[1] The final step required to bring the railway into the city itself is a combined road and rail bridge, to be constructed upstream of Yakutsk where the river is narrower.

[2] The line is single-track, excepting the double-track section from Tynda to Bestuzhevo, which is shared with the Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM).

As in most of Siberia, the construction and operation of the railway are complicated by the large temperature variations, ranging from under −50 °C (−58 °F) in winter to over 30 °C (86 °F) in summer, as well as the challenges of building on permafrost in difficult terrain.

The line currently has an official length of 1,213 kilometres (754 miles), branching from the Trans–Siberian railway at Bamovskaya station, near Skovorodino in Amur Oblast.

In the highlands of southern Sakha Republic, the line crosses numerous further rivers, including the Iyengra and Chulman, before reaching the coal-mining area around Neryungri at around 400 kilometres (250 miles).

Construction reached the settlement of Kerdyom, by the mouth of the Lyutenge on the Lena River, opposite the town of Pokrovsk, by 2008.

From here, it was planned to start construction of a 3-kilometre-long (1.9-mile) combined road and rail bridge across the Lena in 2009, in the area of the settlement Tabaga.

[3] With the expected difficulties in building a bridge across the more than 2 km-wide Lena, prone to massive flooding in spring and with moving ice during autumn, there has been much discussion of the rail head remaining on the east bank of the river, terminating in Nizhny Bestyakh, across the river from Yakutsk.

Since this date a daily passenger service has run between Neryungri and Tommot, covering the 368 Kilometer section in around 8 hours.

In early 2009 the construction reached the dual settlements of Pokrovsk/Kyordyom, on the left and right banks of Lena respectively, some 78 km south of Yakutsk.

[12][13] In July 2013, the federal road agency, Rosavtodor requested a tender to build a three-kilometer road-only bridge over the river connecting Yakutsk to the A360 Lena highway, expecting a cost of $1.7 bn/56 bn RUB, and a 6-year construction period.

[16] Future plans have been proposed for the extension of the railway line further to the east, towards the Kolyma region, Magadan and even Chukotka, and a Bering Strait crossing, which would link Russia with the United States.

The Russian government in 2011 approved the construction of a US$65 billion Siberia-Alaska rail link and a tunnel across the Bering Strait.