Interesting facts about the railway. "Vaudeville Hero" Interesting facts from the history of the first railway. Qinghai-Tibet Single Track Railway

The advent of the steam locomotive at the beginning of the 19th century transformed the world, as from that moment people and goods could move around the world at unprecedented speeds. In 1830, the first American steam-powered railway, Liverpool - Manchester, opened. Decades later, hundreds of thousands of railroad miles crossed the United States. Today, the descendants of these early railroads, including the CSX Railroad, continue to play a key role in American life, moving millions of freight cars each year. Scrolling through events from the earliest steam locomotives to today's high-speed express trains, we've rounded up the most interesting facts about trains and railway, which you probably don't know.

The term "horsepower" originated as a marketing tool

James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but he did create the world's first modern engine and develop a means of measuring its power. In the 1760s, a Scottish inventor began tinkering with an earlier version of the engine developed by Thomas Newcomen, whose design required constant cooling and reheating, thereby wasting enormous amounts of energy. Watt's innovation was the addition of a separate capacitor, which greatly increased the efficiency of the engine. Savvy Watt knew he needed to find a way to sell his new product. He calculated how much energy one horse working at a mill could produce in one period (many scientists believe that his estimates are too high) - a figure he called "horsepower." Using this unit of measurement, he began to indicate in numbers how many horses only one of his engines could replace. The sales ploy worked - today we use the term "horsepower" - and its engines soon became an industry standard, leading directly to the creation of the first steam locomotive in 1804.

The first American steam locomotive lost a race to a horse

In 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio became the first American company to receive a charter to carry passengers and various cargoes. The company struggled to create a steam engine that could overcome rough and uneven terrain and eliminate the need for horse-drawn traction. Inventor Peter Cooper came to the rescue and proposed to design and build just such an engine. On August 28, 1830, the Cooper locomotive (translated as “Tom Thumb”), on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the vicinity of Baltimore, went out to face off against a horse-drawn train. The locomotive immediately took the lead, but soon a problem occurred with the belt and the horse crossed the finish line first. However, the leaders of the Baltimore and Ohio, impressed by what they saw, decided to switch their railroad to steam traction. Soon, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became one of the most successful railroads in the United States, and Cooper continued his career as an investor and philanthropist, founding the Cooper Union College in New York to support the advancement of science and the arts.

The railroad helped the North win the American Civil War

Throughout the war, railroads made it possible to quickly transport a large number of soldiers and heavy artillery over long distances. One of the most significant events occurred after the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, when Abraham Lincoln sent 20,000 desperately needed troops nearly 2,000 miles from Washington, D.C., to Georgia (in just 11 days) to strengthen the Union forces. - the longest and fastest military movement of the 19th century. Control of the railroad in the region was critical to military success, as it was often the target of military attacks aimed at cutting off supplies to the enemy. The famous General William Tecumseh Sherman was particularly well versed in the art of railroad sabotage. During his infamous march through Georgia and the Carolinas, his soldiers destroyed thousands of miles of Confederate rails, leaving behind piles of heated and bent iron that Southerners dubbed "Sherman ties."

Lincoln's death promoted Pullman trains

George Pullman, who made his name in the 1850s as a self-taught engineer and Chicago industrialist, came up with the idea of ​​developing a comfortable railroad sleeping car after a nasty train ride in upstate New York. By 1863, he produced his first two models, the Pioneer and the Springfield, the latter named after then-President Abraham Lincoln's home state of Illinois. His cars were indeed very comfortable, but they were also prohibitively expensive, and few railroad companies were interested in leasing them until the assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865. After Lincoln's death, Pullman carriages were used as part of a motorcade that traveled through several Northern states before returning his body to Illinois. made front page news when Pullman temporarily loaned one of his luxury sleeping cars to the grieving Mary Todd Lincoln - the publicity was a success. Two years later he founded the Pullman Palace Car Company, which revolutionized train travel around the world. It is curious that after Pullman's death in 1897, the head of his company was none other than Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of the assassinated president.

