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
Far Eastern Railway footing in a very short period of time and began supplying the Eastern 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 the Soviet Army in defeating the Imperial Japanese Army and seizing Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. In 1947, the Komsomolsk-on-Amur—Sovetskaya Gavan line was commissioned, providing the second (after the Trans-Siberian Railway) railroad access to the Pacific Ocean and cutting the distance in 1000 km for maritime transportation to Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and Magadan Oblast. Due