No railway has captured the imagination quite like the Trans-Siberian, but how did this epic feat of engineering come into being?

By Anthony Lambert and Gavin Haines Suggestions for a track linking Moscow with resource-rich Siberia and the Pacific coast were first made in the 1850s, but the financial and technical challenges deterred action for decades. Overseas investors expressed an interest in building the railway, but the Russian government was reluctant to allow outside interests to have a stake in such a strategic line. It was not until Alexander III’s reign in the 1880s that the project took shape and construction began at both ends: Moscow and Vladivostok.

Construction began in 1891. Alamy

To save money, the specification was foolishly cut back: the foundations were narrowed, the layer of ballast decreased, lighter rails used and the number of sleepers per mile reduced. Smaller bridges were built of wood rather than iron or steel. Construction proved a nightmare for the few qualified engineers. The lack of labour meant that soldiers and conscripts had to be brought in across the desolate taiga and the harsh climate hampered progress. Large rivers had to be bridged, and many areas were either waterlogged or iron-hard permafrost. Up to 90,000 men were employed in construction. Before the railway around Lake Baikal was completed, trains were carried 60 miles on the ice-breaking train ferry SS Baikal. Built in 1897 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne by Armstrong Whitworth in kit form, it was transported in pieces and assembled on the lakeshore. Even when the Circum-Baikal Railway was completed in 1904, the Baikal was kept in reserve until it was destroyed during the Russian Civil War. A smaller sister ship survives as a museum piece in Irkutsk.

The railway placed a decisive role in the Second World War. Alamy

Initially the route was not all on Russian territory: the Chinese Eastern Railway was constructed to provide a shorter route to Vladivostok via Harbin, where Russian staff were based. Now known as the Trans-Manchurian line, it is still the route of a train from Moscow to Beijing. An all-Russian Trans-Siberian route was finally completed in October 1916. The folly of building the railway on the cheap had became apparent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, when the railway could not cope with the demands made upon it, and it was not until well into the Twenties that all the deficiencies were rectified and civil war damage repaired. During the Second World War the railway played a vital role in supplying first the Axis Powers and then the Allies. For the first two years of the conflict, when the USSR claimed neutrality, the railway served as an essential link between Japan and Germany.

Electrification began in 1929, but wasn't completed until 2002. Alamy