The world's first travel agency appeared thanks to a train

In 1841, British entrepreneur and Baptist preacher Thomas Cook organized an excursion for 540 parishioners to walk along the railway. Cook developed fixed fares for passengers, which included tickets and meals. The trip was so successful that he expanded his operations first to the UK and then to the United States and Europe, providing passengers with all-inclusive packages including transport, accommodation and meals. In 1873, the company known as Thomas Cook and Son launched international railway routes, and by 1890 it was selling more than 3 million annually train tickets.

Railroads gave rise to time zones

In 1847, Great Britain adopted a single time system, but it took about 40 years before the United States of America joined. The US still operates on local time, which can vary from city to city (and within cities), making it nearly impossible to schedule arrival and departure times. After years of lobbying for time standardization, on October 11, 1883, representatives from all major U.S. railroads met at a conference known as The General Time Convention, during which they supported a proposal to create five time zones covering the entire country: North American Eastern Time, Central American Time , Mountain Time and North American Pacific Time. The original plan called for a fifth time zone, Intercontinental, which was established a few years later and became known as Atlantic Standard Time. However, standard time only became officially legal when Congress passed legislation in 1918 recognizing the time zone system and establishing a new " summer time».

The railroad boom in the United States peaked in 1916

It didn't take long for railroads to gain popularity in the United States. The same year Tom Thumb lost the horse race, only 23 miles of railroad tracks were built in the United States. But within 20 years there were already more than 9 thousand, as the American government passed its first Railroad Land Grant Act, designed to attract settlers to undeveloped areas of the country. Back to top Civil War in 1861 there were already 30 thousand miles (more than 21 thousand of them in the north), but lobbyists demanded the creation of a transcontinental system throughout the country. The number of rail miles continued to rise until it peaked in 1916. This year, 250 thousand miles have already been laid - enough to reach the Moon from our planet Earth.

Modern trains reach 600 km per hour

When Englishman Richard Trevithick launched his first practical steam locomotive in 1804, its speed was less than 16 km per hour. Today, trains travel 30 times faster on high-speed rail lines. When the first Japanese Shinkansen appeared before the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, its speed exceeded 209 km per hour. Since then maximum speed of these trains is growing steadily. The current world record is 603 km per hour. However, Japan is no longer alone in high-speed railway direction: France, China and Germany are also working on trains that can reach extreme speeds. The United States is currently developing plans to build a high-speed railway line, which will connect the California cities of San Francisco and Anaheim.

1. Two lengths of the equator.

The total length of railway lines belonging to Russian Railways is 85.2 thousand km. If all the existing Russian Railways rails were laid out along the equator, there would be enough for two circles and a little more left. Moreover, one of these two circles was electrified and electric trains and electric locomotives could run along it. The second circle would remain exclusively for diesel locomotives, smoking the sky from the chimney. The length of electrified lines is 42.9 thousand km.

2. Russian railways consume up to 6% of all electricity produced in the country, or 44 billion kWh per year, and 10% of diesel fuel.

3. High-speed trains are the pride of Russian Railways. Their photographs are printed on posters and booklets, and banners with their advertisements are everywhere on the company’s website. Today, Russian Railways has five trains, which are called high-speed. Two of them - Sapsan and Nevsky Express - run between Moscow and St. Petersburg, between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod There are Sapsan, Burevestnik (twin brother of the Nevsky Express) and Lastochka. And Allegro runs from St. Petersburg to Helsinki. The fastest of them are Sapsan and Allegro; in some places they travel up to 220 km/h.

4. The longest train route is Kharkov - Vladivostok (No. 053), distance 9722 km (in reverse side- 9715 km).

The longest direct routes are 10,267 km: Moscow - Pyongyang via Khabarovsk (direct car to train No. 001/002 Moscow - Vladivostok) and Kyiv → Vladivostok (direct car to train No. 053 Kharkov - Vladivostok).

