 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Far Eastern Railway" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 The headquarters inKhabarovsk | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Khabarovsk |
| Locale | Russia,Russian Far East |
| Dates of operation | 1936–present |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) |
| Previous gauge | 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) (Sakhalin Island, until 2019) |
| Length | 6,826 km (4,240 mi) |
| Other | |
| Website | www |
Far Eastern Railway (Russian:Дальневосточная железная дорога) is arailway inRussia that crossesPrimorsky Krai,Khabarovsk Krai,Amur Oblast,Jewish Autonomous Oblast, andYakutia.[1]
The railway administration is located inKhabarovsk. The Far Eastern Railway borders with theTransbaikal Railway atArkhara Station andBaikal Amur Mainline atIzvestkovaya andKomsomolsk-on-Amur Stations. There are 365 railway stations along the Far Eastern Railway and twoborder crossings:Grodekovo (Russo-Chinese border) andKhasan (a border between Russia andNorth Korea). The Railway consists of four divisions: theKhabarovsk Railway Division,Vladivostok Railway Division,Komsomolskoye Railway Division, andTynda Railway Division. The biggest points of cargo departure and arrival are Khabarovsk-2, Izvestkovaya,Birobidzhan, Volochayevka-2, Komsomolsk-on-Amur,Sovetskaya Gavan,Sibirtsevo,Ussuriysk,Baranovsky,Uglovaya,Vladivostok,Nakhodka, Nakhodka Vostochnaya, andVanino.
The construction of the Far Eastern Railway commenced in May 1891 due to the economic development of theRussian Far East. In 1895, they opened regular train service between Vladivostok and Iman (today's Dalnerechenskaya railway station). In 1897, they commissioned the Khabarovsk-Vladivostok line. Direct train traffic from the Arkhara railway station to Vladivostok was launched in 1916 with the commissioning of therailroad bridge over the Amur River near Khabarovsk. More than 5,000 railmen were employed at the Far Eastern Railway in 1900.
During theRussian Civil War and theforeign military intervention the employees of the Far Eastern Railway had to rebuild destroyed bridges and damaged tracks and ensure stable traffic of urgent loads. Rail line restoration began in the winter of 1924-1925 from the reconstruction of the Khabarovsk Bridge due to the importance of resuming a through traffic over theTrans-Siberian Railway. In 1929, they built the Nadezhdinskaya-Tavrichanka line for the needs of the Primorsky Krai (for the servicing of agricultural regions near theKhanka Lake, in particular). In 1931, they finished the construction of the Sibirtsevo-Turiy Rog line. In 1935–1936, they reconstructed the Uglovaya-Partizansk line due to the increasing extraction ofcoking coal from the Suchansky coalfields. In 1940, they commissioned the Volochayevka-Komsomolsk-on-Amur line and Sibirtsevo-Varfolomeyevka line. In 1941, they finished the construction of the Birobidzhan-Leninsk line and Partizansk-Nakhodka section and commissioned the Smolyaninovo-Dunai, Partizansk-Sergeyevka, and Baranovsky-Gvozdevo lines. In 1940, they finished the construction of the main eastward sorting station called Khabarovsk-2 with a fully mechanizedhump yard.
By the outbreak of theGreat Patriotic War, the Far Eastern Railway had already had a well-developed infrastructure. It was put on a war footing in a very short period of time and began supplying theEastern Front with military equipment, ammunition, and provisions. The railway management provided frontline railroads with staff,rolling stock, spare parts, and materials. Also, the Far Eastern Railway played an important role in assisting theSoviet Army indefeating the Imperial Japanese Army and seizing Southern Sakhalin and theKuril Islands.
In 1947, the Komsomolsk-on-Amur—Sovetskaya Gavan line was commissioned, providing the second (after the Trans-Siberian Railway) railroad access to thePacific Ocean and cutting the distance in 1000 km for maritime transportation to Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and Magadan Oblast. Due to the lack of bridge crossing over the Amur River near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, railcars crossed the river on atrain ferry in the summertime and with special train platforms during the winter.
In 1963, the3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gaugeSouth Sakhalin Railway was incorporated into the Far Eastern Railway. In 1973,Vanino-Kholmsk train ferry started operating, improving transportation service in Sakhalin. In 1975, a unique railway river crossing over the Amur River near Komsomolsk-on-Amur was commissioned, providing a continuous year-round railway service between Volochayevka and Sovetskaya Gavan. Newrail yards, such as Toki, Komsomolsk-Sortirovochniy,Nakhodka Vostochnaya etc. were opened.
