a rail route for train traffic. In the modern sense, a railroad is a complex transportation enterprise with all technical facilities for hauling passengers and freight. According to their use, railroads are classified as general pur-pose; industrial transportation (sidings at enterprises and organizations), including lumbering, mining, factory, and other types of rail facilities; and municipal (streetcars and subways). They are also classified according to distance between the rails as broad gauge (1,520 mm in the USSR; the general gauge abroad is 1,435 mm, but in some countries it is 1,676 mm) and narrow gauge (including 1,000 mm, 914 mm, 891 mm, and 762 mm); and according to type of traction as electric, diesel (oil-burning), turbine, and steam. There are also cog railroads, used mainly in mountainous regions.
History. The raillike (wooden or stone) tracks along which heavy loads were pulled in ancient times are the prototype of the railroad. In the 15th century cast-iron rails were used for the first time in mines in England and Ireland and later in France and Russia for hauling loads with horses or with ropes. Steam locomotives were first used successfully on a railroad in England in 1825 (Darlington to Stockton), and a major railroad was opened from Liverpool to Manchester in 1830, the same year that the first railroad went into operation in the USA.
In Russia, a factory railroad was built at Nizhnii Tagil in 1834, and locomotives built by M. E. Cherepanov and E. A. Cherepanov operated on it. The first general-purpose railroad in Russia (1837) ran from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk. Construction of the double-track St. Petersburg-Moscow line, ambitious for that time, was completed in 1851.
It had 272 major structures and 184 bridges; P. P. Mel’nikov, D. I. Zhuravskii, N. O. Kraft, and other Russian engineers and scientists took part in its construction. By the end of the 19th century railroad lines had been built from Moscow to Kursk (1868), Kursk to Kiev (1870), Moscow to Brest (1871), and Tashkent to Krasnovodsk (1899), among others, and between 1891 and 1904 the Trans-Siberian Railroad was pushed through from Cheliabinsk to Vladivostok. Railroad junctions and classification yards began to take shape late in the 19th century at St. Petersburg (classification yard, 1878), as well as hump yards at Rtishchevo (1893). In the late 19th and early 20th century many scientists and engineers in Russia worked to improve the technical facilities of the railroads. The first experiments in the use of electric traction were carried out (1876) by the engineer F. A. Pirotskii; A. P. Borodin set up the world’s first laboratory for testing locomotives (1882). P. M. Golubitskii used telephone communications for controlling train traffic (1884), and late in the 19th century la. N. Gordeenko successfully introduced the block system and centralized control of switches and signals. Russian scientists N. P. Petrov and N. A. Beleliubskii and Soviet scientists V. N. Obraztsov, G. P. Perederii, M. P. Kostenko, B. N. Vedenisov, D. D. Biziukin, A. P. Petrov, and A. V. Gorinov, as well as the inventors F. P. Kazantsev, I. K. Matrosov, I. O. Trofimov, and F. D. Barykin, have made a great contribution to the development of technology and science on the railroads.
A total of 70,300 km of railroad lines were in operation in Russia by 1917. Traffic was handled in two-axled cars with hand brakes. Steam locomotives inefficient for that time were used, and train movement was controlled mainly with staffs and the telegraph. Major changes have taken place in the technical equipment and organization of traffic on USSR rail-roads in the years of Soviet power. The world’s first 1,000-hp diesel locomotive was built in 1924. Electrification of the rail-roads, which began in 1926, was a part of the plan of GOELRO (State Commission for the Electrification of Russia). Intensive work has been in progress since the 1930’s to reequip the railroads of the USSR. After the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), 65,000 km of track, 13,000 bridges, and 4,100 stations were restored. Development since the war has meant modernization: mass introduction of progressive types of traction (electric and diesel locomotives), construction of large freight cars equipped with automatic brakes and automatic couplings, the laying of heavier rails, and the introduction of devices for mechanization, automation, remote control, and communication.
Contemporary railroads. More than 1.3 million km (1968) of railroads are in operation throughout the world, including more than 135,000 km in the USSR (1970); about 120,000 km of the world’s railroads are electrified (1968), including al-most 34,000 km in the USSR. Railroads in the USA employ mostly diesel traction (more than 99 percent), whereas in European countries, especially in France, West Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland, some railroads employ electric traction. Diesel traction is widespread. The speed of passenger trains increased in the 1960’s; maximum speeds of 210 km/hr are achieved on the Tokyo-Osaka railroad and 160 km/hr on the Paris-Lyon and Moscow-Leningrad lines.