5. At the very high point The railway track rises on the Trans-Siberian Railway between the Turgutui and Yablonovaya stations. The train moves here at an altitude of 1040 meters. The second place in altitude above sea level is occupied by the Kizha station, which is west of the Petrovsky Plant, whose height is more than 900 meters. And in third place on the high-altitude pedestal is the Andrianovsky Pass, which is located west of Baikal. Its height reaches 900 meters.

6. The coldest place on the railway is on the section of the Trans-Siberian Railway between the villages of Mogocha and Skovorodino. Interestingly, this site is not the northernmost in terms of geography, but the coldest in terms of climate. This place can be called a real pole of cold, since the temperature here in winter sometimes drops to -62 degrees. It is difficult to imagine how a railway was once laid in the permafrost zone.

7. Every year 1,300,000,000 passengers use railway transport in Russia. That is, every resident of Russia uses the train 9 times a year. However, this figure is far from the limit. In the USSR, there were 15 train trips for every person.

8. The Trans-Siberian Railway is considered the longest railway not only in Russia, but throughout the world. The length of this railway from Nakhodka to Moscow is 9438 kilometers. There are 97 major stations on this road.

9. The middle station of the Trans-Siberian Railway is called “Half”. From it to Moscow and to Vladivostok the same distance.

10. Before the revolution in Russia, there was the Main Society of Russian Railways of the same name, formed on January 26, 1857 in accordance with the imperial decree of Alexander II. The founders of the company were Russian, Polish, English and French bankers. The capital of the company was 275 million silver rubles. The first chairman of the management board of the company was Baron Pyotr Kazimirovich Meyendorff, and the main director was Karl Coldignon, the chief inspector of bridges and roads in France.

IN modern world There are many options for covering long distances. You can travel by bus, car, plane or train, and all these means of transportation do not seem surprising.

However, a few centuries ago, none of the above existed, and people were just beginning to create the things we are familiar with.

Even before the advent of the steam engine, there was a prototype of the railway in the world. The origin of railway transport, as we now imagine it, began in the 18th-19th centuries.

Over the course of several centuries, humanity has gone from a steam locomotive to high-speed peregrine falcons. Many scientists and inventors had a hand in the development of railway transport and managed to make a real breakthrough.

Pre-steam era

In fact, rails existed long before the steam engine. It is believed that the first rail road was the Diolk portage, where slaves pushed carts along depressions in the limestone back in the 6th century BC.

Then rail roads appeared in Europe, they worked due to the traction of people or animals. The rails were wooden and were widely used in mines to transport mined rock to ships.

The history of the modern road began at the beginning of the 18th century, during the industrial revolution. Machine production gradually replaced manual production, and in the field rail roads there was also a breakthrough.

The inventors were concerned with creating an engine that would not be driven by human resources. The first “swallow” was the steam engine of Thomas Severi, which he patented in 1698. A few decades later it was improved and became a real breakthrough.

The oldest railway in the world was founded at the end of the 15th century near the city of Salzburg. Previously, the Reiszug lift was powered by the traction of people or animals, but now it operates on an electric motor.

Steam engines

The next milestone in the development of the rail road was the steam engine, which radically changed the concept of this type of transport. The idea arose to replace the resource for traction from a person (animal) to a mobile locomotive that could move cars along rails.

The implementation of this idea accelerated after the creation of the first steam engine in history. In 1769, Scottish inventor James Watt patented a heavy steam engine, which he improved by 1782. The updated version was suitable for use in steam locomotives, as it was more compact and powerful.

The first who was able to introduce a steam-powered carriage to the world was the Frenchman Nicolas Cugnot. His invention can safely be called the predecessor of steam locomotives, although the test ended in failure.

Success came to Richard Tretwick, who in 1797 managed to introduce a steam carriage. He began developing a cart that could move on rails, since the dirt roads were in a sad state. And, beginning in 1801, he created several successful models of steam locomotives, which were first used on amusement railroads.

