Although the first railways in the Russian Empire using human and horse power were constructed in the late 18th to early 19th centuries at industrial facilities such as the Alexander Cannon Factory in Petrozavodsk and the Zmeinogorsk Plant in Altai, the country’s first proper railway can be attributed to an experimental track built in 1834 by the father-son duo of Yefim Alekseyevich and Miron Yefimovich Cherepanov, the inventors of Russia's first steam locomotives. It was located near modern-day Nizhny Tagil.
The line, with a gauge of 2 yards and 5 vershoks (1,645 mm) and a length of 400 fathoms (853.4 m), connected the Vysky Copper Smelter with the Polevsky Mine. The Cherepanovs’ “steamboat” (as steam locomotives were called at the time), could haul 200 poods (3.3 tons) of copper ore per trip at speeds ranging from 12 to 15 versts per hour (13–16 km/h).
A drawing of the first Cherepanov steam locomotive, created in 1834.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons. The drawing was made by A.A. Cherepanov, a cousin of M.E. Cherepanov.)
In 1834, Franz Anton von Gerstner (1796–1840), a renowned Austrian engineer of Czech origin, arrived in Russia at the invitation of K.V. Chevkin, Chief of Staff of the Corps of Mining Engineers, “to inspect the Ural mining plants”. Impressed by the country’s vast territories, he began to recognize the significant value railways could bring to Russia. He developed a plan for railway lines connecting St. Petersburg to Moscow and extending from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. On January 6, 1835 (this and all subsequent dates following the old calendar style), he submitted a memorandum to Emperor Nicholas I, outlining his proposals.
Franz Anton von Gerstner, 1833. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.
From the collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna.)
In those years, there was an ongoing debate in Russian society about whether railways were feasible for the country. In 1835, P.P. Melnikov, a prominent engineer, published “On Railways”, the first textbook on the subject. Sadly, opposition to this new form of transport was strong among the Russian Empire's leaders, with the most influential opponent being Count E.F. Kankrin (1774–1845), the Minister of Finance and a respected economist. Notable Russian industrialist S.I. Maltsov (1810-1893), who in his earlier years was warmly welcomed by the Gerstner family and had personal connections with Nicholas I and Count Kankrin, wrote regretfully in his memoirs: “Had the tsar been surrounded by different advisors, he probably would have authorized railway construction in Russia much sooner.”
Ultimately, Gerstner's proposal to construct the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway, which he had presented directly to the emperor, was rejected. Instead, in March 1836, he was granted permission to build the experimental Tsarskoye Selo railway. S.I. Maltsov later recalled Count Kankrin's sarcastic response to this decision: “Well, that's acceptable; there's a pub in Pavlovsk, and now there's a road to it – how useful."
The construction of the Tsarskoye Selo railway, which began on May 1, 1836 and was led by Gerstner, was funded by a private joint-stock company with Count A.A. Bobrinsky acquiring nearly all shares, valued at 250,000 rubles. The railway featured a single-track design with a gauge of 6 feet (1,829 mm), and included a siding built near what is now the Shushary station. On October 30, 1837, traffic officially opened on the St. Petersburg-Tsarskoye Selo section. Gerstner personally drove the inaugural train, which consisted of a steam locomotive built by R. Stephenson pulling eight carriages. The trip to Tsarskoye Selo took 35 minutes, and in the opposite direction – only 27 minutes; the maximum speed of the train reached 64 km / h, and the average was 51 km / h.
Initially, steam-powered trains operated only on Sundays (while horse-drawn carriages were used on other days of the week). The railway fully transitioned to steam traction on April 4, 1838. On May 22 of the same year, with the opening of the final section from Tsarskoye Selo to Pavlovsk (home to the renowned "musical" railway station featuring a concert hall), the entire 27-kilometer line was officially put into permanent operation.
