Editing Baikal–Amur Mainline (section)

===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/>