Indirectly, Emperor Napoleon himself had a hand in the sharp leap in the development of railway communication. His wars with most European countries led to higher prices for many products, including grains, which were used to feed horses. Since all large enterprises used horse traction, they had to urgently take measures to replace horses with steam locomotives without loss.

The Middleton Railway began to be used as an experimental site and began to use steam traction. It began operating in 1758 and initially carried out transportation using horses that pulled carts along the rails. It was for Middleton that the first commercially successful steam locomotive, the Salamanca, was designed in 1812.

It is worth noting that experiments on the operation of steam traction were not always successful. The boiler there exploded twice, and in 1866 the road was again used by horses. By the way, it was here that the very first professional machinist, James Hewitt, was trained, who died during the second explosion.

Thus, experiments to create a successful steam locomotive continued for several decades, and only in 1825 the opening of a railway accessible to the public took place. It was officially opened on September 27, and carried 600 passengers on the opening day. The train was pulled by Locomotion No. 1, built by inventor George Stephenson.

The road stretched for 40 kilometers and at that time was the first one intended for public use. From then on, the railway boom spread to other countries and became a real breakthrough in the industrial revolution.

Golden age

It is not surprising that with the creation of the first successful steam locomotives, the railway network began to develop by leaps and bounds. In 1830, the world's first railway was opened in England, connecting two cities, Manchester and Liverpool. It was, as expected, with train stations and stretched for 56 kilometers.

After 20 years, England already had 11,000 km of railways that entangled the entire country. In others European countries this transport was also very popular.

The first prerequisites for the emergence of railways on the American continent appeared in the second decade of the 19th century, when Colonel John Stevens acquired the right to build a company.

By 1826, Stevens introduced his first steam-powered locomotive, which was tested successfully. And already in 1830, the United States caught up with Europe and opened the first public road.

By 1840, the total length of rail roads in the country stretched to 4.4 thousand kilometers, and by 1860 - to 48 thousand kilometers! Although the country's residents did not immediately like the innovation, many considered steam locomotives to be “sons of the devil” and preferred to travel the old fashioned way.

The golden age of railroad transport began in the United States in the 1860s. This area fell into the hands of tycoons, the government provided generous subsidies for every mile of rails, so it is not surprising that over half a century the number of kilometers increased to 408 thousand.

The railway contributed to the unification of the country into a single domestic market and helped the development of metallurgy and mechanical engineering.

Russian railway

For Russia, the history of this convenient mode of transport began much later, in the 1830s. The prerequisites already existed, for example, in the Altai mines there were narrow-gauge tracks with rails for transporting rock.

In 1788, the first in the city of Petrozavodsk appeared Russian Empire railway line called "Cast Iron Wheel Line".

However, a railway accessible to everyone appeared much later; in 1836, Nicholas I ordered the construction of the Tsarskoye Selo road. A year later, the grand opening took place, and the emperor himself rode from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo.

A serious impetus for the development of this type of transport was the defeat in the Crimean War. In the 1850s, one of the reasons for the failure was that there was no railway communication in this part of the Russian Empire. By decree of the government, the railway network began to be actively built throughout the country.

The longest road in the world, the Trans-Siberian Railway, was founded in 1891. On this moment her record could not be broken, because the length is 9.2 thousand kilometers.

During the USSR period railway transport continued to actively develop, Boris Beshchev made an invaluable contribution. He served as Minister of Railways from 1948 for 29 years. By 1965, he managed to reduce the use of steam traction to 24%, the rest of the communication was carried out by electricity and diesel locomotives.

At the moment, most of the railway track belongs to Russian Railways. There are a total of 124 thousand km of tracks, 86 thousand of which are for public use.

Rail transport now

Of course, now trains are driven not by steam locomotives, but by electric traction. This invention was first presented in 1879, when Vernet Siemens presented at an exhibition the only 300-meter-long railway running on electricity at that time. In the same year, this technology was used in a factory in France.

