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Russians had a fear of invasions. Railroads would have made invasion easier. Large areas suffer from permafrost or boggy soil. Trains derail or tip over without a solid base. Hence, construction was expensive, not a priority, and often worked by prisoners. The slightly wider 5 foot gauge thwarted invasion plans and slightly reduced the tipping/derailment problems. The delay of shipping agricultural goods like grain or lumber by boat wasn't a big issue.
Hardly any of the major Russian railway lines are in areas with permafrost. If Russia feared invasions so much, what made the situation change so dramatically a decade before WWI? And didn't similarly France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria-Hungary and others fear invasions? Finally, the 5 ft gauge was the first standard of railway gauges. Russia just chose to stick with it. For example most of the South US railways were originally 5 ft.
The US had men like Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt and Russia didn't. Building the railroads took men of ambition and vision. Neither of these were given reign in most countries while in the US they could run free.
True, plus Russia never developed the enormous steel industry needed to supply vast rail networks.
Ironic how I leaped into a highway debate and not a railway debate having been married to an internationally renown Transportation Engineer specializing in Rail.
American business and private citizens built ALL the roads in the time period being discussed.
Maybe read the article I posted if you really want to know how America and history of civilization worked on this subject.
I don't know where to begin.
Well, most of the US railways were built with private money to stimulate trade. This incentive wasn't present in Imperial Russia, where the economy was more primitive and agricultural, and the despot monarch could just confiscate your precious railway if he wanted.
I must confess, that I was among those, who assumed that the main reason more RR's weren't built, was the climate; not only semi-permafrost even in the southern areas (even southern Siberia, where the Trans-Sib goes, has permafrost)but also the fact that the weather in general would only allow construction for less than half the year).
HOWEVER, upon further reflection, I realize that the Tsar's special project of building a short-cut to the Trans-Sib. through Chinese Manchuria was pulled off with great success, and similar conditions prevail in that terrain, so--location is no deterrent, apparently. Were a lot of Chinese lives lost in the construction process there? Possibly. We may never know.
Isn't there a spur from the BAM railway, that extends up to Yakutia? I guess not; it's only been proposed, but never built. But there are other rail extensions in the north, beyond the Urals. Here's a map:
Another problem is that when crossing the steppes, there wasn't wood for the rail ties, which had to be shipped hundreds of miles from Europe. Amazingly enough, there wasn't enough wood in the Siberian forests either (which are primarily softwood, again, hardwood was shipped from Europe).
The planners were based in St. Petersburg and didn't really know the local conditions, so there were plenty of inefficiencies like routing the tracks through delta regions with lots of rivers and streams. Also, flooding and landslides took a toll.
There was political pressure not to build a 'railroad to nowhere', plus the cost was a lot for the debt-strapped Russian government (at the time interest payments alone cost more than funding the military). They tried to make it cheap by not using as much wood / steel as was used in the West, at the cost of as many as three train wrecks per day and dozens killed per day.
There were manpower issues (Russia recruited lots of convict and foreign labor - including stonemasons from Italy). Disease was rampant, including diseases that were gone from Europe but still active in Asia, like the plague. There were few doctors and not much food.
There were issues such as crossing (eventually by-passing) Lake Baikal, which was roughly the size of Belgium.
All in all, it's kind of amazing that the railroad was completed at all.
Another problem is that when crossing the steppes, there wasn't wood for the rail ties, which had to be shipped hundreds of miles from Europe. Amazingly enough, there wasn't enough wood in the Siberian forests either (which are primarily softwood, again, hardwood was shipped from Europe).
The planners were based in St. Petersburg and didn't really know the local conditions, so there were plenty of inefficiencies like routing the tracks through delta regions with lots of rivers and streams. Also, flooding and landslides took a toll.
There was political pressure not to build a 'railroad to nowhere', plus the cost was a lot for the debt-strapped Russian government (at the time interest payments alone cost more than funding the military). They tried to make it cheap by not using as much wood / steel as was used in the West, at the cost of as many as three train wrecks per day and dozens killed per day.
There were manpower issues (Russia recruited lots of convict and foreign labor - including stonemasons from Italy). Disease was rampant, including diseases that were gone from Europe but still active in Asia, like the plague. There were few doctors and not much food.
There were issues such as crossing (eventually by-passing) Lake Baikal, which was roughly the size of Belgium.
All in all, it's kind of amazing that the railroad was completed at all.
We don't need to see a permafrost map; most of us here know Russia well enough. But my point still stands, that the Tsar was able to push through a project for a short cut through China, from Chita (north of Mongolia), to Vladivostok, saving a day and a half off the trip duration, from Moscow. Northern China has similar conditions to southern Siberia. Not only did they build that shortcut, but they created an entire city in the process. Presumably, some of the manpower came from China. I don't have those details, but it does show that additional rail routes could be built in adverse conditions, given funding.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 02-11-2018 at 12:02 PM..
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