Trans-Siberian Railway men and ammunition coming from west to east would have to wait in the sidings, whilst troops and injured personnel in a troop train travelling from east to west went along the line. Thus the Japanese were quickly able to advance whilst the Russians were awaiting necessary troops and supplies. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the railway served as the vital line of communication for the Czechoslovak Legion and the allied armies that landed troops at Vladivostok during the Siberian Intervention of the Russian Civil War. These forces supported the White Russian government of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, based in
Trans-Aral Railway the Tashkent Soviet a degree of autonomy from Moscow during the period immediately following the Bolshevik takeover, which resulted in atrocities like the Kokand Massacre, in which between 5,000 and 14,000 people were killed. The line passes through several notable cities in Kazakhstan, including Aral, Qyzylorda, Turkistan, and Shymkent. It connects at Arys with the Turkestan-Siberia rail line toward Almaty, eastern Kazakhstan, and south Siberia. Trans-Aral Railway The broad gauge Trans-Aral Railway (also known as the Tashkent Railway) was built in 1906 connecting Orenburg and Tashkent, then both in the Russian Empire. For the first part of the 20th century