Then in 1880, the Russian engineer F. Pirotsky in Russia launched a carriage with 40 passengers using electric current. And already in 1881, the first railway in history running on electricity was opened in Berlin.

A significant impetus for the mass electrification of railways was the end of the First World War. European countries, the USA and Russia began to gradually electrify their railways.

Having mastered electric trains, the world began to develop high-speed trains. The first successes were recorded back in 1903, when the train exceeded the speed limit of 200 km/h.

European countries began to prepare projects to create high-speed traffic, but Japan was the first country with such a network. In 1959, construction began on a road between Tokyo and Osaka, traffic on which reached 210 km/h. At the moment, the development of high-speed rail transport does not stop.

Railway records

As we already mentioned, the longest railway in the world is the Trans-Siberian Railway. It can be overcome, on average, in a week of travel.

As for speed records, technology today can no longer compare with what it was a hundred years ago. The latest speed record among trains belongs to the Japanese MLX01, which reached a speed of 603 km/h.

The deepest part of the railway is the Seikan Tunnel, which runs 240 meters below sea level. But the highest station is considered to be Tangla in Chinese Tibet at an altitude of 5068 km above sea level.

Railway communication gave a huge impetus to the development of industry and allowed humanity to reach new level development. To this day, railways are one of the safest and convenient types transport.

1. The railway is a thing for modern man ordinary. Few people today have never traveled by electric train or long-distance train.

2. Traveling by rail is 45 times safer than traveling by road. The risk of getting into an accident on a train is significantly lower than in a car.

3. Today (on average) every Russian travels by rail approximately 9 times a year. And the total number of guests has long exceeded 1.3 billion people a year.

4. And the first trains in Russia and Europe were available to approximately 9% of the population of those cities between which railway communication was being established.

5. The advent of the steam locomotive at the beginning of the 19th century transformed the world, since it was from this moment that people and goods could move around the world at unprecedented speeds.

6.First passenger train in the world went on rails at a speed that barely reached 33 km/h. A little later it was possible to accelerate to 38 and even 42 kilometers per hour.

7. The opening of the Moscow – St. Petersburg railway connection was a real event. That's just simple people were in no hurry to use the innovation. The terrible rumbling thing caused genuine fear.

8.In order to promote rail transportation to the masses, it was decided to make travel free. And this measure had an effect. Very soon they stopped being afraid of trains.

9. But the history of the action was short-lived. It was possible to travel there and back for free only in the first three days after the opening of the corresponding railway line.

MODERN HIGH-SPEED TRAIN “SAPSAN”

It’s a pity that free travel from Moscow to St. Petersburg is a thing of the past.

10. In 1830, the first American steam-powered railway, Liverpool - Manchester, opened. Decades later, hundreds of thousands of railroad miles crossed the United States.

11.Today, the descendants of these early railroads, including the CSX railroad, continue to play a key role in American life, moving millions of freight cars each year.

QINGHAI-TIBET SINGLE TRACK RAILWAY

12. Qinghai-Tibet Single Track Railway - the highest mountain road on the planet annually attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world to admire the magical Tibetan landscapes of the “roof of the world” at an altitude of more than 5,000 km above sea level.

13. No sea or sea romance like this air company can't offer. Of course, such extreme conditions require special trains.

14. The cars are completely sealed, equipped with personal oxygen masks and an oxygen supply system if necessary, and at intermediate and observation stations passenger carriages Naturally, they do not open, since there is nothing to breathe outside of them. The Chinese themselves feel extraordinary pride in their engineering structure and put it on a par with the Great Wall of China.

15. When Englishman Richard Trevithick launched his first practical steam locomotive in 1804, its speed was less than 16 kilometers per hour. Today, trains travel 30 times faster on high-speed rail lines.

TRANS-SIBERIAN HIGHWAY

16. Among domestic railways, the most remarkable was and remains the Trans-Siberian Railway. She has many statuses. For example, this railway is known as the longest in the world. Today it has more than 9,400 kilometers of tracks and represents an entire network of railways between Moscow and the Russian Far East. In addition, the road has branches to all neighboring border countries.

