THE VOLUME AND CHARACTER OF TRAFFIC ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD IN 1953

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R01141A000700080002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 131
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 2013
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 9, 1956
• Content Type: REPORT

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N? 155
ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE REPORT
THE VOLUME AND CHARACTER OF TRAFFIC
ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD IN 1953
CIA/RR 82
9 November 1956
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND REPORTS
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This material contains inidrmation affecting
the National Defense of the `United States
within the meaning of the espionage laws,
Title 1$, USC, Secs. 793 and 794; the trans-
mission or revelation of which in any manner
to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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I
S-E-C-R-E-T
ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE REPORT
THE VOLUME AND CHARACTER OF TRAFFIC
ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD Ilv 1953
cIA/RR 82
(ORR Project ~+O.t+25)
Office of Research and Reports
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The main purpose of this report is to furnish a graphic analysis of
traffic estimated to have moved over the Trans-Siberian Railroad between
Omsk and Vladivostok in 1953? The analysis was restricted to lines
east of Omsk in order to permit concentration on that portion of the
Siberian rail network on which all through traffic had to pass over one
main line. The object has been to compile data on the major commodities
hauled and to present them in such a form as to be immediately recog-
nizable to persons familiar with similar studies on US railroads and to
be readily comprehensible to the general reader. The over-all traffic
charts for the main line and branches of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
which accompany the text should be considered as the end product of the
report and should be examined with some care before reading the text on
the railroad itself and on the individual commodities. The charts have
been drawn up in a form somewhat similar to the Freight Traffic Density
Charts published from time to time on individual US railroads by H.H.
C opeland & Son of New York. The supporting text attempts to explain
the principal movements shown on the charts, together with the reasons
both economic and strategic for their existence.
This report is intended to be useful in pointing up past, present,
and future economic developments and vulnerabilities of the USSR in the
Far East. It has been prepared in response to a request of the Eco-
nomic Intelligence Committee that CIA prepare traffic studies for
various important transportation routes in the USSR
* Figures 3 and 4, inside back cover.
50X1
50X1
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i
Summary
I.
Introduction
A . Evolution of the Line
5
B. Construction
5
C. Function Under Soviet Control
7
D. Traffic Developments
E . The Instant Function
g
12
II.
Status of Main Line and Branches
17
III.
Traffic
21
A . Volume, by Section
21
B. Directional Imbalances in Traffic Flow
27
C . Traffic versus Capacity
28
D. Car Distribution and Empty-Car Movement
30
IV .
Commodity Movements
39
A .
Coal ..
43
1. Region IX (West Siberia)
~+5
2. Region XI (East Siberia)
~+7
3. Region XII (Far East)
4g
4. General
50
B .
Coke
51
C .
Petroleum and Its Products
52
D .
Timber
55
E .
Ferrous Ores and Metals' .
59
F.
Agricultural Commodities
62
G.
Manufactures and Miscellaneous
65
1. Nonferrous Metals and Concentrates
66
2. Nonmetallic Minerals ..
67
3. Chemicals
69
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I
Page
~+ . Paper 70
5. Weapons and Ammunition 70
6. Components for Shipbuilding 71
7. Miscellaneous Exports to and Imports from
Communist China and North Korea 71
8. Transit Traffic 72
g. Soviet Manufactures in Siberia 73
10. Soviet Manufactures, General and Unidentified 73
Appendixes
Appendix A. Methodology 75
1. Freight Density on the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
1827-2b 11
2. Estimated Tonnage Moved on the Main Line of the Trans-
Siberian Railroad, by Section, and on Branches Connecting
with Communist China 22
3. Movement of Loaded Cars on the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk Section
of the Trans-Siberian Railroad Calculated on the Basis
of. Commodity Tonnage Estimates, Supplemental Estimates
from Soviet Announcements, and Estimated Average Loads
per Car, 1953 3~+
~+. Minimum Car Trial Balance for the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
Section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1953 37
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Page
5. Volume and Direction of Traffic of Major Commodities
over Selected Sections of the Main Line of the Trans-
Siberian Railroad, 1953
~+~+
6. Daily Balances of Moving Freight Cars on the Trans-
Siberian Railroad Estimated from Various Trip Logs,
Equated Traffic by Sections of the Line
111
7. Comparison of Estimates of Annual Rates of Eastbound
Traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1953
11~+
8. Comparison of Estimates of Annual Rates of Westbound
Traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1953
115
Illustrations
Following Page
Figure 1. Trans-Siberian Railroad and Connecting Lines
Figure 2. USSR: Railroad Systems, 195+ (Map) Inside
Back Cover
Figure 3. Trans-Siberian Railroad: Main Line Traffic, Inside
1953 (Chart) Back Cover
Figure ~+. Trans-Siberian Railroad: Branch Line Traffic, Inside
1953 (Chart ) Back Cover
Figure 5. Trans-Siberian Railroad: Coal Traffic, 1953 Inside
(Chart) ...... Back Cover
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CIA~RR 82 B-E-C-R-E-T
(ORR Project x+0.425)
THE VOLUME AND CHARACTER OF TRAFFIC
ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD IN 1953'
summary .
~ 1953 the section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad' between Omsk
and Vladivostok consisted of a double-track main line and a number of
important branch lines, of which one was double track and the rest
were single track. The rail line distance from Omsk to Vladivostok
was 6,618 kilometers (km) 0+,112 miles). The railroad was operated
entirely by steam power except for the double-track Kuznetsk branch
and the main line from Chulym to Novosibirsk, which were electrically
operated. It was the only overland rail route connecting the European
USSR with the Orient and the Pacific.
Traffic the length of the line was characterized by a through
movement eastbound to the Soviet Far East and Communist China of about
6.1 million metric tons~~ of grain and strategic items; a return
* The estimates and conclusions contained in this report represent
the best judgment of ORR as of 1 May 1956.
~ Officially, there is now no railroad by this name. For the pur-
poses of this report, the Trans-Siberian Railroad is regarded as the
main railroad line extending 6,618 km east in Soviet territory from
Omsk in West Siberia to Vladivostok in the Far East. In fact, the line
is divided into seven administrative systems -- the Omsk, Tomsk,
Krasnoyarsk, East Siberian, Transbaykal, Amur, and Far Eastern Railroads.
(See the map, Figure 1, following p. ~+.)
mac- The data include all cou~odity and miscellaneous freight for
civilian and economic purposes; for military industry; for logistical
support of military operations in the Far East; for equipping and
training new Communist units in China, North Korea, and the Soviet
Far East; and for the construction of new military installations,
military transport, and airfields. They do not include uneconomic
hauling of commodities, such as crosshauls and duplicate hauls, nor do
they include transportation in any direction of organic equipment of
military units on the move. It is certain that both of these types of
movement did take place to some extent during 1953, but they are not
believed to have exceeded 2 million ton-kilometers per km over arty por-
tion of the line.
*~* Tonnages are given in metric tons throughout this report.
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movement westbound of 3.3 million tons of nonferrous and agricultural
commodities; and numerous local, regional, and interregional movements
of major bulk commodities. The preponderance of flow was split from
the center outward, with the bulk coal traffic which emanated both
ways from Cheremkhovo, near Irkutsk, providing the main basis for the
division. Although a high density resulted from the imposition of
regional hauls upon through traffic over certain stretches and although
some seasonal and operational tie-ups are believed to have taken place,
the railroad fulfilled most of its economic and strategic assignments
and accomplished its slated task in a generally satisfactory manner
during the year.
The heaviest movement of freight over any portion of the Trans-
Siberian Railroad east of Omsk in 1953 was on the partially electrified
section (which was wholly electrified by October 1955) between Omsk
and Novosibirsk. The eastbound movement on this section is believed
to have been more than 16 million tons, and the westbound movement,
in excess of 33 million tons. The latter included over 2~+ million
tons of coal and coke bound from the Kuznetsk Basin coalfields mainly
to the heavy industries of the Urals.
The section of the railroad from Irkutsk to Ulan-Ude around the
southern shore of Lake Baikal, known as the Circumbaykal section, is
regarded as its main physical bottleneck. Within this section the
Trans-Siberian Railroad is estimated to have handled in excess of 8.8
million tons of eastbound freight and about 4.9 million tons of west-
bound. (The capacity of this section in 1953 has been separately
estimated to be 12 million tons each way per year.) Traffic tonnages
included 1.5 million tons eastbound to Coffiaunist China and North Korea
and a return westbound movement of 1.9 million tons from China and
North Korea. Of the total eastbound traffic, ~+.6 million tons, including
x+00,000 tons of bituminous coal, were destined for points in the USSR
east of Tarskiy. Taking into consideration the manner of loading com-
modities, it is estimated that from 260,000 to 300,000 cars were moved
each way through the Circumbaykal section during the year. This is
equivalent to an average of from 19 to 21 freight trains of ~+0 cars
each per day.
The section of line with lightest traffic density in 1953 was the
501-km stretch between Ksen'yevka and Skovorodino. These points are
east of Tarskiy, the westernmost junction point on the Trans-Siberian
main line affording a connection with the Manchurian lines of ComIInulist
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China. Over 5.05 million tons were carried eastbound between Ksen'yevka
and Skovorodino, and 1.65 million tons westbound.
In the Far Eastern sections of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, east-
bound traffic between Khabarovsk and Vladivostok was estimated to be
between ~+ million and 6 million tons. WestlSound traffic on various
stretches of this section appears to have fluctuated between 2 million
and 3 million tons.
Principal commodities carried on the railroad were coal; coke;
petroleum and its products; timber; agricultural commodities; fer-
rous ores and metals; and a miscellaneous group which included non-
ferrous ores and metals, nonmetallic minerals (sand, stone, gravel,
cement, and the like), chemicals, weapons and ammunition, paper,
manufactured goods, and other items.
A small through movement of goods, 100,000 tons or less in each
direction, between Communist China and North Korea on the one hand and
Finland and the European Satellites on the other probably took place in
1953?
The requirement for specific types of cars to haul basic commodities
in opposite directions resulted in a two-way movement of empty cars
between Omsk and Novosibirsk and over other stretches of the main line
as well as on some of the principal branches.
Traffic patterns generally similar to those of 1953 appear to have
been sustained through 195+ and 1955, although there have been slight
changes in proportion. Efforts were and are being made to relieve the
railroad of long through movements of bulk commodities by the use of
alternative facilities and routings with cheaper costs and by plans for
increased and more appropriate use of indigenous natural resources for
the supply of deficit areas.
In assessing the strategic importance and vulnerability of the Trans-
5iberian Railroad, the degree to which the position and influence of the
USSR in the Far East and Pacific area is dependent on this railroad
should be remembered, as should the extraordinary effort, in terms of
actual labor; which has been expended in building, expanding, and
modernizing it and which is being spent daily in keeping it operating at
its present level.
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The strategic importance of the Trans-Siberian Railroad has been
illustrated by the manner in which the railroad has been used to support
a buildup of Soviet air and naval strength in Northeast Asia and to
circumvent the trade controls placed on Communist China following its
entry into the Korean War. With continued peace, much Soviet traffic
with the Far East and Pacif is areas could revert in time to shipment by
sea, particularly bulk traffic from and to points in the European USSR.
Such a change to shipment by sea would have the effect of easing, if
not actually reducing, the transport burden on the lines of the Trans-
Siberian Railroad east of Lake Baikal. On the other hand, the build-
up of Communist armed strength in the Far East continues, along with
the retention by the USSR of all of maritime Siberia in a zone of mili-
tary security. Should there be an intensification of the cold war or
should open hostilities break out, the railroad again would be called
upon to provide overland logistical support, probably to a greater
extent than heretofore.
The most vulnerable section of rail line has been the Circumbaykal
section, through which have had to pass all petroleum and its products,
weapons, and ammunition bound from the west to the Far Eastern areas
of the Sino-Soviet Bloc. The physical location of much of this section
of line has added to its vulnerability from a military point of view.
Despite construction of a cutoff from Irkutsk to Slyudyanka, the rest
of the line along the south shore of Lake Baikal between Slyudyanka
and N{ysovaya remains strategically the most critical stretch because
of-the degree of effort which would be required to add to its trackage
or to bypass it in time of emergency.
In the next few years the Trans-Siberian Railroad can be expected
to retain its considerable economic and political importance and to
increase in capability and performance because of the priority which
is being attached to the installation of technical additions and
improvements. The Sixth Five Year Plan (1956-60) calls for complete
modernization of the main line, heavier rails, more electrification
and dieselization, longer trains, automatic signaling, improved yards,
and centralized traffic control. Although as much as one-third of the
Chinese Communist traffic through Otpor may be diverted to the new
Mongolian route, the Far Eastern lines will remain strategically
important and may in due course be extended into undeveloped and
remote regions not now served by rail. The main traffic growth,
however, should continue to take place in the areas between the Urals
in the west and Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude in the east, where there can be
little question of the extent of the groundwork at present being laid.
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Figure 1
Kounradskiy
BalMhash
bake gQ~
X
TRANS?SIBERIAN RAILROAD
and
CONNECTING LINES
-^rti7e4Ji
??'9'nsen'
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? 'p$ui-ling
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.............. Barg, J
Oxero
Zaysan
S.
~~.
'`~_
Bek~'o.Dhuguchak ~; .~
- Doubledrack ..._?~ Double~track
~ Single?track Single?track
----Under construction ---- Inoperable
...........Projected ~??? Projected or under
construction
Narrow?gauge, single?track
Scale 1:9,750,000
IX Salai
p
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108
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106
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I. Introduction.
A. Evolution of the Line.
There were three main considerations that prompted the Tsar on
17 March 1891 to issue an Imperial Rescript to proceed actively with
rail construction to the east. ~~ These were (1) the need to develop
West and Central Siberian resources, (2) the need to protect Russian
territory in the Far East and to increase Russian influence in that
area,~* and (3) the desire to open a new commercial route for exchange
of products between Europe and the Orient.
Although the utility of an overland line for movement of mili-
tary traffic was recognized initially, the railroad was not conceived
as a competitor for through bulk freight as it was believed that the
water route via the Suez Canal would continue to offer lower rates for
this traffic. Through passengers, mail, and high-value and refrigerated
goods could, however, be expected to move over the new route in prefer-
ence to the longer and hotter journey by water.
B. Construction.
The first stone for the railroad was laid in Vladivostok on
19 May 1891. ~ In order to speed construction, work was started on
three sections at once, the line east of Lake Baikal being worked on
separately from the tracks approaching from the west and east. The
most difficult sections, those around Lake Baikal and along the
Amur River, were given lowest priority because they were paralleled
by navigable waterways and would place a disproportionately heavy
strain on the construction forces.
The target date for completion of the line originally was 1900.
The Sino-Japanese war of 1895, however,. with Japan victorious, caused
the Russians to reconsider their plans. In 1896 the Russian Minister
** Great Britain and other European coun r es a een ins rumental
in halting Russian expansion in the Balkans and at the borders of
Afghanistan and Korea. The Canadian Pacific Railway had put fast
liners into service in the Pacific, and Chinese steamers were plying
the Sungari and Amur Rivers. The possibilities of Russia's being
omitted from participation in the exploitation of China or of being
thwarted elsewhere in the Far East were influential in the timing of
construction.
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Cassini obtained a concession from the Chinese government to build the
railroad across Manchuria to Vladivostok with the right to guard it
within Manchurian territory. ~ This route would save 570 miles over
the route north of the Amur River and, by going through easier country
with plentiful labor, would permit of more rapid construction.
In early 1897, surveys were started for the Manchurian line,
known as the Chinese Eastern Railway, and construction was commenced
on 16 August. ~ As a result of the change of routing, plans to
construct the costly and circuitous Amur Railroad were suspended.
The Far Eastern, or Ussuri, Line, from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk,
however, was opened on 3 September 1897 ~ and was connected with
Sretensk in the ice-free season by a system of steamers and barges
on the Amur and Shilka Rivers. On 27 March 1898, Russia arranged a
25-year lease of Port Arthur and Talien (Dairen, or Port Dal'niy)
from China, with the right to extend a railroad line southward from
Harbin, on the Chinese Eastern Railway, to the leased area. 10 This
was bitterly resented by the Japanese.
The Siberian track from the west reached Irkutsk on 16 August
1898, 11 but the Transbaykal section to Sretensk at .the head of
navigation on the Shilka River was not completed until 28 December
1899. 12 A large ice-breaking ferry capable of transporting 25
loaded freight cars per trip ~ was placed in operation in Lake Baikal
in the autumn of 1900. 1~+ The Chinese Eastern Railway was completed
toward the end of 1901, ~ giving Russia a strong position in
Manchuria.
As originally commissioned, the Siberian Railroad was single-
track, 5-foot gauge, and was visually hand-signaled at intervals of
about 1 km, except on curves where obstructed views necessitated
shorter distances. Rail for much of the distance was 5~+ pounds per
yard. Wood was used as locomotive fuel. 18 The distance from Omsk
via Harbin to Vladivostok was approximately 5,510 km, of which the
water or ice route across Lake Baikal accounted for 70 km.
~ This was the time of completion to Vladivostok. The Southern
Manchurian branch was opened to Port Arthur on a limited basis at
about the same time, with one mixed train per day moving in each
direction. 16 It was fully completed in July 1903.
-6-
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From 1900 to 190+, Russia received protests from many countries
that its effective occupation of Manchuria was violating the "Open
Door," but Russia, in turn, was dilatory and contemptuous. Japan
eventually decided to take action before the Russians could complete
the stretch of the Trans-Siberian around Lake Baikal. On 12 February
190+, ~ when the lake was frozen and Russia was in a business
recession, Japan commenced hostilities. The Japanese were victorious
on land and on sea, and Port Arthur fell on 1 January 1905.
On 25 September 190+, however, the Circumbaykal stretch of
railroad was completed, and the Russian flow of troops and supplies to
Manchuria was stepped up from 2 trains each way per day to between 9
and 12. 20 Nevertheless, the unpopularity of the war at home caused
the Russians to agree to cease hostilities and finally to sign the
treaty of Portsmouth on 5 September 1905. By this treaty, Russia
ceded to Japan Port .Arthur and Dairen together with the railroad from
Kwan-cheng-tze (now a suburb of Chang-ch'un) southward. The Japanese
subsequently changed the gauge of this line (the South Manchurian Rail-
road) to European standard gauge, and for approximately 30 years Ch'ang-
ch'un was the transloading point between gauges. 21
Although left in control of the line across northern Manchuria,
the Russians decided to revive the original plan for constructing the
Amur Railroad which would connect Vladivostok with the Transbaykal in
purely Russian territory. This portion of the line was started in
March of 1908 and completed in 191~+,~' the main-line distance being
2,000 km, with branches adding approximately 300 km more. 22 During
this period, double tracking of the main line from Omsk to Tarskiy
was also undertaken and, with the exception of a few bridges, was com-
pleted in 1918. In effect, Russia then had two tracks running from
west of the Urals to Vladivostok.
C. Function Under Soviet Control.
After the Soviet government came into control, over a decade
passed before significant new construction took place. The First
Five Year Plan (1828-32) included the development of the Kuznetsk
~ The cost of this piece of line as a single-track railroad was esti-
mated at US $100 million, or about US $50,000 per km. Tunnels and some
earthworks were initially built to provide for two tracks.
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Basin (Kuzbas) coal and the Magnitogorsk iron deposits in order to
provide steel-making facilities in the Kuzbas so that a portion of
the gondolas moving west with coal could return eastward loaded with
ore. In 1932 this plan resulted in the double tracking of the main
line west of Omsk to Chelyabinsk. 24 In 1930 the Turkestan-Siberian
(Turk-Sib) Railroad connecting Semipalatinsk, which was on a branch
line from Novosibirsk, with Tashkent was put into operation, 2 and
in 1940 the line from Dezhnevka (near Khabarovsk) to Komsomol'sk on
the lower Amur was constructed. 26 During the 1930's a considerable
extension of trackage in the Kuzbas was also completed. Coal-mining
spurs were built into other coal centers, and wood for locomotive
fuel was practically eliminated. A11 of these undertakings were
intended to effect a general raising of the level of Siberian indus-
trial activity based on local resources.
? Regarding the more easterly lines, the USSR did not regain
the Chinese Eastern Railway which during the Russian Revolution had
fallen more or less under the influence of Japan. On 2 October 1920,
control was turned over to the Chinese, with many Russians still
employed by the company. ~ A dual Sino-Russian management was set
up in 1924 which continued until 1929, when the Communists tried to use
their influence in the line as a means of provoking a revolution in
Northern Manchuria. The Chinese expelled them, diplomatic relations
were severed, and in November the USSR invaded Manchuria for a short
distance, causing some destruction. 28 In December the Chinese
yielded, and, in accordance with the Khabarovsk Protocol, joint control
was resumed. In the Japanese conguest of Manchuria (18 September 1931
to 31 May 1933), however, the USSR showed no disposition to defend the
rail line. Instead, it pulled out a considerable portion of the rolling
stock ~ and on 11 May 1933 offered to sell the road and appurtenances
to Japan. After much bargaining, the sale, for 140. million yen, was
concluded on 23 March 1935. ~ The line soon afterward was converted
by the Japanese to European standard gauge, with transloading points
for the USSR at Manchouli and Pogranichnaya. Interchange traffic for
a decade was practically suspended. The Soviet government, in evident
reaction, started in 1933 to double-track the all-Russian route from
Tarskiy around Manchuria and completed the undertaking to Voroshilov
in 1939. ~
* Equivalent at the contemporary rate of exchange to US $40 million.
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S-E-C-R-E-~
Other than these changes, development of the Trans-Siberian
Railroad in the 1930's was intensive rather than extensive, with a con-
siderable program for increasing the number and enlarging the capacity
of yaxds, sidings, and junctions. ~ Rails of heavier weights were
introduced, the standard being 88 pounds per yard on Class I lines.*
Ballasting was undertaken in the most heavily traveled sectors, and a
start was made on the provision of new equipment.
Developments on the Trans-Siberian Railroad during and after
World War II have included the construction of the branch lines to
Sovetskaya Gavan', Urgal, and Ust'-Kut, the Irkutsk-Slyudyanka cutoff,
the line across Mongolia to Communist China and the connection with
North Korea at Hongui, together with partial electrification and
dieselization of the main lines; the procurement of much new and modern
equipment; and the continued improvement oi~ the right-of-way with
heavier ballast, treated ties, and rail in excess of 100 pounds per
yarn.
Regarding the Manchurian lines, a Soviet treaty with the Chinese
Nationalists signed in 19+5 established for 30 years joint Soviet-
Chinese administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway. On 16 September
1952, with China in the hands of the Communists, it was announced in an
official Soviet communique that the USSR had agreed to transfer to the
Chinese without compensation full title to the Chinese Eastern Railway.
The announcement was implemented on 31 December 1952, when Soviet repre-
sentatives were withdrawn from the management, ~ and the railroad is
now completely operated by the Chinese Communists.
D. Traffic Developments.
On the western end the Trans-Siberian Railroad found at its
inception a quantity of readymade freight in the form of agricultural
and animal products.. In 1898, large quantities of grain were brought to
the railroad from the fertile districts of western Siberia and northern
Kazakhstan for further transmission. ~ In that year, Petropavlovsk
shipped 50;000 tons of freight westward, 20,000 tons of which consisted
of grain and most of the remainder of animal products. ~ In the late
summer there were about 220,000 tons of wheat available between Kurgan
and Tomsk awaiting transportation. ~ For the whole year the West
* In 19i+0, Soviet railroads were divided into four classes for the pur-
pose of controlling roadbed standards. Class I was the highest class,
with the heaviest standards.
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Siberian Railroad (the present Tomsk and Omsk system*) carried about
500,000 tons of freight, and the Mid-Siberian Railroad (the present
Krasnoyarsk and East Siberian systems), carried 180,000 tons.
In addition to grain and cattle, contemporary photographs also showed
a movement of timber. 41 On the Transbaykal section, however, there
appears to have been comparatively little freight traffic before the
Russo-Japanese War other than eastbound construction_and military
goods . ~+2
During World War I the attempt was. made to supply the Russian
armies in Europe via Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian Railroad, but
serviceable equipment was scarce and movements of railroad coal and
other supplies were poorly planned. ~ By late 1918, many of the
supplies had. not moved beyond Vladivostok. In the Revolution which
followed, a number of bridges and tunnels on the railroad were
destroyed, and for several years traffic east of Lake Baikal was
seriously interrupted.
As the Soviet government gained strength, the line was
rebuilt. A Soviet traffic chart for the years 1927-28 shows a move-
ment of tonnage on the main line with a pattern somewhat similar to
that of today on a much smaller basis: for example, Cheremkhovo to
Irkutsk eastbound, 760,000 tons, and westbound, 160,000 tons. ~+~+
Table l~~ is an abridgement of the Siberian section of this chart. In
1928 there was one important exception to the 1953 pattern: the flow
of goods through Otpor - Lu-pin (Manchouli) was negligible, with
60,000 tons going east and 10,000 tons returning west. Not all of
this may have been for Chinese account, as the line was still Soviet-
gauge and, at the risk of banditry, could have been used for through
shipments to Vladivostok. The eastbound tonnage through Grodekovo
to Vladivostok, however, showed a certain similarity to 1953, with
1,569,000 tons moved, divided approximately into two-thirds grain and
one-third miscellaneous freight. Thus even in 1928 the Soviet Far
East was importing Manchurian supplies, some of which, in turn, were
transshipped or re-exported through Vladivostok.
During World War II the Trans-Siberian Railroad was heavily
used to transport military and other Lend-Lease goods from east to
west, and when the Donets Basin and the Ukraine were cut off, it
moved extra supplies of coal and grain from Siberia to the Urals and
~- See the map, Figure 2, inside back cover.
~~- Table 1 follows on p. 11.
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Freight Density on the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1927-28
Main Line ~
Eastbound (Down) _!
