At this stage of construction, demand for rails exceeded Russia's output. In 1893 a scheme was initiated by the naval ministry to prove that substantial shipments of material could be delivered to the [M 037 / Krasnoyarsk] area by water.
An order of 6,000 rails was bought in England and sent via the Kara Sea to the Yenisei Estuary where they were off-loaded onto barges. Most of the rails were lost in the river during the transfer; those that survived were transported upstream to Krasnoyarsk. The following year the rest of the rails were recovered from the river bottom and also shipped upriver.
Contributing only 11 miles of track, this venture was costly and not repeated, but it had proven the viability of navigation along this route.
