Trans-continental railway

Topic: World Transport and Communication · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 7 "Transport and Communication"

Meaning

A trans-continental railway is a railway line that runs across a whole continent and links its two ends, usually one coast to the other. These lines were built for economic and political reasons. They opened up remote inland areas to ports and markets, and they held large countries together. Many of them have since lost traffic to air and road transport.

Explanation

Why they were built: cause → process → result

• Economic reason: opening up the interior
• Large inland areas (Siberia, the Canadian prairies, the Australian desert) had farms, forests and mines but no easy way to reach the sea.
• A railway from coast to coast carried their timber, grain, furs and minerals to ports.

• As a result, distant regions joined national and world trade.

• Political reason: holding a nation together

• Big countries had regions far away from the capital.
• A railway tied these regions to the centre and persuaded new provinces to join.

• Example: the Trans-Canadian line was built so that British Columbia would join the Canadian federation.

• Making regions complementary (each region supplies what the others need)

• In Canada, the line joined the Quebec–Montreal industrial region, the prairie wheat belt (flat grassland of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) and the coniferous forest region in the north.

The main lines (NCERT)

Railway	Continent	Direction	Ends
Trans-Siberian	Asia (Russia)	West → East	St Petersburg (Baltic Sea) → Vladivostok (Pacific / Sea of Japan)
Trans-Canadian	North America	East → West	Halifax (Atlantic) → Vancouver (Pacific)
Union and Pacific	North America (USA)	East → West	New York (Atlantic) → San Francisco (Pacific)
Australian Trans-Continental	Australia	West → East	Perth (Indian Ocean) → Sydney (Pacific / Tasman Sea)
Orient Express	Europe	West → South-east	Paris → Istanbul (Bosphorus)

What each line needed to overcome

• Physical barriers: the Trans-Siberian crosses the Ural Mountains (the divide between European and Asian Russia) and the Ob and Yenisei rivers. Both rivers flow north into the Arctic Ocean.
• Dry, empty land: the Australian line crosses the Nullarbor Plain, a flat, dry, almost treeless limestone plain along the Great Australian Bight.
• Link to waterways: the Trans-Canadian has a loop line from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay (on Lake Superior). It joins the railway to the Great Lakes waterway, so grain can travel on by ship.

Decline and new life

• Passenger traffic has moved to airways and roads.
• Goods traffic now depends on bulk freight and new corridors, such as China–Europe freight trains under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which use much of the old Trans-Siberian and Central Asian routes.

Where it occurs

• Trans-Siberian Railway (Russia)
• Route, west to east: St Petersburg – Moscow – Ufa – Novosibirsk – Irkutsk – Chita – Khabarovsk – Vladivostok.
• It is 9,332 km long and is the world's longest double-tracked and electrified trans-continental railway. Double-tracked means it has two parallel tracks, so trains going opposite ways do not have to wait for each other.
• It was completed in 1916 [6]. It is the most important route in Asia, and it carried Siberian timber, furs, grain and minerals to West European markets.
• Chita is an agro-centre (a farm-trade town). Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal, is a fur centre.
• Branch lines go south to Odessa, Baku, Tashkent, Ulan Bator, Shenyang (Mukden) and Beijing.

• Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM): a northern parallel line of about 3,200 km. It runs from Ust-Kut on the Lena to Komsomolsk-na-Amure on the Amur and opened in 1989 [5]. It sits further away from the Chinese border.

• Trans-Canadian Railway (Canada)

• Route: Halifax – Montreal – Ottawa – Winnipeg – Calgary – Vancouver, 7,050 km long.
• The last spike was driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia, on 7 November 1885, completing the Canadian Pacific Railway [4]. NCERT gives 1886 as the year it was built.

• It is Canada's economic artery. Its main exports are wheat and meat.

• Union and Pacific Railway (USA)

• Route: New York – Cleveland – Chicago – Omaha – Evans – Ogden – Sacramento – San Francisco. It carries ores, grain, paper, chemicals and machinery.

• The Central Pacific company built eastward from Sacramento, and the Union Pacific company built westward from the east. The two lines met at Promontory Summit, Utah, on 10 May 1869 [3].

• Australian Trans-Continental Railway

• Route: Perth – Kalgoorlie (gold) – Port Augusta – Broken Hill (silver, lead, zinc) – Sydney, across the Nullarbor Plain.

• A north–south line runs Adelaide – Alice Springs – Darwin. The Darwin–Alice Springs section was finished in 2003 [7], and through trains have run since 2004.

• Orient Express (Europe)

• Route: Paris – Strasbourg – Munich – Vienna – Budapest – Belgrade – Istanbul. It started in 1883.

• India: the Trans-Asian Railway

• NCERT proposal: a Trans-Asiatic Railway from Istanbul to Bangkok through Iran, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
• The UN ESCAP Trans-Asian Railway Network Agreement came into force on 11 June 2009, and India is a party [2]. UN ESCAP is the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Don't confuse with

• Trans-Siberian vs Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM): the Trans-Siberian runs across the whole of Russia from St Petersburg to Vladivostok. BAM is a shorter northern parallel line from Ust-Kut to Komsomolsk-na-Amure [5].
• Union and Pacific vs Canadian Pacific: the US line was completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (1869) [3]. The Canadian line was completed at Craigellachie, British Columbia (1885) [4].
• Trans-continental railway vs Orient Express: true trans-continental lines run coast to coast. The Orient Express is a long international route from Paris to Istanbul that ends at the gateway to Asia, not at a second ocean.
• Trans-continental railway vs inter-oceanic canal: both cut travel time between oceans, but a canal (Suez, Panama) is a waterway for ships. The US railway and the Suez Canal both opened in 1869.

Prelims Hooks

• Longest double-tracked, electrified trans-continental railway: the Trans-Siberian, 9,332 km, completed in 1916 [6].
• Trap: Chita = agro-centre, Irkutsk = fur centre. Do not swap them.
• Trans-Canadian loop line: Winnipeg → Thunder Bay, linking the railway to the Great Lakes waterway.
• First continuous railway across the USA: completed at Promontory Summit, Utah, on 10 May 1869 with the golden "Last Spike" [3].
• Australian line: crosses the Nullarbor Plain, with Kalgoorlie (gold) and Broken Hill (silver-lead-zinc) on the route.
• Orient Express (1883): cut the London–Istanbul journey to 96 hours, down from 10 days by sea.

Mains Points

• Nation-building role (GS-I): these railways held large countries together.
• The Canadian line brought British Columbia into the federation.
• The Trans-Siberian tied Russia's Pacific coast to Moscow.

• The US line joined the east and west coasts after 1869 [3].

• Opening up resources (GS-I): they connected remote interiors to markets.

• Siberian timber and furs reached European markets.
• Canadian prairie wheat moved through the Winnipeg–Thunder Bay loop and the Great Lakes.
• Australian mining towns such as Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill were linked to the ports.

• Limit: many lines have lost traffic to air and road, and now depend on bulk freight and new corridors such as China–Europe trains under BRI.

• India and the Trans-Asian Railway (GS-III): it could give India a land link to Southeast Asia and West Asia [2].

• Barriers: gauge breaks (neighbouring countries use different track widths, so goods must change trains at borders; India's broad gauge is 1.676 m), tension with Pakistan and conflict in Myanmar.
• Possible responses: connecting through Myanmar under the Act East policy, and using other corridors such as INSTC (via Iran) and IMEC.

Related concepts

• Trans-Siberian Railway
• Trans-Canadian Railway
• Union and Pacific Railway
• Australian Trans-Continental Railway
• Orient Express
• Trans-Asian Railway

Read more

• Trans-continental railways