. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. on termini. At thefarthest of these stand five unusually large and heavy corridorcarriages and a powerful engine. As always in Russia, a crowdof uniformed officials is on hand ; a brilliant light pours throughthe little windows high up in the flat sides of the carriages ; thelocomotive is only purring softly, but somewhere in the train anengine is at work at high speed, for there is a cloud of escaping THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 103 steam, a stream of wood sparks, and a shril
. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. on termini. At thefarthest of these stand five unusually large and heavy corridorcarriages and a powerful engine. As always in Russia, a crowdof uniformed officials is on hand ; a brilliant light pours throughthe little windows high up in the flat sides of the carriages ; thelocomotive is only purring softly, but somewhere in the train anengine is at work at high speed, for there is a cloud of escaping THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 103 steam, a stream of wood sparks, and a shrill buzz; and a chatter-inj^, laughing, crying crowd is at each entrance taking long leaveof those going far away. Three strokes of the bell, big menwith swords kiss each other fervently, a whistle, a snort of theengine, an answering whistle, and the train is off into the nighton its unbroken journey of 3371 miles, to the far confines of thatland whose name was recently only a synonym of horror. The Russians are very proud of their Siberian train. Theytold me at every chance that I could never have seen such a train. A SIBERIAN LOCOMOTIVE —that there is nothing so luxurious and so complete in the is a mistake of tact—it rather causes one to look for short-comings, and little failings look larger in the light of these boasts,Moreover, the Siberian Express needs no puff; from almost everypoint of view it is a marvellous achievement, though the trainitself is not so wonderful as Russians think. It differs enough,however, from all other trains de luxe to be worth a detailed des-cription. The first engine I noticed was built in France, all therest were Russian, and some of these, with four large driving-wheels coupled together, were extremely powerful. These werefreight engines; in fact,after the line enters Siberia all its enginesare freight engines; the train is a very heavy one,the speed is lowand passenger engines will not come until the line is completeand a great
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Keywords: ., bookauthortolstoyl, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1902
