The Central Asian Railways

The conception of a railway between the Caspian and the heart of Asia took shape, as we have seen, during the campaign of Geok Teppe, when a little portable line between the base and a point thirteen miles inland was of good service to the transport. The new railway battalion redoubled its efforts after the fall of the Tekke stronghold, and before the close of 1885 the line had been carried as far inland as the large Turkoman village of Kizil Arvat, 135 miles from the Caspian. A mighty impulse was given to schemes for railway extension by the cession of the Merv oasis in 1884. The entire area between the Caspian and the Amū Daryā was now in Russian hands, and there were no political and few natural obstacles to delay the construction of a railway which should connect the great arteries of traffic. But the advisers of the Tsar were by no means unanimous in approving of the enterprise. A strong party favoured the canalisation of the Amū Daryā, and an attempt to divert its stream to its ancient channel, which entered the Caspian at Krasnovodsk. Another faction pointed to the vast results achieved in India by the network of railways, which enables a European military force barely 60,000 strong to dominate 250,000,000 Asiatics; and urged the necessity of providing the means of rapid transport of troops and material between the Caucasus and the new strategic bases. Foremost among the latter was General Annenkoff, who enjoyed great influence at St. Petersburg, due less to family connections than to his experience in the construction of railway lines. ¹ His opinion was reinforced by events in the Merv oasis, for the collision with Afghanistan in 1884 convinced the stubbornest advocates for water-carriage that a post of vital importance could not be held without the assistance of a railway. In April 1885 an imperial ukase directed the construction of a line on the standard gauge between the Caspian and the new territories, and charged its designer with the duty of carrying it into execution and studying the question of extensions. General Annenkoff’s first care was to devise a system calculated to economise time and transport, and peculiarly adapted to countries which present few obstacles to the engineer. A temporary line was to be laid with the utmost speed, over which the materials and labour for completing the task might be conveyed at leisure. The accommodation of the personnel was of equal importance. The supervising staff consisted of three engineers-in-chief and an army of subordinates, military and civil, selected for their exceptional ability and vigour. Under their orders were two battalions of railway operatives on a strictly military basis. The second of these was recruited at Moscow by the general himself ; and both corps showed a devotion to their arduous duties which it would be difficult to parallel. The scarcity of water in the desert precluded the possibility of forming camps at intervals or working in sections. By a brilliant intuition Annenkoff conceived the idea of a camp on wheels, which would move onwards as the work progressed, and be furnished with provisions and material by construction trains. It contained everything needful for comfort and efficiency. There were carriages for the office staff ; dormitories and restaurants in two-storeyed cars, a telegraph carriage, and a saloon for the director, resembling the cabin on a man-of-war in the compactness and modest luxury of its fittings. Each vehicle communicated with the others by means of covered passages ; and due attention was paid to ventilation and warming. Work began on the 30th of June 1885. The rails ¹ were spiked down to the sleepers without the aid of chairs, and the rolling camp moved forwards at a speed which was ultimately four miles a day. When Kizil Arvat had thus been reached the soil ahead was levelled by 22,000 Tekke labourers, whom stern necessity had compelled to exchange their long knives for spades and sacks. ² The rails and sleepers, brought from the base daily by a portable railway on the Decauville system, were rapidly laid on the soil thus prepared. Water in this dry and thirsty land is of prime importance. It was provided at Uzun Ada, the Caspian terminus, by a huge distilling apparatus. At other points the streams issuing from the distant hills were diverted into reservoirs, whence the precious liquid was carried to the line in pipes. At Merv the source of supply was a canal connected with the Murghāb. The waterless tracts were supplied from the nearest spring in immense wooden tubs placed on trucks. To avoid the interruption in the flow of materials due to the closure of the Volga by thick-ribbed ice, great depôts were formed at Merv, Charjūy, and, later, at Bokhārā, while the minutest care was given to perfecting every portion of the complicated mechanism. Divanis <sc>or</sc> Dervishes https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203641705/a1bea995-d2ca-4507-82f4-7e6333957ed9/content/figu_25_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>