History of rail transport in Russia
Encyclopedia
In Russia, the largest country in the world, its geography of N.-S. rivers and E.-W. commerce made it very suited to develop railroads as its basic mode of transportation. Railroad traffic in the Russian Empire
(before 1917) was weak compared to the size of the country, but it boomed under the Soviet Union
(1917 to 1991) only to decline after the Soviet Union fell apart, with the Russian Federation being its principal inheritor.
The Soviets modernized the rail system by electrification, building new lines and double-tracking, installing automatic couplers, brakes, and signalling, and founding Railway Universities. Soviet Railways became in some aspects (such as freight traffic, electrification, profitability and railway education), superior to all other railroad systems in the world.
Today Russian Railways
, a state-owned railway company, is one of the biggest railway companies in the world with 0.95 million employees and a monopoly
within Russia. The total length of line used by the Russian Railways is, at 85500 kilometres (53,127.4 mi), one of the largest in the world, exceeded only by the United States.
The government was able to turn around some money-losing railroads and make them profitable. The remaining private companies had strong incentive towards more efficient operation in order to avoid nationalization
.
The result, according to one observer was that: "Russian railroads gradually become perhaps the most economically operated railroads of the world.". Profits were high: over 100 million gold rubles a year to the government (exact amount unknown due to accounting defects).
After the Russian Revolution (1917) all railroads become government owned by the Soviet Union. During the earlier years, the Soviet railroads were financially in the red, but by 1965 they returned a profit to the Soviet Government of 13.3 % on their capital investment. By 1980 profits had nearly halved to 7.1%.
(during which Germany invaded Russia) freight traffic on Russian Railway reached nearly 100 billion tonne-kilometers (traffic on United States railways was about five times higher). But due to the war, a few years later Russian traffic had crashed to about 20 billion ton-km. Then the civil war started with the reds fighting the whites, which delayed the recovery of rail traffic. The reds (communists) won, resulting in the formation of the Soviet Union (USSR) and a new chapter in railway development.
in 1941 when Nazi Germany
invaded the Soviet Union
. In the first year or so of the war, traffic plummeted to about half its prewar value. But then the USSR started restoring and constructing railroads during wartime so that by the end of the war about half of the lost traffic had been recovered. After the war was over it took a few more years to restore the railroads and get back to the pre-war level of traffic.
Then the USSR embarked on a series of more five-year plans and rail traffic rapidly increased. By 1954 their rail freight traffic (about 850 billion tonne-km) surpassed that of the United States and the USSR then hauled more rail freight than any other country in the world. Rail freight continued to rapidly increase in the USSR so that by 1960 the USSR was hauling about half of all railroad freight in the world (in tonne-km) and they did this on a rail system consisting of only 10% of the world's railway kilometrage. The status of hauling half the world's rail freight continued for almost 30 years but in 1988 rail freight traffic peaked at 3852 billion tonne-km (nearly 4 trillion). And then, a few years later in 1991, the Soviet Union fell apart and its largest republic, the Russian Federation, which then hauled about 2/3 of the traffic of the former USSR, became an independent country.
For the USSR in 1989 (shortly before the collapse), the railroads hauled nearly eight times as much ton-km of freight by rail as they did by highway truck. For the US, it was only 1.5 times as much by rail. Thus trucks in the USSR played a far lesser role in hauling freight than they did in the US, leaving the railroad as the basic means of freight transportation. In 1991 a law was passed which declared that railroads were the basic transportation system of the USSR.
Russia was no longer number one for rail freight. In 1993 Russia was overtaken by the United States and the next year, 1994, it was overtaken by China So for rail freight, Russia had fallen from a strong first place to third and remains so to this day even though there was partial recovery to 2116 ton-km by 2008 which is still well below the peak of 2606 ton-km in 1998.
For a graph ('til 2002) see .
By 2010 there was reported to be a growing share of railroad freight being diverted to highway trucks.
In the early 1830s Russian inventors father and son Cherepanov
built the first Russian steam locomotive
s. The first railway track was built in Russia in 1837 between Saint-Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo
. It was 17 km long and linked the Imperial Palaces at Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk
. This railway has been described as a "toy
" railway, as it had no economic, political or social impact on the Russian Empire. The Department of Railways, later part of the Russian Ministry of Communications, was created in the Russian Empire
in 1842 in order to oversee the construction of Russia's first major railway line, the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway. The railway linked the imperial capital Saint-Petersburg and Moscow
and was built between 1842 and 1851.