The building of the Pavlovsk railway station (a pre-revolutionary Russian postcard). Destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, along with the Tsarskoye (Detskoye) Selo – Pavlovsk I section. (Source: rgo.ru)
Although the construction of the Tsarskoye Selo Railway sparked significant public debate in Russia, it must be acknowledged that this short line was largely of symbolic significance. The first railway in the Russian Empire to serve an economic purpose was the Warsaw-Vienna Railway, which linked Warsaw, the empire's third-largest city, to the Austrian border. After the joint-stock company established for its construction in 1839 went bankrupt in 1842, the project was subsequently financed by the state treasury. Built as a single-track railway with a 1,435 mm gauge, its roadbed and stone bridge supports were initially designed for two tracks. The total length of 317 km was completed and opened in stages between 1845 and 1848.
Meanwhile, the construction of a railway connecting the two capitals of the Russian Empire still remained on the agenda. Finally, on February 1, 1842, Nicholas I signed a decree authorizing the construction of the St. Petersburg–Moscow railway. Over the course of the year, design and survey work was conducted, resulting in two proposed routes: a "straight" line and an alternative passing through Novgorod. Intense debates among senior government officials arose over the choice of the route. The matter was ultimately resolved by the emperor himself, who, on February 22, 1843, decided in favor of the straight route.
On the recommendation of American consultant George Washington Whistler (1800–1849), Nicholas I made the pivotal decision to adopt a five-foot gauge (1,524 mm) for the construction of the new railway. This gauge had already been used on several railway lines in the United States at the time. Despite objections from many involved, who argued in favor of maintaining the 1,829 mm gauge used on the Tsarskoye Selo Railway, the emperor ultimately chose the narrower five-foot gauge for the St. Petersburg–Moscow railway.
Construction of the railway began in May 1843 simultaneously from both ends—St. Petersburg and Moscow. The meeting point was set at Bologoye. The northern section was overseen by P.P. Melnikov (1804–1880), while the southern section was led by N.O. Kraft (1798–1858), both distinguished Russian engineers who had designed the railway.
The lion’s share of the work was carried out by peasants, primarily serfs. These workers were acquired through arrangements with their landowners, completely bypassing any legal participation of the serfs themselves. The most labor-intensive activity was earthworks, which employed up to 40,000 workers per year. The grueling labor conditions endured by the builders of the St. Petersburg–Moscow railway were famously depicted in N.A. Nekrasov's celebrated poem, The Railway.
William Smith Otis steam excavator on a rail track (1841), used in the construction of the St. Petersburg–Moscow line. (Source: website blog.library.si.edu )
Furthermore, a remarkable episode during the construction of the railway was the use of four American-made steam excavators between 1845 and 1847 to dig a deep excavation between Lykoshino and Berezayka. These machines handled a total of 170,000 m³ of soil. (In 1848, the excavators were sold to the Urals, where they were used for the first time in world history for stripping operations in ore mining).
As individual sections of the railway were completed, they were gradually put into operation. By 1847, "proper train service" had begun between St. Petersburg and Kolpino, and in 1850, it extended to connect Tver and Vyshny Volochok. Finally, on November 1, 1851, the railway's ceremonial opening took place along its entire length of 645 km. At the time of its construction, it was the second longest railway in the world and the longest double-track line (surpassed only by a single-track railway in the United States). After the death of Nicholas I in 1855, the railway was renamed in his honor as the Nikolaevskaya Railway, a name it carried until 1923. However, a reminder of its past remains in the name of Nikolaevka station.
The train shed of the railway station in St. Petersburg, 1851
(Source: album of watercolors "Views of the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway". Author: V.F. Petzolt.)
Notably, the railway line was built with minimal dependence on foreign equipment and materials, with rails being the only exception. By the time the line was opened, the Alexandrovsky Main Mechanical Plant located near St. Petersburg had produced 121 freight locomotives, 43 passenger locomotives, 2,571 freight wagons, and 239 passenger carriages. Interestingly, the railway connecting to the plant marked Russia’s very first access track.
In the years preceding serfdom's abolition, the crucial section of the strategic Petersburg-Warsaw railway was developed: St. Petersburg - Gatchina - Luga - Pskov - Dinaburg (inaugurated in stages during 1853-1860), along with the small suburban Peterhof railway (1857). By the beginning of 1861, the entire expansive Russian Empire had a mere 1,592 km of railway tracks. This severe shortage of reliable transport networks across the country contributed significantly to Russia's defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856).
