Identifier: russiasrailwayad00dobs (find matches)
Title: Russia's railway advance into Central Asia;
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Dobson, George
Subjects: Trans-Caspian Railroad Eastern question (Central Asia) Soviet Union -- Description and travel Asia, Central -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : W. H. Allen & co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
The structure is if a light description, on low wooden piers or clustres of piles stretching over the main stream of the river for more than a mile, after which come three other short bridges connected by three dams. The first and principal bridge is 820 Russian sajenes or 5,740 English feet in length, and the three others are respectively 560, 392 and 196 feet, with the interveningvdams of 2,429, 750 and 2,527 feet making atotal length of bridges and dams from one bankvto the other of two miles and 678 yards. This great work of bridging across the mighty andvcapricious waters of the Oxus cost altogether 301,674 roubles, of which 141,674 roubles were for labour, tools, &c., and 160,000 roubles for material, all of which had to be brought from Russia. At first the intention was to make shift with some kind of a ferry to connect the two ends of the railway, and a considerable amount of money appears to have been wasted overpremature contracts made in England. A bridge

* The bridge has again been temporarily put out of use by the destruction of one of the dams between the shorter bridges near the right bank (August, 1889).
Caprion Appearing Underneath Image:
RAILWAY BRIDGE ACROSS DE AMU DARIA (LENGTH 1 MILE 992 FEET)
Text Appearing After Image:
Merv to Samarkand. 189

of iron would have cost some six or seven millions, which was more than the estimates would bear, and so finally M. Bielinsky, a Polish engineer, was engaged to build the present one of wood. It is expected to last at least ten years. The trains at present only crawl over it; and I am inclined to think that heavy war material would soon put it out of order. But it does not matter, said many Russians, what now becomes of the bridge; the railway is ready on the other side, and having got over all our material, we can dispense with the bridge if necessary. Another difficulty which the Russians have to cope with here is the uncertain navigability of the upper course of the river. The current of the water, which is of a deep chocolate colour, and seems to be loaded with sand, is said to be one of the fastest in the world. I think it was Lieutenant Burns who calculated its flow at the rateof 6,000 yards an hour, but the Russians assert that it runs as fast as twelve feet per second.

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