On 15 June 1865, an edict of Alexander II established the Ministry of Communications, which absorbed the Department of Railways. In the 1860s and 70s, Pavel Melnikov
, Russia’s first Minister of Communications, played a key role in the expansion of the railway network throughout European Russia.
In the 1880s and 1890s, the Trans-Caspian railway
connected Russian Empire's Central Asian provinces (now, independent states of Turkmenistan
and Uzbekistan
) with the Caspian
port of Krasnovodsk; by 1906, Central Asia was directly connected by the Trans-Aral Railway
with European Russia via Kazahstan.
The Trans-Siberian Railway
connecting European Russia with the Russian Far East
provinces on the Sea of Japan
was built between 1891 and 1916. The Russian-built system included the Chinese Eastern Railway
, short-cutting across China
's Manchuria
; later on, its southern branch was connected with other Chinese railways.
During the First World War
and especially the Russian Civil War
more than 60% of the Russian railway network and more than 80% of the carriages and locomotives were destroyed. With the German and Turkish blockade of the Russian Baltic and Black Sea ports, the Trans-Siberian Railway acquired a new significance as the lifeline connecting Russian Empire to its World War I allies. To provide a shorter connection to the Entente
powers, a railway was constructed to the newly built Arctic ice-free port of Murmansk
as well (1916).
During World War I Russia used a mix of light and heavy armoured trains. The heavy trains mounted 4.2 inch or 6 inch guns while the light trains were equipped with 76.2mm guns.
was founded on 2 March 1917 by thirty five railway workers. The Transcaspian Government
was founded by Menshevik
and Social revolutionary
railway workers in revolt against the Bolshevik
s who ran the Tashkent Soviet and existed from July 1918 to July 1919.
Leon Trotsky
spent much of the Russian Civil War on board his armoured train
:
the People's Commissariat of Railways (after 1946 named the Ministry of Railways (МПС) expanded the railway network to a total length of 106,100 km by 1940. A notable project of the late 1920s and one of the centerpieces of the First Five-Year Plan
was the Turkestan–Siberia Railway, linking Western Siberia via Eastern Kazakhstan
with Uzbekistan
.
During the Great Patriotic War (World War II
) the railway system played a vital role in the war effort transporting military personnel, equipment and freight to the frontlines and often evacuating entire factories and towns from European Russia to the Ural region
and Siberia
. The loss of mining and industrial centers of the western Soviet Union necessitated speedy construction of new railways during the wartime. Particularly notable among them was the railway to the Arctic coal mines of Vorkuta
, extended after the war to Labytnangi
on the Ob River
; construction work to extend it all the way to the Yenisey continued into the 1950s, aborted with the death of Joseph Stalin
.
As a result of the World War II victory over Japan, the southern half of Sakhalin Island was returned to Russia in 1945. The 1067 mm railway network built by the Japanese during their forty years of control of Southern Sakhalin now became part of Soviet Railways as well (as a separate Sakhalin Railway
), the only Cape gauge
rail system within USSR (or today's Russia).
After the war the Soviet railway network was re-built and further expanded to more than 145,000 km of track by major additions such as Baikal Amur Mainline.
In 1932 the USSR opened their first short 3000 volt DC electrified segment in Georgia
(birthplace of the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
) on the Suramsk Pass grade located between the capital, Tbilisi
, and the Black Sea
. The grade (slope) was steep: 2.9%. The original fleet of 8 locomotives was imported from the United States and were made by General Electric
(GE). The
Soviets also got GE to give them construction drawings so as to enable the Soviets to construct similar locomotives. Strange as it may seem, the first Soviet locomotive to be made was not a copy, but one of Soviet design which was completed in Nov. 1932 with great fanfare. Later in the same month, the 2nd locomotive to be made in the USSR, a copy of the GE locomotive, was completed. At first, many more copies of U.S. design were made than for ones of Soviet design, since no more locomotives of Soviet design were made until 2 years later.
In 1941, prior to World War II
, the USSR had electrified only 1865 route-kilometers. This was well behind the US which had electrified nearly 5000 kilometers. However, since the USSR rail network was much shorter than the US, the percentage of the USSR's kilometers electrified was greater than the US.
