Rail transport in Russia

Overview of rail transport in Russia

Rail transport in Russia runs on one of the biggest railway networks in the world. Russian railways are the third longest by length and third by volume of freight hauled, after the railways of the United States and China. In overall density of operations (freight ton kilometers + passenger kilometers)/length of track, Russia is second only to China. Rail transport in Russia has been described as one of the economic wonders of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. JSC Russian Railways has a near monopoly on long distance train travel in Russia, with a 98.6% market share in 2017. Independent long distance carriers include Grand Service Express TC, Tverskoy Express, TransClassService, Sakhalin Passenger Company, Kuzbass Suburb, and Yakutian Railway. of Russia's GDP and employs 800,000 people. The percentage of passenger traffic that goes by rail is unknown, since no statistics are available for private transportation such as private automobiles. In 2007, about 1.3 billion passengers and 1.3 billion tons of freight went via Russian Railways. In 2007 the company owned 19,700 goods and passenger locomotives, 24,200 passenger cars (carriages) (2007) and 526,900 freight cars (goods wagons) (2007). A further 270,000 freight cars in Russia are privately owned. In 2009 Russia had 128,000 kilometers of common carrier railway line, of which about half is electrified and carries most of the traffic, over 40% was double track or better. In 2013 railways carried nearly 90% of Russia's freight, excluding pipelines.

Besides the common carrier railways that are well covered by government statistics there are many industrial railways (such as mining or lumbering railways) whose statistics are covered separately, and which in 1981 had a total length almost equal to the length of the common carrier railways. Currently (2008) they are only about half the length of the common carrier system. In 1980, about two thirds of their freight flowed to and from the common carrier railroads while the remaining third was internal transport only on an industrial railways. (For example, a lumber company uses its private industrial railways to transport logs from a forest to its sawmill.) About 4% of the industrial railway traffic was on track jointly "owned" by two companies.

The SA3 coupler (Soviet Automatic coupler, model 3) used in Russia has several advantages over the Janney coupler used in the United States. The SA3 coupler, while well designed, has had problems with operating due to being made with lower quality steel, having a low quality of maintenance/repairs/rebuilding, and coupling cars at speeds higher than allowed by the rules.

The majority of Russia's rail network uses the 1,520 mm Russian gauge, which includes all metro systems and the majority of tram networks in the country. The Sakhalin Railway, on Sakhalin Island used 1,067 mm Cape gauge from its construction under Japan until 2019, when the conversion to 1520 mm completed. A section from the Poland–Russia border to Kaliningrad, uses the 1,435 mm Standard gauge. Unlike the Sakhalin Railway, which carries freight and passengers, the standard gauge line in Kaliningrad carries only freight at this time. Kaliningrad's tram network also uses metre gauge tracks at 1,000 mm, as does Stavropol krai's Pyatigorsk network.

There are many railway colleges in Russia which are higher educational institutes that train students for railway careers, mainly in engineering.

Since 2010 Russian Railways had started an overhaul of its computer systems. The overhaul will centralize the management of data into new computing hubs, restructure the collection of information on the railway's field operations, and integrate new automation software to help the railway strategise how to deploy its assets. The geriatric machines that the new mainframes will replace include Soviet built clones of IBM's Cold War–era computers, called ES EVM (the transliterated Russian acronym for "unified system of electronic computing machines").

The RZD operates the Armenian Railway until 2038. During this period, at least 570 million euro will be invested, 90% going into infrastructure. Joint ventures have been formed to build and operate a port in Rasŏn in North Korea, and rail links connecting that port to the Russian rail network at the North Korean Russian border Khasan Tumangang. Trans Eurasia Logistics is a joint venture with RZD that operates container freight trains between Germany and China via Russia.

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.) European Conference of Ministers of Transport, "Regulatory Reform of Railways in Russia," 2004. Regulatory Reform of Railways in Russia
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
Pittman, Russell, "Blame the Switchman? Russian Railways Restructuring After Ten Years," working paper, Antitrust Division, U. S. Department of Justice, 2011. Blame the Switchman? Russian Railways Restructuring After Ten Years
"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.

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