Westbound (Up) J
Omsk-Tatarsk
680
670
2,600
2,610
Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
660
640
2,650
2,540
Novosibirsl:-Yurga
510
500
2,560
2,610
Yurga-Tayga
480
490
1,820
1,860
Tayga - Anzhero-Sudzhensk
440
420
1,450
1,620
Anzhero-Sudzhensk - Achinsk
480
440
780
850
Achinsk-Cheremkhovo
470
470
610
610
Cheremkhovo-Irkutsk
760
760
160
160
Irkutsk-.Tarskiy
720
590
140
150
Tarskiy-Skovorodino
450
300
130
140
Skovorodino - Kuybyshevka-
Vostochnaya
260
330
170
170
Kuybyshevka-Vostochnaya -
Khabarovsk
310
470
150
150
Khabarovsk-Voroshilov
360
650
280
220
Voroshilov-Ugol'naya
2,170
2,180
830
840
Ugol'naya-Vladivostok
2,510
2,240
210
250
Otpor Branch
Tarskiy-Otpor
150
60
10
30
Grodekovo Branch
Pogranichnaya-Voroshilov
1,560
1,580
280
260
a. 4 ---- -
b. The place names used are as they were in 1953?
c. The first of each pair of figures is the total tonnage departing
from the initial point of each stretch. The second is the total of
arrivals at the final point terminating the stretch. Thus in the west-
bound column the left-hand figures appertain to the second place names.
on each line, and the right-hand figures to the first place names.
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Central regions. At the most critical moment of the German advance the
railroad was used to draw upon the military component of the Soviet Far
East, and the conseguent weakening of that area momentarily left it
vulnerable to possible Japanese incursion. The situation for the USSR
was eased somewhat when the Japanese chose to strike east at Pearl
Harbor instead of northward into Siberia.
In the first phase of the postwar period before the outbreak
of hostilities in Korea, main-line traffic appeared from the only
available observations ~ to be running at an annual rate of not over
1+,250,000 tons westbound from Novosibirsk to Omsk, the most heavily
used portion. The roadbed was moderately good, and maintenance and
ballasting gangs were observed in many places. No electrification of
the main line had been begun, and relatively little postwar equipment
was in evidence. Two-thirds of the freight cars observed were the
2-axle type. New ~+-axle cars were almost all coal gondolas.
Reports received in the years 1950-52 indicate a sharp increase
in the eastbound movement, beginning in the early spring of 1950 and
increasing with the entry of Communist China into the Korean War.
Simultaneously, coal traffic on the western sections from the Kuzbas
to the Urals appeared to be steadily increasing.
E. The Instant Function.
As viewed from Moscow in 1953, the main economic importance of
the railroad probably lay in the portions of the main line extending
from Omsk eastward as far as Tarskiy, and in principal connecting
branches in the same area including the line from Tarskiy to the
Chinese Communist border at Manchouli, since movement of most Siberian
bulk resources and of Chinese imports was encompassed there. The
westernmost portion of the system served the grain lands of Siberia
lying slightly south of the line in the flat steppe regions which it
traverses between the Urals and the Ob' River and in Altayskiy Kray.
.Bread grains, as previously stated, had been raised in this region
before the construction of the railroad, but the latter provided a
major boost to their movement to markets in the west. In 1953 the
extensive "new lands" program which was to take place in this region
had not yet materialized.
From Novosibirsk eastward for some 300 km, the line skirts
the Kuzbas, which contains Siberia's most important known coalfield.
These bituminous deposits are reported to have reserves sufficient for
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centuries. There are also major deposits of iron ore in the South
Kuzbas area and the neighboring Khakasskaya Oblast, which are cur-
rently being opened for exploitation. On the surface the land takes
,a prairielike form, with low hills and ridges and timber appearing
more frequently than. on the steppes. ~ The bulk of the coal and
,ferrous traffic is brought in on branches coming in from the south.
Coal deposits on the main line between the Kuzbas and
Cheremkhovo are mostly lignite, exploitable for electric power and
space heating, but not useful for metallurgical purposes or desirable
for locomotive fuel. Principal loading points are Kansk-Yeniseysk,
and Zaozernyy. Cheremkhovo, on the other hand, is an important source
of low-volatile bituminous coal, which is usable for railroad and
river boat fuel and for industrial and heating purposes.
From Achinsk east to Lake Baikal the line passes for some
distance through a hilly, heavily forested area. This portion
together with the section between Ulan-Ude and Chita constitutes the
main source of timber in Eastern Siberia. The branch line connecting
Tayshet with the Lena River has recently become important for carrying
forest products, penetrating as it does large stands of virgin timber
to the north and providing a point of contact for numerous streams
and winter roads. Along this section in Krasnoyarskiy Kray there
is also a limited grain-producing area. 2
The Circumbaykal section is scenic and picturesgue and with its
marry rock tunnels could become a bottleneck or obstacle in the .event of
active hostilities. ~ A newly constructed cutoff eliminates a por-
tion of the distance. ~ Relatively small but important tonnages
originate in this area -- for example, mica, which is actively mined
at Slyudyanka.
East of Ulan-Ude and extending as far as Chita the major
commodity loaded is timber. Here the line ascends to the summit of
the Yablonovyy Mountains, which it crosses at an elevation of 3,x+00
feet, descending again to Chita at 2,150 feet, which lies in more
open plain country. ~ Some bread grains are grown in this region,
and beef cattle are raised in fairly large herds in the surrounding
country. The climate is relatively dry, with a rainy spring.
At Tarskiy the single-track line leading to Manchouli, the
transloading point for the Chinese Eastern Railway, branches off to
the southeast.
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Between Chita and Ksen'yevka lies an extensive district con-
sisting first of an open, rolling prairie and later of the same type
of terrain with a stunted tree cover. In this area are many deposits
of nonferrous metals and nonmetallic minerals which have been under
exploitation for years. At Bukachacha there is a fairly large deposit
of bituminous coal which is mined chiefly for the use of the railroad.
Spotty agriculture is carried on, but the country is not regarded as
self-sustaining.
For most of the distance from Ksen'yevka to Khabarovsk the
line passes through Amurskaya Oblast, which is one of the least hos-
pitable regions encountered. The country consists of hills and swampy
forest-land, and much of the soil is permanently frozen close to the
surface. Such traffic as is originated consists principally of timber
and bricks for building supplies. Blagoveshchensk, 108 km off of the
main line, is an important transshipment point between the railroad
and the river vessels moving in the open season down to points on the
lower Amur River and on Northern Sakhalin. ~ There are large open-
cut lignite mines at Raychikhinsk on a branch line a short distance
from the main line near Bureya.
Khabarovsk, on the Amur River, which the railroad reaches by
crossing the river over a bridge a mile and a half long with 22 spans,
is an important manufacturing center and the seat of government for
Khabarovskiy Kray. From refineries here and at Komsomol'sk, products
of the Sakhalin oilfields reach the main line. The country immediately
south of Khabarovsk has excellent timber which is being actively cut.
For most of the distance south of Khabarovsk the railroad passes
through the Ussuri valley, with timber-.covered hills in the distance.
Toward its southern end there is much cultivation, but along the main
line mineral products are few. There is a large cement mill at
Spassk-Dal'niy. The spur from Manchuria joins the double track at
Voroshilov-Ussuri. At Ugol'naya a branch runs to Nakhodka, a
recently developed port primarily for commercial vessels (some naval
craft being based there also), with Vladivostok remaining the main
naval base. On the way to Nakhodka are Artem and Suchan, where the
best of the Soviet Far Eastern coals are mined, some Suchan coal
rating as bituminous and being preferred for locomotive use over other
local types.
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A marked feature of Siberia with a bearing on transportation is
the number of larger rivers flowing from south to north which the rail-
road must cross. Numerous substantial steel bridges mark these
crossings, the two tracks freguently being carried on separate bridges
short distances apart.
The eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953 was
regarded as of great strategic importance. ~ Actual economic value
of national consequence in the eastern regions of the USSR stems
mostly from fishing, trapping, and the mining of nonferrous metals,
but the area east of Chitinskaya Oblast is in the main a deficit area.
Aside from the resources mentioned, there is little to attract indus-
try or settlers. Russian governments up to and including the present
have consistently encouraged or forced immigration into the Amur and
Primorskiy areas, apparently regarding as essential the exploitation
of the country's resources to provide a strong local economy for
support of the military ground, air, and naval strength which they
have sought to establish in the area.
Further east are the outlying areas consisting of Sakhalin
Island, the Kuriles, the Kolryma district, Kamchatka, Anadyr; and
Chukhotsk. These areas have in recent years been placed in the
strategic category, and as such, they have to be furnished with food-
stuffs, building materials, azd military equipment and supplies from
western areas of the USSR. Although some use has been made of the
Northern Sea Route for -such purposes, most of this movement has been
across Siberia by rail and then by vessel from Vladivostok, Nakhodka,
or Sovetskaya Gavan' to the port for the area of destination.
Some compensation to Soviet Far Eastern deficit requirements
has periodically been forthcoming in the form of commodity imports
from China. The most recent movement, starting in late lg4g or 1950,
began to appear from Communist China. Local availability has the
effect of reducing the requirement for shipping certain commodities.
long distances eastward across Siberia. This would be true of meats,
a number of agricultural commodities, and salt used in fish packing.
Other bulk commodities which Communist China produces in this area
are also produced or could be produced across the line in Siberia,
but Soviet supplies are either insufficient or raw materials are
inadequate in quality. Under one or the other of these captions
fall cement, crude iron, and bituminous coal. Barter payment for
these heavy goods can be made in the form of Soviet petroleum and its
products, weapons, and manufactured goods sent to China via rail
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i
through Otpor. ~ The Soviet Far East thus has been able to benefit
from indigenous Chinese labor, whereas Soviet labor, which produces
goods in compensation, has remained in the manufacturing centers of
the western portions of the country.
Petroleum resources in Siberia which were being exploited
in 1953 lay for the most part on Sakhalin Island, where current out-
put was insufficient to meet the regional requirements of the Soviet
Far_East alone. Consequently, although oil did not originate at any
point on the line, the Trans-Siberian Railroad was a heavy hauler of
petroleum products from oilfields east of Omsk and south of Novosibirsk
to points in Western and Eastern Siberia, to the Soviet Far East, and
to China. To offset temporary local shortages, the Soviet government
has established along the railroad line regional storage points
apparently for spotting reserve supplies pending consignment to ulti-
mate destinations.
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The location of the main line and branches of the Trans-Siberian Rail-
road east of Omsk in 1953 is believed to be substantially as shown on
the accompanying map (see Figure 1~-). The main line has been uniformly
reported to be double track throughout its length from Omsk to Vladivostok
except for the Amur River bridge west of Khabarovsk, which is single
track.- All other lines leading to and from the Trans-Siberian Railroad
have been reported as single track, with the exception of the electrified
Kuznetsk branch line, which is double track from Novosibirsk to Stalinsk
(Novokuznetsk Station). 59~
From reports of travelers over the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1848,
1948, and 1950, 60~ there ap~~ears to have been a sizable amount of "line
rehabilitation done in those years, with much relaying of rails,
replacement of crossties, and rock ballasting. Later travelers have
noted that the line seems to be in relatively good condition. 61
Numbers of creosoted crossties have been installed on the main line,
although there are still many untreated crossties, particularly on
branches. The main line rail is believed to weigh about 50 kilograms
per meter (or about 110 pounds per yard). Women were observed to be
doing most of the rehabilitation. No prisoners of war apparently
have worked on the main line, 6~ although on branches and at ports,
Japanese prisoners of war have done construction and maintenance work.
In 1953, except for the main line stretch from Novosibirsk to Chulym
and the Kuznetsk branch line from Novosibirsk to Stalinsk, which were
electrified, the railroad was operated wholly by coal-burning steam
power. Double-heading of loaded freight trains of ~+0 cars and more
seems to have been a common practice on many divisions.
Whereas the condition of the Trans-Siberian main line east of Omsk
has been directly reported, the status of a number of important branch
lines, newly constructed or in various stages of construction, is not
* Following p . 1+, above .
~ There is a standby single-
track tunnel under the Amur close to the Khabarovsk bridge.
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equally clear. Opening of certain of these lines could produce immedi-
ate changes in the traffic pattern and would in any event provide alter-
native routes or additional capacity for meeting emergencies.
The segments of the South Siberian Railroad from Kulunda through
Barnaul to Artyshta and from Stalinsk to Abakan appeared from 1953
reports to be nearing completion, and the former has since been put into
operation. 63/ This system should be able to relieve the Trans-Siberian
Railroad of all coal traffic bound from the Kuzbas for Barnaul and points
south, of a substantial portion of the coal bound from the Kuzbas for
Magnitogorsk, and of the iron ore returning from Magnitogorsk to the
Kuzbas.
There is some question about the existence of a branch line directly
connecting Anzhero-Sudzhensk with Barzas and Kemerovo. In this report,
traffic therefore has been plotted as moving via Yurga and Topki. A
cutoff line would be a reasonable expectation if a large eastbound move-
ment of coal were anticipated.
There is no on-the-spot information on the so-called BAM (Baykal-
Amur Magistral) line indicating that work was being pushed eastward
from Ust'-Kut in 1953? The indications on the map, Figure l,* of the
Trans-Siberian Railroad regarding this line are based on previous
planning information. The line from Urgal to Duki (on the way to
Komsomol'sk), which is believed to possess special fortifications** in
the Duse Alin mountain sections, was estimated to be open but not used
for through freight to Komsomol'sk. 6~+
Although little is known about a possible direct rail connection
between Raychikhinsk and the Amur River port of Poyarkovo, the project
would be so logical and simple that, based on a few indications, the
line has been presumed to exist and traffic has been plotted as moving
directly instead of round about via the main line.
From repatriates' reports it is estimated that the port of Nakhodka
grew from 5 to 6 times in size between September 19+9 and August 1953, and
there are indications that at least parts of the branch line leading from
Nakhodka to Ugol'naya are being double-tracked. 66 This port is still
~ Following p. ~+, above.
*~ Subterranean troop and storage rooms connected with the Duse Alin
tunnel.
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receiving much emphasis and apparently is to serve as an alternative
to Vladivostok, particularly with regard to such foreign-flag ships
as are permitted to approach the Soviet Far East.
In a recent Soviet announcement it was stated that the Sixth Five
Year Plan (1956-60) would embody "strengthening the material and tech-
nical base of the railroad line, increasing its transportation and
traffic capacities, and other large-scale construction work." 67~~-
Thus reports of further material progress may be expected in the future
from travelers over the main line.
~- It has also been announced that the Sixth Five Year Plan would include
electrification of the entire distance from Moscow to Irkutsk, with
later plans to extend electrical operations to Vladivostok. 68/ Auto-
matic and up-to-date signaling and traffic-control devices are being
installed on the Urals -West Siberia route. 69/ Heavy rails and rock
ballast are becoming the complete order of the day. Diesel engines have
been introduced on the stretches in the driest country of the Transbaykal
and Omsk systems. 70~ They are being used exclusively to operate the
Mongolian Railroad.
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III. Traffic.
A. Volume ;, by Section.
The volume of traffic which was moved over the Trans-Siberian
Railroad in 1953 varied by section, depending upon the points of origin
and destination of the major bulk resources. Manufactured goods were
of little influence in altering the comparative density from point to
point.
Table 2~ shows totals of tonnages moved on the main line, by
section, and on branches connecting with Communist China in 1953?
These totals were derived by accumulating for each segment the com-
modity estimates. described individually in IV, below.
The estimate of traffic density on the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
section, based on movements of commodities of recognized identity,
totals slightly less than ~+0 million tons, with 9.2 million tons
moving east and 30.65 million tons moving west. There are several
Soviet statements, however, which upon analysis of actual application
provide three unusually consistent figures of density for the Omsk
system over a period of 5 years. ~ These lead to the conclusion that
the average density for all traffic (in this case including all military
traffic as well as cross and duplicate hauls) for the main line between
Chulym (near Novosibirsk) and Omsk came to nearly 50 million tons in
1953. This was by far the greatest traffic density for any portion of
the Trans-Siberian Railroad covered in this report and,
USSR. 2
one of the most heavily used pieces of track in the
The proper division of the approximately 10 million tons of
unaccounted-for freight by direction of flow has been difficult to
determine, but on the assumption that the underestimates were principally
in petroleum and its products and in nonferrous building materials, both
of which would have moved eastward, a split of 7 million tons eastbound
and 3 million tons, largely of coal, westbound for points beyond the
Urals ~ is believed to constitute a logical, if somewhat crude, supple-
mentary set of figures. The otherwise empty coal cars returning from
the Urals to the Kuzbas would have provided suitable shipping space for
stone, gravel, slag, and brick, whereas cement would have had to move in
closed cars.~~
*~ Table 2 follows on p. 22.
** Continued on p. 24.
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Estimated Tonnage Moved on the Main Line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
by Section, and on Branches Connecting with Communist China
1953
Section
Eastbound (Down
Westbound (Up)
Main Line ~~
Omsk-Tatarsk
9,000
J
+ 7,000 b
29,900E 3
+
000
Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
9,200
,
30,65
Novosibirsk-Yurga
7,700
19,950
Yurga-Tayga
8,300
14,9501
Tayga - Anzhero-Sudzhensk
7,550
500 ~
+ 2
15,15 0
500
+ 1
Anzhero-Sudzhensk - Mariinsk
7,700
,
,
9500
Mariinsk-Achinsk
7,750
9,800:
Achinsk-Krasnoyarsk
8,250
8,15oj
Krasnoyarsk-Kansk
7,050
}
+ 1
500 ~
13,3501 + 1
000
Kansk-Tayshet
7,050
,
,
10,500((
Tayshet-Zima
7,050
9,200 + 500
Zima-Cheremkhovo
7,400
+ 1,000 ~
8,550
Cheremkhovo-Irkutsk
12,150
4,650
Irkutsk-N~ysovaya
8,800
4,850
Mysovaya - Ulan-Ude
8,550
4,700
Ulan-Ude - Petrovsk-
Zabaykal'skiy
8,200
4,200
Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy -
Chita
7,800
4,150
Chita-Tarskiy
7,000
3,700
Tarskiy-Kaganovicha
5,000
1,700
Kaganovicha-~Ksen'yevka
5,400
1,400
Ksen'yevka-Skovorodino
5,050
1,650
Skovorodino - Kuybyshevka-
Vostochnaya
4,700
2,250
Kuybyshevka-Vostochnaya -
Bureya
4,350
2,850
Bureya-Birobidzhan
6,750
1,450
Birobidzhan-Dezhnevka
6,100
1,350
~ Footnotes for Table 2 follow on p. 24.
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Estimated Tonnage Moved on the Main Line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
by Section, and on Branches Connecting with Communist China
1953
(Continued)
Main Line
(Continued)
Eastbound (Down) Westbound (Up)
Dezhnevka-Khabarovsk
5,050
2,000
Khabarovsk-Kruglikovo
4,050
2,700
Kruglikovo-Guberovo
4,250
2,100
Guberovo-Ussuri
4,300
2,150
Ussuri - Spassl~-Dal'niy
4,350
2,350
Spassk-Dal'niy - Manzovka
4,600
2,750
Manzovka-Voroshilov
4,600
3,050
Voroshilov-Ugol'naya
5,4~
2,800
Ugol'naya-Vladivostok
6,200
650
Branches Connecting with
Communist China
Otpor Branch
Tarskiy-Otpor 1,830 to 1,700 ~
2,080 to 2,220
USSR-Communist China and North
~
1
0
Korea trade only
~
1,470 e
e
, 3
9
Transit only
5o e_/
100
Grodelsovo Branch
Pogranichnaya-Voroshilov
1,780
470
USSR -- Communist China and
North Korea trade only
~/
1,450 _!
380
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Estimated Tonnage Moved on the Main Line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
by Section, and on Branches Connecting with Communist China
1953
(Continued)
a. Rounded to nearest 50,000.
b. Supplemental adjustment to meet Soviet announced volume.
c. Rounded to nearest 10,000.
d. The first figure indicates the amount leaving the initial point;
the second figure indicates the amount arriving at the other end of the
branch.
e. Included in total above.
For the sections from Yurga as far east as Irkutsk, the ton-
nage moved in both directions taken together has been estimated at
varied levels between 15 million and 23 million tons. Here again a
statement in a recent Soviet article leads to the belief that an
underestimate of about ~+ million tons may have been made for this
distance as a whole, with the split roughly calculated at 2.5 million
tons eastbound and 1.5 million tons westbound.
In a 195+ speech, Lazar M. Kaganovich, First Deputy Chairman
of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and formerly Peoples Commissar
of Railroads, alluded to the Omsk and Tomsk systems as having routes
with the heaviest loadings and densities in the USSR and meeting their
transport plans with difficulty.
A traveler interviewed upon his return from the Far East in
1953 was under the impression that between Irkutsk and Novosibirsk
his train had met 25 freights during the daytime headed east.
Other more careful traffic counts are discussed in Appendix A.
The amount of freight which moved up the Otpor branch line
from Communist China and North Korea in 1953 has been estimated to
have been 2.03 million tons. (See Figure 2~ for a map of the over-
all railroad system of the USSR.) Most of this freight passed over
the main line to points west of Omsk, but a sizable amount, con-
sisting of Chinese agricultural products, is believed to have been
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dropped off at Siberian towns en route, so that its volume steadily
diminished with its progress. Traffic moving in the opposite direc-
tion to Coummunist China and North Korea was about 1,520,000 tons upon
reaching the border, the largest single item being oil. The manu-
factured items and most of the oil originated west of Omsk.
In the section between Irkutsk and Mysovaya the oriental
traffic consisted of 1.9 million tons westbound and 1.5 million tons
eastbound. The remaining Soviet traffic through the section around
the lake consisted of 2,950,000 tons westbound (including more than
1 million tons of timber)~and 7.3 million tons eastbound. The
latter pair of figures illustrates the comparative tonnages to and
from the Transbaykal and Soviet Far Eastern areas in 1953? The
Irkutsk-N~ysovaya stretch includes the part of the Circumbaykal line,
which was most difficult to construct and is hence regarded as a
long-term bottleneck.
The traffic at Skovorodino, 1,829 km further east than
N~ysovaya, consisted of 1,650,000 tons headed west as opposed to
5,050,000 tons arriving from the west, both figures presumably
including Soviet freight only. Comparison of figures for Skovorodino
and Mysovaya would give the impression that 2.6 million of the 7.3
million tons eastbound in the Circumbaykal section was destined for
the Transbaykal area (Buryat-Mongol'skaya ASSR and Chitinskaya Oblast).
This figure is probably realistic in view of the scant amount of
goods picked up in this region for movement further east.
It is difficult to estimate the volume of traffic in the
Pacific coastal area, because of lack of observations and absence of
tangible data in Soviet publications. Local announcements in the
press and radio give the impression of a much greater degree of
activity in this area than the population and raw material resources
seem to warrant. On the other hand, concerning the exchange of goods
between the USSR and China through Pogranichnaya, it was reported in
1952 that both the movement and the goods were there. ~ In addition
to oil from Komsomol'sk, large quantities of military supplies were
being sent to China, including torpedoes, search lights, tanks, self-
propelled guns, artillery, and many motor vehicles. The Chinese
Co~nunists were exporting primarily soybeans, with lesser amounts of
rice, flour, peanuts, meat, and vegetables, together with cement,
salt,. alcohol, and nonferrous concentrates. It would thus appear that
in 1952, for some reason not altogether clear, a considerable amount
of Soviet-Chinese traffic must have avoided Otpor and moved around
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Manchuria on the Amur and the Far Eastern systems to Grodekovo. The
possibilities of a traffic problem at Manchouli or the use of Manchouli
facilities for specialized military purposes are strong. Since 1952 a
large new transfer station has been constructed at Otpor, the progress
of which has been witnessed by travelers in successive years. ~ In
making the 1953 estimates, therefore, it was assumed that all items
which more logically should have moved to China via Otpor and Manchouli
rather than via Grodekovo and Pogranichnaya actually did so.
A few of the traffic conditions considered in preparing volume
estimates should be mentioned.
From reports of prisoners
of war, particularly those working at storage points, however, it was
apparent that some commodities were being shifted around in an illogi-
cal manner. Remarks in the speeches of Soviet leaders and articles
in the press criticizing railroad performance confirm that flaws in
centralized planning resulted in wasted transportation of this type.
Despite this news, it was not believed advisable to attempt to provide
allowances in the commodity estimates for uneconomic movements such as
backhauls, crosshauls, or duplicate hauls. Movements of military units
with organic eguipment have also been omitted, even though units on the
move have been seen by observers and such movements would in any event
be expected. There is no method of determining how great movements of
both these types were or where they were concentrated, but it would
seem safe to say that on no section of the line would their combined
weight in both directions have exceeded 2 million ton-kilometers per
km of route, and it is probable that over most of the line they came
nowhexe near this figure.
The volume of waterway interchange was another problem. For
this purpose, it was necessary to give some consideration to the
availability of river transport. Waterways in Siberia are used from
only 6 to 7 months a year, and then largely for transportation of
such goods as timber, oil, and grain. Of the total Soviet movement
of these items, the proportion which is carried on the railroads is
generally less than that of coal, ferrous metals, and miscellaneous
freight. For example, of total coal mined in the USSR in 1953, 90
to 95 percent was carried by rail, and most of the remainder was
consumed at or near the mines. Rail movement of timber, however, was
only about 50 percent of the total cut, with waterways accounting fo'r
most of the balance. 80
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In 1953 the Trans-Siberian Railroad was not paralleled by a
significant volume of motor transport. Road vehicles were engaged
mainly in performing short hauls, such as delivering goods to railroad
stations and river ports and carrying freight to smaller towns and
villages not served by either rail or river. There were exceptions,
such as the Aldan highway from Bol'shoy Never to Yakutsk and various
roads in Primorskiy Kray and the Kolyma River area, but highway trans-
port was in a relatively undeveloped state in 1953 and requires little
consideration in estimating through rail movements.
It was difficult to estimate traffic on branch lines, because
of lack of observations. A few reports of prisoners of war who did
construction and improvement work on the branches included traffic
observations, but as a rule such reports were out of date and vague
as to freight volume. On most branches where movements of individual
commodities were uncertain (and in any event appeared too small for
charting purposes), they were for convenience lumped together under
miscellaneous freight.
Observations in 1953 and at later dates are uniform in stating
that there seemed to be a considerable park of spare locomotives on
the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 81 so that the volume estimates did not
need to be restricted by this type of shortage factor.
B. Directional Imbalances in Traffic Flow.
The, greater weight of traffic movement over stretches of the
Trans-Siberian Railroad west of Cheremkhovo in 1953 moved toward the
west, whereas east of Cheremkhovo the preponderance was generally
eastbound. This pattern was ~.ue to the facts that (1) the bulkier
Siberian resources, such as coal, coke, and timber, which are needed
in Kazakhstan, the Urals, and the European USSR, were available in
quantity from Cheremkhovo west, while (2) on the eastern extremity of
the line, regions which normally supply mainl,}r fish, nonferrous ores
and concentrates, and furs had for strategic reasons to be supported
from th.e west with heavier foodstuffs, construction materials, oil,
military equipment, and manufactured goods.
