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
Tomsk–Tayga railway line Tomsk–Tayga railway line The Tomsk–Tayga railway line is the railway branch connecting the Trans-Siberian Railway with Tomsk. The line is a single track throughout. Construction started in summer 1895 and completed in the end of 1896. Had at that time a length of 89 miles (95 kilometers). The need for the branches associated with the decision to build the Trans-Siberian Railway to bypass Tomsk, which was adopted in 1893. The beginning of the branches was a 213-mile (227-th kilometer or about) the Medium-Siberian railway from nameless settlement of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Later the station became known as Tomsk–Tayga, and later