Chinese Eastern Railway

node · earth · Manchuria — Chita to Nikolsk-Ussuriysky via Harbin

The Russian-built and Russian-operated shortcut that carried the Trans-Siberian across Chinese Manchuria between Chita and the Ussuri line, with Harbin as its junction city. Work began in July 1897 and accelerated after Russia took a 25-year lease of the Liaodong peninsula in 1898; a branch ran south to the ice-free naval base at Lüshun. Traffic opened in 1901 and through passenger working from European Russia to Vladivostok began in July 1903. It was chosen because it was shorter and because the Amur route was harder ground and colder — and it was, in the end, the reason the Trans-Siberian had to be built twice. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 transferred the southern branch to Japan and demonstrated the cost of routing a strategic main line through somebody else's territory.