Among the main characteristics of the technical equipment of railroads are the type of traction, the number of trunk lines, the construction of track (type of rails, number of ties per kilometer, composition and depth of ballast bed), and the type of automation and remote control devices. Railroads being built in the USSR are divided into four categories. Trunk lines in the first category, which include lines having a freight density of more than 10 million ton-km per km (net) and ten passenger trains each way per day (in addition to suburban trains), are very well equipped technically: they have welded track with heavy rails (at least 50 to 65 kg per m of track), 1,840 to 2,000 reinforced-concrete or wooden ties per km of track, and a ballast bed of crushed rock 35 to 40 cm thick.
The main work in railroad construction is building a roadbed and way structures. Excavators, bulldozers, scrapers, and other equipment are used for heavy earthwork. Track is laid with tracklayers using track-section assembly machines, and ballasting of the track and alignment of the rail and tie grid are done with electroballasting equipment. With the significant increase in the speed and intensity of train traffic in recent times, new railroad lines are being put into operation, lines are being double-tracked, new station tracks and sectors are being built and old ones made longer, switching operations at stations are being changed to modern types of traction, and stations, rail junctions, and hump yards are being built and improved. In addition, the track is being strengthened; the length of welded track is being increased; heavy heat-treated rails of high-carbon steel, ties and plates of prestressed reinforced concrete, and ties of treated wood are being used; the roadbed is being strengthened and stabilized; track is being improved; and high-speed crossovers are being installed. Many track machines are used for repairing and maintaining track in excellent condition.
The rolling stock of USSR railroads consists of locomotives and cars. The railroads use electric locomotives, diesels, gas-turbine locomotives, electric railcars with trailers, rail diesel cars with trailers, small gas-motor switchers, and steam locomotives. Electric traction is used on the most heavily traveled lines (more than 30 percent of the total length of the network), on which half of all freight is handled. The remaining railroads of the USSR are served mainly by diesel traction. Modern locomotives make it possible to haul trains weighing as much as 8,000 to 9,000 tons. USSR industry produces about 500 electric locomotives and more than 1,800 diesel locomotives annually. Steam locomotives are used only on a few secondary lines and at stations (for switching operations).
USSR railroads use boxcars, gondolas, tank cars, and other types of cars, mainly with four axles and with capacities of 60 to 63 tons, as well as six- and eight-axle cars with capacities of 93 and 125 tons. Refrigerator cars and trains and ice cars are used to handle perishable freight. Modern passenger cars are all-metal four-axle cars with electric heating, luminescent lighting, and forced ventilation or air conditioning. All cars and locomotives have automatic couplers and pneumatic or electropneumatic automatic brakes.
Increased traffic density, higher speeds, and the need for improved safety measures and procedures have led to faster development of automation, remote control, and communications. About 90 percent of all USSR railroad lines in terms of length are equipped with an automatic and semiautomatic block system. The railroads use locomotive signaling, centralized switching and signaling, centralized dispatching, automatic crossing signals, and automatic barriers. They are introducing electronic equipment, including equipment to auto-mate the control of train traffic and direct the operations of large stations. Computers are being used to draw up bills of lading, handle ticketing and cashier operations, and the like.The network of computer centers on the railroads is expanding.
The railroads use about 5 percent of all electricity generated and 15 percent of the diesel fuel produced in the USSR. The railroads, especially the electrified lines, are supplied with power by transmission lines of the country’s power system.
In terms of number of tracks, the railroads are divided into single track, double track (about 30 percent of the total length of the network), and multitrack. The main production units of railroad transportation are the railroad stations. There are about 10,000 of them in the USSR, including about 7,000 (1970) that engage in freight operations. About 1,500 long-distance and local passenger trains and more than 14,000 suburban and more than 15,000 freight trains (1970) are in operation daily in the USSR.
The railroads of the USSR are linked by more than 30 international passenger lines with 25 countries of Europe and Asia. The main task of the railroads in the near future is to increase their handling and hauling capacity by double-tracking, developing station yards, extending electrification, and equipping sectors with automatic block signaling and centralized dispatching. Larger freight cars and more powerful locomotives will be built to increase the weight and speed of trains still more.
K. M. DOBROSEL’SKII