Trans-Siberian Railway

node · earth · European Russia, Siberia and the Russian Far East

The Moscow–Vladivostok trunk line, conventionally 9,288 km and the longest continuous railway on Earth. The imperial government announced it on 9 March 1891 and the future Nicholas II turned the first earth at Vladivostok in May 1891; more than 7,000 km were laid in the first decade, built in parallel sections rather than end to end. Two things it is easy to get wrong: it was not finished in 1904, and the line that opened then was not entirely Russian. Through running from 1903 used the Chinese Eastern Railway across Manchuria, and only the Amur Railway, completed in 1916, gave a route lying wholly inside Russian territory. Electrification, begun in 1929, was not completed until 2002. Timetabled distance quoted by operators today is about 9,259 km, a little short of the famous 9,288 marker at Vladivostok, because alignments have changed; the flagship Rossiya takes roughly six days.