Electrification was put on hold during World War II as the western part of the Soviet Union (including Russia) was invaded by Nazi Germany
. After the war, the highest priority was to rebuild the physical destruction caused by the War, so railroad electrification was further postponed for about 10 years.
In 1946, just one year after the end of World War II, the USSR ordered 20 electric locomotives from General Electric
, the same U.S. corporation that supplied locomotives for the first USSR electrification. But due to the cold war, they could not be delivered to the USSR so they were sold elsewhere. The Milwaukee Road in the U.S. obtained 12 of them where America nicknamed them "Little Joes"
, "Joe" referring to Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier.
In the mid-1950s, the USSR decided to launch a two pronged approach to replace their obsolete fleet of steam locomotives. They would electrify the lines with high density traffic and slowly convert the rest of the lines to diesel. The result was a slow but steady introduction of both electric and diesel traction which lasted until about 1980 when their last steam locomotives were retired. In the US, steam went out about 1960, 20 years earlier than for the USSR.
But once dieselization and electrification had fully replaced steam (around 1980) they began to convert some diesel lines to electric, but the pace of electrification slowed. The result was that by 1990, over 60% of the railway freight was being hauled by electric traction. This amounted to about 30% of the freight hauled by all railroads in the world and about 80% of rail freight in the US (where rail freight held almost a 40% modal share). The USSR was hauling more rail freight than all the other countries in the world combined, and most of this was going by electrified railway.
After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, railroad traffic in Russia, sharply declined and new major electrification projects were not undertaken except for the line to Murmansk which was completed in 2005. Work continued on completing the electrification of the Trans-Siberian Railway, but at a slower pace, finishing in 2002. However, the percent of tonne-kilometers hauled today by electric trains has increased to about 85%.
In 2003 a vast structural reform was implemented in order to preserve the unity of the railway network and separate the functions of state regulation from operational management: On 18 September 2003, Decree
No. 585 of the Russian Government
established the Russian Railways Public Corporation with state holds 100% of the share
s.
The Cape gauge railway system of Sakhalin is being re-gauged to 1520 mm.
The current CEO of the company is Vladimir Yakunin
. There are plans for partial privatization
of the company in the future in order to raise much needed capital
from the sale of shares. In 2009, Russian Railways stated that it expected a loss of 49.7 billion rubles in the year, compared with a profit of 13.4 billion rubles in 2008, and that it planned to shed 53,700 jobs from its workforce of 1.2 million.
In 2007, as part of a liberalisation process, Russian Railways established First Freight Company which holds a large number of freight wagons; in 2010, it was announced that Second Freight Company
would be established, and remaining freight wagons transferred to that.
In July 2010, RZD signed an agreement for Siemens to provide rolling stock (240 EMUs) and upgrade 22 marshalling yards.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(before 1917) was weak compared to the size of the country, but it boomed under the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(1917 to 1991) only to decline after the Soviet Union fell apart, with the Russian Federation being its principal inheritor.
The Soviets modernized the rail system by electrification, building new lines and double-tracking, installing automatic couplers, brakes, and signalling, and founding Railway Universities. Soviet Railways became in some aspects (such as freight traffic, electrification, profitability and railway education), superior to all other railroad systems in the world.
Today Russian Railways
Russian Railways
The Russian Railways , is the government owned national rail carrier of the Russian Federation, headquartered in Moscow. The Russian Railways operate over of common carrier routes as well as a few hundred kilometers of industrial routes, making it the second largest network in the world exceeded...
, a state-owned railway company, is one of the biggest railway companies in the world with 0.95 million employees and a monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
within Russia. The total length of line used by the Russian Railways is, at 85500 kilometres (53,127.4 mi), one of the largest in the world, exceeded only by the United States.
Government ownership
Due in part to the poor financial state of the Tsarist government and their inability to finance railroad construction, by the early 1880s all railroads were private companies. But then as private railroads got into financial difficultly, the government took over some of them, resulting in mixed system of private and government railways. However, the government had guaranteed payment of interest and dividends on the securities of the private railroads resulting in a strong incentive for government takeover of failing railroads.The government was able to turn around some money-losing railroads and make them profitable. The remaining private companies had strong incentive towards more efficient operation in order to avoid nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
.
