Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway officially opened
- When
- 1851
- Where
- Saint Petersburg to Moscow
- Episodes
- 1
The Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway officially opened on 1 November 1851 after ten years of construction. Tsar Nicholas I ordered the project's construction in 1842, and engineer Pavel Melnikov supervised its building. The first passenger train departed Saint Petersburg in the morning and arrived in Moscow the following evening.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. Tsar Nicholas I issued a ukase ordering the railway's construction on 1 February 1842. The project was a pet project of Pavel Melnikov, an engineer and administrator who supervised its construction. Melnikov died in Saint Petersburg in 1849, two years before the line was completed.
Official Opening. After ten years of construction, the line officially opened on 1 November 1851. The first passenger train left Saint Petersburg at 11:15 and arrived in Moscow at 21:00 the next day. The railway runs for 649.7 kilometers through four oblasts.
People involved
- Nicholas I · Tsar who ordered construction
- Pavel Melnikov · Engineer and administrator who supervised construction
Sources
- Saint Petersburg–Moscow railway Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-04
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.