Far East Railroad

a railroad organized in 1959 combining the old Amur and Far East (Dal’nevostok) railroads. The administration office is in the city of Khabarovsk. The Far East Railroad runs mainly through the Primor’e and Khabarovsk krais, Sakhalin Oblast, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and a small section of Amur Oblast. The road connects with the Transbaikal Railroad at Arkhara station and also with railroads in the Chinese People’s Republic and the Korean Democratic People’s Republic. The length of track currently in use (1970) is 4,300 km, or 3.2 percent of the national total.

The main sections of the road, Arkhara-Khabarovsk and Baranovskii-Vladivostok, were constructed in 1893–97. During the years of Soviet power the following lines have been built in regions of the Far East: Manzovka-Turii Rog (1933): Volochaevka-Komsomol’sk-na-Amure, Manzovka-Varfolo-meevka (1940); Baranovskii-Kraskino, Nadezhdinskaia-Suchan-Sergeevka, Birobidzhan-Leninsk, and some other lines (1941); Komsomol’sk-na-Amure (Pivan’)-Sovetskaia Gavan’ (1947); and Izvestkovaia-Urgal (1951) and its continuation to Chegdomyn (1958). This construction made it possible to open up a number of coal fields (including Suchan and Urgal), make outlets to seaports, start the development of forest resources and deposits of iron and polymetallic ores, contribute to the development of the fishing industry, and fulfill a number of other economic tasks. A ferry connection is maintained between the Komsomo I’sk-na-Amure railroad station and Pivan’, and in the winter an ice railroad is set up.

The former South Sakhalin Railroad, which serves Sakhalin Oblast, joined the Far East Railroad in 1963. It is cut off from the rest of the network, is narrow gauge (1.067 m). and runs along the east coast from Korsakov to Tymovskoe and along the west coast from Shakhta to H’insk, with the connecting route between the Iuzhno Sakhalinsk and Kholmsk (Poliakovo). At Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Pos’et, Vanino, Korsakov, Nevel’sk, Kholmsk, and Poronaisk the Far East railroad connects with maritime transportation, and at Komsomol’sk-na-Amure and Khabarovsk with river transportation. In 1970 the freight turnover of the Far East Railroad amounted to 2.1 percent of the turnover for the entire rail network. Over 95 percent of the freight turnover is handled by electric and diesel traction. In the total volume of freight turnover, incoming accounts for 40 percent, outgoing for 12 percent, and local traffic for 45 percent. The road brings in metals, coal, some building materials, certain types of petroleum products, products of machine building and the light and food industries, and occasionally grain, and it carries out chiefly lumber, products of the timber industry, fish, and canned goods.

In 1970 total passenger traffic amounted to 1.4 percent of the passenger traffic for the entire national rail network.