Railway Development in Russia.

The first railway in Russia was built in 1834, between St. Petersburg and Tzarskoe Selo. This was soon followed by the opening of a 400 miles railway communication between the Capital City and Moscow, an event which marked the beginning of the amazing development and progress of the Empire of the Tzars. It is interesting to record that the gauge adopted for the Russian railways was the largest and heaviest in the world. All railways since constructed in Russia have necessarily been continued on that scale, and Russian cars, locomotives and trucks are the biggest, most spacious and least jolty met with in any country. The heavy tare of the rolling stock required a good page 28 track, special rails and exceptionally solid bridges, and Russia can boast steel bridges of the finest construction, spanning such enormous rivers as the Volga, Enissey, Irtish, Dnieper, Don, Lena and Amur. The great European plain, with its endless steppes, provided a splendid field for the development of railways, as the cost of construction on a flat ground, without tunnels and expensive excavations, was low. As was only natural, Moscow, situated in the centre of the vast agricultural district, gradually became the main middle point of Russian railways, and the junction of nine principal railway lines. The Asiatic possessions of the Russian Empire were still awaiting their development, and it was only in 1895 that the great Trans-Siberian Railway was constructed.

The task of linking the ports of the Baltic with those of the Pacific Ocean (a distance of approximately 7000 miles) was accomplished during the reign of the Emperor Alexander III. in the course of four years (1891–1895), and special expresses, have been run since then, covering the distance in ten days, and without change of carriages en route. Russia became very much alive to the necessity of developing the railway system, and the programme of the Government for the last forty years before the revolution was always providing for special credits designed to build new railways. Exports were increasing tremendously, huge grain elevators were erected in the principal ports of the country, and the traffic became so heavy that it was found necessary to double-track all the Trans-Siberian, which task was interrupted by the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, but accomplished soon after. The public was invited to participate in railway loans, and many private companies were formed, with a view to opening new avenues of commerce and to connect various regions by railways with centres and ports. International capitalists invested huge sums in the development and working of Russian railways.

During a period of time from 1870 to the beginning of the Great War, of the exports of Russia those to Germany increased from 21.1 per cent, to 31.8, owing to increased railway facilities. The traffic the other way, from the Continent to Russia, during the same time, increased from 39.5 per cent, to 52.6 per cent. The ten years preceding the Great War developed the national wealth of Russia to an enormous extent. The production of coal, for instance, from sixteen millions of tons reached thirty-two millions in 1911, and over forty millions just before the War. The yield of agricultural produce (grain) in 1901 was fifty-four millions of tons, while in 1911 it amounted to seventy-five millions of tons.