Old postcards Baikal-Amur Mainline

The Baikal–Amur Mainline, known in the USSR simply as BAM, is a 4,324 km railway across Eastern Siberia and the Far East, running roughly 610–770 km north of the Trans-Siberian and laid largely on permafrost. Its main construction phase lasted from 1974 to 1984: young volunteers arrived on Komsomol (Communist Youth League) assignments, while railway troops built the eastern section from Tynda to Vanino.

These Soviet postcards of BAM come from four sets photographed on the line itself in 1977–1980. The 1977 set records the first stage: “Track-laying machine on the line”, “The first houses of Zvezdny” and “Rally in Zvezdny for the arrival of the first train”. The 1978 set centres on the Baikal Tunnel through the Baikal Range, begun in 1974, with work at its western portal, a bridge over the Kirenga River and a logging crew near the Davan Pass.

The 1979 cards move east to the Tynda–Berkakit line, which entered permanent service that same year: “Duty officer at Berkakit station”, embankment work on the Tynda–Berkakit section and “The first rails on Yakut soil”. Everyday scenes fill the rest — a café in the settlement of Lapri, children from Mogot, a festival of amateur song in Tynda. The 1980 set moves to the eastern section: “Bridge over the Amur”, “The Dusse-Alin Tunnel” and “The first train to Komsomolsk-on-Amur”.

For anyone looking for period photos of BAM, this is the railway while it was still being built, not as it was remembered later.