Beyond military and strategic considerations, the growing need for grain exports and domestic trade made it necessary to link Moscow and St. Petersburg with ports on the Black and Baltic Seas, as well as with the vital trade hub of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.
In the late 1850s, the government authorized the formation of joint-stock companies - on preferential terms, to construct railways such as the Rizhsko-Dinaburgskaya (opened in 1861), Moskovsko-Nizhny Novgorod (1861-1862), Volga-Donskaya and Moskovsko-Troitskaya (both in 1862), Moskovsko-Ryazanskaya (1862-1864), and to finalize the St. Petersburg-Warsaw Railway (1862). A little later, state-funded railways like the Odessa (Odessa - Kiev; 1863-1869) and Moscow-Kursk (1864-1868) were built. These lines were equipped with depots, workshops for keeping locomotives and carriages in good condition, overpasses, and warehouses.
The steam locomotive shed at the Moscow-Tovarnaya [Kurskaya] station. 1885. Today, this spot is covered by the Third Ring Road overpass.
(Source: Album of views of the Moscow-Kursk Railway.)
The Government encouraged private railway construction, including the use of foreign capital. In 1867, a special state fund was created for this purpose, consisting of proceeds from the sale of Alaska to the United States and the sale of the Nikolaev, Odessa, and Moscow-Kursk Railways to joint-stock companies. Additional funds were raised through the issuance of shares and bonds of Russian railways abroad. The rapid growth of private railway entrepreneurship during the late 1860s and early 1870s became known as the "railway fever." At its height, an average of 1,700 km of new rail lines were built annually, with a record of 2,807 km in 1871. Prominent "railway magnates" such as P.G. von Derwies, K.F. von Meck, S.S. Polyakov, and P.I. Gubonin gained national recognition.
From the 1860s onward, Russian rail transport started to dominate cargo turnover, gradually replacing water and horse-drawn transport. By the 1870s, it accounted for ⅘ of all goods transported. Rail travel became integrated into everyday life, profoundly influencing Russian artists, writers, and poets.
Obiralovka station (currently Zheleznodorozhnaya station), 1910. This location marked the scene of the tragic ending of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (published between 1875 and 1877). (Source: pastvu.com)
Nevertheless, the "railway fever" had its downsides. Although private entrepreneurs built railways at a lower cost than the treasury, the actual expenses were still far higher than necessary. Enormous bribes and kickbacks inflated expenses, often paid for by mistreating and underpaying workers. The Russian-French Grand Russian Railway Company (GORZHD), which operated from 1857 to 1894, was particularly infamous. The words of Russian industrialist and scientist F.V. Chizhov, the builder of the Moskovsko-Troitskaya railway, are well-known regarding this matter: "The French looted Russia without restraint... They regarded Russia as no more than a wild country, and its people as red Indians, shamelessly exploiting them." Quality control over construction was extremely poor, with frequent violations of technical standards that often resulted in train accidents.
Accident on the Kursk-Kiev railway on March 17, 1869 – the bridge over the Seim River, built by contractors using rotten wood, collapsed beneath a passing train. (Source: VK group "History of the Kursk Region in photographs.")
After joint-stock companies cherry-picked the most profitable routes, the railroad boom began waning in the late 1870s, resulting in reduced construction. By 1880's end, the public railway network spanned 22.6 thousand km (excluding Finland), though over half of European Russia still lacked railway access. During this time, railway construction utilized various non-governmental financing methods beyond concessions. Zemstvos undertook some projects, such as the Tambov–Saratov line, while private individuals financed and constructed certain sections. The Maltsovskaya railway emerged as a significant example, built between 1877 and 1883 by S.I. Maltsov using personal funds. This private line, featuring a three-foot gauge (914 mm), stretched 190 km with branches, and initially relied on rails and rolling stock from Maltsov's own factories.
Maltsovskaya railway station. In the carriage entrance – S.I. Maltsov (left) and chief engineer of the Maltsovo factories Basson (right), 1879 (Source: "Website of the history of Dyatkovo and Dyatkovsky district.")