The result, according to one observer was that: "Russian railroads gradually become perhaps the most economically operated railroads of the world.". Profits were high: over 100 million gold rubles a year to the government (exact amount unknown due to accounting defects).
After the Russian Revolution (1917) all railroads become government owned by the Soviet Union. During the earlier years, the Soviet railroads were financially in the red, but by 1965 they returned a profit to the Soviet Government of 13.3 % on their capital investment. By 1980 profits had nearly halved to 7.1%.
Subsidy to passengers
Passenger travel on Soviet and Russian railways has long been subsidized by profits from freight transportation. In 2000 (post-Soviet), long distance passengers only paid 55% of the cost while commuter train passengers paid only 15% of costs. But 6 years later (2006) these figures were about 80% and 50% due mainly to increased fares. Current policy (2010) is to eliminate such subsidy and thus commuter fares have drastically increased. As a result of this plus the economic crisis, commuter passengers have decreased and many trains have been removed from service. Another problem is that it's estimated that over 1/3 of passengers cheat and pay no fare at all (including bribing the ticket inspector).Imperial period: ton-km
In 1916, just at the start of First World WarEastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
(during which Germany invaded Russia) freight traffic on Russian Railway reached nearly 100 billion tonne-kilometers (traffic on United States railways was about five times higher). But due to the war, a few years later Russian traffic had crashed to about 20 billion ton-km. Then the civil war started with the reds fighting the whites, which delayed the recovery of rail traffic. The reds (communists) won, resulting in the formation of the Soviet Union (USSR) and a new chapter in railway development.
Soviet period: ton-km
The USSR rebuilt its rail system and industrialized with five-year plans. As a result, railroad freight grew about 20 times from 20 to 400 billion tonne-km by 1941. But then disaster struck again: World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1941 when Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
invaded the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In the first year or so of the war, traffic plummeted to about half its prewar value. But then the USSR started restoring and constructing railroads during wartime so that by the end of the war about half of the lost traffic had been recovered. After the war was over it took a few more years to restore the railroads and get back to the pre-war level of traffic.
Then the USSR embarked on a series of more five-year plans and rail traffic rapidly increased. By 1954 their rail freight traffic (about 850 billion tonne-km) surpassed that of the United States and the USSR then hauled more rail freight than any other country in the world. Rail freight continued to rapidly increase in the USSR so that by 1960 the USSR was hauling about half of all railroad freight in the world (in tonne-km) and they did this on a rail system consisting of only 10% of the world's railway kilometrage. The status of hauling half the world's rail freight continued for almost 30 years but in 1988 rail freight traffic peaked at 3852 billion tonne-km (nearly 4 trillion). And then, a few years later in 1991, the Soviet Union fell apart and its largest republic, the Russian Federation, which then hauled about 2/3 of the traffic of the former USSR, became an independent country.
For the USSR in 1989 (shortly before the collapse), the railroads hauled nearly eight times as much ton-km of freight by rail as they did by highway truck. For the US, it was only 1.5 times as much by rail. Thus trucks in the USSR played a far lesser role in hauling freight than they did in the US, leaving the railroad as the basic means of freight transportation. In 1991 a law was passed which declared that railroads were the basic transportation system of the USSR.
Russian Federation: ton-km
Prior to 1990, traffic in the Russian Republic (of the USSR) was about 2/3 of what was hauled by the USSR, since all the other former republics of the USSR hauled about 1/3 of the rail freight of the USSR. This amounted to significantly more rail freight than any country in the world. However the severe depression in Russia in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union (actually beginning in the last year of its existence), resulted in rail freight falling to about 40% of its 1988 value to its low point in 1997 (1020 billion ton-km). This was only 1/4 of what was once hauled by USSR rail at the peak in 1988.Russia was no longer number one for rail freight. In 1993 Russia was overtaken by the United States and the next year, 1994, it was overtaken by China So for rail freight, Russia had fallen from a strong first place to third and remains so to this day even though there was partial recovery to 2116 ton-km by 2008 which is still well below the peak of 2606 ton-km in 1998.
For a graph ('til 2002) see .
By 2010 there was reported to be a growing share of railroad freight being diverted to highway trucks.
Russian Empire (1837–1917)
Cherepanov
Cherepanov, Yefim Alekseyevich and Miron Yefimovich , Russian inventors and industrial engineers, father and son. They were serfs of the Demidovs – a famous family of factory owners...
built the first Russian steam locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
s. The first railway track was built in Russia in 1837 between Saint-Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...
