Chovbalsan Railroad Missing in all forms of AE

[el cid again]

For some reason no version of WITP or AE has ever included the RR from
Borzya (Siberia) to Chovbalsan (Mongolia). This line runs E from 103/28
to 104/28 W & NE, 104/27 SW & NE, 105/26 SW & E to 106/26 W. It is a
major reason the USSR won the 1938 war with Japan over Khalkan Gol
(or Nomanhan).

[LargeSlowTarget]

The railroad is missing but it appears to have been constructed after the Khalkan Gol / Normanhan battle.

https://www.sinfin.net/railways/world/mongolia.html :

The first railway line in Mongolia was a narrow gauge (750mm) line connecting the capital, Ulaanbaatar, with the coal mines of Nalaikh, some 33km distant. It opened in 1938. [Note: This railroad is missing as well]

During World War II, Japanese forces occupied Manchuria in northern China. The Soviet Union saw this as a threat and despite a non-agression pact signed between Russia and Japan in 1941, built up a strong military presence in eastern Mongolia, then effectively a satellite country of the Soviet Union. There were three bases at Sanbeis, Matad and Tamsagbulag. The bases were constructed in secret and much of their history was unknown until recently. Only in 2015 did a team of Japanese archaeologists confirm that the three bases were served by a railway. The Russian (1520mm) gauge railway diverged from the Manchurian branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway at Borzya and crossed into Mongolia to serve the bases. Its total length was around 400km, and it appears to have been completed in 1943. A section of the line as far as Choibasan was retained after the War, and appears to be still active today. From 1988 to 1993 there was a branch north from Choibasan serving a uranium mine at Mardai.

The printed source "Area Handbook for Mongolia" indicates that the Borzya-Choibasan line was Russian broad gauge and that narrow gauge (1 meter) spur lines were build 1940-1941 around Choibasan "both for strategic and economic reasons".

[Dreamslayer]

"Who are you, mister Choybalsan?"

(Mongolian marshal Choybalsan between komandarm Shtern and komkor Zhukov, at command post Khamar-Daba, seems somewhere near Khalkhin-Gol area during that conflict)


There could be some confusion in various sources about location Bayan-Tumen/Choybalsan during that period because of Bayan-Tumen was renamed to Choybalsan on 1941.

[Dreamslayer]

The Russian (1520mm) gauge railway diverged from the Manchurian branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway at Borzya and crossed into Mongolia to serve the bases.

Molotov's RR, general scheme, 1943
to West Eastern-Siberian/Vostochno-Sibirskaya RR, to East Amur/Amurskaya RR

(Atlas "RR schemes of USSR", 1943 / "Схемы железных дорог и водных путей сообщения СССР", Центральное Управление военных сообщений Красной Армии (для служебного пользования), 1943

From 1936 till 1943 this RR had name "Molotov"s/imeni Molotova RR" (on Sep 1943 previous name "TransBaikal/Zabaykal'skaya RR" was returned).

[Kull]

Nice Map!