Planning for the railway and building began in 1926. The Pizhemskaya logging railway's first line was constructed in 1926, in the area of Tonshayevsky District in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast from the village Pizhma. The total length of the Pizhemskaya narrow-gauge railway at the peak of its development exceeded 80 kilometres (50 mi), of which 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) is currently operational. The railway operates scheduled freight services from Pizhma, used for forestry tasks such as the transportation of felled logs and forestry workers. In 2017, repairs are being made to the track.[2]