In 1953, the Trans-Siberian Railroad was faced with a dis-
proportionate volume of traffic of over 2 to 1 westbound between
Novosibirsk and Omsk and of about 2-1~2 to 1 eastbound average
between Chita and Khabarovsk. Owing to its length and the three
major types of freight for which the railroad was originally designed --
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(1) Siberian resources, (2) strategic support items for the Far East,
and (3) overland international trade -- there have developed on its
main line separate zones of unbalanced movement, the components of
which cannot readily be made to counteract one another. Contributing
factors to the inflexibility of this situation are (1) the location
on branch lines of major points of origin and destination, (2) inter-
vening distances between zones having opposed traffic balances, and
(3) scarcity of bituminous coal of good quality along the Transbaykal
and Amur systems.
C. Traffic versus Capacity.
The traffic accounted for in this report falls considerably
short of the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which was esti-
mated to have been 33,000 tons each way per day (33 trains of 1,000
tons each) in 1953 for the Circumbaykal section. ~ These daily
capacity figures would convert to 12 million tons per year as against
the eastbound traffic of 8.8 million and the westbound traffic of
4.9 million, the latter movement being lighter in tonnage but pre-
sumably equal in number of cars moved, since the Trans-Siberian Rail-
road was the sole artery of transportation between east and west at
this point. The cushion between 1953 traffic and capacity was thus
about 3 million tons per year eastward. The car movement has been
estimated to have been from 260,000 to 300,000 cars each way per year,
or 18 to 21 trains per day of 1+0 cars each.
Should a crisis occur in the Far East within the foreseeable
future, the logistical support of the Sino-Soviet Bloc in Asia would
fall almost entirely upon the Trans-Siberian Railroad between
Novosibirsk and the Chinese Communist border stations. The best way
of forcing traffic up to a capacity level in the event of hostilities
would be to deprive the Far Eastern areas of the Sino-Soviet Bloc of
local sources and imports of petroleum, large quantities of which
would then have to be hauled through the Circumbaykal bottleneck.
As time passes, civilian requirements for petroleum and its products
in East Asia will also undoubtedly rise.
It is estimated that the through capacity estimate of 33
1,000-ton trains each way per day for the Circumbaykal bottleneck was
exceeded in 1953 performance on various segments east of Novosibirsk
(with an estimated ~+0 trains each way per day) and west of Novosibirsk
(with an estimated 56 trains each way per day). There are indications
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that lines and yards in the latter areas, particularly in the electri-
fied Omsk-Novosibirsk section, can now handle somewhat more than 56
trains each way per day.
A form of increasing Soviet railroad efficiency and hence
capacity which was started in 1952 and has been stressed in the USSR
in the last 3 years is the operation of above-norm-length trains.
The norm for coal trains on the Kuznetsk-Chelyabinsk line has been
raised in successive stages from about 3,000 tons in 1950 to 4,000
tons in 1955, with 4,500 tons prescribed for 1956. 84 (These
figures are believed to represent gross tons rather than net tons,
since few trains of 70 cars were observed on this line in 1953?) In
order to.support traffic increases planned for the next 5 years,
heavier trains would seem to be essential unless additional tracks
are to be laid. by 1960, coal shipments
alone are supposed to rise 0 percent over 1953 for the whole of the
USSR. ~ Shipments from the Kuzbas are expected to be between
36 million and 40 million tons per year in 1960. 86
Although the present general pattern of commodity movements
on the Trans-Siberian Railroad may be expected to continue for several
years, new forces aild situations, both economic and military, are
constantly influencing the transport plans of the USSR. Whereas in
1953, for example, the Trans-Siberian Railroad had a monopoly of all
east-west traffic moving across Asia, alternative routings are being
brought into existence with the progress of new railroad construc-
tion -- for example, the Trans-Mongolian Railroad, which has been
opened to traffic, adds capacity to the Soviet railroad system from
Ulan-Ude to the east. ~ An extension of the Chinese Lung Hai
Railroad through Sinkiang to Kazakhstan is also under way. The
South Siberian Railroad, now open for most of its distance, makes
possible a direct routing of coal, chemicals, fertilizers, and steel
from the Kuzbas to the Turk-Sib Railroad at Barnaul, to the "new
lands" area, and to points west; of grain in both directions; and of
iron ore, salt, and oil into the Kuzbas from the west and south. It
provides a route parallel to the main line of the Trans-Siberian
Railroad from Stalinsk to Magnitogorsk. An eastward extension to
Abakan will soon be open. Since Karaganda coal is already being
shipped to the Urals over the western portion of the South Siberian
Railroad, the routing of Kuzbas coal to consuming centers in the
Urals other than Magnitogorsk over this ,single-track line rather than
over the electrified double-track line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
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would under ordinary conditions be of doubtful efficiency and economy.
The line is nevertheless available to provide additional east-west
capacity in this part of Siberia, and there are already plans afoot
for its double tracking. 88
D. Car Distribution and Empty-Car Movement.
A complicating factor in handling traffic over the long dis-
tances of the Trans-Siberian Railroad has been the inability to load
back to area of origin types of freight cars which are used for bulk
movement of particular commodities. This necessitates a sizable return
movement of empty cars over parts of the line and, where certain com-
modity flows overlap, a two-way movement .of empties.
The volume estimated for the major commodities together with
their respective patterns of shipment suggests several routes of
probable empty movement.. For example, with Cheremkhovo a center of
preponderant outloading in both directions, there would have had to
be an inbound movement of empties. These empty movements have been
confirmed by Soviet announcements and critiques and by US and other
Free World visual observations.
It would be interesting to analyze for each major system of
the Trans-Siberian Railroad the movement pattern of loaded cars and
the conseguent problem of empty cars with which the railroad was
faced. For instance', it is very likely that the Transbaykal system,
receiving a large flow of westbound empty, closed cars at Ksen'yevka
from farther east and facing a demand for this type of car at Otpor,
moved a quantity of these empty cars back down the branch from
Tarskiy to Otpor to be loaded with goods imported from China and
destined for points west. The same sort of situation probably arose
at Yurga, with stricter qualifications for types of cars regarding
Kuzbas traffic .
Oil tank cars were a particular problem. Only a relatively
small portion of those hauled east could be return-loaded at all:
vegetable oils were loaded on a few after they had been carefully
cleaned, but the rest of the tank cars had to be hauled back empty.
At Novosibirsk, which was itself a large oil-consuming center,
petroleum from the west and south converged. The main flow went
from Novosibirsk eastward on the main line, and a lesser amount
~ See Appendix A.
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I
moved southeastward into the Kuzbas. There was also a downstream
water movement of petroleum and its products on the Ob' River, sea-
sonal in nature, with a major loading point near Novosibirsk. Some of
the oil coming from Central Asia may have been transloaded onto barges
near Barnaul, where a transfer point has been sighted. ~ The net
effect of these moves, however, seems still to have left over 120,000
empty tank cars to move west from Novosibirsk toward Omsk and probably
15,500 more to return southward toward Tashkent. This situation can
only be mitigated by shipping oil in tankers from the Black Sea to
the Far East and by construction of pipelines from the Ural-Volga
fields to Siberia. Both of these steps are now being taken.
Considering the partially electrified stretch from Novosibirsk
to Omsk* as an example by which to illustrate the magnitude of the
empty car problem, it appears that in addition to tank cars some
other types of cars were involved. For 1953 the net eastward
balance of gondolas returning empty to the Kuzbas from Omsk and the
Urals after delivering their loads of coal and coke has been esti-
mated to be approximately x+80,000 cars (assuming average westward
loading of ~+5 tons of coal to the car). ~ These cars could not
be loaded east for points much beyond Anzhero-Sudzhensk, because most
of them were required to pick up coal in the. Kuzbas area for movement
west. ~ In an effort to reduce this movement, coal has been loaded
west upon low-sided flatcars arriving with merchandise or coming to
the Kuzbas from timber regions, a practice which itself has been
publicized as uneconomical.
Empty flatcars showing signs of having recently carried
timber have been sighted bound eastward in the Omsk-Novosibirsk section
and in the distance between Barnaul and Novosibirsk bound northward.
This observation leads to the belief either that the points of
delivery for the timber were near enough to the points of origin to
warrant returning the cars empty rather than sending them farther
afield in search of a return load or that the quantity of suitable
return loads between the two areas was less than the requirement for
timber shipments.
~ Partially electrified in 1953; wholly electrified by the end of 1955?
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actual westward movement in 1952 may have included empty boxcars
reserved for special purposes, such as grain and agricultural products,
and it is probable that despite imports of such goods from China, which
would fill some of the cars, suitable return loads from the Central
Siberian and Kuzbas areas as a rule could not be found. In 1954, one
observer reported that over 50 percent of the westbound boxcars between
Omsk and Novosibirsk seemed to be empty. ~ This proportion may be
high, but it seems safe to assume that boxcars reserved and perhaps
especially constructed for the movement of bulk grains, flour, and
other edibles would not be used on the return trip for either coal or
timber.
Since the Trans-Siberian Railroad was the only east-west line
operating across West Siberia in 1953 (there being no alternative route
by which eastbound cars could return west), the car movement pattern
would have had to remain in close balance over a period of a year,
even with allowance for seasonal movements, tieups, and emergencies,
in order to avoid either a buildup of idle cars or the creation of
shortages at points east of Omsk. ~ With the opening of portions
of the South Siberian Railroad the following year, this statement
would no longer be valid west of Novosibirsk.
Figures breaking down the commodity estimates into presumed
numbers of cars required and other statistics showing resulting mini-
mum car trial balances on the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk section are shown
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in Tables 3 and ~+.~ By minimum car trial balance is meant a theoreti-
cal car balance including the assumed movement of a minimum number of
empties based on accurate planning and the practical elimination of
seasonals. Performance probably did not match such atrial balance
in 1953 any more than was indicated in the 1952 reference, and
undoubtedly a substantial number of empty cars moved in both direc-
tions over and above the minimum. Moreover, if the westbound
movement of miscellaneous freight actually was lower than the esti-
mate presented in this report, the effect would have been for more
boxcars to return west empty.
It is interesting to note that the total number of cars
calculated in the trial balance in Table ~+ as having moved in each
direction between Tatarsk and Novosibirsk came to 1,007,390 (or
995,050 if the small offset is deducted), whereas in Appendix A of
this report the average daily equated car movement figure resulting
from five observation trips in 1953 and 1954 was calculated as 2,487,
which multiplied by 360 days per year gives 895,320 cars..
In the light of these calculations, this report concludes that
approximately 1 million cars were moved each way in 1953 between
Tatarsk and Novosibirsk. Taking the average length of train as
observed at 50 cars, the average daily traffic would consist of 56
trains each way per day, besides which there were 10 passenger trains
each way and an occasional extra train for military or displaced
persons together with work equipment required for maintenance of the
line, clearing wrecks, and installing new rail.
In the same manner as was done for the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
section, analyses were made of the traffic east of Novosibirsk and
through the Circumbaykal stretch, with the resulting freight car
density showing as 580,000 cars each way per year between Yurga and
Krasnoyarsk, or 40 trains per day of 41 cars each, and 260,000 to
300,000 cars each per year for the Irkutsk - N~ysovaya - Ulan-Ude line,
or 18 to 21 trains per day of 40 cars each, the train lengths being
the observed sample averages for the respective sections.*~-*
~ Tables 3 and 4 follow on pp. 34 and 37, respectively.
~~ In 1953 it appears that all Trans-Siberian right-of-way maintenance
was done from railborne vehicles, but consideration is currently being
given to taking maintenance equipment off the rails.
~~~ Continued on p. 39.
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S-E-C-R-E-T
Movement of Loaded Cars on the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk Section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Calculated on the Basis of .Commodity Tonnage Estimates,
Supplemental Estimates from Soviet Announcements,
and Estimated Average Loads per Car
1953
Westbound
Novosibirsk to Tatarsk
Cargo
Amount
(Thousand
Metric Tons)
Average Load
per Car
(Metric Tons)
Number
of Loaded Cars
22, 000
~+5
X88,890
+2,000 of
~+~+, ~+~+0 a f
Coal
500
~+5
11,110
Main line east
Coke
2,090
35
59,710
Kuzbas
Timber
1,085
35
31,000
Main line east
+~+oo J
11,x+30
Ferrous metals
1,.205
35
3~+, x+30
Kuzbas
Ferrous metals
37
35
1,060
Main line east
Agricultural co~modities
1, 3~+5
30
~+~+,830
Main line east
Nonmetallic construction
materials
+300 ~
35
8,570
Main line east
Miscellaneous freight
1,320
20
66,000
Main line east
+300
15,000
Miscellaneous freight
3~3
17,150
Novosibirsk local
Miscellaneous freight
700
20
35,000
and Barnaul net
Kuzbas
Total
33,625
868,620
* Footnotes for Table 3 follow on p. 36.
-3~+-
S-E-C-R-E-T
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Movement of Loaded Cars on the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk Section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Calculated on the Basis of Commodity Tonnage Estimates,
Supplemental Estimates from Soviet Announcements,
and Estimated Average Loads per Car
1953
(Continued)
Eastbound
Tatarsk to Novosibirsk
Caruso
Amount Average Load
(Thousand per Car
Metric_Tons) (Metric Tons)
Number
of Loaded Cars
To
Petroleum and its products
2,450 35
70,000
Main line east
+1,000 ~
28,570 of
Petroleum and its products
125 35
3,570
Novosibirsk local
+150 ~
4,290 ~
and Ob' River
Petroleum and its products
280
35
8,000
Kuzbas
+350 1
10,000 J
Timber
50
35
1,430
Kuzbas
Ferrous ores
1,270
50
25,400
Kuzbas
+200 a~
x+,000
Ferrous metals
156
35
4,480
Kuzbas
Ferrous metals
82
35
2,340
Novosibirsk net
Ferrous metals
477
35
13,630
Main line east
Agricultural commodities
1,049
30
34,970
Main line-east
Agricultural commodities
137
30
4,570
Novosibirsk local
and Barnaul net
Agricultural commodities
244
30
8,130
Kuzbas
-35-
S E-C-R-E~
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Table 3
Movement of Loaded Cars on the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk Section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Calculated on the Basis of Commodity Tonnage Estimates,
Supplemental Estimates from Soviet Announcements,
and Estimated Average Loads per Car
1953
(Continued)
-
Eastbound
Tatarsk to Novosibirsk
Cargo
Amount
(Thousand
Metric Tons)
Average Load
per Car
(Metric Tons)
Number
of Loaded Cars
To
Nonmetallic construction
.materials
+1,200 ~
35
3+,290 ~
Main line east
Nonmetallic construction
+3,000 ~
35
85,710 ~
Novosibirsk local
materials
and points en route
Nonmetallic construction
~
J
8
a
Miscellaneous freight
2 009
20
100,
50
Main
line east
+300 ~
15000 ~
Miscellaneous freight
47~+
20
23,700
Novosibirsk local
Miscellaneous freight
410
20
20,500
and Barnaul net
Kuzbas
Total
16,213
525,890
a. Supplemental estimate from Soviet announcements.
b. Net signifies the difference between loaded cars going to a point and loaded cars originating
at the same point, destined to continue in the same direction for points farther on. The off-
setting balance is treated as through movement.
_ 36 _
S-E-C-R E T
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Table ~+
Minimum Car Trial Balance for the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk Section
of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1953 '
Estimated Carloads
Traffic Moving Between Tatarsk (and Points West) and
Novosibirsk (Including the Kuzbas and Altayskiy Kray)
Eastbound to Novosibirsk,
Westbound from Novosibirsk,
Cargo
Barnaul, and the Kuzbas
Barnaul, and the Kuzbas
Coal
533,330 (open cars)
Coke
59,710 (open cars)
Petroleum and its
products
Timber
Ferrous ores
Ferrous metals
25,860 (tank cars)
1,430 (open cars)
29,400 (open cars)
6,820 (open cars)
34,430 (open cars)
Agricultural
commodities
Nonmetallic
12,700 (closed cars)
construction
materials
Miscellaneous
freight
108,570 (open cars)
44,200 (open and closed
;49,750
(open and closed
cars)
-~
~ 2,400
cars)
(tar tank cars)
Balance of empty
cars
2,400 (tank cars for
5,000
(closed cars
tar, unsuited
reserved for
to petroleum
agricultural
and its products)
commodities)
479,100 (open cars)
25,860
(return of tank
cars suited for
petroleum)
17 0,480 17 0,480
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Table ~+
Minimum Car Trial Balance for the Tatarsk-Novosibirsk Section
of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1953
(Continued)
Through Traffic Moving Between Tatarsk (and Points West)
and Points East of West Siberia (Region IX)
Cargo
Eastbound to Regions XI and
XII and to Communist China
and North Korea
Westbound from Regions XI and
XII and from Communist China
and North Korea
Coal
11,110 (open cars)
Petroleum and its
products
Timber
98,570 (tank cars)
42,430 (open cars)
Ferrous metals
13,630 (open cars)
1,060 (open cars)
Agricultural
41,830 (closed cars)
commodities
34,970 (closed cars)
3,000 (tank carte for
Nonmetallic
vegetable oils)
construction
materials
34,290 (open cars)
8,570 (open cars)
Miscellaneous 115,450 (open and
freight closed cars)
81,000 (open and closed
cars)
Balance of
empty cars
95,570 (return of tank
cars suited for
petroleum)
12,340 (open and closed
Subtotal
2 6 10
2 6 10
cars)
Total loaded
cars
2 8 0
868,620
Total empty
cars
1+81,500
138,770
Total cars
moved
a. Open cars could be used as offset by loading westbound in Kuzbas.
_3g_
S-E-C-R-E-T
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N . C ornmodity Movements .
50X1
The principal comrrrodities handled on the Trans-Siberian Railroad in
1953 were coal, coke, oil, timber, ferrous .metals, and certain agricultural
and animal products. Other items may for convenience?be grouped into the
Charts (Figures 3 and 4*) have been prepared which show the total of 50X1
individually estimated commodity movements in both directions over the
Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953. Eastbound movements are shown below
the rail line, and westbound movements above. Figure 3 is a chart for
the main line, and Figure 4 for the branch lines. These charts were
compiled by aggregating for various segments of the line and for certain
of the branches the estimates made for each major commodity or commodity
group. Traffic figures stated in terms of tons moving per kilometer
would perhaps most accurately be a summation of ton-kilometers hauled
within each delineated section as applied to the number of kilometers
in the section. The Copeland studies ~ define this factor for US
railroads as ton-miles per mile of road. This permits dividing the
railroad into sections controlled by main shipping points and expressing
the aggregate of through traffic plus numerous short-haul movements to
and from way stations as a series of horizontal bars between such con-
trol points. Whereas the drafting technique in these charts is much
the same as that of the Copeland studies, the horizontal lines depict
representative averages of tonnage movements rather than total ton-
kilometers per kilometer moving within each section. Available infor-
mation and detail would not permit of the latter method
An individual chart (Figure 5*) has been prepared in a similar manner
particularly for coal, which represented by far the greatest amount of
tonnage loaded of any one single commodity.
Coal, the principal commodity handled by the railroad in terms of
weight, was loaded on the rails at a number of large mining centers
along the main line and its various branches and was hauled to important
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S-E-C-R-E-T
centers of consumption as well as to smaller places along the line for the
use of electric power plants; diversified industries; consumer cooper-
atives; and most important, for the railroad itself. A Soviet publication
has recently carried a statement to the effect that rail transport consumes
25 percent of all coal mined in the USSR. 100
The heaviest demand for coal appears to have come from the Urals,
where coking coal of good quality was urgently required, resulting in the
through movement of approximately 20 million tons from the Kuzbas to that
area. Additional coal from the Kuzbas went beyond the Urals; some stopped
at Omsk before reaching there. Other important movements of coal in
Siberia originated at Cheremkhovo and Raychikhinsk. The prevailing
movement of coal was westerly from Cheremkhovo toward the west and easterly
from Cheremkhovo toward the east. Coal mined in Amurskaya Oblast at
Raychikhinsk was lignite, some of which possibly was briquetted to
improve its qualities for railroad usage.
Owing to the severe climate, one major use for coal throughout Siberia
was for space heating. This applied principally to industrial complexes
and to places where housing units were in use and lent more emphasis than
in the past to terminations at the larger cities.
There were only a few sustained movements of coke on the Trans-Siberian
Railroad in 1953? By far the largest movement was the transportation of
coke from Kemerovo and Stalinsk in the Kuzbas to the metallurgical plants
of the Urals.
The movement of petroleum and its products in Siberia took the form
of a sustained general movement toward the east from the Ural-Volga and
Central Asian fields. The two flows converged at Novosibirsk, and from
there eastward the volume of movement tapered off, reflecting consumption
along the line, with particular emphasis upon large cities .and river
intersections. Of the balance finally arriving at Vladivostok, a large
proportion is assumed to have moved on small Soviet tankers to the far
northern and eastern extremities of Siberia. In 1953 the USSR was short
of tankers, and there were no indications of the existence of pipelines,
except those from the Sakhalin fields to the Komsomol'sk refinery. COCOM
controls would have made it difficult for the USSR to charter Western
tankers at this time for movement of oil from the Black Sea to the Far
East.
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The general movement of timber on the Trans-Siberian Railroad was
westward, except in Khabarovskiy Kray and Primorskiy Kray, where a
considerable tonnage was hauled southwardeast) toward the coal mines
and ports. Main sources of timber loading were in East Siberia, in-
cluding Chitinskaya Oblast, the Buryat-Mongol'skaya ASSR, and the forest
areas along the branch line from Tayshet to the Lena River. Some cut-
ting took place near enough to the track for convenient stacking and
loading, but the bulk of the timber reached the rails by floating in
streams, by narrow-gauge railroad, or by logging road. Timber cut in
East Siberia was sent to mines for pit props; to the railroad for crossties;
and to major centers of construction such as new plants, dams, and cities.
It was also consumed in the manufacture of alcohol. Some firewood was moved
by rail, but its relative importance was small and declining.
The principal flow of forest products originated in the mountains west
of Chita, gathered momentum as far as the Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo area, dimin-
ished there, and immediately started again on a cumulative increase which
was amplified at Tayshet by the contribution of the Lena branch. Through
the Krasnoyarsk area, volume increased still further despite unloadings
for coal mines and other purposes, with the highest density probably reached
somewhere between Mariinsk and Yurga. At the latter point a large amount
left the main line southbound for the mines of the Kuzbas. Farther ot7~, at
Novosibirsk an even greater quantity was switched off in a southerly
direction toward Barnaul. This timber, less dropoffs en route south,
was delivered to the Turk-Sib Railroad and was ultimately dispersed to a
wide area of Central Asia and South Kazakhstan which is low in timber
resources. Timber moving west from Novosibirsk toward Omsk encountered
cutting areas which provided the additional amounts required by the mines
and industries of the Urals.
Ferrous metals had several characteristic movements in 1953? The
principal source within Siberia was Novokuznetsk or Stalinsk, the output
of which was divided, with the greater portion moving westward. There
being many different types and kinds of steel, crosshauling in the
industry is not necessarily irrational. Owing to varied requirements of
construction programs in Siberia, steel from the Urals as well as from
Stalinsk moved to the east. Communist China and North Korea received an
estimated quarter of a million tons via Otpor. Despite efforts to develop
iron ore in the South Kuzbas, 1.25 million tons of ore are believed to
have moved to Stalinsk from Magnitogorsk. Farther east, smaller plants
of the steel industry operated at Irkutsk, Petrovsk-Zabaykal'sky, and
Komsomol'sk, with output serving the more remote shipbuilding, arms, and
construction industries.
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I
Bulk grain movements over the portions of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
included in this report are estimated as having taken place mainly in an
easterly direction from the western Siberian steppes and Altayskiy Kray.
Considerable quantities of grain originated on the lines from Barnaul
and Altayskaya to Novosibirsk and from Pavlodar and Kulunda to Tatarsk,
as well as on the main line itself. Upon arrival at the far eastern end
of the railroad, a substantial movement by sea to the outlying areas is
believed to have occurred. This long rail-sea movement is the type
which Soviet planners hope to reduce by the annual movement of ships over
the Northern Sea Route or other ocean routings.
Manufactures and miscellaneous freight largely moved from west to
east. Machinery manufactured in the European USSR undoubtedly constituted
an important fraction of the miscellaneous category, particularly if motor
vehicles, which were repeatedly sighted on open cars, are included. Agri-
cultural machinery, mining equipment, oil rigs and pipes, electrical compo-
nents, wire, boilers, stationary engines, and industrial plants were gen-
erally eastbound, including goods destined for Communist China, with the
exception of a few items which were manufactured in Siberia and moved
both ways.
Of tonnage originating in the Soviet Far East for westward movement,
the bulkiest item was packed and canned fish. In carrying this commodity,
the railroad is bearing out a major precept of its early days, its suit-
ability for moving refrigerated goods. Also from the Far East came min-
eral concentrates. Most of the available minerals are in the high-value
nonferrous categories and either constitute a relative light tonnage
for movement west or are so situated as to warrant a partial if not
total movement by sea. The more valuable metals are believed to be
flown out of the Far North and the Far East. Valuable furs also originate
in this country but add up to little in terms of weight. Thus traffic
returning from the more eastern regions of Siberia did not counterbalance
the outgoing freight from the west required to support the existing
population and to provide for growth of economic and military strength.
In connection with all of the commodity shipment patterns, the
impression is obta.?ined that Soviet engineers, executives, and planners
are constantly being reminded of the necessity of trying to find ways
and means of reducing unnecessary and uneconomical rail hauls. This
applies to petroleum and its products; timber; iron ore; and even coal,
where properly located briquetting plants, by making possible the use
of local lignites for locomotive boilers, save the hauling of bitu-
minous coal for many hundreds of kilometers from mines to areas having
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only lignite. Miscellaneous manufactured goods fare best in staying
on the rails, as they do not necessarily conform for such long periods
to a fixed pattern of distribution and the cost of moving them is
relatively low compared with their value.
In 1953 there was practically no Soviet Far Eastern trade with
countries other than Communist China and North Korea. Development
of Soviet trade with countries of the Pacific could bring about a
reduction of the movement of bulk rail freight from the European USSR
to the Far East by substitution of imports, particularly of grain and
oil. The growth of a Soviet Bloc tanker and dry cargo fleet or the
relaxation of UN shipping controls could have a similar effect by
bringing oil and grain east by water from Black Sea ports via the
Suez Canal.
