one of the oldest and most important technical higher educational institutions of transportation. It was founded in Moscow in 1896 as the Engineering School. In 1913 it became the Institute of Railroad Engineers, and it received its present name in 1924. The organizers of the institute were the prominent scientists and teachers F. E. Maksimenko, L. D. Proskuriakov, S. M. Solov’ev, K. Iu. Tseglinskii, and S. A. Chaplygin. The Leningrad Institute of Water Transportation Engineers (1930) and the Moscow Road Transportation Institute (1931) were organized on the basis of the institute’s departments.
The founding of scientific schools at the institute is associated with such scientists as M. V. Kirpichev, V. N. Obraztsov, S. P. Syromiatnikov, K. K. Khrenov, P. K. Khudiakov, B. N. Vedenisov, A. M. Babichkov, I. P. Prokof’ev, E. V. Mikhal’-tsev, and K. G. Evgrafov.
As of 1973 the institute had departments of automation and computer technology, industrial economics, mechanics, bridges and tunnels, industrial and civil construction, railroad engineering, railroad operation, electrification of railroads, and power engineering. It also had an evening department, a department for advanced training of teachers, a preparatory division, a graduate school, 59 subdepartments, and 23 special problem and research laboratories. The library contains 1.5 million volumes. In the 1972–73 academic year, more than 14, 000 students were studying at the institute, and the teaching staff numbered 1, 300, including 105 professors and doctors of sciences and more than 500 docents and candidates of sciences. The institute confers doctoral and candidate’s degrees. It has published Trudy (Transactions) since 1926. During the years of Soviet power the institute has trained more than 54, 000 specialists. It was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1945 and the Order of Lenin in 1946.
A. M. MAKAROCHKIN