. It was 17 km long and linked the Imperial Palaces at Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk
Pavlovsk
Pavlovsk is a municipal town in Pushkinsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located south from St. Petersburg proper and about southeast from Pushkin. Population:...
. This railway has been described as a "toy
Toy train
A toy train is a toy that represents a train. It is distinguished from a model train by an emphasis on low cost and durability, rather than scale modeling. A toy train can be as simple as a pull toy that does not even run on track, or it might be operated by clockwork or a battery...
" railway, as it had no economic, political or social impact on the Russian Empire. The Department of Railways, later part of the Russian Ministry of Communications, was created in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1842 in order to oversee the construction of Russia's first major railway line, the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway. The railway linked the imperial capital Saint-Petersburg and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and was built between 1842 and 1851.
| Year | Miles of track |
|---|---|
| 1838 | 16 |
| 1855 | 570 |
| 1880 | 14,208 |
| 1890 | 19,011 |
| 1905 | 31,623 |
On 15 June 1865, an edict of Alexander II established the Ministry of Communications, which absorbed the Department of Railways. In the 1860s and 70s, Pavel Melnikov
Pavel Petrovich Melnikov
Pavel Petrovich Melnikov was a Russian engineer and administrator who, in his capacity of Transport Minister, was in a large measure responsible for the introduction of railroad construction in Imperial Russia.In 1825 Melnikov graduated at the head of his class from the Institute of Transport...
, Russia’s first Minister of Communications, played a key role in the expansion of the railway network throughout European Russia.
In the 1880s and 1890s, the Trans-Caspian railway
Trans-Caspian railway
The Trans-Caspian Railway is a railway that follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It was built by the Russian Empire during its expansion into Central Asia in the 19th century. The railway was started in 1879, following the Russian defeat of Khokand...
connected Russian Empire's Central Asian provinces (now, independent states of Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
and Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
) with the Caspian
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
port of Krasnovodsk; by 1906, Central Asia was directly connected by the Trans-Aral Railway
Trans-Aral Railway
The broad gauge Trans-Aral Railway was built in 1906 connecting Orenburg and Tashkent, then both in the Russian Empire. For the first part of the 20th century it was the only railway-connection between European Russia and Central Asia.There were plans to construct the Orenburg-Tashkent line as...
with European Russia via Kazahstan.
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
connecting European Russia with the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
provinces on the Sea of Japan
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...
was built between 1891 and 1916. The Russian-built system included the Chinese Eastern Railway
Chinese Eastern Railway
The Chinese Eastern Railway or was a railway in northeastern China . It connected Chita and the Russian Far East. English-speakers have sometimes referred to this line as the Manchurian Railway...
, short-cutting across China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
's Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
; later on, its southern branch was connected with other Chinese railways.
During the First World War
Eastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
and especially the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
more than 60% of the Russian railway network and more than 80% of the carriages and locomotives were destroyed. With the German and Turkish blockade of the Russian Baltic and Black Sea ports, the Trans-Siberian Railway acquired a new significance as the lifeline connecting Russian Empire to its World War I allies. To provide a shorter connection to the Entente
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
powers, a railway was constructed to the newly built Arctic ice-free port of Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
as well (1916).
During World War I Russia used a mix of light and heavy armoured trains. The heavy trains mounted 4.2 inch or 6 inch guns while the light trains were equipped with 76.2mm guns.
Soviet Russia (1917–1922)
The railways and railway workers played a major role during the Russian Revolution. For example the Tashkent SovietTashkent Soviet
The Tashkent Soviet was a public organisation set up in Tashkent during the Russian Revolution.The Tashkent Soviet was established on 2 March 1917 at an inaugural meeting which consisted of thirty five workers from the Central Asian Railway. It was headed by a technician by the name of I. I. Bel'kov...
was founded on 2 March 1917 by thirty five railway workers. The Transcaspian Government
Transcaspian Government
The Transcaspian Government was set up by Railway workers of the Trans-Caspian Railway in 1918 and lasted until July 1919. It was based at Ashgabat.-Origin:...
was founded by Menshevik
Menshevik
The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
and Social revolutionary
Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...
railway workers in revolt against the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s who ran the Tashkent Soviet and existed from July 1918 to July 1919.