Table 5~- shows the relative volume and direction of the movement
in 1953 of major commodities on three representative sections of the
line.
Production of coal in Siberia is divided among Economic Regions'
IX, XI, and XII (West Siberia, East Siberia, and the Far East). Each
of these regions contains major producing areas, and the USSR is making
an effort to limit the flow of coal among these three regions. A large
amount of coal, however, is known to be moved from Region IX to Region
VIII (the Urals) and even farther west. Because of the heavy propor-
tion of coal tonnage moved to total tonnage moved, the individual
traffic chart on coal movement only (Figure 5), has been prepared,
providing a more definite impression of coal as an isolated entity
than can be obtained from inspection of the over-all charts (Figures 3
and ~+ ) .
~ Table 5 follows on p. 4~+.
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S-E-C-R-E T
Table 5
Volume and Direction of Traffic of Major Commodities
over Selected Sections of the Main Line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1953
Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
Irkutsk-Mysovaya
Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy - Chita
Commodities
Eastbound
Westbound
Eastbound
Westbound
Eastbound
Westbound
Coal
22,500
2,528
1,25+
X57
Coke
2,090
5
Petroleum and its products
2,855
2,266
2,168
Timber
50
1,085
80
1,167
~+~+5
16~+
Ferrous ores and metals
1,985
1,2+2
5~
93
511
132
Agricultural
1, x+30
1, 3~+5
1, 363
2, 091
1, 35~+
2,008
conunodities
Manufactures and miscella-
neous
2,893
2,363
2,056
1,523
2,052
1,365
Unidentified ~
7,000
3,000
Total
16 21
331625
8,800
x+,874
7,785
x+,126
a. With adjustments to attain figures derived from Soviet announcements.
'b. Balance to attain total derived from Soviet announcements.
- ~+~+ -
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1. Region IX (West Siberia).
The great center of coal production in. Region IX (West Siberia)
and by far the largest anywhere in Siberia is the Kuzbas. This basin is
estimated to have produced in 1953 ~+5 million tons of coal, 1~+ percent of
the total coal production of the USSR. Much of this coal is suitable for
coking and for the manufacture of steel. The bulk of Kuzbas coal was
produced on branch lines joining the Trans-Siberian main line from the
south at Yurga and Novosibirsk. The branch coming in at Novosibirsk,
which was double-tracked and electrified from Stalinsk north, carried
most of this coal. The mining city of Anzhero-Sudzhensk was the only
important coal outlet of the Kuzbas lying directly on the Trans-Siberian
main line.
Analysis of movement of Kuzbas coal has resulted in a series
of estimates which produced the pattern shown in the coal commodity chart
(Figure 5). Outside of the Kuzbas itself, the main center of consumption
was Region VIII (the Urals), which is reported to have taken 38 percent
of Kuzbas production in 1952. Of the coal moving westward, however, from
18 million to 20 million tons were dropped off at or short of Novosibirsk
for such purposes as (a) supplying power for mining the coal itself,
(b) producing regional electric power, (c) operation of the Tomsk Railroad,
(d) coking, (e) steelmaking and other industrial purposes, and (f) munic-
ipal and area heating. In 1953, allowing for a little over 3 million tons
to move south to Barnaul and Biysk and to points on the Turk-Sib Railroad,
there is estimated to have moved westward from Novosibirsk about from
22 million to 24 million tons of bituminous coal suitable for cok-
ing. A minor portion of this coal was distributed along the main line of
the Trans-Siberian Railroad, including the city of Omsk and the railroad
and power plants en route. The bulk of it, probably about 20 million tons,
reached the Urals.
This coal movement from the Kuzbas to the Urals was heavier
than any other movement on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and in Siberia
was approached in magnitude only by the movement of coal from Karaganda
to the Urals. It has been indicated in speeches by Kaganovich that in
1953 a considerable tonnage of Kuzbas coal moved on past the Urals and was
consumed in Region VII (Central), which is mainly served by the Moscow and
Donets Coal Basins. Kaganovich expressed disapproval of so long a
movement as being against the economic interest of the country. This
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movement must have resulted either from an over-all shortage of coal in the
Moscow Basin or from the inability of the Donets Basin, which i~ much closer
to Moscow, to allocate the volume of high-quality coal needed by Region VII.
The heavy movement of westbound coal from the Kuzbas poses a
problem of empty-car movement because eastbound empties bound for the coal-
fields cannot be used for cargoes with destination farther to the east.
A relatively small portion of these returning cars, however, can be used
for transporting Ural iron ores back to the Kuzbas, where the iron ore
resources have not yet been adequately opened up.
Within the Kuzbas itself there is a flow of the best coking
coals into Stalinsk and Kemerovo, at each of which are located large coke
ovens. In the case of Kemerovo, prisoner-of-war observations have con-
sistently shown coal arriving to supplement that mined in the immediate
vicinity including Barzas. Most of this coal is believed to have come
from the south, but lesser amounts apparently came in from Anzhero-
Sudzhensk also; the short two-way movement on the inbound stretch south
of Yurga was probably accounted for by differences in grades of coal
mined. For Stalinsk, a short southeastward movement, or back haul, of abou~
3 million tons for the year of coking coal mined at Kiselevsk and Prokop'yevsk,
has been reported, this coal passing coal of lower grade moving northwest-
ward over the same stretch.
No Kuzbas coal is believed to have moved eastward over any
part ~f the main line with the exception of a minor amount bound over the
very short stretch from Yurga to Tayga on its way to Tomsk. On the other
hand, some coal from Region XI (East Siberia) is estimated to have moved
westward into Region IX and possibly as far as Region VIII. Whereas
there is little if any open-cast mining in the Kuzbas, the production of
the open-pit mines around Cheremkhovo may well have resulted in a local
surplus of bituminous coal especially well suited for railroad locomo-
tives. That a movement of this sort did take place is substantiated in
some of the remarks of Kaganovich.
Kuzbas coal which is not suitable for coking is used locally
for heating and power and for blending with higher grade coals in locomo-
tive tenders.
- ~+6 -
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S-E-C -R-E-T
2. Region XI (East Siberia).
The mayor coal-producing center in Region XI (East Siberia)
is Cheremkhovo, located on the Trans-Siberian main line 130 km northwest
of Irkutsk. The grade of coal produced here is bituminous, and it is in
demand for mixing with lower grades of coal found elsewhere in Region XI
for railroad locomotive firing. Most of the coal mined at Cheremkhovo
comes from open-pit mines. It has in the past been shipped long distances
east and west, but with the development of mines nearer tp points of
consumption in both directions, a larger proportion of Cheremkhovo coal
appears to have been used for local consumption in the Irkutsk area, where
it has served as a base for a growing heavy industry and where it is being,
or soon-will be, used for liquefaction. A minor amount of this coal
generally moves down the Lena during the open season.
Out of an estimated 8 million tons produced at Cheremkhovo in
1953, it is believed that about 2 million tons of coal were consumed in
the Cheremkhovo area itself, involving either a very short rail haul or
a mere switching movement. This haul is depicted on the traffic chart
(Figure 5*) by showing the coal as dropped off at Zima or 3rkutsk, the
nearest stations plotted. Included also in what is shown as the Irkutsk
drop-off is a substantial quantity of Cheremkhovo coal actually moved to
Irkutsk to supplement lower grades of coal mined in the vicinity of
Irkutsk city.
An important share of coal mined at Cheremkhovo is believed
to have been delivered for use in the Krasnoyarsk area in 1953, and some
probably went as far as Novosibirsk, where logically it should stop,
owing to railroad electrification west and southeast and to the availa-
bility of Kuzbas coal. In an easterly direction, Cheremkhovo coal is
believed to have been consigned to the railroad for use as far east as
Bureya, the main-line station for Raychikhinsk. Press articles appearing
in Gudok in 1953 were repeatedly critical of such long movements and
called for the construction of a coal-briquetting plant at Raychikhinsk to
make unnecessary the bringing in of higher grade coal for blending.
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In Region XI-the only other mining center producing bituminous
coal is Bukachacha, which is located at the end of a 73-km branch to the
north which joins the main line 390 km east of Chita. Being so remote
from other sources of good-quality coal, Bukachacha coal is in high demand
for stoking locomotives. A Soviet publication states that 80 percent
of this coal was used for stoking locomotives in 1952. 101 It is estimated
that in 1953 Bukachacha delivered. about 1 million tons to the main line,
two-thirds of which is thought to have moved east away from Cheremkhovo
and in the direction of a deficit area for bituminous coal, with the
remaining one-third moving west for nearby transportation and industrial
uses.
Other mining centers in Region XI consist of the Kansk
Basin, located along the main line from Zaozernyy to Tayshet; the
Khakasskaya field centering on Chernogorsk near Abakan on the southerly
branch to that city; the Gusinoye Ozero mines at Zagustay on the branch
south of Ulan-Ude; the Tarbagatay-Khalyarta-Kull field, a rather small
and strung-out series of mines along the main line east of Ulan-Ude;
Chernovskiye Kopi and Kadala on the eastern outskirts of Chita, which in
1953 are estimated to have produced about 1,750,000 tons; a minor oper-
ation around Kharanor, on the branch line to Otpor; and the small
Arbagarskiy field near Kholbon, a station on the main line 260 km
east of Chita. All of these mines produce lignite, which is used
chiefly for power plants; space heating; and, by blending with higher
grade coals, for railroad and industrial purposes. The Chernogorsk
mine is believed to provide coal for a liquefaction plant adjacent
to the mine head, which, if operational, would reduce transportation
on the Abakan branch line of outbpund coal and inbound gasoline. A
new mining center at Nazarovo, which is about ~+0 km south of Achinsk
on the branch to Abakan, appeared to be in active operation in 1953,
but ,only an approximation could be made of its output.
In all, between 17 million and 18 million tons of coal
are estimated to have moved from mining centers in Region XI on the
rails of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in .1953, some for very short
distances and some for distances which are among the longest
experienced on the railroads of the USSR.
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3. Region XII (Far East).
In 1953, production and shipment of coal in Region XII (Far
East) served by the Trans-Siberian Railroad, was centered upon the two
major mining fields of Raychikhinsk and Artem-Suchan, located on branch
lines in Khabarovskiy Kray and in Primorskiy Kray near Vladivostok,
respectively. Whereas some acceptable bituminous coal was produced at
Suchan and a limited amount came from the moderately exploited Bureya
field at Chagdamyn and Urgal, the bulk of all coal mined on the mainland
of the Soviet Far East was lignite. To supplement the bituminous coal
of Suchan for purposes for which lignite could not be used, a quantity of
Chinese bituminous was imported through Grodekovo.
The Raychikhinsk mining center consists of a number of oper-
ations, most of them open-pit with fairly light overburden. In 1953 the
center produced about 5 million tons of a lignite which had to be blended
with bituminous coal to produce a coal satisfactory for railroad loco-
motives. Thus the long haul of Cheremkhovo and Bukachacha coal was nec-
essary for additive purposes in 1953. There was talk of constructing a
briquetting plant near Raychikhinsk to permit the using of Raychikhinsk
coal for locomotive fuel without additives, thereby eliminating long-haul
distribution of coal, but there is no available evidence that action had
started in 1953. Large amounts of Raychikhinsk coal moved by rail to
Komsomol'sk and Khabarovsk, and in the open season through the river port
of Poyarkovo by barge to both of these cities and to other points on the
Amur River. Most maps show only one rail route to Poyarkovo, a route
which .leaves the main line at Zavitaya; from construction indications
furnished by prisoners of war as of 1949, however, it is believed that
the relatively short distance over easy terrain from Raychikhinsk to
the port had by 1953 been bridged by at least a single track. 102 Thus
the 9.00,000 tons believed to have moved by river has not been plotted on
the chart on the main line of the railroad (Figure 3*).
Of 1+.3 million tons of coal mined at Artem and Suchan. most is
used in the Vladivostok area and on the lines of the Far East system of
the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Primorskiy Kray. Some of the best grades
are believed to have been shipped as far north as Khabarovsk and Kom-
somol'sk for special industrial uses.
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Smaller mines in southern Primorskiy, active in 1953, were lo-
cated at Lipovtsy, Voroshilov, Tavrichanka, and Ugol'naya. These mines pro-
duced about 1.1 million tons, which were used locally and in the Vladivostok
area for railroad, power plant, boiler-room and space heating, and other
industrial uses. Imports of 500,000 tons of high-grade Chinese bituminous
coal were received at Grodekovo. This coal probably was used for special
purposes such as fueling express trains or bunkering ships at Vladivostok
and Nakhodka.
Coal mined on Sakhalin Island is not believed to have moved
over lines of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953, although it may have
been used at Sovetskaya Gavan' and Vanino for railroad purposes.
The single-track line from Ugol'naya to Nakhodka is believed
to have borne a heavier load of coal and other traffic in proportion to
its capacity than the main line in Primorskiy Kray. Nakhodka has been
for several years in process of development as a commercial port with
limited military facilities,. one of the purposes evidently being to keep
foreign ships and personnel away from Vladivostok.
4. General.
In all, about 70 million tons of coal were loaded on the rails
of the Trans-Siberian east of Omsk in~1953, constituting the principal
base for industrial, utility, anal transport activity in Siberia and the
Urals during that year. The pattern of shipment of coal in Siberia in
1953 showed a few slight changes from the previous year, notably the
shift of a small balance of Cheremkhovo coal from east to west, and a
consequent release of Kuzbas coal from Region IX to the Urals. Over-all
production and shipment for the a~^ea gained about 7 percent over 1952.
In the past there have been changiss more marked than these, and in the
controlled economy of this developing region, further changes may be
expected. Indications up to the ~~resent are that the USSR is continuing
to reduce or eliminate long-haul movements of coal from Cheremkhovo and
Bukachacha to the Far East, and iti turn to provide more bituminous coal
for the Irkutsk chemical center acid more coking coal for the Urals.
Coal is generally conraidered to be an item of low strategic
significance, but owing to its bu]ik in comparison to its energy yield,
the effort required to move it, and the fact that many types of coal
do not store well, it is more vulnerable in the economic sphere than
may be generally realized. This fact is particularly true in Siberia,
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where the infrequency of deposits of high-grade coal and the geography of
the country combine to force long hauls and some back hauls. Interference
with the steady flow of coal along the established routes therefore
would have a fairly prompt damaging effect upon the economy of this
region.
The principal coke ovens from which coke was moved significant
distances over the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953 were those at Stalinsk
and Kemerovo in the Kuzbas. In addition, a small coke oven at Suchan
in Primorskiy Kray has been frequently mentioned in reports of Japanese
prisoners.of war.
The movement of coke out of Stalinsk consisted of surplus coke
from the Stalinsk Steel Combine, estimated in 1953 to have amounted to
700,000 tons. About 10 percent of this coke is believed to have been
distributed to foundries and metalworking shops adjacent to large coal
mining enterprises in the Kuzbas. About 70,000 tons are estimated to
have been shipped in the direction of Barnaul, and an equivalent amount
is estimated to have moved eastward via Yurga to Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk,
including a small remainder for the carbide plant at Ulan-Ude. The
residual of 560,000 tons from Stalinsk moved westward via Novosibirsk to
Omsk and the Urals.
The large coke. chemical plant at Kemerovo produced products for
the chemical industries in its immediate area, but it also is estimated
to have shipped in bulk some 1.6 million tons of coke to the Urals. This
movement plus the coke from Stalinsk augmented the heavy coal movement over
the stretch from Novosibirsk to Omsk and the West. Several travelers
have noted this coke on its way.
The coke oven at Suchan appears to have produced coke for shipment
to metals plants and shipyards in the Vladivostok area, and movement between
the two points has been estimated at 35,000 tons for 1953?
Smaller movements of coke and local deliveries undoubtedly occurred
within the area covered by this report, but they would be most difficult
to determine with any degree of accuracy on the basis of available data
and would not be of significance. On less important branch lines, all
small .movements of coke would be included under miscellaneous freight.
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The pattern of shipments of petroleum and its products on the
Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953 was simpler than that of coal because no
crude oil in recognizable quantities was produced along the main line or
on any of the branch lines east of Omsk. The urgent need of the Far Eastern
areas of the Sino-Soviet Bloc for petroleum products resulted in a through
movement of petroleum and its products which tapered off from west to east
and was supplemented at Dezhnevka by a limited south and eastbound move-
ment from Komsomol'sk.
Sakhalin Island, the principal source of petroleum in the Soviet
Far East, is fudged to have produced more than 1 mill~:on tons of crude oil
in 1953, most of which was carried up the Amur River by barge in the open ,
season or was piped to Komsomol'sk and Khabarovsk where it was refined and
its products distributed to other areas by rail. Although data are lacking,
it is assumed that substantially all of the products of these refineries
were consumed in the Far East.
The actual points of origin for eastbound oil over the main line
have not been clearly established, but it was originally estimated that
on the order of 3 million tons came from the Ural-Volga field or points
farther west and that about 500,000 tons originated in the Caspian area
and Central Asia, moving to Novosibirsk via the Tashkent and Turk-Sib
systems.
Over half a million tons of oil were believed to have been dis-
tributed in Novosibirsk, to points in its immediate area, to .the Kuzbas,
and by vessel to destinations. up and down the Ob' Rivera The balance
of approximately 3 million tons moved eastbound, over the Trans-
Siberian Railroad on a diminishing scale because of estimated amounts
dropped off along the line at the mayor cities and their environs and
at points of junction with branch lines and rivers for delivery to the
more remote hinterland. About 2,250,000 tons are estimated to have
moved eastward through the bottleneck section around Lake Baikal.
At Tarskiy, about 750,000 tons of petroleum and its products
are believed to have been shifted from the main line and moved down
the 354-km branch to Otpor for delivery to Communist China and North
Korea. For the most part, 1953 was a wartime year, and this large trans-
fer of petroleum and its products is estimated to have been supplemented
by 100,000 tons going to China via the Sungari River, by an additional
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250,000 tons moving from Komsomol'sk and Khabarovsk to Manchuria via
Grodekovo, and by a further movement of about 100,000 tons to Vladi=
vostok 103 and thence by seagoing tankers to Chinese ports.
The balance of petroleum and its products remaining for move-
ment over the main line east of Tarskiy around the northern tip of
Manchuria was about.l.2 million tons. This amount, plus 920,000 tons
coming from Sakhalin and less the 450,000 tons of petroleum and its
products already mentioned as destined for Communist China and North
Korea via the Sungari River, Grodekovo, and Vladivostok, left about
1,670,000 tons to satisfy the needs of the USSR east of Skovorodino.
The principal destination of that portion of the 1,F70,000
tons which moved by rail is believed to have been Vladivostok, from which
point approximately 0.5 million tons of petroleum and its products are
estimated to have been moved by vessel to areas of the USSR farther
north and east,- with an additional and substantial amount undoubtedly
used for bunkering and fueling ships at Vladivostok and Nakhodka. About
50,000 tons of petroleum products are estimated to have moved by rail
from Komsomol'sk to Sovetskaya Gavan', largely for naval use.
Apparently, little if any petroleum or its products moved west-
ward in the tank cars returning from the lengthy eastbound journey, and
with the exception of a relatively small number of such cars, which, after
cleaning, were backloaded with Chinese vegetable oils from Otpor, the
bulk of the cars of this type had to return the length of .the railroad
empty. In the stretch between Omsk and Novosibirsk, these empty westbound
tank cars passed much larger numbers of empty eastbound coal gondolas
returning from the Urals to the Kuzbas. Thus coal and petroleum and its
products contributed to the substantial two-way empty-car movement dis-
cussed in detail in III, D, above.
In 1953, except for the pipelines from Sakhalin to the Komsomol'sk
refinery, 104 there were no oil pipelines in Siberia., Plans were under
wav. however. to alleviate the burden of oil transport on the railroad.
pointed to the possible construction of several syntheti50X1
* Heavy tanker shipments were sighted going from Vladivostok to Sakhalin,
the Kuriles, Magadan, Kamchatka, ,Anadyr', and Chukhotsk. These must have
included substantial shipments of aviation fuel for the Soviet Air Force..
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gasoline plants in Siberia, using coal as a base and located near active
coal mines. The one most frequently mentioned by prisoners of war and
believed to be the largest was being built alongside the Trans-Siberian
main line at Kitoy near Irkutsk. 105/ This ,refinery was seen by observers
in 1953 and 1954, and it is believed to have gone into pilot rather than
full-scale production in the latter part of 1953? Products of this plant,
when it is fully operative, probably will be consumed mainly in the Irkutsk-
Cheremkhovo area, in the territory to the north along the Angara River and
Lake Baikal, and possibly in the~Transbaykal region. Indications are that
in accordance with present plans, as much as 1 million tons of gasoline
from Siberian bituminous coal may be produced within a few years. This
much production would require the mining of 9.5 .million tons of bituminous
coal for such a purpose alone, and it could affect the pattern of rail-
road traffic by cushioning future needs for gasoline from the west to
supply the growing requirements of the region. Construction of such a
plant would be in line with top-level reaction to the disproportionately
large effort involved in filling the needs of the Soviet Far East and
China by rail from the European USSR, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Kaganovich pointed this out in his 26 April 1954 speech to the Supreme
Soviet, 106/ and Boris P. Beshchev, Minister of Transportation, USSR
on 23 April 1954 107/ was quoted as saying: "There has been an increase
in 1953/ in the long hauls of petroleum from the Caucasus and Volga
regions to Siberia and the Far East." Soviet transportation planners
regard it as necessary to remove from the rails as large a share as
possible of the through traffic of petroleum and its products to Communist
China and the Soviet Far East, since, in addition to tying up line
capacity and straining the tank car park, it increases the annual bill
for fuel, labor, maintenance, and repairs and accelerates depreciation.
Moreover, the through movement is primarily strategic and contributes little
to the advance of the national economy. Kaganovich was particularly con-
cerned about the future rail burden of petroleum in view of the over-all
plan to increase railroad "handling" (probably loadings) of petroleum 70
percent by 1960. 108/
Other steps being taken to lessen the problem of long-distance
movement of petroleum include a program for the building of seagoing
tankers and the construction of east-west pipelines. 109/ The principal
reasons for the effort being made to provide Soviet tankers for movement
of oil to the Pacific were ones related to rail costs and burden on the
internal transport system. 110/ With future plans calling for increased
requirements, the railroad would necessarily have to face a continually
mounting burden and higher transport costs.
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Until the combined.capacity of alternate sources or means of
transport begins to approach the net petroleum requirement of West and
East Siberia, the Soviet Far East, and Communist China, the policy of
carrying a substantial movement of petroleum and its products on the'
rails is expected to continue.
D. Timber.
Timber is the principal visible natural resource of Siberia and
is available in extremely large quantities in virgin stands. Trees be-
tween 100 and 300 years old predominate in many sections. The timber stand
of the Siberian area in 1938 consisted of some 400 million hectares, which
was about 12 percent of. the total timber area of the world. In the krays
and oblasts served by the Trans-Siberian Railroad, there were some 12
billion cubic meters of mature or nearly mature trees. 111 Coniferous
trees constituted from 79 to 85 percent of the total. 112
Of this large reserve, less than one-quarter of 1 percent was
cut in 1953 and less than one-tenth of 1 percent is estimated to have
moved over standard-gauge tracks. From another point of view, timber
in 1953 constituted over 10 percent of all freight loaded on the rail-
roads of the USSR, 113 and the percentage in Siberia alone appears to
have been somewhat higher.
Among the largest consumers of wood were ooal mines 114 and
railroads, which require large numbers of pit props and crossties, re=
spectively, as well as considerable timber and lumber for other purposes.
Replacement requirements for railroad crossties were relatively high,
since less than 10 percent of those on the Trans-Siberian Railroad ap-
pear to have been creosoted, and according to Kaganovich the average
life of an untreated crosstie.in the USSR is 10.5 years. 115
Shipments of wood and wood products differ somewhat from those
of coal and petroleum in that the commodity itself has less uniformity,
and each size of cutting (length and shape of timber) or product is sub-
ject to different economic pressures-and controls. Method of shipment
is also. unusual in that river transportation by floating or by barge is
resorted to wherever and whenever possible. Thus, whereas 90 to 95 per-
cent of coal was transported ley rail in the USSR in 1954, only 45 to 50
~I
* General impression gained from travelers' reports.
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percent of timber was so shipped. 116 As against movement of coal,
petroleum, and ferrous ores and metals, shipment of timber on Siberian
rails has a marked seasonal fluctuation, with the first acid fourth quar-
ters of the year being somewhat higher than the second and third. Again,
although the sources of the major minerals are relatively stable, tim-
ber-loading points frequently change. Instead of being concentrated in
a~few locations as are mineral sources, timber is loaded at many points
along the line. Most important loading points are at stream crossings,
at narrow-gauge branch railroad connections, and in heavily forested
areas contiguous to the line.
The 1953 pattern of timber shipments on the Trans-Siberian Rail-
road, which has been derived .from piecemeal basic information and checked
against occasional visual observation, appears with a few exceptions to
have consisted of a generally westward and southward movement throughout
the length of the network. This movement was marked by traffic bulges
.(areas of heavy concentration) and other areas of relatively light traf-
fic. In some parts of the system, in the course of t}ie year, timber
moved in opposite directions because of differences in type of wood, the
nature of cutting or finished product, and seasonal changes in routing.
Timber moved mainly to cities, ports, rivers, and construction and min-
ing centers. Crossties for the railroad which actually were dropped
off at numerous points along the line have been depicted for plotting
purposes in this report as distributed to central control points. Other
crossties were moved to industrial centers and construction sites.
Specifically, the largest timber-producing area on the 1?ine was
the Krasnoyarsk -East Siberian area, in which approximately 5 million tons
were loaded on rails. (Timber quantities are gen-
erally expressed in terms of cubic meters, and although the specific
gravity of different types of wood varies, a hypothetical ratio of 2~3
ton per cubic meter has generally been used in this report for conversion
purposes.) About one-third of this rail-transported timber was delivered
within the region -- that is, to points along the line from Ulan-Ude
to Krasnoyarsk. Most of the balance was moved either into the Kuzbas,
westward through Omsk, or southward from Novosibirsk into Altayskiy Kray,
Kazakhstan, and Central Asia, where timber supplies are limited. 117
Other timbering operations along the line west of Krasnoyarsk increased
this haul or provided timber for shorter hauls to plants and cities
along the way. Novosibirsk, although it had a timber operation of its
own, also was a sizable consumer of timber from the east.
