The Japanese were not well provided with Railway Troops; but they were none the less active in endeavouring to destroy the Russian lines of communication, on which so much depended. For instance, the railway to Port Arthur was cut by them near Wa-fang-tien at 11 p.m. on May 6. The Russians repaired the line, and by May 10 a further train-load of ammunition was sent over it into Port Arthur. Three days later the Japanese cut the line at another point, and from that time Port Arthur was isolated. As regards the _operation_ of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese Railways, Colonel W. H. H. Waters says:--[51] Taking the railway as a whole, from Chelyabinsk, which is the western terminus of the Siberian portion, to Mukden, a distance of close upon 4,000 miles, it has worked better than I expected; but the one great fault connected with it has been, and is, the incapacity of Russian railwaymen, civil or military, to handle heavy station traffic properly. If Russia were to pay a British or American goods-yard foreman, say from Nine Elms station, a salary, no matter how high, and let him import his own staff of assistants, the improvement of the Asiatic lines in question would be remarkable. Then, again, Captain C. E. Vickers, R.E., writing on "The Siberian Railway in War," in the issue of "The Royal Engineers Journal" (Chatham) for August, 1905, points to the need which was developed for the _control_ of the railway during war by a separate staff, as distinct from the staffs concerned in arranging operations, distributing supplies and munitions, and other military duties. Whether due to the personal incapacity spoken of by the one authority here quoted, or to the lack of a separate organisation alluded to by the other, the fact remains that the operation of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines did give rise to a degree of confusion that must have greatly increased the difficulties of the position in which the Russians were placed. When, for example, in September, 1904, reservists were urgently wanted at Mukden after the retreat from Liao-yang, the traffic was so mismanaged that it took the troops seven days to do the 337 miles from Harbin--an average speed of two miles per hour. On December 5, Harbin Junction was so blocked in all directions by trains which could neither move in nor go out that traffic had to be suspended for twelve hours until the entanglement was set right. Still further, after the fall of Port Arthur, on January 2, 1905, and the augmentation of the Japanese forces by Nogi's army, the arrival of reinforcements then so greatly needed by the Russians was delayed for over one month to allow of the forwarding of a quantity of stores which had accumulated on the line.