RUSSIAN RAILWAYS

' Russian Railways' (), is the state-owned railway company of Russia. The company is one of the biggest railway companies in the world with 1.2 million employees and a monopoly within Russia. The total length of track used by the Russian Railways is, at , the largest in the world.
Russian Railways accounts for over 3.6% of Russia's GDP and handles 80% of all passenger transportation and 82% of all freight in Russia. A further 270,000 freight wagons in Russia are privately owned. Almost 1.3 billion passengers and 1.3 billion tons of freight travel via Russian Railways annually. The company owns around 20,000 locomotives, 25,000 passenger wagons and 650,000 freight wagons (although only about 40,000 are currently operable).

Contents

Early history

Soviet period

Today

See also

External Links

References

Early history

In the early 1830s Russian inventors father and son Cherepanov built the first Russian steam locomotives. The first railroad track was built in Russia in 1837 between Saint-Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. 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 railway linked the imperial capital Saint-Petersburg and Moscow and was built between 1842 and 1851.
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.
The Trans-Siberian Railway connecting Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces, Mongolia, China and the Sea of Japan was built between 1891 and 1916.
During the First World War and the Russian Civil War more than 60% of the Russian railway network and more than 80% of the carriages and locomotives were destroyed.

Soviet period

In the Soviet period People's Commissariat of Communications expanded railway network to a total length of 106,100 km by 1940.
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.
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.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union its railway system broke up into national railway systems of various former Soviet republics.

Today

In 2003 Russian Railways was established as a Public Corporation with the state as the only shareholder of the company. The current CEO of the company is Vladimir Yakunin. There are plans for the splitting of the company in 2007 in order to raise much needed capital from the sale of 49% of the shares in a newly formed company.

See also

★ Elektrichka

★ Communications in Russia

★ Russian Post

★ List of railways in Russia

External Links

★ The St.Petersburg Outdoor Train Museum [1]

★ Steam on Sakhalin Island [2]

References

★ Russian Railways Official Site