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i
50X1
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A little over 1 million tons of forest products are estimated
to have moved westward from Novosibirsk toward the Urals. This estimate
was not larger, because the Omsk timbering area situated on the way to
the Urals presumably provided a substantial tonnage and the Urals them-
selves contain large forest reserves now under exploitation. In 19+5,
shipments of timber from East Siberia westbound through Omsk were em-
bargoed by government decree. 118 Nevertheless, as sighted by travel-
ers, considerable timber did appear to be moving regularly by this route
in 1953?
About 60,000 tons of timber are estimated to have entered the
USSR from Communist China in 1953 via Otpor. 119 On the eastern end
of the line, between Khabarovsk and Skovorodino, are several large for-
est areas, many of them distant from the railroad line but connected
with it by streams, truck roads, and narrow-gauge railroads. In 1953,
enough timber came from these areas to take care of the local economy
of the region plus a moderate surplus for the west. There. is a timber
deficit area between Aksenovo-Zilovskoye and Chita, to which most of
the surplus eastern timber was delivered. From Khabarovsk southward
to Vladivostok the prevailing movement was toward the east with the
exception of a short stretch below Khabarovsk,. where there was appar-
ently a two-way movement of some magnitude. Timber was hauled to the
south and east in Primorskiy Kray for coal mines; military installations,
manufacturing plants, particularly the large veneer plant at Okeanskaya
near Vladivostok; and the port. cities of Vladivostok and Nakhodka. At
these ports, considerable wood was shipped on vessels to northern and
eastern extensions of Siberia, where there is little or no standing
timber. Some may have gone to Kamchatka, which has a stand of timber
under exploitation, the quality of which probably would not meet all
local requirements. A great deal of material of all sorts, including
timber, was .shipped from Nakhodka and Vladivostok to Kamchatka.
The quantities of timber shipped over railroad line segments in
accordance with this routing have been difficult to estimate owin to
scarcity of published material.
50X1
50X1
e range o error involved may be greater than with other commodities.
Nevertheless, the ratios of timber to coal and to over-all traffic seem
reasonable.
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The fact appears to have been that despite mechanization and
detailed planning timber production was rather low in terms of 1953
plans compared with output of other basic commodities. 120 In Jan-
uary 1954, percentage of plan fulfillment was running at about 85 per-
cent, and much mechanical equipment was standing idle. 121 This was
primarily the result of the labor shortage occasioned by poor conditions
in the lumber camps. 122 The USSR was attempting to overcome this by
building and equipping new camps. 123 Shortages of railroad cars were
frequent also, the cause of this apparently being the low priority en-
joyed by timber shipments as against shipments of such items as mili-
tary goods, vehicles, and coal. 124
One point which should be borne in mind in considering the ship-
ment of timber is the long-distance hauling of round timber which was
still prevalent in 1953? Kaganovich, Beshchev, and others have repeat-
edly stressed the need for reducing the length of timber hauls, but
instead the distances, particularly in Siberia, appear to have been
growing longer. 125 (The average length of haul in 1940 was 1,019 km;
in 1953, 1,193 ~?
In the US, round timber (except timber for poles) is seldom
shipped long distances on the railroad.. It is converted into lumber
which, however, is often shipped on very long rail hauls to market. In
the USSR, no doubt, it is the intention of the Ministry of the Timber
Industry to establish more sawmills at major points where timber reaches
main lines or main branches so that it can be loaded on cars as lumber.
Some progress since 1948 may be noted in this connection, but in 1953
considerable round timber, both large and small, was seen being moved
westward on the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In view of
the absence of sawmills, one reason may have been that had the cars not
been loaded with timber, they might have been returned west empty.
Moreover, there was a sizable demand for pit props and round construc-
tion timber in the Kuzbas, the west, and the south.
In this connection, although it is not entirely clear why timber
which was cut in the forests of Irkutskskaya Oblast and the Transbaykal
area was shipped through the timbering regions of the Yenisey, Tom', and
Ob' Rivers to destinations farther west, the main objective may have been
to avoid the repeated unloading and reloading of standard-gauge railroad
cars. It may have been possible to move local timber from the more
western forests to nearby streams by truck, tractor, or narrow-gauge
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railroad, thus avoiding the main-line hauling operation. 126 The cheap-
est method of satisfying the demand in the Urals and Central Asia would
then be by through rail haul from farther east, given the geographical
pattern of logging and lumbering operations which is believed to have
existed. In the event that some local timber had to be hauled by main
line rail to the rivers and cities, the relatively short haul would have
given the local shipper and railroad operator a much tighter control of
both cargo and cars than would a longer haul. relay or chain type of move-
ment involving two or more systems and possible reclassifications.
A simpler explanation and one which may be even more valid would
be that the East Siberian timber was the most readily accessible and the
best timber available. 127
Before the development of coal mining in Siberia to its present
level, firewood constituted a major item of freight in Siberia. Since
World War II, however, it no longer stands as a major commodity. Fire-
wood is moved from timber stands to points of use, principally cities,
industrial towns, and employees' and military camps. The main sections
of the Trans-.Siberian Railroad over which firewood is believed to have
moved to any extent in 1953 were the Far Eastern and Eastern Siberian
sections. 128 Estimates for firewood have been included for each sec=
tion in the timber totals.
Shipments of ferrous ores and metals on the Siberian rail lines
in 1953 did not nearly equal in tonnage those of either coal, oil, or
timber. Nevertheless, they represented afar from inconsiderable ton-
nage and must be regarded as being among the most important freight
movements on the railroad. Almost 100 percent of all Soviet ferrous
ores and metals travel by rail.
It has not been possible to obtain from visual observation as ac-
curate a pattern of shipments for ferrous ores and metals as for the more
voluminous commodities, but since ferrous ores and metals are generally
shipped in open cars, the direction of their movement on the Trans-
Siberian Railroad can be fairly accurately reported. Moreover, with
points of origin of raw material and finished products confined to a
relatively few places and with destinations in the controlled economy
restricted to locations of major users, it has been possible from known
or estimated plant outputs of various types and shapes of metal to pro-
vide a pattern which observers can and generally do corroborate.
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The heaviest movements of ferrous ores and metals in. 1953 were
centered on the western portion of the Trans-Siberian rail network,
including the main line between Omsk and Novosibirsk and the branches
in the Kuzbas. At least 1.3 million tons of iron ore are believed to
have moved eastward from the Urals to the large steel combine at
Stalinsk, representing the balance needed above the approximation of
3 million tons with the same destination believed to have originated
at Tashtagol and Tel'bes south of Stalinsk. For some time the USSR
has been trying to reduce and eventually to eliminate the eastbound
movement of ore from the Urals by expanding ,production of the newly
opened deposits in the Kemerovo and Khakass areas. 129 The delay in
accomplishing this has been criticized very recently in the Soviet
press, 130 evidencing the fact that the delay was still going on in 1955?
Owing to difficulties encountered by observers in determining whether
or not high-sided coal gondolas on the main line returning east from
the Urals toward Novosibirsk contained iron ore or were empty, it has
not been possible to form an independent on-the-spot estimate of ore
movement as it was with coal, but the requirement is known and the
division in the volume of movement as between sources is believed_ to
be reasonably accurate. In any event, there is no shortage of cars to
bring back ore, and thus a movement of several times the estimated
amount of 1.3 million tons would present no serious problem to the
railroad.
Pig iron and steel moving westward from the Stalinsk Combine is
estimated to be slightly over 1 million tons, while approximately 500,000
tons from the Stalinsk plant and other smaller steel mills in the region
is believed to have moved southward from Novosibirsk through Barnaul.
(In 1956 this latter tonnage is bypassing the old route via Novosibirsk
by traveling over the newly constructed line from Artyshta in the Kuz-
bas to Altayskaya, across the Ob' River from Barnaul.) A smaller mill
at Gur'yevsk is estimated to have produced 92,000 tons of finished steel
during 1953, and one at Novosibirsk is believed to have shipped by rail,
about 153,000 tons (of a somewhat greater estimated production) moving
primarily to the west and south.
Within the Kuzbas itself were sizable local movements of scrap
and pig iron resulting from the mining activity of the region, the oper-
ations of the steel mills, and the many auxiliary plants and projects
located within the general area served by the Kuzbas branches of the
Trans-Siberian Railroad.
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The principal plants engaged in steel manufacture or conversion
east of Stalinsk in 1953 were, in geographical order, the Siberian Heavy
Machine Building. Plant at Krasnoyarsk; the Irkutsk Heavy Machine Building
Plant imeni Kuybyshev at Irkutsk; the Petrovsk Iron and Steel Plant at
Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy; and the Amurstal' Steel Plant at Komsomol'sk. To-
gether with a few smaller additional installations, these plants accounted
for less than 500,000 tons of steel. There were no blast furnaces in
operation. Consequently, no important requirement existed for movement
of ore, although small amounts of local ores were used at Petrovsk and
Komsomol'sk for enriching purposes. Some scrap could be collected lo-
cally, but additional scrap, billets, and pig iron had to be supplied
from sources other than those in East Siberia and the Soviet Far East.
Soviet sources from Stalinsk and points west are estimated to have sup-
plied apart of this need, but between 130,000 and 140,000 tons of pig
iron are said to have been imported from Manchuria, 131/ which would
entail a much shorter rail haul to the plants in the east than would a
movement from the Kuzbas or the Urals and would fit well-into the inter-
national trade picture by providing a commodity of which Communist China
is reported to have had a surplus adjacent to a Soviet deficit area. 1.32/
To meet the requirements of the Soviet Far East, the minimum
requirements of Communist China, and those of North Korea, 133/ a substan-
tial tonnage of finished steel had to move from the Kuzbas or from west
of Omsk across the Trans-Siberian Railroad to various destinations in
the USER and to the border point of Otpor. This movement has been es-
timated through Krasnoyarsk at about 650,000 tons,- with 400,000 tons
for the USSR, 225;000 for China, and roughly 25,000 for North Korea.
The supply was augmented east of Lake Baikal by production of about
150,000 tons each from Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy and Komsomol'sk. Some
sheet steel from Komsomol'sk was observed in 1952 moving to China via
Grodekovo, and the movement is presumed to have continued through
1953. 134 On this basis, the 1953 Soviet consumption of steel east of
Krasnoyarsk would have amounted to between 650,000 and 700,000 tons,
since there was an opposite movement of something over 50,000 tons from
east to west at that point.
The pattern of shipments of finished Siberian steel in 1953 thus
evolves into a two-way movement weighted in favor of the west over the
Novosibirsk-Omsk stretch, and from Novosibirsk or Yurga east into a long
* Confirmations noted in trip reports.
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tapering eastbound movement starting at about 667,000 tons and working
down to about 200,000 tons at Dezhnevka. At Dezhnevka it was replenished
by about 100,000 more tons from Khabarovsk. These 300,000 tons were
distributed in the Soviet Far East and the offshore areas, and a small
amount was sent to Communist China and North Korea. A much smaller
countermovement westward, mainly of building rods and shapes from Pet-
rovsk-Zabaykal'skiy, is also to be noted, as is a southbound movement
from the Kuzbas via Novosibirsk toward Central Asia of about half a
million tons.
The USSR does not appear anxious to expand production at Komsomol'sk
or Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy, and no blast furnace has gone into-operation at
either point. It is estimated that in 1954 the USSR exported to Communist
China about the same amount of steel as in 1953. A 1954 trip report
showed similar amounts of steel moving eastward at comparable points. 135/
F. Agricultural Commodities.
The agricultural commodities which moved in greatest volume on
the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953 were bread grains, sugar, vegetables,
and cotton and cotton products. Also among the food items were fish,
livestock, and animal products including hides and leather. Over most
of the line covered in this report, bread grains, sugar, vegetables, and
cotton moved eastward, whereas fish and animal products moved westward.
In addition, a number of agricultural and animal products were imported
by the USSR from Communist China via Otpor and Grodekovo and were moved
for varying distances over the tracks of the Trans-Siberian in both direc-
tions.
The volume of shipments of food and other agricultural products
could not be estimated for 1953 with as much assurance as could the vol-
umes of coal and timber, because agricultural goods were almost without
exception shipped in box or refrigerator cars where they could not be seen
or distinguished from other items also shipped in closed cars. Moreover,
information other than that supplied by travelers was scarce. A theoretical
high limit could be placed on the magnitude of agricultural shipments by
the size of the boxcar count as recorded by several observers, but in
order to arrive at the actual quantity of such goods shipped, allowance
would have to be made for manufactured goods, military supplies, and
other miscellaneous freight plus empty closed cars. Therefore, although
the statements in this section are not repeatedly qualified, it must be
understood that these estimates are not so firm as those of the bulk
mineral commodities.
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Novosibirsk is a gathering point for grains from the western re-
gions and from Altayskiy Kray. About 1.5 million tons are believed to have
arrived at Novosibirsk in 1953, and about 300,000 tons were moved into the
Kuzbas. On the main line the, eastward movement of grain from Novosibirsk
gradually tapered off as supplies were distributed to cities and smaller
places in deficit areas. Krasnoyarskiy Kray, Buryat-Mongol'skaya ASSR, and
Chitinskaya Oblast are believed to have had grain surpluses which could be
shipped to consuming areas or storage centers farther east. Heavy off-
loading commenced in Amurskaya Oblast, with some grain moving in the open
season through Blagoveshchensk and by river barge to points on the Lower
Amur River. It is estimated that approximately 500,000 tons moved all the
way through to Vladivostok and Nakhodka for local civilian and military con-
sumption and for support of the armed forces and the civilian population
in Kolyma, Kamchatka, Sakhalin, the Kuriles, and the Far North and Far East.
In 1953 the extensive "new lands" program which was to take place
in West Siberia and North Kazakhstan had not yet materialized. If success-
ful, its ultimate effect would be to reverse the direction of grain flow
in the Omsk-Novosibirsk section from an estimated eastbound surplus in
1953 to one moving toward the west and similar in pattern to that reported
in 1902 and again in 1927-28. That this may already have happened has
been indicated in a recent Soviet broadcast. 136 Movement of grains
westward along the newly constructed South Siberian main line would also
be a normal development. The Far Eastern areas would remain in need of
grain, however, and unless their requirements could be met from Communist
China or by sea from elsewhere, the movement of a considerable balance
eastward from Novosibirsk, as shown on the charts, Figures 3 and 4,-~
would be expected to continue.
Cotton and cotton products--largely thread, cloth, clothing, and
other textiles--have been estimated as reaching Novosibirsk from the west
in an amount of over 50,000 tons and from Barnaul, of about 10,000 tons.
The movement from Novosibirsk was entirely eastbound and tapering, with
some 20,000 tons reaching Khabarovsk, where these commodities were dis-
tributed further by several different routes.
Sugar was another eastbound commodity. Although some sugar beets
were grown in West Siberia and Primorskiy Kray, Siberia was chiefly a
sugar deficit area, and the bulk of its supplies had to be brought across
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from the Ukraine. The amount moving east from Omsk was estimated to be
about 200,000 tons, the movement eastward tapering off until supplemented
in its easternmost phase by local production.
Miscellaneous agricultural commodities transported in some quantity
included potatoes, other vegetables, butter and other dairy products, pre-
serves, and canned goods. These also moved in an easterly direction.
Estimates of their movement at best have been tenuous. A conservative
estimate is that approximately 435,000 tons moved eastward through
Omsk, with 147,000 tons coming through to Pacific ports for local
consumption and for sea shipment to more remote portions of the
USSR.
Livestock and products shipments were mainly westbound, starting
at Borzya and Naushki, where cattle were received from Mongolia. Some
animal products, probably pork, poultry, meat, hides, and wool, are be-
lieved to have entered the USSR from Communist China. Except for a small
quantity covering the short Far Eastern stretches from Grodekovo to the
Soviet ports, most goods of this type entered the USSR from China at
Otpor and moved westward. East Siberia and the Kuzbas were the main
consuming regions within the area served by the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
and the balance of animal products, somewhat more than 100,000.tons, was
shipped west through Omsk.
Hides and leather moved westward in relatively small tonnages,
commencing at Birobidzhan and increasing at each large packing plant on
the way across Siberia, with approximately 17,000 tons reaching Omsk.
Since further manufacturing processes were involved, the shipping pattern
of these items did not correspond exactly with that of livestock and
other animal products, but the main direction of movement was the same..
Fish constituted the principal food item of domestic origin moving
westward over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Loadings of fish on railroad
cars in the Soviet Far East for 1953 have been estimated at 450,000 tons,
of which about 100,000 tons are believed to have been shipped to points
along the line or on branches east of Omsk, with the remaining 350,000
tons moving on to Omsk and points farther west. Fish are believed gen-
erally to have been shipped in refrigerator cars.
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Imports of Chinese agricultural products entered the USSR both
at Grodekovo and at Otpor. Those entering at Grodekovo, about 200,000
tons,?were distributed in the Soviet Far East, including Khabarovsk,
Primorskiy Kray, and outlying areas. About 1 million tons are believed
to have arrived via Otpor, more than half of which were probably destined
for points in Siberia and Central Asia, with the remainder moving on to
the Urals and the western sections of the USSR.
G. Manufactures and Miscellaneous.
The manufactures and miscellaneous category in effect constitutes
a balancing tonnage between the sum of the major bulk commodities and the
total tonnage moved over various line segments. This category accounts
for all items not already included in the major commodity classifications,
and, on branches with light movements, it includes all commodity movements
under 20,000 tons. It also includes tonnage moving to and from Communist
China and North Korea not readily identifiable as belonging to a major
commodity classification.
Some of the items in the miscellaneous category may be grouped
together into subcategories in order to establish the traffic pattern
more closely and to reduce to a minimum the error between the amount of
unidentified manufactured and military goods shipped and the presumed
empty or underloaded capacity of moving cars. For purposes of this report,
miscellaneous freight includes the following subcategories which were set
up to deal with different types of clearly indicated freight: nonferrous
metals, nonmetallic minerals, chemicals, paper, weapons and ammunition,
and components for shipbuilding.
Other items, including manufactures, cannot be so easily grouped.
At the end of Appendix A there is included a partial list of items reported
on by travelers, prisoners of war, and others, which are covered by the
miscellaneous category. This type of freight is presumed to have consti-
tuted the tonnage which could not be treated as part of a major commodity
group or a subcategory of miscellaneous freight.
The shipment pattern of each of the subcategories varied within
itself. Some of the minerals and metals moved westward in forms of con-
centrates, others as pigs and bars. Most movements of manufactured and
military goods were eastbound from the western parts of the USSR to the
Soviet Far East, Communist China, and North Korea. The preponderance of
the miscellaneous movement appears to have been eastbound.
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1. Nonferrous Metals and Concentrates.
Compared with the amounts of the major commodities moved, the
amounts moved in the nonferrous subcategory were light in tonnage and at
some points hardly discernible. The category does include, however, a
number of strategic metals which are much needed by the Soviet industrial
machine. The metals included in the chart totals were aluminum, antimony,
barium, copper, lead, magnesite, nickel, tin, tungsten, and zinc, with
a small additional tonnage of unidentified concentrates. These last may
actually have been concentrates of a type already mentioned, but they
could not be identified as such by prisoners of war and travelers.
Contrary to the general flow of traffic on the Trans-Siberian
Railroad in 1953, most of these metals in the form of concentrated ore
originated in the areas east of Chita and moved westward. Several of the
metal concentrates originated at remote points in the eastern USSR and
had to be moved by sea to the eastern terminals of the Trans-Siberian
Railroad at Vladivostok and Nakhodka. Others came from Soviet mining
fields not contiguous to the railroad and were trucked to the most con-
venient shipping point on the line. Still others arrived from North
.Korea and Communist China via Grodekovo and Otpor. Although relatively
light in tonnage, these metals would have as high a value as a much larg-
er movement of grain or petroleum and its products moving toward the east.
Some of the most valuable metals mined in remote areas, such as gold and
platinum, are believed to have been shipped westward by air.
Tin concentrate has been supplied by the Khingan Combine near
Obluchye, but other supplies have been shipped in to the railroad at
Vladivostok from Tetyukhe and the Kolyma. Tin concentrate also has reached
the rails from the extensive polymetallic mining region in Chitinskaya Oblast
northwest of Manchuria (the area between the Argun River, the Trans-Siberian
main line, and the branch from Tarskiy to Otpor) and from Khapcheranga near
the Mongolian border.
A considerable movement of lead and zinc ore from North Korea
is believed to have entered the USSR at Grodekovo via Manchuria. The ore
probably was taken to Vladivostok and loaded in vessels for Tetyukhe, where
it could be ,concentrated and smelted. This movement
resulted from the destruc-
tion by bombing of the refineries and concentration plants at Chinnampo
and Munpyong. The movement is inefficient and would normally disappear
with reconstruction of local producing facilities.
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50X1
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Pig lead and zinc concentrate originating at Tetyukhe were
probably shipped eastward from Vladivostok, the former being designated
for principal plants on the line such as the battery factories at Kom-
somol'sk and Irkutsk, and the latter believed to be headed for the smelt-
er at Ust! Kamenogorsk south of Barnaul. Zinc metal produced at Ust'-
Kamenogorsk and Belovo rAached the main line at Novosibirsk and was
shipped mainly to the west.
From Salair, barite was shipped via Novosibirsk and Omsk to
A movement from Communist China to the USSR.of certain non-
ferrous metals of which China in the past has been an exporter is believed
to have taken place via Otpor. These would include tin, antimony, and
magnesite, the tonnages of which would have been comparatively light.
Only one large, well-integrated aluminum plant was located
east of Omsk. This plant, at Stalinsk, had a production rate in 1953
of approximately 55,000 tons of ingot aluminum per year. It has been
assumed that most of the output of this plant would move to the aircraft
and parts plants in Siberia.
An annual movement of 10,000 tons of blister copper from
Glubokoye via Novosibirsk toward the west is estimated to have taken
place during this period.
2. Nonmetallic Minerals.
In 1953, nonmetallic minerals which moved in sufficient bulk
over the Trans-Siberian Railroad to warrant separate analyses were cement,
stone, sand and gravel, salt, bricks and clay, glass, and asbestos
moving east, and slate, fluorite, bricks, stone, and cement moving west.
Estimates in this field were unusually speculative owing
to the multiplicity of sources and destinations of many of the items
and the possibility of numerous short-haul movements. Whereas ship-
ments of salt and fluorite could be plotted with a degree of certainty
based upon established locations of origin and a limited number of
destinations, bricks and stone, which were produced in the environs
of nearly every large city, may have been moved short distances to
building sites either by truck or by a switching movement. Soviet
statements support the supposition that efforts are constantly
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being made to limit long-distance hauling of bricks; stone; and, in
particular, ballast. The matter of ballasting for the railroad was
one of the largest potential outlets for stone, sand, and gravel in
Siberia. 138/ Owing to the manner of plotting commodity movements on the
charts in Figures 3 and 4,* it has been necessary to depict short and
presumably er~d-to-end, one- or two-way movements of ballast material as
a continuous two-way movement on the main line and on all but the least
significant branch lines.
Cement was manufactured in some cities, but it has not always
been possible to distinguish mixing plants from actual kilns. The locations
of certain large cement plants along the line are known, however, and es-
timates have been made based on the assumption that their calculated capac-
ity output would be distributed in a logical manner according to presumed
building activity and populations in both directions along the line.
Other nonmetallic minerals hauled in minor amounts for short
distances included graphite and mica. The preponderant movement of both
seems to have been westbound from the mining sites near Lake Baikal.
The total of nonmetallic mineral shipments as originally es-
timated when added together formed a checkered pattern running from Novo-
sibirsk eastward to Chita at an average rate of about x+50,000 tons. This
rate tended .to taper down to 350,000 tons until the Spassk-Dal'niy cement
plant was reached in Primorskiy Kray, at which point it rose to over
600,000 into Ugol'naya on the outskirts of Vladivostok.
Westbound, fewer than 200,000 tons moved from Vladivostok to
Spaask-Dal'niy, where some cement is believed to have been picked up for
distribution as far north as Khabarovsk. From Khabarovsk west, the total
remained close to 130,000 tons until Tarskiy was reached, where additional
cement and fluorspar were added, the former from Communist China and the
latter largely from the Abagatuy and Kalanguy deposits near Borzya. The
flow of nonmetallic minerals then remained within a range of from 350,000
to 500,000 tons the remainder of the distance to Novosibirsk, where it
is believed to have continued on to Omsk at the higher range limit.
The main weakness of these figures is the complete lack of
basic information on rail shipments of rock, sand, and gravel, the uniform
assumption made regarding railroad uses and shipments of these materials,
and the method of plotting numerous short shipments as one continuous
long haul.
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3. Chemicals.
In attempting to analyze movement of chemicals on the Trans-
Siberian Railroad, it was usually impossible to isolate from the general
miscellaneous category those chemicals originating west of Omsk for de-
livery to Pacific Coast ports. and to various points along the line. The
only chemical item of significant tonnage-for which an estimate could be
made was sulfur pyrite bound for Kemerovo, which is estimated to have been
70,000 tons. For the most part, the eastbound movement of chemicals on
the Trans-Siberian Railroad is believed to have been relatively light in
1953 when compared with the movements of other commodity groups.
Chemicals on the whole were not produced in large quantities
in Siberia, since there are few mineral deposits along the line which would
provide the basis for a chemical industry. The largest chemical center
is at Kemerovo in the Kuzbas, the basis for this center being coal. Other
ingredients such as salt, sulfur, and chlorine have generally been shipped
in. The products of Kemerovo included such items as tar, benzol, ammonium
sulfate, and ammonium nitrate. A second point of production of coke by-
products for chemicals was Stalinsk, part of the output of which moved
to Kemerovo for further processing, with the balance believed to have gone
mostly in a westerly direction through Novosibirsk. In all, slightly in
excess of 300,000 tons of chemicals are believed to have arrived at Novo-
sibirsk from the Kuzbas, the further pattern of distribution from there
being vague but probably consisting of the city itself, the s,gricultural
lands of Altayskiy Kray, the Omsk area, and points farther west.
Chemicals moving eastbound from the Kuzbas are believed to
have been much lighter in tonnage and to have consisted of fertilizers,
paint ingredients, and ethyl fluid.
A small quantity of chemical trade with Communist China was
carried on over the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953. The USSR shipped
such items as dyes and coloring matter, and Communist China shipped
caustic soda and soda ash as well as an undetermined quantity of crude
rubber, originally from Ceylon.
In addition to the chemicals mentioned, limited quantities
of chemicals were produced by a number of smaller plants along the line.