17.The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began in full force back in 1891, under the personal control of Sergei Witte, who, being then Minister of Finance, clearly understood that Russia simply must be a strategic partner between the West and the East.

18. In order for the construction of the road and the accompanying infrastructure to keep pace with each other, the Russian leadership began construction from the east and west simultaneously, moving deeper into the country. To understand the full scale of the project, it is enough to say that only in 2002 was the complete electrification of the Trans-Siberian Railway completed!

19. Having reconstructed some sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the early 2000s, Russia organized the first permanent corridor of large-scale freight traffic between China, Mongolia, Belarus, Poland and Germany, which significantly increased trade turnover and contributed to further development Far East as a strategic region.

20.The original name of the road is the Great Siberian Way. And it is great not because the construction of the road took almost a century, but because the Russian government then deliberately refused Western “help”, not wanting to allow foreign capitalists to increase their influence in the Far East. We built only with our own strength! And they did! Built!

21. It’s not without reason that they say that traveling along the Trans-Siberian Railway means seeing half the world. Is it a joke? The famous Photographer Todd Selby, who traveled a long way from Paris to Shanghai by rail, claims that this is the real truth: “It’s fantastic to wake up every time, look up from the map and try to understand where you are... It’s already the seventh day of the journey, and we’re still still in Siberia! Siberia is very big. And Baikal is very big. But this is just part of great Russia!”

OMSK RAILWAY STATION

22. Trans-Siberian is 9438 kilometers, more than 8 days on the road. Along the route, the train stops at 97 major stations and passes through many small ones.

23.And there is also half the way on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The station, located exactly in the middle of the railway between Moscow and Vladivostok, is called that. The distance from “Half” to both cities is the same.

24.Transsib is also considered the coldest railway. Part of it passes through a climate zone where -62˚С is the usual temperature. Interestingly, the coldest point of the route does not coincide with the northernmost.

25. When the first Japanese Shinkansen appeared before the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, its speed exceeded 209 km per hour. Since then, the maximum speed of these trains has been steadily increasing. The current world record is 603 kilometers per hour.

RAILROAD IN THAILAND, IN MAEKLONG

26. No less amazing is the Thai railway, which passes through a real market! 60 km west of Bangkok in the town of Maek Long, a food market located right on the railway tracks, several times a day quickly folds its food trays, twists its awnings and runs up right in front of the trains.

27.But the most amazing thing is that even during this time, trade does not stop! From the open windows of the train, money coins fly towards the merchants, and fish, sweets, fruits and other purchases fly back through the windows. The main thing here is to be able to catch!

28. Although passengers develop a knack for this task after rubbing their eyes from broken tomatoes and saying “I didn’t catch it again!” After the trains have passed, the boxes with the remaining vegetables, fish and other goods are returned to the rails and trade takes on a more civilized character.

29. Japan is no longer alone in high-speed rail: France, China and Germany are also working on trains that can reach extreme speeds.

30. The United States is currently developing plans to build a high-speed rail line that will connect the California cities of San Francisco and Anaheim.

RAILWAY IN NEW ZEALAND

31. The Napier-Gisborne railway route is unique in that it crosses the main runway of Gisborne Airport in New Zealand. This is the only railway in the world where the dispatch service air traffic allows or prohibits trains from crossing the runway to continue their route.

32. Sometimes planes and trains are separated from each other by literally a matter of seconds! This strange “decoupling” is perhaps the first offer to tourists from New Zealand guides! A steam locomotive and an airplane rushing towards each other is an ordinary sight for Hollywood or Indian films, but not for everyday life!

33. The first freight railway in Russia was only 2 kilometers long. This miracle of science and technology of its time was powered by horse traction!

34. The longest freight trains in the history of the railway traveled to different parts of the world. One transported coal (no more or less - 42,000 tons per trip) to the Uraliz of Ekibastuz back in the Soviet era. The train consisted of 440 cars. Their total length exceeded 6.5 kilometers.

