The Murom Railway, 107 km, was opened officially on January 1, 1880, and operated from the beginning by the Nizhnyi Novgorod Railway with 13 locomotives, of which eight (class V) were built at state owned Votkin Works in 1877 - 1878, located at Votkinsk. The five class B locomotives were built by Schwartzkopff Werke (formerly L.Schwartzkopff) in Berlin, Germany in 1878. The ten kilometre extension was built in 1885, when the line was taken over by the state. The Murom Railway connected Nizhnyi Novgorod railway with private Moscow - Kazan Railway making both Murom and Kovrov, important railway junctions. After its construction, up to 80% of goods from Kovrov were bound for the Nizhny Novgorod Fair through the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod Railway. The Murom Railway was merged into the Moscow - Kur