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
spent much of the Russian Civil War on board his armoured train
Armoured train
An armoured train is a train protected with armour. They are usually equipped with railroad cars armed with artillery and machine guns. They were mostly used during the late 19th and early 20th century, when they offered an innovative way to quickly move large amounts of firepower...
:
- "During the most strenuous years of the revolution, my own personal life was bound up inseparably with the life of that train. The train, on the other hand, was inseparably bound up with the life of the Red Army. The train linked the front with the base, solved urgent problems on the spot, educated, appealed, supplied, rewarded, and punished ..."
Railways in the Soviet Union (1922–1991)
After the foundation of the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
the People's Commissariat of Railways (after 1946 named the Ministry of Railways (МПС) expanded the railway network to a total length of 106,100 km by 1940. A notable project of the late 1920s and one of the centerpieces of the First Five-Year Plan
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
was the Turkestan–Siberia Railway, linking Western Siberia via Eastern Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
with Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
.
During the Great Patriotic War (World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
) the railway system played a vital role in the war effort transporting military personnel, equipment and freight to the frontlines and often evacuating entire factories and towns from European Russia to the Ural region
Ural (region)
Ural is a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European and West Siberian plains. It extends approximately from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the bend of Ural River near Orsk city. The boundary between Europe and Asia runs along the eastern side of...
and Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. The loss of mining and industrial centers of the western Soviet Union necessitated speedy construction of new railways during the wartime. Particularly notable among them was the railway to the Arctic coal mines of Vorkuta
Vorkuta
Vorkuta is a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin at the Usa River. Population: - Labor camp origins :...
, extended after the war to Labytnangi
Labytnangi
Labytnangi is a town in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on the left bank of the Ob River, northwest of Salekhard. Population:...
on the Ob River
Ob River
The Ob River , also Obi, is a major river in western Siberia, Russia and is the world's seventh longest river. It is the westernmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean .The Gulf of Ob is the world's longest estuary.-Names:The Ob is known to the Khanty people as the...
; construction work to extend it all the way to the Yenisey continued into the 1950s, aborted with the death of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
.
As a result of the World War II victory over Japan, the southern half of Sakhalin Island was returned to Russia in 1945. The 1067 mm railway network built by the Japanese during their forty years of control of Southern Sakhalin now became part of Soviet Railways as well (as a separate Sakhalin Railway
Sakhalin Railway
The Sakhalin Railway is a subsidiary of the Russian Railways that operates the Japanese-built railways in the south of Sakhalin. Its length was reduced from 1072 km in 1992 to 805 km in 2006. The headquarters are in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The prevalent Cape gauge is a major problem for the Russian...
), the only Cape gauge
Cape gauge
Cape gauge is a track gauge of between the inside of the rail heads and is classified as narrow gauge. It has installations of around .The gauge was first used by Norwegian engineer Carl Abraham Pihl and the first line was opened in 1862.- Nomenclature :...
rail system within USSR (or today's Russia).
After the war the Soviet railway network was re-built and further expanded to more than 145,000 km of track by major additions such as Baikal Amur Mainline.
Electrification
As compared to the U.S., the Soviet Union got off to a very slow start in electrification but later greatly surpassed the US. Electrification in the US reached its maximum in the late 1930s which is just when electrification was getting its start in the USSR.In 1932 the USSR opened their first short 3000 volt DC electrified segment in Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
(birthplace of the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
) on the Suramsk Pass grade located between the capital, Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, and the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
. The grade (slope) was steep: 2.9%. The original fleet of 8 locomotives was imported from the United States and were made by General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
(GE). The
Soviets also got GE to give them construction drawings so as to enable the Soviets to construct similar locomotives. Strange as it may seem, the first Soviet locomotive to be made was not a copy, but one of Soviet design which was completed in Nov. 1932 with great fanfare. Later in the same month, the 2nd locomotive to be made in the USSR, a copy of the GE locomotive, was completed. At first, many more copies of U.S. design were made than for ones of Soviet design, since no more locomotives of Soviet design were made until 2 years later.
In 1941, prior to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the USSR had electrified only 1865 route-kilometers. This was well behind the US which had electrified nearly 5000 kilometers. However, since the USSR rail network was much shorter than the US, the percentage of the USSR's kilometers electrified was greater than the US.
