OTHER RAILWAY LINES LINKED TO THE TRANS-SIBERIAN
BAM – a second Trans-Siberian
In the 1930s another Herculean undertaking was begun on the railways of Russia. The project was named the Baikal-Amur-Magistral (BAM): a second Trans-Siberian railway, 3140km long, running parallel but to the north of the existing line. It was to run through the rich mining districts of northern Siberia, providing an east–west communications back-up to the main line. Work began in Tayshet and the track reached Ust Kut on the Lena River before the project was officially abandoned at the end of the First World War. Much of the 700km of track that had been laid was torn up to replace war-damaged lines in the west. Construction continued in secret, using slave labour until the gulags were closed in 1954.
In 1976 it was announced that work on the BAM was recommencing. Incentives were offered to collect the 100,000 strong work-force needed for so large a project. For eight years they laboured heroically, dynamiting their way through the permafrost which covers almost half the route, across a region where temperatures fall as low as -60°C in winter. In October 1984 it was announced that the way was open from Tayshet to Komsomolsk-na-Amur. Although track-laying had been completed, only the eastern half was operational (from Komsomolsk to BAM Station, where traffic joined the old Trans-Siberian route). By 1991 the whole system was still not fully operational, the main obstacle being the Severomuysk Tunnel, bypassed by an unsatisfactory detour with an impressive 1:25 gradient. It took from 1981 to 1991 to drill 13km of the 16km of this unfinished tunnel in the most difficult of conditions. Many were already questioning the point of a railway that was beginning to look like a white elephant. Work has more or less stopped now; the main sections of the line are complete but traffic is infrequent. The BAM was built to compete with shipping routes for the transfer of freight but the cost has been tremendous: there has been considerable ecological damage and there is little money left for the extraction of the minerals that was the other reason for the building of the railway. It is possible to travel along the BAM route starting near the north of Lake Baikal and ending up at Khabarovsk.
Rail traffic on the BAM line remains far below capacity. About six trains per day ply the route and even these are unreliable. According to Russian Railways, the BAM carries about nine million tons of cargo each year, though its total capacity is around 18 million; Russian Railways plans to send 19 million tons of freight down the line by 2010.
The BAM was saved from oblivion when Kremlin Chief of Staff, Dmitry Medvedev, discussed developing the Russian Far East in an April 2005 interview. However, he also mentioned the BAM as the sort of wasteful project that should be avoided. ‘We do not need yet another huge construction project with an unpredictable outcome, as happened with BAM’ he said.
The BAM was meant to give development in Siberia a much-needed boost. But rather it has become another export route to sell Russian resources abroad. The line is now used to send crude oil from small fields near Irkutsk to China at a rate of 10,000 tons per month. Oil is loaded onto trains at Ust-Kut and sent to Komsomolsk-on-Amur and then on to the port of Vanino.
You can find full details about the BAM and travel in the BAM region in the Siberian BAM Guide – rail, rivers and road, by Athol Yates and Nicholas Zvegintzov (also from Trailblazer). Through Siberia by Accident is Dervla Murphy’s entertaining account of her recent travels in the region.
AYaM and Little BAM
The AyaM (Amuro-Yakutskaya Magistral) is the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline, which will eventually run from Tynda on the BAM north to Yakutsk. The project was scheduled for completion at the same time as the BAM but construction has been fraught with both engineering and financial difficulties. The Yakutiya Railway Company is, however, now pushing ahead with the last 368km (from the current point 90km north of Tommot) aiming to reach Yakutsk by 2010. They also plan to extend the line east to Magadan.
The Little BAM is the 180km rail link between the Trans-Siberian at Bamovskaya and Tynda, start of the AYaM.
Sakhalin railway
The island of Sakhalin (north of Japan) is currently linked to the Russian mainland by rail ferries operating between Vanino and Kholmsk. Steam specials are occasionally run on the island’s 3ft 6in-gauge rail system.
Turkestan–Siberia (Turksib) railway
The Turksib links Novosibirsk on the Trans-Siberian with Almaty in Kazakhstan, a journey of 1678km. From there it’s possible to continue on into Western China. The line was constructed in the 1930s to make it easier to transport grain from Siberia and cotton from Turkestan between these two regions. For more information visit the website: www.turksib.com.
Kazakhstan–China railway
In September 1990 a rail line was opened between Urumqi in north-west China and the border with Kazakhstan, opening a new rail route between east Asia and Europe via the Central Asian Republics. China built this link to create the shortest Eurasian rail route (2000km shorter than the Trans-Siberian) between the Pacific and the Atlantic, enabling freight to be transported faster and more cheaply than by ship. This means that it’s now possible to travel along the ancient Silk Route by rail, through the old Central Asian capitals of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand and the Chinese cities of Dunhuang, Luoyang and Xi’an. Train No 6 (‘Uzbekistan’) leaves Moscow every third day for Tashkent. From Tashkent to Bukhara via Samarkand you can take the excellent train No 10 (‘Sharq’, daily).
Kazakhstan–Iran railway
In May 1996 a 295km cross-border railway line was officially opened between Mashhad in Iran and Saraghs and Tejen in Turkmenistan. This line, it was said, was the forerunner of a network that would join land-locked Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and, via Turkey, to the Mediterranean. The potential was there for a new Silk Route between southern Europe and the Far East, cutting travel times by up to 10 days. Six years later the line had reached northwards via Turkmenabat (Turkmenistan) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan) all the way to Almaty (Kazakhstan), and southwards to Tehran (Iran). In March 2002, with great fanfare, a weekly service was inaugurated for the 3300km, 70-hour Almaty–Tehran journey. But a month later it was suspended, apparently over disagreements about right of way through Uzbekistan.
For the moment, if you want to come this way you must take the train from Tehran to Mashhad, cross the border into Turkmenistan by bus to Ashgabat or via Sarachs to Mary, and continue into Uzbekistan by bus to Bukhara. Alternatively you could take Asseman Airlines’ more-or-less weekly flight between Tehran and Ashgabat.
A line to Korea
Today shipments of oil, gas and other goods on the Trans-Siberian line are used to pay off Russia’s staggering foreign debt. In 2001, negotiations began in earnest to extend the Trans-Siberian Railway into South Korea, forming an even more profitable link between Europe and Asia. In 2002, North and South Korea announced they would cooperate in rebuilding the Trans-Korean Railway, with Russia bankrolling part of the project to pay off its US$1 billion debt to South Korea. Bridging Korea’s DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is the first step in extending the Trans-Siberian to the tip of the peninsula.
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