The Trans-Siberian Harbin–Suifenhe railway, named the Binsui Railway (), is a double-track electrified trunk

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

in Northeast

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

between

Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...

and Suifenhe on the Russian border. The line was originally built by

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

as the eastern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which linked Chita with

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

. Today, the railway is administered by Harbin Railway Bureau.

History

Initial construction of the Binsui Railway as a Russian gauge line of the Sino-Russian Chinese Eastern Railway started on 9 June 1898 at the two termini of the line, Harbin in China and

Ussuriysk Ussuriysk () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, in the valley of the Razdolnaya River. The city is north of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the krai, and about from both the China–Russia bo ...

in Russia. The partially built line was destroyed during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

between March and July 1900, causing the project to be suspended. Construction resumed in October, and on 14 November 1901 operation on a temporary basis was started. Official opening of the line took place on 14 July 1903. After the creation of the

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

puppet state A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a State (polity), state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside Power (international relations), power and subject to its ord ...

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...

in 1932, the CER became a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

-Manchukuo joint enterprise, and was renamed the "North Manchuria Railway". In March 1935, the government of

purchased the Soviet share of the NMR, and merged it into the Manchukuo National Railway, and on 17 June 1936, work to convert the line, known during that time as the Binsui Line (Hinsui Line in Japanese), from Russian broad gauge to

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

was completed. The MNR double tracked the line as far as Yimianpo in 1939, and relaid the line with heavier rail in 1942. The MNR began construction of the original Ducao Tunnel in July 1937, opening the new, shorter line on 31 July 1942. At , it was China's longest railway tunnel. To expand the capacity of the line,

China Railway China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., doing business as China Railway (CR), is the national passenger and freight railroad corporation of the China, People's Republic of China. China Railway operates passenger and freight Rail transport in Chi ...

decided to build a second tunnel, in length, in 1961, but construction was suspended a year later. Work resumed on 1 May 1975, and was completed by the end of 1978. Refurbishment of the original tunnel began in September 1985 and was completed on 21 December 1988. After the

Soviet invasion of Manchuria The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation or simply the Manchurian Operation () and sometimes Operation August Storm, began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet Union, Soviet invasion of the Emp ...

in 1945, the Soviet Army converted the line back to Russian broad gauge. In 1946, it was converted back to standard gauge once again, and the double tracking was removed; the rails taken up were used to repair other lines. Between 1945 and 1955, the railways in the territory of the former Manchukuo were controlled by the Sino-Soviet China Changchun Railway, after which the railways of the region were taken over by China Railways; the Binsui Line then reverted to its original name, Binsui Railway. The double tracking of the section from Harbin to Mudanjiang was rebuilt by China Railways in 1958. Electrification of the line began in 2010, and the first section, from Mudanjiang to Suifenhe, was completed on 28 December 2015. Wiring of the Harbin–Mudanjiang section began in April 2016. Passenger traffic on the line has increased to 2.3 million passengers annually.牡绥铁路扩能改造工程竣工通车
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Route

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harbin-Suifenhe Railway Railway lines in China Rail transport in Heilongjiang Railway lines opened in 1901 Chinese Eastern Railway