Electrification was put on hold during World War II as the western part of the Soviet Union (including Russia) was invaded by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. After the war, the highest priority was to rebuild the physical destruction caused by the War, so railroad electrification was further postponed for about 10 years.
In 1946, just one year after the end of World War II, the USSR ordered 20 electric locomotives from General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
, the same U.S. corporation that supplied locomotives for the first USSR electrification. But due to the cold war, they could not be delivered to the USSR so they were sold elsewhere. The Milwaukee Road in the U.S. obtained 12 of them where America nicknamed them "Little Joes"
Little Joe (electric locomotive)
The Little Joe is a type of railroad electric locomotive built by General Electric for export to the Soviet Union in 1946. The locomotives had twelve axles, eight of them powered, in a 2-D+D-2 arrangement...
, "Joe" referring to Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier.
In the mid-1950s, the USSR decided to launch a two pronged approach to replace their obsolete fleet of steam locomotives. They would electrify the lines with high density traffic and slowly convert the rest of the lines to diesel. The result was a slow but steady introduction of both electric and diesel traction which lasted until about 1980 when their last steam locomotives were retired. In the US, steam went out about 1960, 20 years earlier than for the USSR.
But once dieselization and electrification had fully replaced steam (around 1980) they began to convert some diesel lines to electric, but the pace of electrification slowed. The result was that by 1990, over 60% of the railway freight was being hauled by electric traction. This amounted to about 30% of the freight hauled by all railroads in the world and about 80% of rail freight in the US (where rail freight held almost a 40% modal share). The USSR was hauling more rail freight than all the other countries in the world combined, and most of this was going by electrified railway.
After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, railroad traffic in Russia, sharply declined and new major electrification projects were not undertaken except for the line to Murmansk which was completed in 2005. Work continued on completing the electrification of the Trans-Siberian Railway, but at a slower pace, finishing in 2002. However, the percent of tonne-kilometers hauled today by electric trains has increased to about 85%.
Russian Federation (1991 to present day)
Following the Collapse of the Soviet Union its railway system broke up into national railway systems of various former Soviet republics. Due to the ensuing depression, Russian freight traffic fell by 60% and has (as of 2010) not yet fully recovered).In 2003 a vast structural reform was implemented in order to preserve the unity of the railway network and separate the functions of state regulation from operational management: On 18 September 2003, Decree
Decree
A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...
No. 585 of the Russian Government
Government of Russia
The Government of the Russian Federation exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister , the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers...
established the Russian Railways Public Corporation with state holds 100% of the share
Share (finance)
A joint stock company divides its capital into units of equal denomination. Each unit is called a share. These units are offered for sale to raise capital. This is termed as issuing shares. A person who buys share/shares of the company is called a shareholder, and by acquiring share or shares in...
s.
The Cape gauge railway system of Sakhalin is being re-gauged to 1520 mm.
The current CEO of the company is Vladimir Yakunin
Vladimir Yakunin
Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin is a Russian official, president of state-run Russian Railways company. Yakunin is a close ally of the former Russian president Vladimir Putin and is considered to be one of the members of his inner circle.-Biography:...
. There are plans for partial privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
of the company in the future in order to raise much needed capital
Financial capital
Financial capital can refer to money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or provide their services or to that sector of the economy based on its operation, i.e. retail, corporate, investment banking, etc....
from the sale of shares. In 2009, Russian Railways stated that it expected a loss of 49.7 billion rubles in the year, compared with a profit of 13.4 billion rubles in 2008, and that it planned to shed 53,700 jobs from its workforce of 1.2 million.
In 2007, as part of a liberalisation process, Russian Railways established First Freight Company which holds a large number of freight wagons; in 2010, it was announced that Second Freight Company
Second Freight Company
The Second Freight Company is a railway business established in Russia by Russian Railways, as part of plans to open up the rail transport market in Russia. A fleet of 180 thousand freight wagons will be transferred to the new company from RZD. It will have a share capital of 46.4 billion rubles....
would be established, and remaining freight wagons transferred to that.
In July 2010, RZD signed an agreement for Siemens to provide rolling stock (240 EMUs) and upgrade 22 marshalling yards.
Notable people associated with the Russian Railways
- Fyodor FuntikovFyodor FuntikovFyodor Andrianovich Funtikov was Chairman of Provisional Executive Committee of the Transcaspian Region Soviet, July 1918 - Jan 1919....
