Editing Baikal–Amur Mainline (section)

==History==

===Early plans and start of construction===
The route of the present-day BAM first came under consideration in the 1880s as an option for the eastern section of the planned Trans-Siberian railway.

In the 1930s, [[labor-camp]] inmates, in particular from the [[Bamlag]] camp of the [[Gulag]] system, built the section from Tayshet to [[Bratsk]]. In a confusing transfer of names, the label ''BAM'' applied from 1933 to 1935 to the project to double-track the Trans-Siberian east of Lake Baikal, constructed largely using forced labor.<ref name=shabad>{{cite book |author1=Shabad, Theodore  |author2=Mote, Victor L |title=Gateway to Siberian Resources (The BAM) |pages=71–73 |publisher=Halstead Press/John Wiley |location=New York |year=1977 |isbn=0-470-99040-6}}</ref>

1945 saw the finalisation of plans for upgrading the BAM for diesel or electric instead of steam traction, and for the heavier axle-loads of eight-axle oil tankers to carry new-found oil from Western Siberia.<ref>
Compare:
{{cite book
| last1                 = Gaidar
| first1                = Yegor
| author-link1          = Yegor Gaidar
| title                 = Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia
| url                   = https://books.google.com/books?id=bDSfnxYjVwAC
| translator                = Antonina W. Bouis
| publisher             = Brookings Institution Press
| date      = 2010
| page                  = 100
| isbn                  = 9780815731153
| access-date            = 2015-12-05
| quote                 = The first oil well in Western Siberia was opened in September 1953.73 Large-scale geological discoveries came in the period 1961-65 [...].
}}
</ref> The upgrading required 25 years and 3,000 surveyors and designers, although much of the redesign work (particularly as regards the central section) took place between 1967 and 1974.<ref name=shabad/>

===Construction project of the century===
[[File:RIAN archive 463353 Rally on occasion of arrival of construction team.jpg|thumb|left|A rally in [[Ust-Ilimsk]], [[Irkutsk Region]], on the occasion of the arrival of a building team for construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway. 1979.]]
In March 1974, Soviet [[General secretary|General Secretary]] [[Leonid Brezhnev| Brezhnev]] proposed that the BAM would be one of the two major projects in the [[Tenth Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)|Tenth Five Year Plan]] (1976–80).<ref name=shabad/> He famously stated that "BAM will be constructed with clean hands only!" and firmly rejected the suggestion to again use [[prison labor]]. A few weeks later, he challenged the Young Communist League ([[Komsomol]]) to join in "the construction project of the century".<ref name=brown/> The 17th [[Komsomol]] congress (held in April 1974) announced the BAM as a Komsomol [[shock construction project]], created the central Komsomol headquarters of BAM construction, and appointed [[Dmitry Nikolayevich Filippov|Dmitry Filippov]] the chief of the headquarters.

By the end of 1974, perhaps 50,000 young people of the 156,000 young people who applied had moved to the BAM service area. In 1975 and 1976, 28 new settlements were inaugurated and 70 new bridges, including the Amur and Lena bridges, were erected. And while {{convert|110|mi|km}} of track was laid, the track-laying rate would have needed to nearly triple to meet the 1983 deadline.<ref name=shabad/>

In September 1984, a "[[golden spike]]" was hammered into place, connecting the eastern and western sections of the BAM. The Western media was not invited to attend this historic event as Soviet officials did not want any comments about the line's operational status. In reality, only one third of the BAM's track was fully operational for civilians, due to military reasons.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Ward, C.J. |title=Selling the "Project of the Century": Perceptions of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM) in the Soviet Press, 1974–1984 |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |year=2001 |volume=43 |pages=75–95|doi=10.1080/00085006.2001.11092272 |s2cid=129139539 }}</ref>

The BAM was again declared complete in 1991. By then, the total cost to build the line was [[United States Dollar|US$]]14 [[billion]] ([[Russian ruble|RU₽]]106 [[trillion]]).

===Crisis===
Beginning in the mid-1980s, the BAM project attracted increasing criticism for having been poorly planned. Infrastructure and basic services like running water were often not in place when workers arrived. At least 60 [[boomtown]]s developed along the route, but today many of these places are deserted [[ghost town]]s and unemployment in the area is high. The building of the BAM has also been criticised for its complete lack of environmental protection.<ref>{{cite book |author=Victor L. Mote |chapter=BAM after the fanfare: the unbearable ecumene |editor=John M. Steward |title=The Soviet environment: problems, policies and politics |publisher=Cambridge |year=1990 |pages=40–54 |isbn=9780521414180}}</ref>

When the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union|Soviet Union was dissolved]], numerous mining and industrial projects in the region were cancelled and the BAM was greatly underutilized until the late 1990s, running at a large operational deficit.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}}

In 1996, the BAM as a single operational body was dissolved, with the western section from [[Tayshet]] to [[Khani, Sakha Republic|Khani]] becoming the [[East Siberian Railway]] and the rest transferred to the management of the [[Far Eastern Railway]].{{citation needed|date=April 2015}}

During the [[Russo-Ukrainian War]], on November 30, 2023, an explosion occurred in the [[Severomuysky Tunnel]]. A second explosion happened soon thereafter on the bypass used as backup for the tunnel. The [[Security Service of Ukraine]] claimed responsibility for the explosions.<ref>{{cite web |url =https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/12/1/7431210/ |title=Ukraine's Security Service blows up railway linking Russia and China |publisher=[[Ukrainska Pravda]] |date=2023-12-01 |access-date=2023-12-01}}</ref>