In all but a few cases, not even the source of the raw materials is
known. About 25 percent of these plants were alcohol distilleries which
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i
used as raw material either wood or grain. The materials put into these
plants were generally produced locally and rarely arrived by main-line
railroad. The total output of these plants is estimated to be between
100,000 and 150,000 tons of alcohol, some of which was used for motor
fuel and the rest for solvents, beverages, and general chemical purposes...
Very little of this production moved by rail, much of it being consumed
in cities adjacent to the plants.
~+. Paper.
At the end of World War II the USSR acquired a sizable Japanese
paper industry on Sakhalin Island. Most of the output of the industry
appears to have consisted of the rougher types of paper and cellulose,
and during 1953 its principal movement is believed to have been westward
via the ports of Vladivostok, Nakhodka, and Sovetskaya Gavan', although
Nakhodka was the only point at which observations. were actually made.
It is assumed that both newsprint and packing paper from this source were
used in the larger cities of the Soviet Far East, and it has been reported
that some of this paper was shipped to Communist China, mainly by sea.
Other paper plants in the area include a tar-paper factory
at Khabarovsk .and a fairly large paper mill at Birakan, which was set up
from machinery looted from Manchuria after the war. 139/ This plant pro-
duces paper and cardboard and was observed by prisoners of war to be in
operation in 1948, using wastepaper for raw materials. Its. output appears
generally to move westward.
5? Weapons and Ammunition.
A11 estimates of air and ground weapons and ammunition com-
prise a preponderant flow from west to east. Although comparatively high
in value, the over-all tonnage of weapons and ammunition moving past Chita
in 1953 was believed to have been about 340,000 tons, including 150,000
tons for Communist China and North Korea. 140 Shipped by rail was a
very small tonnage of aircraft,. most of the eastward deliveries being moved
by aerial flight. The main weight of equipment consisted of tanks, guns,
vehicles of all types, engineering equipment, searchlights, bridge sec-
tions, pontoons, and airfield equipment. Ammunition was moved eastward
to remote parts of the USSR, and it is believed that as much as 90,000
tons reached Vladivostok for Soviet training and stockpiling. In addition,
the USSR supplied ammunition for the Korean War during the year 1953 es-
timated at about 35,000 tons, the balance being supplied by the Chinese
Communists themselves.
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Westbound armaments and ammunition were composed mostly pf
light tonnages originating at Khabarovsk, Komsomol'sk, and Irkutsk and
consisting of specialized integral parts for aircraft, guns, and tanks.
Neither weapons nor ammunition was produced in large quan-
tities east of Novosibirsk in 1953, although heavy repairs to such
equipment were performed in some of the plants in the larger eastern
cities. Weapons damaged beyond repair were generally shipped to steel
plants in the Far East for use as scrap metal instead of being returned
long distances over the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
6. Components for Shipbuilding.
Owing to the isolation of Far Eastern shipyards from their
suppliers, an estimate was included for manufactured shipbuilding com-
ponents moving across Siberia in 1953? As might be expected, this move-
ment was uniformly eastbound; it is estimated to be about 15,000 tons.
Loadings per car may have been light owing to priority requirements and
the different points of origin and destination involved in each type
of shipment, and therefore a disproportionately large number of freight
cars may well have been used. Destinations were mainly Vladivostok,
Komsomol'sk, and Sovetskaya Gavan'.
This class of items could be considered strategic in nature
and warrant expeditious delivery. In addition to rail movement, some
instruments and electronic equipment may have been shipped across Siberia
by air.
7. Miscellaneous Exports to and Imports from Communist China and
North Korea.
In addition to weapons and identified items such as agricultural
commodities, nonferrous concentrates, and oil and steel, there is believed
to have been a considerable trade in manufactured goods moving from .the
USSR to Communist China in 1953? Such exports from the USSR to Communist
China have been estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 tons. 141
In addition, a quantity equal to about 35,000 tons probably was exported
to North Korea. These estimates relate solely to civilian items, since
weapons and other military goods have already been covered under the
appropriate section. Such goods consisted of a. wide variety of items
with the emphasis being on vehicles, agricultural equipment, boilers,
electrical generator stations, motors and other electric power apparatus,
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stationary diesel engines, plant equipment and machinery, oil-well dri11-
ing machinery and other oilfield equipment, prospecting drills,, coal-
mining machinery, quarrying equipment, drugs, machine tools, pumps, bat-
teries, tires, turbines, earth-moving equipment, railroad cars, and rail-
road axles, wheels, and trucks. 1~+2 Conversely, there was a steadily
.moving quantity of goods which could not readily be reckoned as to volume
but which from border reports and trade announcements are believed to
have been exported by Communist China to the USSR. 143 Since nearly
all of such items fell in the agricultural category, they have been
included in the estimate of agricultural goods. Among them are believed
to have been high-value, low-weight items such as tobacco, jute, ramie,
silk, wool, bristles, furs, skins, and casings. All of these items were
shipped in closed cars. Nearly all of the high-value items are believed
to have been moved through Otpor to Siberia and the western regions of
the USSR.
8. Transit Traffic.
Before 1953, transit traffic between Communist China and the
European Satellites had been comparatively low. In that year, however,
the Satellites were under great pressure to do business with China. During
the first part of the year a heavy load of merchandise accumulated at the
port of Gdynia, and it was believed advisable to ship the most urgent items,
such as motor vehicles and agricultural equipment, to China via rail.
Toward the middle of 1953 the Uniform Transit Tariff went into effect,
thereby making it easy to compute the overland rate for each category of
goods and in general establishing transit rates which were uniform and
low but still considerably higher than typical sea rates on bulk commod-
ities. On the long haul across Siberia the USSR would be the gainer of
foreign exchange against a domestic expense outlay.
It has been estimated that transit traffic from the Satellites
to Communist China and North Korea consisted of 50,000 tons of manufactured
merchandise in 1953, with approximately 100,000 tons moving from Communist
China to the Satellites, presumably largely agricultural goods, skins,
and hides. North Korea is not believed to have exported enough merchan-
dise to the Satellites in 1953 to warrant inclusion in the estimate.
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9. Soviet Manufacturing in Siberia.
Although Siberia has a number of heavy industrial plants,
the products of most of them fall under one or another of the categories
already discussed. There remains the output of the metalworking and as-
sembly plants, examples of which are the Irkutsk Heavy Machine Building
Plant imeni Kuybyshev, the Tomsk Antifriction Bearing Plant, the Rubtsovsk
Agricultural Equipment Factory, the Siberian Heavy Machine Plant at
Krasnoyarsk, and the Khabarovsk Machine Building Plant imeni Kaganovich.
Each plant had a distribution pattern based on the nature of
its product, but industrial distribution patterns are far more likely to
shift than are patterns of movement of basic mineral commodities.
After the patterns had been studied and projected, the net
total result showed a varying eastbound flow from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk
of between 20,000 and 30,000 tons. From Irkutsk eastward the flow tapered
down to 10,000 tons at Khabarovsk, and, except for local activity in the
environs of Vladivostok, it remained at about that level for the rest of
the distance.
Westbound manufactures from Khabarovsk and Komsomol'sk to
Irkutsk have been estimated to be slightly less than 10,000, jumping to
about 35,000 tons at Irkutsk and increasing at Krasnoyarsk to about
60,000 tons for the remainder of the distance to Omsk. Thus it would
seem that Siberian heavy industry as far east as Irkutsk was oriented
toward the west to a greater extent than toward providing economic
support for the Soviet Far East and Communist China.
10. Soviet Manufactures, General and Unidentified.
The -final subgrouping of freight in the miscellaneous category
is one for which a controlled calculation would be impossible on the basis
of available information. This subgrouping consists of manufactured and
other freight which have not been included in any of the commodity cate-
gories or in the subgroupings of miscellaneous freight so far discussed.
It does not include goods for export or imported merchandise but does
include such items as motor vehicles, agricultural equipment, earth-moving
equipment, turbines, generators, and large industrial components for
Soviet use not manufactured in Siberia. Travelers have reported seeing
these goods moving on open cars, as well as lift trucks, narrow-gauge
equipment, cranes, cables, and transformer boxes, boats, cement mixers,
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and mine cars. The subgrouping also is intended to cover a wide variety
of smaller articles which were packed and shipped in closed cars and could
not be observed.
Since these items remained within the USSR, it has not been
possible to observe them at border points, nor were many reports of defect-
ors or returnees available from principal destination points for the year
1953? An estimate for this type of traffic could only be made by applying
judgment factors, which are described in Appendix A. The bulk of this
traffic seemed to be eastbound, with a relatively small amount returning
west. The estimates for each main-line segment were considered to be
closely related to other miscellaneous freight plus steel. Coal, oil,
and timber were excluded from the basis of computation because of the
disproportion of their weight to that of other traffic and because
their movement would in many instances have little relationship to
other supplies moving in a similar direction.
The movement of miscellaneous goods from the west through
Novosibirsk was estimated to be approximately 2 million tons, tapering
down to a tonnage arriving at Vladivostok of somewhat less than one-quarter
of this amount. Large quantities of these goods were bound for outlying
areas of the USSR. Conversely, in the westbound direction, movements
from Vladivostok were only 75,000 tons while over 75,000 tons moved
from Novosibirsk to Omsk. Independent estimates had to be arrived at
for each of the branches.
It was assumed that in this miscellaneous category would be
included all types of items not specifically covered elsewhere, in addition
to quantities of items for which estimates so far provided may have been
insufficient. This tonnage, however, is not intended to cover back hauls
and crosshauls of provisions and supplies for unplanned or emergency
purposes or of military organizational equipment moving out to or back
from a temporary location. No estimate has been made for such movements
of goods, because they do not relate to the general economy. Nevertheless,
many movements of this type undoubtedly took place and should be considered
as adding to the tonnage in both directions. It is not believed, however,
that such movements totaled over 2 million tons per ton-kilometer in both
directions combined over any section of the line. In most instances they
would have been far less than this amount.
_ 7~ _
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S -E -C -R -E -T
APPENDIX A
METHODOLOGY
1. Individual Commodity Sections.
In formulating a method for estimating movement of freight over
the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the decision first has to be made as to
whether to approach the problem (a) from the point of view of total move-
ment of freight per line section or (b) from the point of view of the
over-all shipment pattern of each basic commodity.
After major centers of production and consumption had been deter-
mined and the principal transfer points established, estimates by commodity
were made of the net gains or losses of freight to the railroad at such
points. A set of working charts was then prepared expressing for each
commodity group the changes of volume in the flow pattern resulting from
loading and unloading at pertinent points. Such changes did not necessarily
~ See 2, p. 109, below.
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take place in their entirety at the centers themselves but were reflected
graphically at each center to show gains or losses of major commodities
occurring within the portions of the adjacent line sections nearest to
it. Representative averages of tonnage movements within each section
were treated as typical of the section. This methodology, it is
admitted, tends to deflate the final estimates appearing on the charts
(Figures 3, ~+, and 5~) in some sections by failing to give effect to
bulk and other movements which may not have persisted for many kilo-
meters within the section. Some of the sections selected for the
charts (Figures 3, ~+, and 5) are considerably shorter than others in
order to minimize this type of distortion. It is well to bear in mind,
therefore, the major distinction between the meaning of the horizontal
lines on the above charts which show representative movements for each
segment, and those on the Copeland charts,~* which represent the total
ton-miles for each section divided by the length in miles of the
section itself.
As most of -the major commodities had distinctly different prop-
erties, different methodologies had to be utilized in constructing
the flow patterns for each of them. The problems in methodology
encountered in each of the traffic categories with which this report
is concerned are described below.
(1) General.
In general, coal movements were established by determining
(a) the main producing centers, the volume of production, and the approx-
imate movement on rails away from each 144 ; (b) the probable destination
of major quantities of coal from each producing center; and (c) the prob-
able destination of Chinese coal believed to be imported into Region XII
(Far East) via Grodekovo. 14 On the basis of available information,
it has been assumed that certain proportions of the output of each of the
mining centers would go to the railroad, to electric power plants, to
major industrial centers, to river transshipment points, and to cities
in an economical pattern corresponding to the location of the mines and
the points at which the coal would be needed. 146 In the case of the
railroads, this has involved mathematical breakdowns based upon assumed
over-all traffic movement and the main points of distribution to tenders
* Inside back cover.
~~ See N, p . 39, above .
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of coal destined for locomotive use. Prisoner-of-war reports as well as
Soviet announcements, speeches, and written articles have served to clar-
ify various aspects of the coal movement. 147 Particular attention in
such utterances is frequently given to Region XI (East Siberia) because
of the exceptionally long hauls involved in spotting good-grade coal for
railroad usage and the consequent problems which arise in the assembly
of empty cars.
Further consideration has been given in this report to the
requirements for s_oecial types of coal of locomotives, steamships, and
certain industries such as coking plants and steel mills. These require-
ments account for certain long hauls and crosshauls which in 1953 were
pinpointed in speeches and articles as being targets for improved plan-
ning. 148
(2) Production.
Coal-mining areas in Regions IX (West Siberia), XI (East
Siberia), and XII (Far East), located on and served by the Trans-Siberian
Railroad and its branch lines east of Omsk, are estimated to have produced
74.7 million tons of coal in 1953, of which slightly over 70 million tons
moved by rail. The remaining coal was used locally at such installations
as mine power stations, forges, and heating plants. This area production
of 74.7 million tons was arrived at by taking 23.3 percent of the total
1953 coal production of the USSR, which was stated to be 320 million
tons. 149 (Sakhalin Island, situated geographically within Region XII,
has not been included among the areas producing the 74.7 million tons,
because it seems unlikely that any of its production would have reached
the rails of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.)
In estimating the area production of 74.7 million tons, con-
sideration was given to the relationship of the production of Regions IX,
XI, and XII (excluding Sakhalin Island) to total Soviet production of
coal in previous years. In 1950 these areas produced approximately 61
million tons. This was about 23 percent of total Soviet production of
coal in that year. In 1952 they produced 70.1 million tons, which again
was close to 23 percent of total Soviet coal production in that year.
As total annual Soviet coal production increased by 11 percent in 1950,
7.8 percent in 1951, and 6.7 percent in 1952,. each over the preceding
year, the mines in these areas consistently kept pace and continued to
produce an average of 23.3 percent of the annual total. 150 In 1953,
total Soviet coal production was 6.2 percent greater than in 1952, and
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as there is no further evidence relating the share of these areas to total
Soviet production, their production for 1953 has been calculated at 23.3
percent of the total, or 74.7 million tons.
The production of this tonnage is estimated to have been divided
in the following amounts and percentages among the mining fields within the
three economic regions:
Amount Percent
Economic Region (Million Metric Tons) of Total
IX (West Siberia) 45.5 61.0
XI (East Siberia) 17.2 23.0
XII (Far East) 12.0 16.0
These estimated area tonnages reflect in part the past rela-
tionship of the principal coal-mining fields in each area to total Soviet
annual coal production and to normal changes in local mining conditions,
which, from time to time, might be expected to alter productive capacities.
(3) Types and Qualities.
Data on types and qualities of hard coal and lignite were de-
rived from a very large number of reports of prisoners of war who had been
miners, supervisors, loaders, and outside observers.
(4) Distribution.
The pattern of distribution of coal was divided into two prin-
cipal categories: (a) local and short-haul uses close to the mining region
and (b) long-haul uses beyond the limits of the producing area. Some coal
is generally used at the mines which produce it. The amount consumed per
ton of production varies from mine to mine, depending in part upon the
size of the mine and the type and quantity of equipment used in it. Elec-
tric power needed in mine operation is sometimes generated at the mine
head but more generally is supplied by central thermal electric power plants
which draw their coal needs from the nearby mines. Fueling of railroad
locomotives serving the mining regions generally takes place at regional
fueling stations at or near the mines. Many industrial plants using coal
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50X1
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for heat and power were originally located in close proximity to the
coal mines to save raw material transportation service and costs. C oal
used for the heating of miners' homes and cooking and by the general
public in mining communities and nearby towns for space heating of homes,
stores, and other public buildings was also drawn from the nearby mining
operations and would have had no rail movement.
Balance of production remaining after local needs had been
supplied moved out of the producing regions on longer transportation
hauls to consumers in other industrial communities. Volume coming to
rest in any specific consuming area was more difficult to determine.
Coal requirements of large thermal electric power plants were separately
estimated, and a proper amount was plotted as delivered to each from
either an indicated coal mine or the most logical mining center, de-
pending upon the availability of information. The volume of electric
power generated in a town or city was assumed to be a dependable indicator
of industrial and domestic activity. Certain types of consuming plants,
such as metallurgical plants, give evidence of the special types of coal
needed and indicate the producing area best qualified to serve them. The
number and size of industrial plants using coal for raising steam also
influence the long-haul pattern of distribution. So also does the distri-
bution and density of the population.
Some of the principal sustained movements have been clearly
pointed out by engineers, prisoners of war, and traveling observers and
have been discussed in the Soviet press. 152/ Most prominently mentioned
were the movement from the Kuzbas to the Urals, the two-way haul out of
Cheremkhovo, and the eastbound movement from Raychikhinsk to Khabarovsk
and Komsomol'sk. 153/ In'addition to this type of information and that
supplied by Soviet texts on the volume of coal inputs for each of the
several categories of consumers, for the shorter as well as the longer
hauls, the tonnages arrived at included estimates which reflected the
best judgment of the analysts.
~ Studies of coke plants based on earlier years' reports of engineers
and prisoners of war have made possible a projection of the 1953 coke
output of each plant and its probable destination. 154/ Coke, being used
principally in heavy industry, would not be expected to undergo piecemeal
distribution to small locations as do coal and food items. C oke is usually
shipped to furnaces, smelters, and foundries by the shortest feasible
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route. The movement of the surplus coke from the coke ovens at Stalirisk
and the coke chemical plant at Kemerovo could be traced toward the steel
industries in the Urals, where coal of coking quality is scarce, and also
to smaller smelters and foundries along the Trans-Siberian main line, for
which estimates have been made based on prisoner-of-war visual reports
and probable requirements for coke established by industrial plant analyses.
Small quantities of coke on branches have been graphically
depicted as a portion of miscellaneous freight.
c. Petroleum and Its Products.
For the purposes of this report, the pattern and rate of flow of
petroleum and its products over the lines of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
in 1953 were based mainly on net requirements in the Far East, allowing
for oceanborne movements and local production, both in the USSR and in
Communist China. Communist China had to be included in these require-
ments because the USSR and Rumania were the sole sources of external
supply for that country during the year. Requirements of the Soviet
economy, both civilian and military, from Omsk to Vladivostok and farther
east, were estimated, and deliveries at known centers of consumption were
allocated in accordance with such factors as size of population and indus-
trial or military activity. No attempt was made to account for petroleum
shipped to central storage points and later redistributed, even though
numerous relatively short back hauls might have been involved.
Despite tYie inability of observers always to decide whether tank
cars were .full or empty, it was obvious from the direction of the sea-
borne traffic and the relative size of the overland movement that the
direction of flow was eastbound the length of the line. No oil cargo
was estimated to have been picked up between Novosibirsk, at which point
a flow of petroleum and its products from the Caspian and Central Asian
areas joined the main line, and Khabarovskiy Kray, where Sakhalin oil
and refined products were fed into the system. There is believed to
have been no source or connection with a source of petroleum and its
products for this entire distance. The output of Sakhalin oil is esti-
mated to have been considerably less than the requirements of the eastern
areas, thus accounting for the deficit which occasioned tine eastbound
movement. Because of the location of a few scattered derricks seen
along the line by observers, they are believed to have been gas wells
or prospectings. Petroleum and its products produced by hydrogenation
or liquefaction are not believed to have started moving in 1953, although
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later it will undoubtedly be an important factor. The most important
plant undergoing tests was Synthetic Fuel Plant No. 16 at Kitoy near
Irkutsk, ~ which was expected in due course to produce about 1 mil-
lion tons of distillate fuels and chemicals per year from Cheremkhovo
coal.
All estimates were checked against movements of tank cars
reported by travelers and others where available. 1 6 Except in the
Omsk-Novosibirsk section, the results were found to be in close enough
accord to lend some assurance that the estimated quantities were with-
in a reasonable range of actual happenings.
The net requirement of Communist China was based upon coordi-
nated estimates ~ which showed inbound seaborne movement of 39,000
tons from Soviet Bloc ports in Europe and 100,000 tons from the Soviet
Far East. Overland shipments of petroleum were estimated to be from
800,000 to 1 million tons. This range included at least 500,000 tons
moving via Otpor and unknown quantities via Grodekovo and the Sungari
River.
For purposes of plotting in this report, a range of figures
could not be used, and medians estimated to have the least errors had
to be substituted. There being very little to go on in the way of
actual flow data, these medians were arrived. at mathematically, and
transfers of petroleum and its products at Manchouli and Grodekovo
were plotted as 750,000 and 250,000 tons, respectively, these amounts
to include approximately 200,000 tons for North Korea. Provision was
also made for the movement to Vladivostok of 100,000 tons earmarked
for Communist China. There were a number of observations supporting
the transfer of petroleum and its products to Communist China at the
border points, and whereas they usually described the movement as
volu~hinous, they could not be definitely quantitative.
It was next necessary to form a reasonable idea of the require-
ments of the Soviet Far East, or more precisely, of the USSR from Chita
eastward,, and from these to deduct available supplies of petroleum and
its products from Sakhalin.
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The following requirement figures were used:
Thousand
Metric Tons
Petroleum and its products shipped to more remote points
of the USSR from Vladivostok ~
500
(Naval observations of Soviet tanker movement -- rough
estimate)
Vladivostok
150
Nakhodka (including fueling of vessels)
100
Primorskiy Kray, including Semenovka 160
150
Khabarovsk
150
Komsomol'sk
150
Sovetskaya Gavan' (including naval requirements) 161
60
Blagoveshchensk
100
Miscellaneous points
160
Chita, including Air Force and Army
220
Total
~~+0
For available supplies from Sakhalin, information was as follows:
Thousand
Metric Tons
Estimated production of crude oil
1,100
162
Less transport loss (5 percent)
55
Less topping plant, Sakhalin
125
16
Balance available at destinations, crude oil
920~-
A rough estimate of the destination of this crude oil was as
* The corresponding figure was estimated at 933,000 tons for 1951 by
source 16~+ .
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An estimate of the operations of the refineries at Komsomol'sk and
Khabarovsk shows about 150,000 tons lost in the refining process at
these two points. (The Khabarovsk refinery must use a considerable
amount of crude oil from the west.) 166
To strike a balance for a net requirement for this region,
therefore, the following computation must be made:
Thousand
Metric Tons
Requirements of the USSR from Chita eastward
1,740
Communist China and North Korea via Grodekovo
250
Communist China via Vladivostok
100
Lost in refining at Komsomol'sk and Khabarovsk
150
Total
2,240
Less Sakhalin flow to Komsomol'sk and Khabarovsk
(above )
820
Required for Chita and east
1,420
(not including 750,000 destined for China and
North Korea via Otpor)
This was the figure of petroleum and its products for the USSR
plotted as moving eastward between Ulan-Ude and Chita.
Partial checks were provided in two ways. Although both must
be considered rough, there appears to be no more precise information
available.
First is a remark by Kaganovich 16 in a 1954 speech to the
Supreme Soviet in which he reportedlry said; "The systematic lagging
of oil extraction in the Far East necessitates the shipment of oil
products there. This costs more than 1 billion rubles annually. It
would be far more expedient to use this money to speed oil extraction
in the Far East." The precise manner in which this billion-ruble cost
figure was arrived at is unobtainable, but an approach along the
following lines, with numerous factors subject to slight adjustment,
might be logical.
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Information pertaining to the plan for 1949 indicated that
budgeted costs of hauling a ton of petroleum and its products 1 km
were to average close to 5.75 kopeks.* 168 A tariff applicable
in 1954 showed a freight rate of 1,743 rubles for moving 20 tons
of petroleum and its products 1,500 km, 16 and this works out
to 5.81 kopeks per ton-kilometer. (It has been stated by Soviet
authorities that rates on certain bulk commodities such as coal and
petroleum and its products are deliberately meld close to or even
below cost, the loss being compensated for by higher rates on other
goods.) With some estimating and averaging at both ends, a typical
length of haul of petroleum and its'products from the west to the
Far East has been assumed to be 7,700 km.*~ At 5.75 kopeks per ton-
kilometer, the cost of moving 1 ton this distance would be 447.37
rubles. If 447.37 is divided into 1 billion rubles, the amount of
2,235,000 tons is obtained, which is to be compared with the estimated
eastward movement of 2,170,000 tons of petroleum and its products used
in this report for the stretch immediately west of Chita.
Another check is possible on the basis of tank car relation-
ship to total car movement as established by car counts from visual
observation. Although sample observations are very limited, those
available have been tested for validity in developing actual equated
movement. The results are shown in A, 2, below and in section IV of
the text. For petroleum and its products, an average of the most
reliable samples showed a probable movement of 410 tank cars each way
per day between Omsk and Novosibirsk (1953), of 65 cars each way per
day between Barnaul and Novosibirsk (1954),~* a.nd of 387 cars each way
per day between Mariinsk and Krasnoyarsk (1953).**~ Observations
made further east were less reliable because of the lower time-
density factor and other causes. In 1953, 80 percent of the tank
cars used on this run appeared to be of the largest type (50 tons), 1 0
and the remainder probably averaged about 18 tons each. Thus an
average capacity for cars counted by visual observations would be
about 43 tons. With some allowance made for the lower specific gravity
of oil, an average loading figure of 35 tons per car may be regarded as
~ One kopek equals 1100 ruble.
*~ Giving effect to origins in Central Asia, Ishimbay, and Baku,
with destinations split about evenly among Otpor, Khabarovsk, and
Vladivostok.
*~~ Only recent information available.
*~~~ See Table 6, p. 111, below.
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reasonable and has been used in these calculations. Computed for 300
days per year (winter presumably being at a lower rate), these obser-
vations expand to x+,305,000 tons, 680,000 tons, and about x+,063,500
tons per year, respectively, for the movements cited above, whereas
estimates in this report show 2,850,000, 500,000, and 2,900,000 tons,
respectively. It will be noted that in this type of check all figures
obtained were higher than the plotted estimates by 35 to 50 percent.
It is possible that the conjecture of 35 tons average load per car
may have been too high. Moreover, some tank cars of chemicals prob-
ably were included in these counts, and the Baxnaul observation was
for 195x+. The car counts were made in the warmer seasons and were
very limited in number. Nevertheless, there is a strong inference of
an error on the low side in the plotted amounts, which if the facts
were known might be of some consequence. This would be the result of
lack of information on the Siberian petroleum requirement, which was
the principal basis of the traffic estimates.
d. Timber.
