East Siberian Railway

The East Siberian Railway services major industrial areas of iron ore and coal mining, oil refining, logging, and wood processing, companies and factories in energy, chemical, machine building and machine-tool industries, nonferrous metallurgy, etc.

The biggest points of cargo departure and arrival are Cheremkhovo, Korshunikha, Kitoy-Kombinatskaya, Sukhovskaya, Irkutsk-Sortirovochniy, Ulan-Ude, Lena, and Bratsk.

The idea of building a railway across sparsely populated and almost unexplored areas of East Siberia was first expressed in the 1870s–1880s.

Several new lines were also built over the ridges of Sayany, Alatau, taiga, and swamps towards coal and iron ore deposits, woodlands, and banks of large rivers.

In 1922–1926, the Achinsk–Abakan line was constructed, which connected the southern areas of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Khakassia, and Tuva with other economic regions of the country.

In 1940, train traffic began from Ulan-Ude to Naushki, significantly improving economic relations with Mongolia and providing access to the Gusinoozyorsk coal deposits.

During the Great Patriotic War, the authorities of the East Siberian Railway provided volunteer units to be dispatched to the front (20 railmen would be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union), found resources for repairing military equipment, prepared rolling stock, and gradually increased the amount of freight from Siberia to the European part of the country.

In the post-war years, the amount of traffic carried continued its increase along with the reconstruction of transportation facilities and introduction of new technology.

In 1958 they commissioned the new Taishet-Bratsk-Lena railway, which connected the basins of the Angara and Lena Rivers with the rest of the Siberian railroad network, providing immediate access to mineral deposits in the Angara basin (e.g. the Korshunovskoye iron ore deposit) and abundant logging regions and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of cargo to the northern areas of Irkutsk Oblast and Yakutia.

This section of the railway provided a new access to the Kuzbass, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia from the regions of the Russian Far East and Siberia.

The early 1970s saw the completion of construction of the northbound line from the Khrebtovaya railway station to Ust-Ilimsk Hydroelectric Powerplant (214 km or 133 mi).