HISTORY OF RUSSIAN PASSENGER RAIL TRANSPORT

Abstract

The history of Russian passenger rapid railtransport (including subways) is presented starting from thebeginning of 19th century when first railway was built byorder of Nicolas I. Various constructions of carriages andlocomotives used in Russian engineering practice since thenare considered. A particular attention is paid to Russiansubway whose construction was initiated in 1930s by order ofStalin. He wanted to see it as the best subway in the worldhaving the most beautiful stations (it seems this goal wasachieved at the expense of other parameters – such as speed,noise etc. which remained until today as they were in oldtimes). The modern technological and ecological problems ofrail transport are analyzed in general and particularly forMoscow and St.-Petersburg together with ways of theirsolution. The paper continues the author’s series ofpresentations on history of engineering in Russia.

Index Terms - Passenger transport, railways, railtransport, subways.