In order to provide a basis for estimating timber movement
on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, estimates of timber production in
each oblast were made. Next calculated was the amount of timber
that moved by rail, the percentage of the total being obtained by
deductions derived from factors for local consumption and for
waterways bypassing the railroad within each oblast supplying
timber. For further refinement as to point of origin, each oblast
was broken down into major timber-producing areas which were spotted
to the line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad at the point of connec-
tion.
In order to obtain an estimate of consumption of pit props, the
estimated output of coal from the various mining regions was used, open-
pit mining excluded, and timber requirements were computed at a fixed
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ratio of ~+0 cubic meters of wood to 1,000 tons of coal mined. 1 2
The sources of such props for individual mines were determined by
scanning a large number of reports of prisoner-of-war observers at the
sites for wood sawing. and mining, those containing pertinent infor-
mation being matched against basic information on the availability of
timber.
Distribution of timber and crossties for railroad construction
to definite points on the railroad line was difficult to assess, and,
as a rule, where the quantities of these items produced could be esti-
mated, the distribution was shown within the probable limits of a
given area as equal to a computed requirement for replacement purposes.
Requirements of the railroad itself for crossties for both
main line and branches were computed on the basis of 10 percent
replacements per year. This over-all figure was intended to give
effect to the type of maintenance believed to be in existence on the
Trans-Siberian Railroad as a whole. These requirements were checked
against timber available at points of supply along the line and against
sawmill reports on certain sections to determine whether adequate
amounts were available and whether the conclusions reached as to tim-
ber movement .were realistic. From this check there appeared to be
little occasion for long-distance (over x+00 miles) hauling of timber
for railroad ties except on the Transbaykal system east of Chita and
from East Siberia to the timber-deficit areas of Central Asia and
North Kazakhstan.
By, checking certain reports of travelers who in 1953 and 195+
made traffic counts on a carload basis over portions of the Trans-
Siberian and Turk-Sib Railroads, it was possible to determine what
types of timber were moving over what stretches and in what sort of
supply. On portions of the line with frequent traffic or on single-
track stretches this could be most easily done, but the major factor
of average tonnage per car remained a matter of speculation. It is
known that the Soviet railroads are under orders to load heavily, but
what is lacking is information on actual performance. If it is as-
sumed that 60-ton-capacity cars are loaded with 12 meters x 2-1/2 meters
x 2 meters, or 60 cubic meters, and that each cubic meter weigYls two-
thirds of a ton, the weight per ~+-axle car on the average would be ~+0
tons. If a proportion of three 4-axle cars to one 2-axle car is assumed,
the average loading would be 35 tons per physical car unit in the over-
all count. 50X1
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13 to 28 May 1953; ~ on the stretch between Novosibirsk and Achinsk,
which is judged to have the densest movement of timber, leads to the
conclusion that about 18.3 percent of the westbound cars were loaded
with timber, mostly logs and pit props, and that the rate of movement
was about 300 cars per day or a rate of 108,000 cars per year. At
35 tons per car this would be 3,780,000 tons per year. This tonnage
corresponds reasonably closely with an average for several stretches
which had been indicated in the method of estimating flow by avail-
ability and requirements. A corresponding check could not be made
on the line between Irkutsk and Khabarovsk or between Khabarovsk and
Nakhodka, because of the limited number of trips made recently into
that area.
On the stretch from Omsk to Chulym, by the same process, the
report of the naval attache yielded an estimated yearly westbound rate
of about 1,250,000 tons, which is a figure slightly higher than our
estimate of 1.1 million for this stretch. Although several other
observations were made of this same portion of line in 1953-5~+, 174
the speed and frequency of the trains appear to have made impossible
the counting or even estimating of the number of cars carrying timber
or lumber. Numerous references appear in the reports, however, to logs,
timber, and lumber seen moving, which establish the pattern of direc-
tional flow as westward, sustained, and fairly heavy.
On two trips made over portions of the Turk-Sib Railroad in
195+ (none had been made in 1953), a northbound observer ~ reported
that about 30 percent of the traffic moving south from Barnaul to Alma-
Ata was timber, while a southbound observer 1 6 noted a train of t+0
empty flatcars returning northward from Barnaul toward Novosibirsk,
which could well have been headed to the timber-producing regions of
East Siberia. A 19+8 source ~ estimated that about 860,000 tons of
timber moved southward over the Turk-Sib Railroad in that year, but
as early as 1937 the plan had called for 1.7 million tons. 1 8
Assurance of typical day performance in the traffic counts
made by travelers is of course an uncertain matter, particularly
on lines which do not have a high density of traffic. On the densely
traveled portions the- risk is less, but seasonal adjustment must be
considered in the case of timer.
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With timber loading taking place at so many small points, it
would be extremely difficult to give an accurate graphic representation
of the precise pattern of movement. In most cases, therefore, totals
for line sections have been plotted in the direction of major movement,
including loadings for small, local back hauls. Tapering off of move-
ment is indicated by dropping at the next main plotting point all
timber presumably unloaded within the section.
e. Ferrous Metals.
The method used in plotting shipment of Ferrous ores and '~
metals was based on a combination of calculated plant output and con-
sumption requirements in Siberia and the Soviet Far East, supplemented
by information on Soviet-Chinese trade in these commodities as pro-
vided in finished ~ The resultant 50X1
supply-demand factors for particular raw materials, semifabricated
metal, and finished steel were balanced out and plotted in accordance
with the most economical pattern of movement presumed to be possible.
Existing basic information on steel and ferrous products was utilized
through the medium of ORR reports and working papers which had already
been prepared on the principal iron and steel lants in Siberia. These
were updated to 1953 180 The demand 50X1
for ferrous metals was more difficult to ascertain, but the require-
ments of principal consuming plants, the railroad, and the coal-
mining industry could be estimated within reason, by plotting the
tonnage of shipments of appropriate steel products from the nearest
known point of production to appropriate central destinations. Esti-
mates of demands of cities for building purposes and of off loadings
at river junctions for further shipment by water were made on the
basis of general background knowledge of industries, population, and
construction activity. Where such knowledge was meager or completely
lacking, the requirements of a larger area were estimated and arbi-
trarily plotted to a central unloading point within the area. In
other words, as with other commodities examined in this report, the
locations used as points of destination represent an attempt to gen-
eralize the pattern rather than to try to account with geographical
precision for lesser shipments to individual locations.
In providing a comprehensive check of the estimates arrived at
in this fashion,. a review was made of all rail journeys made over
portions of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1953 and 1954, and sightings
of steel, which generally moves in open cars, were checked as to
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proportion against total number of cars sighted moving, which number in
turn was equated with two-way traffic to determine total movement of
cars per day for the various sections of the line observed. Thus a
sample rate of steel movement could be obtained for each day of obser-
vation. By comparing several samples, figures for a presumed steady
movement were arrived at and expanded to an 8-month total, the theory
being that there would be a considerably higher rate of movement of
steel to Siberian destinations in the late spring, summer, and early
fall when the observations were made, than would be the case in the
winter months when the rivers were frozen and. construction retarded.
As a result of this check, about 200,000 more tons of steel
were estimated to have moved eastward from the Urals than had been
previously estimated, and this was then added to the estimates so far
made, with unloadings at principal points in the same manner as already
described. Allowance was made for presumed sea shipments northward and
eastward to points in the USSR remote from Nakhodka and Vladivostok, of
between 25,000 and 35,000 tons, 181 as more precise calculations could
not be made from available sightings.
Indications of points of destination occasionally appear in
prisoner-of-war reports and in Soviet broadcasts and local press
reports. Such information has been checked against the estimated
pattern ar~d occasionally has justified its modification.
It is advisable, moreover, to remember that owing to a variation
in products and in time factors, a two-way movement of ferrous metals
may be registered on particular stretches of track over a period of as.
much as a year. This was assumed to be true of the main-line stretch
between Omsk and Novosibirsk and has been confirmed by observations.
At present, however, data on shipment of ferrous metals are not
adequate for a precise estimate. If at a later date, comprehensive and
reliable information on Soviet steel movements should be received, these
estimates might be corrected more than those for coal, petroleum, and
timber.
The following list gives the main points of origin in Siberia
for ferrous products and the centers of consumption associated with
each, in order of importance:
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Omsk and west
Barnaul and south
Kuzbas
Novosibirsk
Irkutsk
Khabarovsk
Pik iron
Percent
50
20
10
10
5
5
Kuzbas 30
Gur'yevsk 15
Omsk and west 15
Irkutsk 15
Barnaul and south 15
Novosibirsk 10
Gur'yevsk
Omsk and west 30
Kuzbas 30
Barnaul and south 25
Irkutsk 10
Khabarovsk 5
Omsk and west 50
Barnaul and south 15
Novosibirsk 10
Kuzbas 10
Irkutsk 10
Khabarovsk 5
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Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy
Percent
Irkutsk
20
Chita
20
Omsk and west
15
Khabarovsk and east
15
Krasnoyarsk
10
Novosibirsk
10
Barnaul and south
Komsomol'sk
10
Finished steel
Khabarovsk
30
Vladivostok
20
Chita
15
Komsomol'sk
15
Nikolayevsk
10
Sovetskaya Gavan'
5
Skovorodino
5
In the plant studies, enough information generally was avail-
able on production facilities to establish production of coke, pig
iron, and semifinished and finished steel. Once production is known,
inputs are a matter of calculation tempered by a knowledge of steel-
making practice as it varies from plant to plant. Information on the
sources of raw materials has usually been available, although the
size of mineral deposits and the rate of extraction are frequently
hard to establish in the USSR, particularly in Siberia and the Far
East. For these purposes, prisoner-of-war and defector reports,
have been used, together with such
fragmentary information as could be obtained from Soviet broadcasts
and local press reports.
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f. Agriculture.
Owing to the lack of reported data on movement of agricultural
commodities, it was necessary to work from estimates of production and
consumption in different areas of Siberia in order to.establish pre-
sumptions for plotting movements. Thus locally available supplies of
bread grain were determined for each oblast by calculating production
from estimated acreage and average yields and by deducting from the
results the quantities used for purposes other than food. Consumption
in each oblast was calculated by multiplying the estimated population
of the oblast by the annual per capita consumption rate of 161.1
kilograms for 1953? By subtracting consumption from local supplies
available for food, the surplus and deficit oblasts were determined.
For the offshore regions to the north and east of Vladivostok, the
requirements of the population and the net deficit were nearly equal,
since little grain can be successfully grown in these regions.
From available prisoner-of-war information on flour mills, it
was estimated that the existing flour mills in the deficit oblasts had
adequate capacity to process the bread grains needed for home con-
sumption. It was assumed, therefore, that the grains were shipped to
the deficit oblasts as grain rather than as flour.
Points of origin and destination selected for plotting grain
traffic were the large shipping centers in the oblasts having sur-
pluses and the larger population centers in the oblasts with deficits.
In reality, loadings and unloadings were much more dispersed.
In determining points of origin and destination, it was assumed
that the Russians would use their transportation in the most efficient
manner. Actually this may not have been the case, as there have been
frequent Soviet outbursts against crosshauling and hauling long dis-
tances. Any error occasioned by this assumption would thus be one of
underestimating. It was felt that the difference between closed-car
capacity moving east, as estimated from trip reports, and total east-
bound movement of commodities ordinarily shipped in closed cars, as
estimated from individual commodity shipment patterns, would provide
a cushion which could easily absorb any additional load factor
occasioned by crosshauling, since eastbound closed cars in the por-
tions of the railroad east of Novosibirsk are almost certain to be
loaded.
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In order to determine the volume of shipment of cotton and
cotton products over the Trans-Siberian Railroad east of Omsk, the
consumption of cotton goods in Regions IX, XI, and XII was determined
by multiplying the total population by the annual consumption rate per
capita of 3.5 kilograms. Since no cotton was produced in these regions,
it was assumed that cotton goods were shipped from the textile combines
west and southwest of Novosibirsk. Based on the production of cotton
products by the Barnaul textile combine and estimated distribution of
these products, it was estimated that about 11,x+00 tons moved east-
ward over the railroad from Barnaul and that .the remainder, about
5+,000 tons, moved from Omsk or points west of Omsk.
Movement of sugar was estimated on the basis of available data,
not all of which pertained to the year 1953, brit which was believed to
be representative. Per capita consumption was assumed to be 13.5 kilo-
grams per year, a figure used in other studies for 1953. Area require-
ments for Regions IX, XI, and XII were computed on the basis of the best
population figures available, and estimated supplies produced in each
area were deducted. The remainders were divided among major cities in
proportion to populations of metropolitan areas and hinterlands, with
amounts similarly estimated for Sakhalin and the offshore areas of the
Pacific. Thus the total of sugar movin; east from Omsk was estimated
at 176,000 tons. The movement tapered down to 5,000 tons out of
Khabarovsk but was supplemented by considerable production in Primorskiy
Kray for local consumption, a minor movement to China, and ocean ship-
ment to remote eastern areas of the USSR.
Movement of miscellaneous agricultural commodities such as
vegetables, dairy products, preserves, and. canned goods was estimated
on the basis of requirements set up on a per capita basis; it was
assumed that the cities located away from the main railroad line re-
quired 160 kilograms per capita per year and that inland cities on or
near the line required half that, or 80 kilograms per capita per year.
This difference was based on the assumption that, outlying areas had
no appreciable support from production of local kolkhozes and sovkhozes
and were therefore entirely dependent on shipments arriving from the
outside, whereas near most of the inland cities there were regions of
agricultural support. There is practically no source material dealing
specif ically with the movement of miscellaneous agricultural products,
but from prisoner-of-war reports covering storage and shipping centers
and border transshipment points it is known in general what these
products are. A considerable movement is obvious. Potatoes and beets
appear to have been among the vegetables most commonly shipped and
stored.
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Westbound agricultural commodities, as stated in the text,
consisted mostly of animal and fish products and of imports of grains,
soybeans, and a variety of less bulky items from Communist China.
Shipments of livestock and livestock products from Mongolia
and Manchuria were based on estimates of exports from these areas to
the USSR. It was assumed that the livestock products moving from
Manchuria were destined for the meat-processing centers in Region XII.
The destination of the livestock shipped from Mongolia was determined
on the basis of the location and estimated capacity of the meat-
processing centers in Region XI.
Destination of the livestock products moving from the meat
combines was based on estimates of Soviet storage facilities and
consumption patterns.
Production of hides and leather products in the regions east
of Omsk was determined from an estimate of the slaughter of livestock
in these regions. Consumption of these products was calculated by
multiplying the population by an estimated consumption rate per capita.
By subtracting consumption from production, it was determined that all
three regions were surplus-producing areas. Thus it was assumed that
the hides and leather products moved from the major processing plants
along the railroad to consuming areas west of Omsk.
Fish constituted the principal food item of domestic origin
moving westward over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Estimates of fish
shipments were based on previous studies embodying Soviet official
catch releases, canned-fish statistics, and numbers of fish barrels
produced for Primorskiy Kray. Fish shipments were shown as originating
mostly at Vladivostok, with smaller additional tonnages from Sovetskaya
Gavan' and Blagoveshchensk joining the main-line westward movement at
the junction points of Dezhnevka and Kuybyshevka-Vostochnaya, respec-
tively. Figures on requirements for cities and their environs and for
industrial regions were based on population estimates, using an average
consumption rate per capita of approximately 25 kilograms per year.
The main portion of the movement appeared on balance to be a through
one .
In order to obtain a proper order of magnitude for agricultural
commodities imported from Communist China by the two main gateways.,
Otpor and Grodekovo, it was estimated tentatively that 1-1~2 to
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2 million tons went to the Soviet Bloc. 182 Taking the midpoint of
this range, 1,750,000 tons, and allowing for approximately one-third
to go to the European Satellites and North Korea, the balance avail-
able for the USSR would be about 1.2 million tons. It was then
necessary to apportion this quantity between Otpor and Grodekovo.
In 1953 there were few border point observers at either station,
but reports for both were available from previous years. Whereas in
1952, activity at Grodekovo had included a quantity of agricultural
goods, the impression generally gained is that in 1953 afar larger
movement went through Otpor toward the west. Rice, soybeans, and
vegetable oils from Communist China complement Soviet indigenous food-
stuffs in Siberia and obviate the necessity of a long haul to the Far
East. Moreover, these commodities can reach points in Regions IX and
XI ('West and East Siberia) by moving in the direction opposite to the
main flow of traffic east of Novosibirsk and hence tie in conveniently
with car movement requirements.
For purposes of this estimate, the division as between Otpor
and Grodekovo was made in the relationship of 5 to 1, or 1 million tons
via Otpor and 200,000 via Grodekovo. Distribution of Chinese Com-
munist agricultural goods to the Soviet Far East was made in the same
manner as. the movement prevailing in 1927 and 1928 prior to the
Japanese occupation of Manchuria, when Soviet demands for foodstuffs
were similar in geographical pattern to those of 1953. 18 From
Otpor west, distribution was made only on a judgment basis, using
probable demands of population centers as a guide. The estimated
balance reaching Omsk for movement farther west was 320,000, which is
a tenuous estimate and in all probability on the low side. Despite
embargoes and exhortations against long-distance hauling and cross-
hauling, the likelihood of policymakers' favoring the European USSR
in the distribution of Chinese products may well have outweighed a
more logical distribution pattern embodying the full requirements of
the Siberian industrial centers.
g. Manufactures and Miscellaneous Freight.
In the general category of manufactures and miscellaneous
freight, the principal groupings for which probable points of origin
and destination could within reason be established were set apart and
analyzed individually. The usual rule in such cases was to try to
establish the pattern, starting with fixed points of origin and then,
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on the basis of all available intelligence, laying out logical lines
of flow to probable points or regions of consurnption. The volume at
the shipping point would in many cases approximate production esti-
mates, witi~ a nominal deduction for local deliveries~to nearby con-
suming centers allowed w~iere appropriate. The next step would be to
distribute tiie product in tie correct proportions to the various flow
lines. After all preliminary estimates iZad been formulated and the
lines of flow compared, final adjustments would usually be necessary.
In commodity groups where points of origin and destination
were widely scattered, formulas were established to take the place of
point-to-point movement. Such goods as sand, stone, and gravel were
treated in this manner.
Tiie final balancing group consisted mainly of manufactured
goods originating west of Omsk and south of Barnaul, for which exact
points of origin would not be visible on the charts, Figures 3, 4, and
5. Commodities in this group moved eastward across Siberia, with re-
gional deliveries diminishing the flow as it progressed. A small move-
ment in the opposite direction of unknown items may have included ex-
cesses of some of the commodities already discussed or even a return
haul of manufactured goods slated for cannibalization or repairs.
In making estimates for this group a method of calculation
involving the level or rate of flow was evolved on the basis of US
experience, using unpublished 1952 estimates of Soviet figures as
a check on the result. In some instances where the method obviously
would not apply judgment 50X1
estimates which ied in with the general level of economic activity
in the local area were substituted.
(1) Nonferrous Metals.
Estimates of mining, concentration, and shipment of non-
ferrous ores were based originally on available geological studies,
prisoner-of-war reports, translations of Soviet documents and peri-
odicals on mining, radio announcements, and reports of the US Bureau
of Mines.
In tine field of nonferrous metals from Siberia, the
.shipment pattern for ores and concentrates was relatively clear and
easy to follow, since mines, concentrating plants, and rail loading
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I
points were few, and points of destination such as smelters were fixed
and were not numerous. Because the prevailing movement of nonferrow.s
items in 1953, including Chinese trade, was westbound, most of the
aggregates were either dropped at smelting centers or carried through
to destinations west of Omsk. Refined metals moved mostly to the Urals
and the west.
For Chinese Communist trade tYie estimates made for 1952
were increased slightly and rounded for tin and antimony. Although
strategic and valuable, mercury was not included, because its total
bulk was considerably less than 1,000 tons. On the basis of Chinese
production, magnesite has been estimated at a little less than 50,000
tons and is believed to have been bound for the Urals. 184
Gold has been omitted, as it is believed to be handled by
air. Silver may have been shipped by rail, but its tonnage would be
very low. Blanket estimates have been made to cover small tonnages
of unidentified concentrates and metals arriving at Nakhodka and
Krasnoyarsk by water from the east and north. Nickel was probably the
main item transloaded from river craft at Krasnoyarsk. Several other
metals have been mentioned by prisoners of war returning from the
Lower Yenisey and Kolyma districts, tonnages of which would be
difficult to determine. The amounts in tons are believed to have
been relatively small, and conservative blanket allowances for them
have been entered with a westbound movement past Omsk.
(2) Nonmetallic Minerals.
(a) Cement.
Approximately 20 percent of the cement produced in
the USSR in 1953 18 was produced in Regions IX, XI, and XII which
comprise the area covered in this report. In 195.3, total production
of cement in the USSR was 16 million tons, 186 * indicating that
approximately 3.2 million tons of cement were produced within the
shipping area of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
~ This estimate is supported by announced fulfillment figures as
follows: 97 percent of the 1950 plan of 10.5 million tons, or 10.2
million tons; a 19-percent increase in 1951 over 1952; a 15-percent
increase in 1952 over 1951; a 15-percent increase in 1953 over 1952,
which gives the final figure of 16 million tons.
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In projecting a movement pattern and volume estimate
for cement, the fixed-point-of-origin and probable-destination method
was used. The large cement mills at Iskitim, Yashkino, Stalinsk,
Krasnoyarsk, Cheremkhovo, Timlyuy, Teploye Ozero, and Spassk-Dal'niy
were taken for points of origin. Fifty percent of the estimated
production of -each plant was treated as the amount shipped out, and
a pattern was arrived at by studying important construction projects
or construction areas which in 1953 would have been heavy consumers
of cement and were served by the facilities of the Trans-Siberian
Railroad or connecting carriers. Some 180,000 tons of cement are
believed to have been imported from Communist China, and in the
absence of more detailed information, this was arbitrarily divided
in equal portions be,'tween Otpor and Grodekovo. 187
(b ) Ballast .
As a means of estimating average movements of bal-
last, a statement was taken from a Soviet periodical 188 that the
average haul for ballasting was 150 km and that 8,000 cars on the
average were loaded daily. These figures were prewar, but they may
not have changed perceptibiy. (It has been announced that the rate
of tie replacements per yeax._r.emains about the same as the prewar
rate.) A conservative increase might bring the 1953 ballast figure
to 10,000 cars per day. No announcement giving a definite postwar
figure is available, but there have been several statements indicating
a stepped-up ballasting program for the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
The ratio of trackage east of Omsk to all Soviet
trackage is about 11.5 percent on a route distance basis and about
15.5 percent on an individual track distance basis. Ballasting in
Siberia is believed to be proceeding at a higher rate than in the
rest of the country, possibly loading 17 percent of the 10,000, which
would be 1,700 cars per day. If 1,700 cars each hauling 25 tons of
ballast were loaded on an average of 360 days per year, 15.3 million
tons of ballast would be hauled during the year. At an average dis-
tance of 150 l~n, a total of 2,25 million ton-kilometers would result,
which, divided by the route distance of about 13,000 km, would give
a rough average of 177,000 tons moved during the year over each
~ In cases where 1953 plant production was unknown, adjustments were
made to the estimated production of individual plants so that the
over-all total production for the production area would be reasonably
accurate.
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kilometer of Tine. This is admittedly not an accurate figure nor would
the average apply as an actual density in many locations. Nevertheless
it provides guidance as to the scope of the work. Perhaps abetter
figure would be obtained by dividing the ton-kilometers by the total
route distances of single track covered in this study, or about 20,000
km. This would give 1'15,000 tons per kilometer of singly track, with
a weight of double for the double track stretches. In terms of average
cars per day, this would be 13 cars with 25 tons each, but actually
there would be a considerable seasonal variation.
In making a final rough estimate for ballast, con-
sideration was also given to the stretches of heaviest traffic, which
incidentally were those where most ballasting was reported by observers.
These were arbitrarily boosted, and those on less active portions of
line were correspondingly lowered. Typical final estimates used were
150,000 tons per year for each track on the Omsk-Novosibirsk section;
125,000 for each track on the Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk stretch; 75,000 for
each track of the line from Chita to Kuybyshevka-Vostochnaya, where
not much ballasting was reported; and an average of 50,000 tons per
track on branches .
The estimate of ballast moved was taken as the
traffic estimate for stone, sand, and gravel, all of which were used
for ballast and trackwork and which, in Siberia, probably were hauled
principally for such a purpose.
(c) Bricks and Clay.
It has been estimated that 3.1 billion bricks, or
12.4 million tons of brick, were produced in plants along the Trans-
Siberian Railroad in 1953. 1~ Of this amount, only 10 percent, or
about 1,240,000 tons, is believed to have been handled by rail shipment.
Again, much of the brick moved is believed to have been moved only
for short distances which could not be plotted on the traffic chart.
Few Soviet statements have been published on ship-
ments of bricks and clay. The statements which are available give
the impression that efforts constantly are being made to keep bricks
and clay from being hauled for long distances. Industrial Register
listings show brickyards and kilns in the neighborhood of most
Siberian cities, with numerous brickyards in the environs of the
larger ones.
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It has-been possible from some Soviet statements to
determine a few long-distance movements of bricks, and these have been
plotted as a subdivision of miscellaneous freight. 190 Other move-
ments adding up to somewhat less than 1.2 million tons have been
plotted in stretches where shipments have been indicated by observers,
the effect being to omit the balance of actual short-distance movements
(described by numerous prisoners of war employed at kilns) which could
not have been realistically expressed in the chart.
(d) Fluorspar.
The most active known workings of fluorspar in
Siberia were at Abagatuy and Kalanguy in Chitinskaya Oblast. A con-
centrating plant was located at the latter point, and the concentrate
was trucked to Khadabulak where it was loaded for westward shipment
on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Borzya has been used as the chart
plotting point for Kiladabulak in this report.
On the basis of prisoner-of-war reports on pro-
duction of previous years 1 1 it has been estimated that approxi-
mately 70,000 tons of fluorspar concentrate were moved westward from
Khadabulak past Omsk in 1y53?
(e ) Salt .
Movement of salt was from west to east, the demand
on the Pacific coast coming from the f ish-packing industry. Sources
of salt for the Soviet Far East were Communist China, 1 2 Usol'ye-
Sibirskoye near Irkutsk, ~ Pavlodar south of Tatarsk, 1 4 and
possibly other small salt dome workings. In addition to its use for
packing fish, salt was also consumed by chemical installations,
principally at Kemerovo and Cheremkhovo.
