The line was divided into seven sections, on all or most of which work proceeded simultaneously using the labour of 62,000 men. With financial support provided by leading European financier, Baron Henri Hottinguer of the Parisian Hottinguer family of bankers, the total cost estimated at £35 million was raised with the first section (Chelyabinsk to the River Ob) was finished at a cost £900,000 less than the estimate. Railwaymen fought against suggestions to save funds, for example, by installing ferryboats instead of bridges over the rivers until traffic increased. The designers insisted and secured the decision to construct an uninterrupted railway.