The Columbia River is too narrow for ships.
The Yuzhno -- Uralskaya Railway -LRB- Южно-Уральская железная дорога ; `` South Ural Railway '' -RRB- is a subsidiary of the Russian Railways headquartered in Chelyabinsk .. Russian Railways. Russian Railways. Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk Oblast. It operates the railways in the Orenburg , Chelyabinsk , Kurgan , and Sverdlovsk regions as well as the Republic of Bashkortostan .. Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk Oblast. Orenburg. Orenburg. Kurgan. Kurgan Oblast. Sverdlovsk. Sverdlovsk Oblast. Bashkortostan. Bashkortostan. Their total length is 4935 km .. Several stretches of the railway cross the territory of what is now Kazakhstan .. Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan. The railway was part of the Ural , or Perm , Railway until 1934 .. The Chelyabinsk -- Yekaterinburg line was constructed in the 1880s and early 1890s as part of the Trans-Siberian Railway -LRB- its southern route -RRB- .. Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk Oblast. Yekaterinburg. Yekaterinburg. Trans-Siberian Railway. Trans-Siberian Railway. The Orenburg -- Samara line was opened in 1877 .. Orenburg. Orenburg. Samara. Samara, Russia. Several other lines were added during Joseph Stalin 's industrialization to serve the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works and other newly built factories .. Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin. Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works