When Emperor Alexander III ascended to the throne in 1881, he approached railway industry management and construction with different priorities than his father Alexander II. Private railways' operations were significantly shaped by state regulation, which enhanced their safety and efficiency. This was achieved through several key measures: the 1883 introduction of unified Rules for technical operation of public railways, the 1885 adoption of the General Charter of Russian Railways, the 1887 Regulation on Access Roads to Railways, and the 1889 establishment of standardized railway transportation tariffs. Railway development continued with 7.3 thousand kilometers of new lines completed during the 1880s.
Priority was given to the construction of railways in the outer regions of the country, including the Polessky Railways, the Trans-Siberian Railway (which remains the world’s longest railway), the Transcaspian Railway (constructed by the Ministry of War and notable as the world’s first railway through a sandy desert), the Tashkent Railway, and other important lines. These strategically essential railways were not economically viable in the short term and were thus financed by the state treasury.
The groundbreaking ceremony of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Vladivostok, May 19, 1891 – the heir, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, personally contributes by carrying a wheelbarrow of earth for the railway embankment. (Source: website bigenc.ru)
The Trans-Siberian Railway (the Great Siberian Way) marked the most significant chapter in Russian railway history of that period. As early as 1885, Tyumen had already become Russia's easternmost point with railway access. On February 23, 1891, the Russian government made the final decision to construct a line from Chelyabinsk (which received railway connection in 1892) to Vladivostok, officially announced by imperial rescript on March 17 of that year. The railway's construction fulfilled both military-strategic and, as strongly emphasized by Finance Minister S.J. Witte (1849-1915), economic objectives. His vision for the Great Siberian Way included revolutionizing communications between Europe and the Pacific Ocean: redirecting cargo that traditionally went through Suez from the West to the Far East, and developing trade with Inner China by linking its railways to the main Siberian line.
In terms of private construction and operation of railways, notable changes took place – it became consolidated in the hands of large joint-stock companies: Syzran-Vyazemskaya, Ryazansko-Uralskaya, Southeastern, Donetsk Coal and other railways, mainly through mergers and acquisitions of smaller companies.
This period also marked the birth of Russian railway science – the eminent Russian engineer and scientist Alexander Parfenyevich Borodin (1848-1898) developed the world's first stationary laboratory for testing steam locomotives at the Kiev workshops in 1880-1882.
A steam locomotive of the P series (later designated as P P) with a 4-cylinder tandem compound engine, designed by A.P. Borodin. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
The last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, initially continued his father's railway policy. Moreover, the final years of Alexander III's reign and the early years of the new emperor's rule saw an unprecedented boom in railway construction, far surpassing the "fever" of the 1860s and 1870s. From 1893 to 1901, an average of more than 2.8 thousand km of new lines were commissioned annually (with a peak of 5,271 km in 1899). Russia ranked second in the world, after the United States, in terms of its railway network length. Unlike the previous construction boom, the state built most of these railway lines.
In 1897, the large-scale acquisition of private railways by the treasury, which had begun in 1881, intensified. The state purchased a total of 37 private railway lines spanning 21.3 thousand km, primarily due to small line owners' financial difficulties, though this also included major lines owned by Grand Russian Railway Company (GORZHD), which was dissolved in 1894.
The railway network, spanning 52.9 thousand km by 1900's end, served 64 provinces in European Russia and 7 regions in its Asian territories. The autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland contained an additional 2.7 thousand km of lines. While the western portion of the Great Siberian Railway had extended to Sretensk in Transbaikalia, a gap persisted in the Baikal region until 1905's completion of the Circum-Baikal Railway, with a ferry crossing serving as a temporary solution.
Loading of the military train onto the ferry at Port Baikal. (Source: Drawing from Niva Magazine, 1902, Vol. 67; baikal-pereprava.ru)
The rail network grew not just eastward, but northward and southward too. Thus, in 1900, the previously isolated railways of Transcaucasia were connected to the rest of the network via the Petrovsk-Port (Makhachkala)–Baku line. A little earlier, in 1898, the construction of the longest Yaroslavl–Vologda–Arkhangelsk narrow-gauge public line in Russia was completed with a length of 853 km (1,067 mm gauge was converted to broad gauge in 1913-1916).
