Иcтория развития железно дорожного транспорта

From the history of railways

We usually think of railways as a means of travel. It is true that railways are often used for travel, but their most important function is to carry freight. Railways play a very important part in the national economy of a country because the economic and political development of a country depends on a wide network of transportation systems. Althougn we have now faster and more modern means of communication and transport, railways are still the safest and the most popular means of transportation.

The early railways were not like the railways we have today.The very first railways used horses for drawing trains and were put into operation for transporting such products as coal, ore and timber. Later on, the horse railways were used as passenger transport in large cities. But these railways did not last long.

Richard Trevith i ck

Richard Trevithick, an Englishman, who demonstrated his working model in London. This locomotive was looked at with great interest when it ran on a circular track of iron rails. For a shilling the public could travel in a carriage drawn by the steam engine.The locomotive was called «Catch-me-who-can», and people could really catch it because it developed only 12mph. But one day a rail broke and the locomotive overturned, ending Trevithick s career as an inventor

George Stephenson

In 1829, George Stepenson, an English inventor and engineer, built a successful steam locomotive which he called the «Rocket». This locomotive was much smaller and lighter than the steam locos developed later on, and it was much slo w er. However, it could draw a small train of loaded cars on the railway and developed an unheard- of speed of 13 mph.The invention of the steam locomotives made the railway the most important of all means of transportation.

It is difficult for the people living in the second halt of the 20 th

century to imagine the opposition to the building of the early

railroads. Most people did not believe that it was possible

to make locomotive sultable for service. Many of them were

afraid of the railways when they first appeared and did all in their

power to stop railways construction. However,in 1824

the steam-powered railways were already in wide use in Englan d.

The first railways

In Russia, many people also had doubts about the possibilty of using steam engines in the Russian winter. Nevertheless, the first raiway using steam traction was put into service at the Nizhni Tagel metallurgical works. It was a short distance Iine covering only 854 metres This railway was soon followed by another one constructed in 1837. It was a

5-mile public railway between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo

The first steam locomotive in Russia was built b y the Cherepanovs, father and son , who were talented and skilled workmen of their

ti me . Thanks to the Cherepanovs our country may be placed among the countries which were the first to use steam as tractive power.

The first steam locomotive

Locomotive

World railways are now busy in search of ways to increase their economic efficiency a n d the speeds of passenger and g oo ds trains. One essential condition to achieve this is electric traction . The first attempt to apply electricity to transport purposes was made by Jacobi, a Russian physicist and electrical engineer. In 1838 he ran an electric boat at a speed of about 5 kph on t h e Neva river

A shortage of locomotive Park of the USSR in the 1920-ies, the electrification of the country's electrification plan and the country's hard on the profile plots made to seriously engage in the design and construction of locomotives. The first station, electrified in the Soviet Union, was the Baku — Sabunchi, but there is the electrification of the suburban was built under traffic. The second site was the Surami pass (Khashuri — Zestafoni). This section of the Poti-Tiflis railway was built in 1872, had initially rises to 46 ‰ (i.e. per kilometer accounted for 46 meters of elevation), in 1890, work was performed to mitigate cross section to 29 % .

Work on the electrification of the Surami crossover sites were launched in 1928, the same people's Commissariat was searching for a way of placing an order for electric locomotives for this section. Received proposals from 6 foreign firms. Nkps, stopped his choice on the proposals by General electric (USA) and Tecnomasio Italiano-Brown-Boweri (Italy). With these firms and a contract was signed for the supply of locomotives.

The locomotive is an Autonomous locomotive, driven using an internal combustion engine.

Which appeared in 1924 in the USSR locomotive became as cost-effective replacement of outdated low efficient locomotives, and complement appeared in the same time, electric locomotives, requiring significant additional cost for electrification is the way and therefore cost-effective on roads with a relatively large cargo and passenger traffic.

Over the past century in the design of the locomotive was tested and introduced many improvements: increased engine power with a few hundred horsepower up to six thousand (diesel-electric ТЭП80) and later, on different types of locomotives, various methods of transmitting energy from the motor to the wheelset, significantly increased the ease of operation and maintenance of the locomotive, reduced emissions into the atmosphere. The locomotives are being built and used around the world.

Soviet diesel locomotives

"Sapsan"

Train "Sapsan" recently appeared on the Russian Railways, but was able to win the trust of passengers. This high-speed train, designed the largest German electrical engineering and concern "Siemens", designed specially for Russia and somewhat different from their European counterparts. The main innovations that have made the designers in this model – large cars (almost 30 cm! wider than standard) and high frost resistance (can withstand up to – 50 degrees C).Their predatory "bird's" name the train was, due to high speed motion, in which it is similar to the fastest animal on earth Falcon-the peregrine Falcon. During the trip, this passenger train speeds of 250 km/h to 350 km/h