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
Trans-Mongolian Railway - Oyu Tolgoi (copper/gold mine) - Gashuun Sukhait (Chinese border) of ca. 260 km in Chinese gauge. Trans-Mongolian Railway The Trans-Mongolian Railway follows an ancient tea-caravan route from China to Russia and connects Ulan-Ude, on the Trans-Baikal (Trans-Siberian) railway in Russia, with the Chinese city of Jining, by way of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. Other important stops are Sükhbaatar, Darkhan, Choir, and Zamyn-Üüd/Erenhot (border crossing and gauge-changing station). The line was built between 1949 and 1961. In most of Mongolia, it is single track, and in China double track. The gauge is in Russia and Mongolia and in China. There are