As soon as the ice attained a thickness of about 4½ ft., the expedient was adopted of laying a pair of rails along it in order, more especially, that the additional engines and railway wagons urgently needed on the lines east of the lake could be taken across. The rails were laid on sleepers of exceptional length, the weight being thus distributed over a greater surface of ice; but, even with this precaution, it was no easy matter to keep the line in working order owing to the extreme cold, to storms, to the occasional ice movements and cracks, or to the effect of earthquake shocks in destroying lengths of line, sections of which sometimes required to be relaid almost as soon as they had been put down. The line was begun on February 10 and completed by the 29th of the same month. Between March 1 and March 26 there were taken across the lake, by this means, sixty-five dismantled locomotives (rebuilt on arrival on the eastern side), twenty-five railway carriages, and 2,313 goods wagons. Transport was provided by horses, the number so used being about 1,000. Constructed to serve an exclusively military purpose, this twenty-five-mile line across Lake Baikal may certainly be regarded as a "military railway," while as a military ice-railway it holds a unique position in the history of warfare. When, owing to the advancing season, the ice on the lake could no longer be trusted to bear either railway trucks or sledges, and when navigation was again open, dependence had to be placed on the ferry services. There were, however, only two vessels available for the transfer of railway trucks across the lake, and each of these, accommodating twenty-seven trucks at a time, could make no more than three return crossings in the twenty-four hours. Only in one way could an improvement be effected in these obviously inadequate facilities for getting an army to Manchuria, and that was in carrying the railway round the southern end of the lake, thus avoiding the delay caused by the hitherto unavoidable transshipment and crossing, and ensuring a continuous rail journey. The need for this _Circum-Baikal link_ had, in fact, become urgent, and the work was pushed on with the greatest vigour.