Trans-Siberian Railway Similar to the First Transcontinental Railroad in the US, Russian engineers started construction at both ends and worked towards the centre. From Vladivostok the railway was laid north along the right bank of the Ussuri River to Khabarovsk at the Amur River, becoming the Ussuri Railway. In 1890, a bridge across the Ural River was built and the new railway entered Asia. The bridge across the Ob River was built in 1898 and the small city of Novonikolaevsk, founded in 1883, grew into the large Siberian city of Novosibirsk. In 1898 the first train reached Irkutsk and the shores of
Return of the Chinese Eastern Railway China National Railways, the Soviet Union was able to maintain trade access to China at lower cost. Furthermore, the CCR was significantly underdeveloped compared to the remainder of the Soviet Trans-Siberian Railway (which was being rapidly modernized after World War II). All of these factors combined to make returning the railway to China a cheaper bargain than upgrading and integrating the CCR into the Soviet Railway system. Ultimately the strategic loss of the CCR was more than made up for by the strategic benefits of the new Sino-Soviet Alliance. These benefits were seen both immediately with the Korean War but