What is interesting enough in this regard is that at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 11 (!) types of gauge on the Russian railway network: 1,829, 1,524, 1,435, 1,067, 1,000, 914, 900, 750 mm; 800 mm (Warsaw area); 600 and 785 mm (Finland only). By 1907, the operational length of narrow-gauge public railways reached 7.2% of the total length of the network (4.8 thousand km), but then a gradual decrease in their length began due to the conversion to broad gauge, which continued after the revolution.
Isakgorka - the terminal station of the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk Railway, 1902. (Source: Photo by A.A. Poplavsky; via il-ducess.livejournal.com)
Between 1902 and 1907, Russia's second railway boom gradually lost momentum due. The period saw the departure of two crucial figures who had championed aggressive railway development and state economic oversight: Prince M.I. Khilkov (1834-1909), the Minister of Railways, stepped down in 1905, and Count S.Yu. Witte resigned as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1906.
Despite this, railway technical advancement continued, introducing progressively sophisticated carriage and locomotive models (domestic production reached over 1,300 steam locomotives in 1906). During the transition from the "zero" to "tenth" years, financial capital, predominantly St. Petersburg International Commercial and Russian-Asian Banks, became the driving force in railway construction and operation. The years preceding World War I witnessed the establishment of 23 new railway joint-stock companies.
By late 1913, Russia's railway network stretched 70.5 thousand kilometers (not counting the Grand Duchy of Finland's 3.7 thousand kilometers). The network (Finland excluded) comprised 23 state-owned and 31 private railways, with a workforce of 823,000 people. The domestically-produced rolling stock consisted of 20.4 thousand steam locomotives of various types, 31.7 thousand passenger cars, and 492.7 thousand freight cars.
The First World War brought severe consequences to Russia's railways: Austro-German forces occupied 8.5 thousand km of rail lines in the western regions, destroyed 25% of all rolling stock, and left over 20% of steam locomotives requiring repairs. This period made "ruin" a household word across the railway network.
Yet, paradoxically, this challenging era witnessed Russia's third railway construction boom. The years 1915-1917 saw 12.3 thousand km of new lines entering permanent operation, with 4.5 thousand km funded by the treasury. The major constructed projects included the Altai, Bukhara, West Ural, Murmansk and Amur Railways.
The Alekseevsky Bridge in Khabarovsk, at that time the largest in Eurasia and known as the "eighth wonder of the world," became the final component of the Amur Railway, constructed in 1912-1915. The bridge's completion was delayed when a steamship carrying bridge truss elements sank in the Indian Ocean. Until recently, details of this tragic episode remained unknown, and only lately did historian A.A. Lisitsyn establish that the steamship "Perm," carrying strategic cargo from Odessa to Vladivostok, burned and sank on July 25, 1914, while docked in the port of Colombo in Sri Lanka (most likely the result of sabotage by German agents). While most of the cargo was salvaged, time was lost. In 1915, ice and ferry railway crossings were organized across the Amur River, and the first train traversed the new bridge in October 1916 (its final completion occurred after the Empire's fall - in April 1917).
Construction of the Alekseevsky Bridge in Khabarovsk, 1913-1916.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
It was not until December 1917, after correcting numerous defects, that the Kuenga-Khabarovsk railway line, stretching about 2 thousand kilometers, began permanent operations, closing the Trans-Siberian Railway loop within Russia. Given that the same year saw the commissioning of the 1,333-kilometer Zvanka (Volkhovstroy)-Kandalaksha-Murmansk line, plus several shorter lines, we can say that 1917 proved historic for Russia not merely for its dual revolutions but also for achieving the country's largest-ever annual railway network expansion - approximately 6 thousand kilometers.
A joint project by 1520International and Institute of Economics and Transport Development (IERT) (based on JSC IERT materials and incorporating Ya. Yu. Chibryakova's research findings).
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