35.The record was broken in South Africa. Here a train of 660 cars entered the route. Their total length was 7.3 kilometers. But the experiment, unlike the Soviet one, had no practical meaning. The track could not withstand the load, and the railway had to be closed for a long time for repairs.

“TUNNEL OF LOVE” IN UKRAINE

36. “Tunnel of Love” is a picturesque three-kilometer stretch of railway located near the village of Klevan in Ukraine. It leads to a fiberboard factory.

37. The train runs here three times a day, delivering wood to the Orzhevsky woodworking plant. It is the train that forces the growing tree branches to bend around the tracks and maintains the tunnel in this condition.

38.The green corridor, beautiful in sunny summer, attracts couples in love, and in autumn and winter, photographers who want to capture this beautiful miracle of nature. It is believed that if you visit the “Tunnel of Love” and make a cherished wish, it will definitely come true.

BAIKAL-AMUR HIGHWAY

39. The whole country built the Baikal-Amur Mainline. The best young people from all over the Soviet Union came, worked, and settled down. Families were created here, real labor feats were accomplished, discoveries were made.

40.BAM was designed as part of a systemic project to develop significant natural resources little-explored areas through which, in fact, the road ran.

41. It was planned to build about ten giant territorial-industrial complexes along the BAM route, but Gorbachev’s perestroika allowed the completion of only one South Yakut coal complex.

42.Then privatization, with great hopes, transferred a number of resource deposits into private hands, but instead of loading the capacity of the BAM and massive development of mineral deposits in the highway area, “at the exit” only oligarchs with yachts turned out.

43. By the early 2000s, almost all projects for the development of the Baikal-Amur Mainline zone were suspended under “ideological” pretexts of inexpediency, and the decision of the Soviet leadership to build the BAM was carefully labeled as erroneous and futile. Although this project was considered simply vital for Siberia and the Far East for half a century, according to all experts.

44. It is gratifying that today’s leadership of the country is seriously aimed at reviving the BAM and the region as a whole. And it is not just words. Recently, the Elga deposit has been successfully operating, where the first coal was mined in the summer of 2011. An access railway line is being built to connect it to the highway.

45.The first super-heavy freight trains started running along the BAM, allowing them to transport 7,100 tons instead of the previous weight norm of 4,800 tons, which should increase the profitability of transportation several times over. This became possible after the commissioning of new powerful two-section locomotives of the 2ES5K Ermak series and 2TE25A Vityaz diesel locomotives. The trains successfully overcome the most difficult section of the route - Kuznetsovsky Pass.

46. ​​The railway tracks themselves at the pass were reconstructed and strengthened, and the New Kuznetsovsky Tunnel was put into operation. Let me note for critics: “The trains have started, but they will not go. The pass has been reconstructed, but will not be there someday. "Ermaki" and "Vityazi" have been put into operation and are not at the design stage." So BAM has a bright future because a road built with love cannot but live forever!

BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILWAY COMPANY

47. In 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio became the first American company to receive a charter to transport passengers and various cargoes. The company struggled to create a steam engine that could overcome rough and uneven terrain and eliminate the need for horse-drawn traction.

48. Inventor Peter Cooper came to the rescue and proposed to design and build just such an engine. On August 28, 1830, Cooper's locomotive, named Tom Thumb, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the vicinity of Baltimore, went out to face off against a horse-drawn train. The locomotive immediately took the lead, and the leaders of the Baltimore and Ohio, impressed by what they saw, decided to switch their railroad to steam traction. Soon, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became one of the most successful railroads in the United States.

49. Do you want maximum security guarantees? Choose branded carriages of the TKS carrier. Their location in the train and modern technical equipment ensure safety and comfort during the trip.

50. Modern high speed trains They drive along the railway at a speed of 320–430 km/h. And experimental innovative compounds can accelerate to 603 km/h. And this, as scientists and engineers say, is far from the limit.

photo from open sources