, President of the Transcaspian Government - Leon TrotskyLeon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, People's Commissar of Army and Navy Affairs
In English
- Boublikoff, A.A. "A suggestion for railroad reform" in book: Buehler, E.C. (editor) "Government ownership of railroads", Annual debater's help book (vol. VI), New York, Noble and Noble, 1939; pp. 309–318. Original in journal "North American Review, vol. 237, pp. 346+. (Title is misleading. It's 90% about Russian railways.)
- Hunter, Holland "Soviet transport experience: Its lessons for other countries", Brookings Institution 1968.
- Omrani, Bijan. Asia Overland: Tales of Travel on the Trans-Siberian and Silk Road Odyssey Publications, 2010 ISBN 9-6221-7811-1
- "Railroad Facts" (Yearbook) Association of American Railroads, Washington, DC (annual).
- "Transportation in America", Statistical Analysis of Transportation in the United States (18th edition), with historical compendium 1939-1999, by Rosalyn A. Wilson, pub. by Eno Transportation Foundation Inc., Washington DC, 2001. See table: Domestic Intercity Ton-Miles by Mode, pp. 12–13.
- UN (United Nations) Statistical Yearbook. The earlier editions were designated by date (such as 1985/86) but later editions use the edition number (such as 51st). After 1985/86 the "World railway traffic" table was dropped.After the 51st ? edition, the long table: "Railways: traffic" was dropped resulting in no more UN railway statistics.
- Urba CE, "The railroad situation : a perspective on the present, past and future of the U.S. railroad industry". Washington : Dept. of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Office of Policy and Program Development Govt. Print. Off., 1978.
- VanWinke, Jenette and Zycher, Benjamin; "Future Soviet Investment in Transportation, Energy, and Environmental Protection" A Rand Note. The Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 1992. Rand Soviet Transport
- Westwood J.N, 2002 "Soviet Railways to Russian Railways" Palgrave Macmillan.
- Ward, Christopher J., "Brezhnev's Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism", University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.
In Russian
- Госкомстат СССР(Gov't Statistical Committee )"Народное хозяйство СССР: статистический ежегодник (The national economy of the USSR, statistical yearbook),Финансы и статистика, Mосква (various years till 1990).
- Госкомстат СССР (Уманский, Л.) ,"Народное хозяйство СССР за 70 лет : юбилейный статистический ежегодник". Финансы и статистика", Москва, 1987.
- Госкомстат СССР "Транспорт и связь СССР: Статистический сборник" (USSR Transportation and Communications: statistics). Москва. 1990 (and other editions: 1967, 1972, etc.)
- ЖТ = Железнодорожный Транспорт (Railroad Transportation) a monthly magazine published since 1826. The month designation is numeric; e.g. 10-1998 is the November issue.
- Плакс, А.В. & Пупынин, В.Н., "Электрические железные дороги" (Electric Railroads), Москва, Транспорт, 1993.
- Резер, С.М., "Взаимодействие транспортных систем", Москва, Наука, 1985.
- Шадур, Л.А. ed., Багоны: конструкция, теопия и расчёт (Railroad cars: construction, theory and calculations), Москва, Транспорт, 1980.
- Фед=Федеральная служба государственной статистики (Federal government statistical service) "Транспорт в России" (Transportation in Russia) (annual) Available online
- Филиппов, М.М. (editor), "Железные Дороги, Общий Курс" (Railroads, General Course) Москва, Транспорт, 3rd ed. 1981. 4th ed. 1991 with new editor: Уздин, М.М. .
- Шафиркин, Б.И, "Единая Транспортная Система СССР и бзаимодействие пазличных видов транспорта" (Unified Transportation System of the USSR and interaction of various modes of transportation), Москва, Высшая школа, 1983.
- Шадур. Л. А. (ed.), 1980, "Багоны" (Railway cars), Moscow, Транспорт.
External links
- Russian Railways Official Site
- Steam on Sakhalin Island http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/russia02.htm
- Russian Railway in 1935
- A site about railways in C.I.S. and Baltics
- Rail Fan Europe
- Railroad Transport in Russia (Russian Wikipedia)
- Railroad Transport in the Soviet Union (Russian Wikipedia)
- Rail map of former Soviet Union Shows electrification status and also many Industrial railroads.