the Ussuri Railway, simply pocketed by the supplier, who did not fulfil his contract. With very little supervision of the work, contractors boosted their profits by skimping on material or building to below the required standard, resulting in embankments that were too narrow, insufficient ballast, inadequate drainage and a host of other failings. Profits of thirty per cent were routine and the cost of supplies was often charged at sixty per cent more than contractors had paid for them. Many contractors prospered as a result, and one who worked for Pushechnikov was honest enough to tell him: ‘By recommending me for contract work on the Circum-Baikal line, you have made me rich.’33
Using a small number of big contractors may have been expensive, but it seemed to suit everyone, even if it meant increased costs. The accountants charged with overseeing the contracts turned a blind eye to this sort of abuse. It made their job easier because it meant they had to deal with fewer suppliers. Effectively, the corruption was institutionalized: ‘It got the job done quickly (regardless of costs) and relieved them [the chief engineers] of additional expenditures of time, direct responsibility for the labour force, and the detailed supervision of works (for which they lacked the requisite knowledge).’34 Moreover, the central administration back in St Petersburg was happy, because there were fewer disputes between suppliers and the engineers who had the main contract.
There is a paradox here. The story of the struggle over the construction of the railway presented in this chapter seems to contradict the incontrovertible fact that the line was actually built, and completed remarkably quickly. But as ever with such stories, it is the hardships and disasters that make the news and are the focus of contemporary accounts, while the steady and uneventful progress of the various sections across the Siberian steppe attracted little attention. The true story, however, is that day after day, week after week, tens of thousands of workers mostly armed with little more than pickaxes and shovels created this monumental railway.
As well as vast numbers of men, the other requirement to maintain progress was, of course, money. And there seems to have been no constraint on the amount available. Witte may have been finance minister, but he was no parsimonious Vyshenegradsky-type figure. He and the tsar realized that the railway would have value only if it were finished. Consequently, once the project was underway, sufficient funds were always made available to ensure its completion. Witte recognized that the construction had been achieved at a heavy price for both the Russian economy and the people, but never wavered from his determination to see the project through. Witte put up taxes that helped pay for the railway and did everything to boost exports, which created shortages at home: ‘The Siberian Railroad required huge sacrifices on the part of the Russian population, a sad fact that Witte more than once acknowledged.’35
The line, therefore, did not come cheap. Indeed, the ultimate cost was inevitably far greater than the original estimate. The Committee’s original budget was around 350 million roubles (£35 million), just under 50,000 roubles per verst, and this had included the Amur Railway, which was not, in fact, completed until 1916. Without taking into account its replacement, the Chinese Eastern Railway – which was very expensive, as we shall see in chapter 5 – the total cost amounted to around 850 million roubles, an overrun of around 150 per cent, and the cost per verst was double the projected average at more than 100,000 roubles. That figure, produced in 1901, however, also includes operating losses for the first three years. Nevertheless, these calculations are probably underestimates, given the opaque nature of the government’s finances, and the single-till system of government accounting described earlier, which makes it difficult to identify specific sums of money set aside for the project.
However, in terms of the development of Siberia and the establishment of Russian rule over its huge territory, the exercise was undoubtedly worth it. The railway, as we see in subsequent chapters, continued to grow and be improved, and remains a key part of the region’s infrastructure. There was, though, one saving which should be considered in assessing the costs and benefits. The railway obviated the need to build a road connection between Moscow and Vladivostok and indeed it was not until the late twentieth century that there was anything like a reliable route for motor vehicles. The existence of the railway made such an investment unnecessary and that saving needs to be taken into account in any assessment of the cost. Moreover, on the positive side, while the cost may have been higher than expected, so was the usage. Right from the start both local people and long-distance travellers were desperate to use the trains, even though these pioneers journeyed in conditions that were far from ideal.
FIVE
TRAVELS AND TRAVAILS
The completed – or rather almost completed – Trans-Siberian which emerged at the turn of the century was not a gleaming new railway exemplifying the cutting-edge technology of the age. It was, rather, a meandering, single-track line with more curves than an average mountain pass and more rickety than a rope bridge. It was slow and unreliable, but it could nevertheless lay claim to being the longest and greatest railway ever built. It was far too glib to conclude, as Tupper did, that the Russians had ‘done a first-rate job in building a third-rate railway’.1
Tupper’s comment is typical of writers in the West who, as mentioned in the last chapter, had a tendency to criticize the new railway out of hand or (far less often) to overpraise it. The most balanced early assessment was given by William Oliver Greener, writing in 1902, whose conclusion was in the curate’s egg mould: ‘There are poor sections; none is either very good or very bad; some are much better than others.’2 Greener, almost uniquely among the early critics, recognized the constraints under which the builders had operated, whereby ‘everything has been accurately calculated; but everything, too, has been made just as specified in the calculated minimum [in the engineering textbooks], and no margin allowed for possible differences of soil and material’. As a result, there were inevitable instances of subsidence, landslides and spreading of the rails, causing derailments. Greener highlighted the problem of the lightness of the rails, particularly on the eastern sections, which were unsuitable for the heavy locomotives needed to pull the trains, and which slowed down services because running fast places more pressure on the track and consequently leads to breaks. While Greener observed that the line may well have been built more cheaply had foreign contractor
s been used, he recognized that by keeping it as a Russian enterprise, ‘the Russians have gained what they needed badly: practical experience in carrying through engineering work of the first order. In this way, if in no other, the State benefits.’ He was sanguine and balanced, too, about the region: ‘It was not the Eldorado some picture it, nor is it the desolate waste some consider it . . . [It] is just plain, commonplace country, such as one expects to find in any great British colony.’3
With the completion of the Transbaikal and the establishment of the ferry service on Lake Baikal, as well as the erection of the bridges over the major rivers, such as the Ob and the Yenisei, the Trans-Siberian was open for business. From Moscow and Chelyabinsk, passengers heading east in the summer of 1900 could travel by rail all the way to Irkutsk and then down to the lake at Port Baikal, where, after a steamer crossing, they could continue by train again from Mysovsk to Sretensk on the Shilka river; then by riverboats for almost 1,000 miles through to Khabarovsk, where they could take the Ussuri Railway, which ran through to Vladivostok. The journey took a minimum of six weeks, far shorter than the old post road, but nevertheless quite a trek, and there were at times lengthy delays due to breakdowns, accidents and shortage of rolling stock. There could, too, be a long wait for a train as the line’s capacity was extremely limited; at first it could accommodate just three trains per day in each direction. Massive backlogs of freight for which there was an immediate demand frequently built up, as passenger trains were given priority. Even the official guide to the line admitted to the early lack of capacity, suggesting in its rather stilted style that: ‘The means at its [the West Siberian Railway’s] disposal were far from sufficing for the transport and conveyance of the passengers and goods which presented themselves.’4