Trans-Siberian Railway because the swampy banks of the Ob River near it were considered inappropriate for a bridge. The railway was laid to the south (instead crossing the Ob at Novonikolaevsk, later renamed Novosibirsk); just a dead-end branch line connected with Tomsk, depriving the city of the prospective transit railway traffic and trade. In March 1890, the Tsarevich (later Tsar Nicholas II) personally inaugurated the construction of the Far East segment of the Trans-Siberian Railway during his stop at Vladivostok, after visiting Japan at the end of his journey around the world. Nicholas II made notes in his diary about his anticipation
Chinese Eastern Railway in Harbin. The railway and the concession, known as the Chinese Eastern Railway Zone, were administered from the city, which grew into a major rail hub. The southern branch of the CER, which became the South Manchuria Railway in 1906, became the locus and partial casus belli for the Russo-Japanese War, the 1929 Sino-Soviet Conflict, and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Soviet Union returned the Chinese Eastern Railway to the People's Republic of China in 1952. The Chinese Eastern Railway, a single-track line, provided a shortcut for the world's longest railroad, the Trans-Siberian Railway, from near the Siberian city of