Whereas the pattern of flow of salt was fairly clear,
volume was difficult to determine. An estimate finally arrived at on
the basis of Far East requirements less Chinese Communist imports
(via sea) and requirements for chemistry of the Kuzbas and Irkutsk
regions came to about 300,000 tons from Tatarsk to Novosibirsk,
200,000 from Novosibirsk to Cheremkhovo, and an equal amount from
Cheremkhovo to the Far East region where the flow divided, the
greatest portion reaching the sea at Vladivostok.
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(f) Other Materials.
A few other materials made up the nonmetallic minerals
field, estimates of each being incorporated in the total. As a rule,
tonnages were small: the main exception was limestone, X300,000 tons
of which are believed to have moved from Gur'yevsk to Stalinsk in the
Kuzbas for use in blast furnaces. This movement was a continuation of
the pattern of previous years, and the volume was calculated on the
basis of estimated production of steel at Stalinsk.
In comparing the estimates of movement of nonmetallic
construction materials made by these methods with the over-all average
for the USSR as recently announced for the year 195+, ~ the results
have shown a variation of from 1.6 percent to 9.2 percent of total
movement on various stretches for 1953 as compared with the announced
over-all average of ~ percent for the following year. In particular,
the 1.6 percent for the Omsk-Novosibirsk distance is therefore regarded
as far too low in view of the fact that the West Siberian flat lands
lack surface mineral resources, 1 6 and in making the traffic adjust-
ment to conform with the Soviet announced movement of the Omsk system,
a ,liberal tonnage has been accorded nonmetallic building materials,
presumably moving in an easterly direction from the Urals, where slag
and rock are plentiful. This movement corresponds with the direction
of availability of empty open freight cars.
(3) Chemicals.
The chemical pattern was based on the point-of-production-
to-area-of-distribution method, using established routings of prin-
cipal products such as sulfur pyrite, tar, and ammonium sulfate. With
chemicals, the movement was frequently a point-to-point and plant-to-
plant flow of materials, which was not difficult. to trace. Volume
was determined by estimated requirements and capacities of plants.
Principal chemical centers were located at Stalinsk,
Kemerovo, and Cheremkhovo, with coking plants constituting the base
for numerous smaller plants producing specialized chemicals. The
latter moved out in tonnages which were extremely small by comparison
with most of the commodities covered in this report to areas of con-
sumption which were occasionally identified but mostly were supplied
by logical and educated guesses of analysts in the field.
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(~+) Paper
Paper movements were plotted principally on the basis of
presumed relationships to production of Sakhalin plants. Paper is
believed to have moved through Vladivostok, Nakhodka, and Sovetskaya
Gavan'. Direction of rail movement has been indicated as westward.
Tonnage estimates were hampered by scantiness of infor-
mation, but 80,000 tons have been entered as moving in from the
southern Primorskiy ports to Khabarovsk and 50,000 tons as moving west
from Sovetskaya Gavan', making a total of 130,000 tons of which 100,000
tons are estimated to have reached Omsk.
These figures are analysts' best guesses based on capacity
of plants and potential needs for paper in various locations. Prisoner-
of-war observer information was almost completely lacking, and paper
cargoes shipped in closed cars were unobservable in transit. Since the
tonnage is comparatively small, however, a sizable percentage error
here would be minimized in the miscellaneous totals.
(5) Weapons and Ammunition.
Weapons and ammunition were manufactured principally west
of Omsk, so the points of origin and capacities of plants could not be
used in the estimating process. The figures for weapons and engineering
equipment* were based principally on calculated net annual requirements
of the Soviet Far East armed forces ~ plus an auxiliary requirement
for the forces of Communist China and North Korea. Requirements for
arms were calculated as a replacement flow to provide for restocking
of depots plus shipments of new types of material. New equipment was
assumed to be shipped with a goal of fully equipping troops in 5
years. 1 8
Ammunition shipments from Omsk eastward to various points
of destination were calculated on the basis of one-quarter unit of fire
for troops in the area. Eighty percent of ammunition components were
assumed to have axrived from west of Omsk, 10 percent from south of
Novosibirsk, and the remaining 10 percent from the Novosibirsk area.
-~ Class II and IV supplies, which consist of clothing and organiza-
tional equipment such as weapons, vehicles, boats and bridges, mobile
laboratories, and communications assemblages. In effect, the two
classes encompass most military goods required by ground forces but
specifically exclude-food, petroleum and its products, and ammunition.
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Exports of weapons and ammunition to Communist China and
North Korea were entered as 160,000 tons, with 150,000 tons assumed
to have moved through Otpor and 10,000 tons through Grodekovo. 200
Movements by rail of aircraft and aircraft components
were extremely light in terms of weight and were computed on the
basis of the point-to-point method. Inputs to aircraft plants were
based on an existing study 201 with adjustments to take care of
requirements for the manufacture of consumer goods. Inputs of com-
modities for which local area inbound estimates had already been made
were checked against such estimates to insure consistency.
Outbound shipments were based on the results of another
study with due allowance made for flyaways which would not move by
rail. 202
(6) Components for Shipbuilding.
Components for shipbuilding were very light in weight
compared with other commodities. All significant tonnage moved from
west of Omsk across Siberia to shipyards in the Amur and Fax East
areas. The bulk of the hardware went to Vladivostok, Komsomol'sk,
and possibly Sovetskaya Gavan'. Total movement across Siberia is
not believed to have exceeded 15,000 tons.
Estimates of tonnage moving were made on the basis of
requirements for parts and equipment not locally .manufactured as
related to currently reported activities in the yards. These esti-
mates included conclusions
tentatively reached in the course of preparing reports. 20
(7) Miscellaneous Freight to and from Communist China
and North Korea.
Tonnages for miscellaneous freight which were moved to
and from Communist~China and North Korea in 1953 were based entirely
on general estimates which have been coordinated and published. 20~+
* It will be recalled that, in the latter half of 1953, much
publicity was given to Soviet intentions to emphasize production of
consumer goods. `
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The westbound miscellaneous freight tonnage without doubt included
some unidentifiable co~od3,ties belonging to general categories for
which estimates based on identified co~unodities already have been pro-
vided, presumably agricultural goods and nonferrous metals and concen-
trates. Their inclusion here, even though less appropriate, would
therefore not constitute a duplications but rather an addition.
(8) Transit Traffic.
Estimates of volumes of transit traffic are unsubstan-
tiated, but the initiation of the movement was played up extensively
in the 1953 Soviet press and in propagandistic broadcasts. Use of
the overland route was encouraged by the establishment of the Univer-
sal Transit Tariff. Ostentatiously marked freight cars moving east-
ward have been seen by travelers over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. 205
It was fairly certain that the route was a through passage between
Omsk and Otpor.
(g) Soviet Manufacturing in Siberia.
During the period of existence of the USSR and even
earlier, efforts have been made to set up heavy industry along the
line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and in the Kuzbas. The USSR
has given much publicity to construction of such plants as do
''exist in Siberia, but as matters stood in 1953, a very small portion
of Soviet heavy industry was in operation east of the Urals. In
order to isolate the movements of the product of these plants, some
of which would be westbound, from the main eastbound current of
manufactured goods, an attempt was made to estimate the tonnage and
destinations of the output of the principal plants in Siberia pro-
ducing heavy industrial goods.* This report indicated that approxi-
mately 65,000 tons of westbound goods may have reached Omsk and
* The method used in the case of each plant was the same as the
plant-to-consuming-area approach for miscellaneous freight.
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that 10,000 tons may have moved from Novosibirsk toward Barnaul and
points farther south. On the other hand, about 3+,000 tons of products
of Siberian plants appear to have moved eastbound out of Irkutsk.
These figures include only the estimated output of the major Siberian
plants engaged in heavy industry. 20 Shipment of light industrial
products could not be estimated with any degree of accuracy ,and there-
fore were not included in estimates of traffic. Also omitted were
locomotives and railroad rolling stock produced in Siberia which left
the manufacturing plant on their own wheels.
(10) Soviet Manufactures, General and Unidentified.
The methodology used in constructing the balancing ton-
nage figure, which embodies mostly manufactures and unidentified and
unsuspected commodities, is based on the assumption that certain
relationships in traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad might bear
a similarity to parallel relationships in the US.
The theory as originally conceived was to obtain by a
process of comparison and elimination a list of items shipped on US
railroads which would constitute a remainder of items similar to
those which remain to be covered for the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
The total loadings for these items would then be matched against a
second list for US railroads comprising the items of miscellaneous
freight already dealt with. The relationship thus established would
next be applied to the total estimates so far obtained for miscel-
laneous freight, on a section-by-section basis for traffic moving in
each direction, and the amounts so obtained would be added on to
constitute the ultimate totals.
To obtain basic percentage figures, the US Interstate
Commerce Commission's Summary of Freight Traffic Originated for all
US railroads, 1952, was used. 20 After eliminating all items
similar to those dealt with in the bulk commodity sections of this
report, the balance of items was divided again between those so far
covered as miscellaneous items and those not so far covered. It was
believed advisable at this point to modify the original concept by
reinstating on both the Trans-Siberian and the US railroads, as a
base for the comparison only, tonnage of fabricated steel. The
resulting relationship came to 77 percent: that is, the loadings of
items not yet estimated would be presumed to equal 77 percent of
those miscellaneous items so far included, such as cement, chemicals,
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paper, and nonferrous metals. As a check on this figure, the 195+
report of the Southern Railway of the US which moves freight of a
nature similar in many respects to that of the Trans-Siberian Rail-
road, was. also analyzed in the same manner. The relationship in this
case proved to be 80 percent. In making the projections, 77 percent
was the figure used.
In order to obtain a fair comparison, all estimates of
traffic to and from Communist China and North Korea were eliminated
from the Trans-Siberian base figure. The percentages were then
applied and the results added. Finally the total resulting miscel-
laneous estimates were compared, section by section., and in a few
cases, moderate increases or decreases were made on the basis of
judgment. For instance, the impact of a substantial amount of
sulfuric acid or tar loaded west out of Kemerovo and reaching the
main line at Yurga would not warrant a proportionate and parallel
increase in westbound miscellaneous freight shipments at that point.
The judgment changes were kept track of in work tables for use in
case new information should become available.
In effect, atotal-loadings comparison has been used to
solve aton-kilometer problem. This would be most unsound were bulk
commodities included in the base. The degree of potential error is
lessened considerably by the fact that only miscellaneous freight has
been dealt with. With the miscellaneous field isolated, the relation-
ships of tons loaded and ton-kilometers are apt to be more uniform
than would be over-all figures, which would be heavily weighted by
basic commodity patterns.
It is felt, nevertheless, that the westbound miscel-
laneous movement may have been overestimated by this method and the
eastbound possibly underestimated. An attempt was made, therefore,
to check the over-all relationship of miscellaneous freight to total
freight resulting from the calculations.
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Miscellaneous
Freight
per Original
Estimate
Miscellaneous
Freight
per Check
Judgment
Figure Used
Eastbound
Omsk to Tatarsk 1,8+1
2,693
2,673
Krasnoyarsk to Tayshet 2,210
2,56+
2,220
Westbound
Tayshet to Krasnoyarsk
1,913 3,x+68 2,121
Tatarsk to Omsk
3,702 2,90t+ 2,893
It can be seen that the totals fluctuate considerably
In no case, however, does the indicated difference as
applied to the total estimated freight movement exceed the maximum
margin of error estimated and discussed elsewhere in this report.
Following are sample lists of miscellaneous freight items
shipped over the
Trans-Siberian Railroad in the years 1952 and 1953
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50X1
50X1
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Machinery and industrial equipment
Airport building machinery, heavy
Boilers
Bulldozers
Cable
Cement mixers
Cranes
Drag lines
Dredges
Electric motors and generators
Food-processing machinery
Foundry furnaces
General industrial machinery, not otherwise specified
Internal combustion engines, stationary
Machine tools
Machinery, special for coal distillation and liquefaction plants
Mining machinery
Oil well drilling equipment and other oilfield accessories
Pumps
Railroad car wheels
Road construction machinery
Shovels, steam, electric, diesel, and gasoline
Tanks, commercial
Transformers
Turbines
Valves
Vehicles and equipment
Automobiles
Light trucks
Prime movers
Tires
Tractors
Trailers
Trucks, diverse types
Wagons
Spare parts
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Light Manufactures
Clothing
Furniture
Hand tools
Household equipment
Lighting equipment
Radio central receiving stations
Telephone equipment
Agricultural equipment
Combines
Harrows
Harvesters
Ploughs
Tractor s
Marine equipment
Patrol boats
Sport boats
Pontons
2. Observation Trips.
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It is possible, by equating the numbers of cars met and overtaken
in fixed stretches and by making proper allowance for the speed of the
travelers' own train, to arrive at the number of cars moving in both
directions which should pass a stationary point within each stretch in
a 24-hour period. The basis for such a procedure is the theory that on
a heavily traveled line which has a monopoly of the traffic between
important regions, the car movement in both directions should remain
closely in balance. This theory appears sound, but limited observations
may encounter wide variations resulting primarily from traffic delays or
offsetting speed-ups. The s arser the traffic the
possibilit of error.
On the basis of calculations made in accordance with the foregoing,
Table 6~- has been constructed to show the number of cars per day which
appeared to be moving each way on the various stretches at the time
the car counts were made. Certain comparisons are at once conspicuous.
First is the declining traffic density encountered as the travelers pro-
gressed from west to east, with a slight increase indicated around
Khabarovsk. Next is the sizable growth of the 1953 and 1954 densities
over those of 1948. Finally, there is the interesting relationship of
the results of 5*~ different observations in the Omsk-Novosibirsk
section of 1953 and 1954, which taken together averaged 2,487 cars
per day each way.
In only the traffic opposed to the observers' trains, counts of
individual types of cars, such as tank, box, open-bulk, and open-
miscellaneous, were checked and related percentagewise to the total
opposed car counts for each stretch. It was hoped in this manner to
obtain typical or average daily consists of cars for various line
sections, which might permit checking the estimates of certain bulk
commodities, particularly oil and coal, by applying to them for an
appropriate number of days per year estimated average tons loaded per
car. The percentages were taken only on the basis of opposed traffic
because the opposed samples were much greater and more representative
than those of overtaken traffic. In overtaken traffic, the trains most
* Table ~ f ollows on p . 111.
**- The sixth sample, number 3 in Table 6, was not included, owing to
obvious trouble in the eastbound movement, which resulted in an
abortive count.
50X1
50X1
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Westbound trip, 1 to 11 October 1948 ,af" Omsk- Mariinsk- Tayshet- Tankhoy - Darasun- Urusha- Arkhara- Voroshilov-
Chulym Krasnoyarsk Zalari Petrovskiy Zavod Bushulei Magdegachi Khabarovsk Vladivostok
495 1oa 385 Inn 473 km 365 km 359 ~ 284 km 442 km 113 km
8 October 1948 7 October 1948 6 October 1948 5 October 1948 4 October 1948 3 October 1948 2 October 1948 1 October 1948
Total cars
Boxcars
Tank cars
1,320
J
Eastbound trip, 13 to 18 May 1953 , Omsk- Bolotnaya-
Chulym Achinsk
495 ~ 455 ~
16 May 1953 17 May 1953
Total cars 2,346 1,594
Boxcars 352 382
Tank cars 375 351
Westbound trip, 23 to 28 May 1953 J Kalachinsk- Novosibirsk -
Novosibirsk Anzhero-Sudzhensk
583 ~ 269 ~
25 May 1953 25 May 1953
Total cars 1,382
Boxcars 55
Tank cars 774
Daily Balances of Moving Freight Cars on the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Estlmated from Various Trip Logs, Equated Traffic by Sections o? the Line
391
(Based on no
trains overtaken)
(Eastbound movement apparently tied up on this dqy. These figures xere not used in averages.)
Eastbound trip, 25 June to 5 July 1953 J Cmsk- Mariinsk- Tayshet-
Chulym Zao2ernoye Cheremkhovo
495 ~ 505 ~ 537
28 June 1953 29 June 1953 30 June 1953
Total cars 2,015 1,627 1,136
Boxcars 504 238
Tank cars 423 227
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Daily Balances of Moving Freight Cars on the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Estimated from Various Trip Logs, Equated Traffic by Sections o? the Line
(Continued)
Eastbound trip, 3 to 13 June 1954 ~
Omsk-
line
Mariinsk-
Alzemgy-
Cheremkhovo
468 km
Tankhoy-
Onon-
Mogocha
382 km
Kuybyshevka-Vostochnaya -
Ruzhino
1,062 km
Chulym
Krasnoyarsk
8 June 1954
Kharagun
10 June 1954.
11 to 12 June 1954
Total cars
No observation
No observation
1,632
No count made
610
655
Boxcars
698
259
250
Tank cars
348
92
59
Eastbound trip, 13 to 18 August 1954 ~
Omsk-
Kokoshino
472 ]~
17 August 1954
Total cars 2,726
Boxcars
Tank cars 226
Westbound trip, 14 to 18 September 1954 ~ Tebisskaya- C}ternorechensk- Zima- Balyaga-
Novosibirsk Ilanskaya Baykal Chita
359 km 423 ~ 325 ~ 394 ~
17 September 1954 16 September 1954 15 September 1954 14 September 1954
Total cars 2,368 1,141 921 1,038
Boxcars 379 114 - 202 134
Tank cars 426 262 359 ~ 126
a. 211
b. Could not identify by type.
c. 212 d. 21 e. 214 f. 21 g. 216 h. 21 1. 218
S-E-C R-E-T
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freguently reported were the heavily loaded marshruty (point-to-point
through trains or cuts of cars carrying a single commodity), whereas
more lightly loaded trains were apparently able to maintain headway
with the passenger trains. In the case of petroleum and its products,
calculations based on traffic counts resulted in considerably higher
figures than the estimates based on requirements for the more westerly
line segments, whereas in the Transbaykal and Amur areas, the results
of the petroleum and its products traffic count ran somewhat lower than
requirement estimates. An accurate count of loaded cars of coal proved
to be difficult because the sides of the cars were too high in many
cases to observe the load, which might have been some such commodity as
coke, timber, ar gravel instead of coal.
Rather than attempt a series of individual commodity comparisons,
since there are other unknown variables such as average load per car,
ratio between numbers of 2- and ~+-axle cars, empty-car movement,
seasonal variations in the sample and number of days per year for which
a sample would be valid, Table 7~* has been constructed to show the
total load moved east under 3 different average car loading assumptions:
15 tons per car, 25 tons per car, and 40 tons per car, using average
sightings from the car counts of the 2 years in the various count
stretches, and comparing them with total estimated tonnage moved.
Table 8~~- shows tonnage calculated from the same sightings moved
west under assumptions of 30, ~+0, and 50 tons, compared with total
estimated tonnage. The higher assumptions made on the westbound
sightings are due to the fact that westbound traffic consists mostly of
bulk commmodities, whereas eastbound shipments include a higher pro-
portion of manufactured goods which could be expected make up lighter
carloads. (See Tables 7 and 8.)
From these tables, it will be noted that based on an average
capacity of ~+0 tons per car, the estimated movements of the various
commodities were a]most always much lower than the equated car capacity
seen moving. This would be a normal characteristic of US railroads
and reflects the empty movement resulting from the specialized require-
ments for cars. of a specific type to move particular commodities over~-
~ See p . 0, above .
~' Table 7 follows on p. 11~+.
Table 8 follows on p. 115.
Continued on p. 116.
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Table 7
Comparison of Estimates of Annual Rates of Eastbound Traffic
on the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1953
Thousand Metric Tons 1
Expansions of Equated Car Movement Sightings
Line Section
Charted Traffic
Estimate
15 Metric Tons
per Car
25 Metric Tons
per Car
40 Metric Tons
per Car
Omsk-Tatarsk
9,000
13,450
22,400
35,800
Tatarsk-Novosibirsk
9,200
13,450
22,400
35,800
Anzhero-Sudzhensk - Mariinsk
7,750
8,700
14,500
23-,200
Mariinsk-Achinsk
8,2.50
8,700
14,500
23,200
.Achinsk-Krasnoyarsk
7;050
8,700
14,500
23,200
Tayshet-Zama.
7,050
6,300
10,500
16,800
Zima-Cheremkhovo
7,400
6,300
10,500
16,800
Mysovaya - Ulan-Ude
8,550
4,100
6,850
10,950
Ulan-Ude - Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy
8,200
4,100
6,850
10,950
Kaganovicha-Ksen'yevka
5,400
3,300 ~
5,500
8,800
Skovorodino - Kuybyshevka Vostochnaya
4,700
2,700
4,500
7 200
Bureya-Obluchye
6,550
3,550
5,900
9,450
a. Rounded to nearest 50,000.
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Table 8
Comparison of Estimates of Annual Rates of Westbound Traffic
on the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1953
Thousand Metric Tons J
Expansions of Equated Car Movement Sightings
Line Section
Charted Traffic
Estimate
30 Metric Tons
per Car
~+0 Metric Tons
per Car
50 Metric Tons
per Car
Obluchye-Bureya
1,x+00
7,050
9,x+50
11,800
Kuybyshevka~Vostochnaya - Skovorodino
2,250
5,x+00
7,200
9,000
Ksen'yevka-Kaganovicha
1,x+00
6,600
8,800
11,000
Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy - iJlan-Ude
x+,200
8,200
10,950
13,7
Ulan Ude - N~ysovaya
x+,700
8,200
10,950
13,700
Cheremkhovo-lima
8,550
12,600
16,800
20,950
Zama-Tayshet
9,2~
12,600
16,800
20,950
Krasnoyarsk-Achinsk
8,150
17,x+00
23,200
29,000
Achinsk-Mariinsk
9,800
17,x+00
23,200
29,000
Maxiinsk - Anzhero-Sudzhensk
9,300
17,x+00
23,200
29,000
Novosibirsk-Tatarsk
30,650
26,850
35,8
~+~+,750
Tatarsk-Omsk
29,900
26,850
35,8
~+~+,750
a. Rounded to nearest 50,000.
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stated distance and routes for which little or no return cargo can be
found. By comparison it will also be noted that for eastbound traffic
on the leaner stretches of the Transbaykal and Amur systems where few
empties should be involved, estimated tonnage movements as against
equated car counts indicate an average loading of between 25 and 30
tons to the car. If the estimates and sightings are at all reliable
this range probably reflects a relatively low proportion of loadings
of coal to loadings of manufactured goods and other commodities.
The only sections on which estimated traffic movement divided by
equated car sightings exceeded an average loading of 30 tons were
westbound on the line from Novisibirsk to Omsk and eastbound on the
line from N~ysovaya to Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy. In both cases, coal
would have played a large part in pulling up the average, supported
in the latter instance by petroleum and its products and grain.
Reservation, however, must be made for possible uneconomical and
unseasonal hauling of commodities owing to changes of plans at dis-
tribution echelons and difficulties at control and storage points,
as well as for unknown military movements. Moreover, the samples for
this portion of the line are admittedly infinitesimal in quantity.
The greatest proportional haulage of empties was reported to have
taken place in the easesbound Omsk-Novosibirsk movement and in the west-
bound movement between Khabarovsk and Tarskiy. If the USSR continues
to increase the westbound haulage of coal and coke from the Kuzbas to
the Urals, it is difficult to vizualize any type of commodity freight
which might economically be loaded back in compensation. Regarding
the Far East, an increase in the Soviet merchant ,fleet (dry and
tanker) or a relaxation of international shipping controls could pro-
vide the means for narrowing the imbalance of movement perceptibly.
3. Estimated Margin of Error.
The degree of accuracy of the figures submitted in the different
commodity estimates is subject to variation in accordance with
observations. On the Omsk-
Novosibirsk section of line, the consistency of the Soviet announce-
ments over a span of 5 years gives assurance of reasonable accuracy
of the over-all density estimate. The same cannot be said of the
directional or the individual co~nodity estimates, where data were
lacking and considerable analyzing and projecting of related infor-
mation was necessary. Regarding movements of coal and coke over
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this section, the error should be somewhat less than 20 percent, if
Soviet statements and articles can be taken at face value. Coming as
they did at different times and from different persons and publica-
tions, there is reason to believe that they were accurate if allowance
is made for the interpretations which had to be placed on Soviet
statements which were intentionally vague. On other individual com-
modities the margin of error could be much greater.
The results of the trip samples with equated car counts which
could be used as bases for average movements over particular stretches
of line also served to limit the probable margin of error, allowance
being made for empties.
Taking into consideration the consistency of the Soviet announce-
ments for the Omsk system, it is probable that for the main line
stretch between Omsk and Novosibirsk, the maximum range of error for
total traffic (the deviation of the sum of the estimated movements in
both directions from the actual) was less than 10 percent. Commodity
estimates in which principal errors are suspected are (1) oil (too
low eastbound), 21 and (2) miscellaneous freight (too low in both
directions owing to lack of data on non-ferrous construction materials).
Between Novosibirsk and Irkutsk, timber has a greater relative
weight than elsewhere. The timber estimate is shaky because infor-
mation was not available by Oblast or by cutting area, and there were
many press statements to the effect that plans were not being met.
The pattern, however, is believed to be generally accurate. 220 The
maximum range of error for the adjusted estimate of total density
including both directions should be about 15 percent for the entire
distance, although there are individual short stretches in which this
error may be exceeded.
Between Tarskiy and Khabarovsk, owing to (1) the high relative
weight of miscellaneous freight versus total traffic as well as to
(2) an almost complete dearth of formation on movements, and con-
sidering (3) the possible alternative routings of freight to Com-
munist China, a range of error of as much as 30 percent would be a
possibility for some of the plotted sections..
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The portion of the line between Khabarovsk and Vladivostok posed
the greatest enigma of all, inasmuch as no complete observation of
line traffic was available, and at least one opportunity to gather
information on activity in the environs of Vladivostok was missed.
Much has been reported by FBIS on division point performance, but the
Soviet figures generally contain duplications and are difficult to
interpret beyond the general impression that activity has been
increasing. It is possible that owing to the proximity of the
Khabarovskiy and Primorskiy Krays to the Korean War area, extra move-
ments of military equipment, reserve items, and other goods took place
between storage points and that much of the announced information
represents duplicate hauling. The margin of error believed to be
maximum for the line in this area, with due consideration given to
numerous traffic factors and possibilities, is 35 percent.
S-E-C-R-E-T
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