Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1318

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RUSSIA

private companies, 3,727 miles; in Finland, 150 miles. To he huiU, 2,205 miles. Of these 235 miles by the State, 63 miles by the Manclmrian railway, and 1,917 miles by private companies.

The activity of the Russian railways, exclusive of the Transcaspian railway and those of Finland, is seen from the folloAving table, which shows the length, gross receipts, working expenses, and net receipts, as also the number of passengers and amounts of goods carried for the last five years, according to the last figures published by the Ministry of Ways and Communications.

Years

E. miles

Gross Receipts

Workiug

Expenses

Net Receipts

Passengers

Goods carried

1891 1892 1893 1894 1S95 1896

18,441 18,441 21,690

22,986 23,220

25,756

Paper Roubles 296,087,000 301,709,000 328,793,000 370,129,955 396,822,770 426,322,767

Paper Roubles 177,651,000 194,032,000 199,362,000 215,012,634 231,303,682 248,245,732

Paper Roubles 118,436,000 107,676,000 129,431,000 155,117,320 165,519,088 178,077,035

Persons

47,942,765

49,353,000

51,523,000

48,490,000

49,342,000

Tons 69,848,000 72,311,100 78,134,000 42,060,0001 90,115,000

1 Exclusive of transfers from cue Russian line to anotlier.

The chief line in construction was the Trans-Siberian, 4,950 miles, which it is proposed to complete in 1905, at the cost of about 150,000,000 roubles. On December 11, 1895, the first section from Tchelyabinsk (which is already connected by rail with Samara, via the ironworks Zlatoust and Mias) to Omsk, 493 miles, was ready, with the exception of the iron bridge across the Irtysh ; the se^'ond section, Omsk to the Ob River, 388 miles, Avas ready in October, 1896; and building was begun on the next three sections: Ob to Krasnoyarsk on the Yenisei, 476 miles (rails already laid on December 17, 1895), and traffic opened from the Ob to Bolotnaya, 70 miles), Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk, 672 miles, and Station Mysovaya on Lake Baikal to Sryetensk at the head of navigation on the Amur, 701 miles. In 1898 trafiic was opened as far as Irkutsk ; building proceeded round to southern shore of Lake Baikal, but temporarily powerful ice-bj-eaker steamers had been built to maintain steamer communication across the lake during the winter. At the Pacific end of the railway, the section from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk, 475 miles, was completed in the summer of 1897 ; the first train from Vladivostok leached Khabarovsk on the Amur on September 13, ]897. The branch, Tchelyabinsk to Ekaterinburg, 150 miles, which connects the main trunk with the Middle Urals line Perm-Ekaterinburg-Tyumen, was opened in 1896. However, as the building of the line would have met with extreme difficulties from Sryetensk on the Sliilka till Pokrovskoye on the Amur (240 miles), as Avell as from this last further on down the Amur, a company has been formed by the Russian Government, by a law of December 4 (16), 1896, for building a railway to connect Transbaikalia (Onon station) with Vladi- vostok, via ]\Ianchuria (Russian frontier village Tsurukhaitu, to Tsitsikar, Khulan-chen, and Kinguta). The total length of this line is estimated at about 1,273 miles, of which 945^ miles are in Chinese territory. As this line must, however, cross the valley of the Sungari, it will also have to cope Avith considerable difficulties. Preliminary researches are being made along this line, and an easy passage across the Great Khiugan has been found. Work was begun last summer at the southern end of this railway in the Valley of the Usuri. A new great raihvay, from Perm to Vyatka and thence to Kotlas, on the Northern Dvina, at its junction with the Vychegda in order to make Arkhangelsk the chief port of West Siberia,