The line is maintained regardless of cost, and allowance must be made for the many difficulties to be overcome. It is true that there is no need for so many miles of snow-sheds as the Canadian Pacific railway has found necessary, but for thousands of versts across the steppes snow-screens have to be set up parallel to the track, to keep the snow from drifting over the permanent way and blocking the line. In spring and autumn there are heavy floods, and not infrequently a “wash-out,” in summer the unballasted track is blown away from the sleepers and must be constantly renewed. In winter everywhere, and in summer on many sections, the supply of water is kept up at great expense, and a drought would threaten the running of extra traffic. Two engines are required on heavy grades, and special twenty-wheel locomotives are used on the hilly sections. Hot water is kept night and day at most stations, and the trains suffer severely from the inclement weather. The double windows are permanently frosted; often the vestibule doors become fast, great patches of frozen snow adhere to the roofs, the sides and panels are hidden under a thick white hoar, and long streaming icicles hang from the roof to the bogie truck where the water from the tank for the heating apparatus in each carriage has splashed over during the day’s run. At every large station there is a special gang of attendants, who attack the train vigorously on its arrival; they use hammers and crow-bars, iron rods heated red, long flaming torches, scalding water, and even light fires of shavings under the carriages to free the breaks, and little by little thaw out the working parts of the frost-bound train, wringing, as it were, tears of anguish from the cold-hearted monster that has crossed the bleak plateaux of Siberia in winter. The Baikal ferry was presumed to be the weakest link in the through chain of railway communication. At this date both of the ice-breakers were running daily, but were needing their periodical overhauling in dock. The larger steamer was capable of putting seven trains, or seven thousand men, across the lake every two days. The _Angara_ could be counted upon to ferry across five hundred men every day. If goods were taken instead of troops, there would be an appreciable lessening of the number of voyages owing to the delay in loading and discharging. The _Baikal_ can accommodate on deck twenty-four loaded trucks, or covered vans, and as these are simply run on board and off again on to the rails, a complete train can have quick despatch. The ice was over three feet in thickness, but the _Angara_, much the smaller of the two steamers, not only crossed in good time, but on several occasions went out of the track, and cut a new road through the solid virgin ice of the lake.