The Great Highway (1948)

Panorama of the Siberian taiga (top).

Forest landscapes.

A sign installed at the site of the future railway.

Siberian forest and mountain landscapes at the site of the future South Siberian Railway.

Scheme of the South Siberian and Trans-Siberian Railways on the map of the USSR. Ural, Altai, Siberian landscapes, nature of the regions.

Panorama of one of the industrial enterprises.

Design engineers make marks on a map hanging on the wall with a scheme of the railway.

Coal mining in the quarries of Ekibastuz using blasts.

An excavator in an ore quarry in Khakassia.

View of one of the Kulunda salt lakes.

Salt mined in the lake.

Oil rigs at the Ishimbayevsky field in the Bashkir ASSR. Ripened ears of wheat.

A combine harvesting wheat in the Kulunda steppes.

Pine trunks.

A team of lumberjacks at work.

Felling trees to clear a future highway.

Tree trunks lying on the ground.

Design engineers at a map.

A survey team passes along the future route, breaking through the thickets of bushes.

Surveyors walk through the forest.

The leaders of the survey party clarify the route on the map, a view of the steep river bank.

Surveyors cross the river.

Conducting a geodetic survey of the area.

A surveyor at an automatic tachymeter on the river bank.

Surveyors in a tent make calculations.

Surveyors climb the slope of a hill.

A member of the crew of a reconnaissance aircraft conducts a survey of the area.

An example of an aerial photograph of the area from an airplane (animation).

A crew member conducts an aerial survey.

Developing materials from aerial surveys of the area in a laboratory in Moscow.

Operation of a special device for stereoscopic combination of images - a stereoplanigraph.

Making maps of the area using a stereoplanigraph.

A laboratory employee at the eyepiece of the device.

Drawing a map.

Deep electrical exploration apparatus for soil.

The operating principle of the apparatus for electrical exploration and geological structure of soil layers (animation).

A geologist conducts soil exploration and records the results in a notebook.

Underground water flows out of a pipe.

Collecting sand and clay samples to determine their quality.

Interior view of the laboratory.

Laboratory staff analyze the soil of the future route.

The process of studying soil samples.

Analyzing sand grains shaken in a test tube.

Making a design drawing of one of the structures on the future route.

Employees of the drawing bureau at work.

Sketch of one of the structures.

Construction managers analyze the obtained data.

Design documentation for the future South Siberian Railway.

Relief map of the area, the final dotted line of the highway appears (animation).

Special equipment for earthworks during the construction of the South Siberian Railway.

Construction of a railway embankment using a grader-elevator.

Construction of a railway bridge across one of the Siberian rivers.

A boat crosses a river.

Blasting operations and felling trees along the route of the future highway.

An excavator operator at the controls, an excavator clearing and laying the track.

Excavator buckets dig up soil.

Loading soil onto railway platforms.

Unloading soil from railway platforms using a special bulldozer.

Platforms with soil are moving.

The process of tamping ballast under sleepers using a ballasting machine designed by Bizyaev.

Laying sections of track using a track layer designed by Platov.

Laying the next section on the embankment.

View of the railway track.

A train travels along one of the open sections of the South Siberian Mainline, smoke from the locomotive's chimney.