SS Baikal

SS Baikal was an ice breaking train ferry that linked the eastern and western parts of the Trans-Siberian Railroad across Lake Baikal. On 30 December 1895 a contract was signed with Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth and Co Ltd of Newcastle upon Tyne for the parts of the ferry, which were shipped as 7,000 crates to St Petersburg and assembled at Listvenichnoye, and she was launched on 29 June 1899. Until the Circum-Baikal Railway opened in 1905, Baikal and later her sister Angara carried two loads a day between the piers at Baikal and Mysovaya. In the Russian Civil War she was armed by the Bolsheviks, was damaged by field artillery fire on 15 August 1918 and sunk at Mysovaya, and her hull was later dismantled.