Due to the shortage of labour, convicts and exiles were used on several parts of the line and earned remission from their sentences in return for their work. Here they are seen working on a bridge over the river Khor in 1900.
The building of the Trans-Siberian required the constrution of hundreds of bridges using a variety of unusual techniques, such as this steel structure built in a design known as ‘fish-bellied truss’.
The construction of the Trans-Siberian was the trigger for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, which ended in an overwhelming Japanese victory. This hospital train of the Russian Red Cross helped evacuate wounded soldiers along the Trans-Siberian.
The line was used, too, for the transfer of Japanese prisoners in the Russo-Japanese War.
A rare moment of light relief during the Russo-Japanese war as local people in Manchuria entertain Russian soldiers.
The major bridges, such as this one over the Ob river near Novonikolayevsk (now Novosibirsk) being inspected by engineers, were the last part of the line to be completed.
Although the Trans-Siberian was built much later than most of the world’s railways, little mechanisation was used, as shown by this picture of men preparing and laying sleepers.
As soon as sections of line were completed, they became part of a bustling railway that was heavily used right from the start.
The arrival of the first train at Irkutsk Station, 1898, which was actually located across the wide Angara river from the town as building a line over it was reckoned to be too expensive.
The Trans-Siberian was the focus of much fighting in the Russian Civil War and troops of several nationalities, such as the Japanese seen here entering Vladivostok in 1918, became involved, though essentially as non-combatants.
Farmers and children sell dairy products to passengers on the Trans-Siberian, a photograph taken from a collection by William Wisner Chapin for a series in the National Geographic called ‘Glimpses of the Russian Empire’ in 1910.
Leon Trotsky, on the left, at Petrograd Railway Station, March 1920. He played a major role in ensuring victory for the Communists in the Civil War, using an armoured train as his base.
Armoured trains like this one were used extensively by both sides in the Russian Civil War. This one was originally Russian but was captured by the Czechoslovak Legion in its successful campaign to gain control of the Trans-Siberian.
A pointsman at Novosibirsk, 1929.
Children sell flowers to passengers on the line in May 1921 soon after it reopened following the Civil War.
After the completion of the line, the Russian government made considerable efforts to attract affluent Western passengers by providing luxurious facilities, such as this saloon car seen in 1903.
Buryat people at Talbaga station in eastern Siberia, where they form a considerable proportion of several districts.
A waiting room for third-class passengers, like this one in Krasnoyarsk pictured in 1905, were designed to a standard spartan style.
Vladivostok station where future Tsar Nicholas II inaugurated construction of the line.
Passengers on a platform 1915.
Yaroslavsky station in Moscow, the terminus of the line in 1908...
...and in 1974.
A railwayman stands beside snow-covered tracks in 1978.
A team of volunteers, members of the Young Communist League, at the Yaroslavsky Railway Terminal in Moscow prior to their departure to construction sites of the Baikal-Amur Mainline.
The completion of the Baikal-Amur Mainline was announced several times by the Russian government, including on this occasion in October 1984 but, in fact, it was not completed until 1991 – and even then required much remedial work.
Plaque at Vladivostok station commemorating 100 years of service on the line.
Novosibirsk station, the grandest in Russia, designed by Nikolai Voloshinov in a classical style and containing several huge waiting halls lined with Soviet paintings, including one depicting the 1960 U-2 spying incident.
The Circum-Baikal railway near Angasolka, which no longer forms part of the mainline but is retained to serve local villages and tourists.
The Rossiya Trans-Siberian train arriving at Ulan-Ude en route to Vladivostok, November 2007.
Ulan-Ude station, dawn in November 2012. The smoke is from the coal used to heat the inside of the train.
Christian Wolmar and Deborah Maby with a sleeping car attendant.
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