What's the source for this? Googling "Not 1982" is not helpful... I did find the following amusing quote though:

His engineers were once consulting [Tsar Nicholas] as to the expediency of taking the line from St Petersburg to Moscow by a slight detour to avoid some very troublesome obstacles. The Tsar took up a ruler and with his pencil drew a straight line from the old metropolis. Handing back the chart he peremptorily said "There, gentlemen, that is to be the route for the line!"

"The Trans-Siberian Railway". In The Living Age, seventh series volume five, 1899