Interesting information about railway transport. Interesting facts about trains (15 photos)

1. The highest mountain railway in the world is the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the height of which is 5 kilometers. This railroad runs a train of individually designed cars, the specificity of which is carried out in the supply of oxygen, and in addition to each passenger there is an individual use of an oxygen mask.

2. Thailand has interesting place where railway sleepers with rails laid in the middle of the local market, a train passes every day. Before its passage, a warning loud siren signal is given, after which the sellers in a hurry remove their goods and sheds from the travel part of the train, and after the train passes, they put back the sheds and their goods in the same fast rhythm, after which the trade continues in a calm rhythm. But some vegetables and fruits lie still while the train passes, since those near the roadway do not interfere with the passage of the train and it does not touch them at all.

3. Japan has one interesting station named Shibuya, on which a monument was erected to the dog's most faithful friend. This faithful dog waited 10 years for his owner, who once got on a train and left on it, never returned. Thus, a monument to the dog appeared at the Shibuya station for his faithful loyalty.

4. There is the legendary railway of Australia, which is without a hedgehog with a duration of 500 kilometers, and it is laid on a desert plain. This railway is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

5. The first train without rails was built by the Japanese company Toshiba. A high-speed maglev train has the ability to accelerate to a speed of 517 kilometers per hour.

6. But the maximum speed of a train that traveled by rail was recorded in the USA in the state of New Mexico, it reached 9851 kilometers per hour. This train had an experimental rocket engine.

7. At one time, a Vip train was sent across Switzerland, in which nobles from the high society of Switzerland gathered. On a solemn occasion, only restaurant cars were present in this train. The most annoying thing about these cars was that the organizers forgot about the toilets. Having approached the train to its final station, where quite a few people had gathered to meet them, those who met them were stunned by what they saw, while honored passengers, after stopping, very quickly rushed out of all the doors of the cars.

For example, the 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.

No sea or air company can offer you such romance. Of course, such extreme conditions require special trains. The cars are fully sealed, equipped with personal oxygen masks and an oxygen supply system if necessary, and naturally, passenger cars do not open at intermediate and observation stations, because there is nothing to breathe outside them. The Chinese themselves are extremely proud of their engineering structure and put it on a par with the Great Wall of China.

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

But the most amazing thing is that even at this time the trade does not stop! Money-coin flies from the open windows of the train to the merchants, and fish, sweets, fruits and other purchases fly back through the windows. The main thing here is to be able to catch! :-) Although, I believe that the passengers have a knack for this matter after rubbing their eyes from broken tomatoes and the phrase “I didn’t catch it again!” :-) After the trains pass, the boxes with the remaining vegetables, fish and other goods again return to the rails and trade becomes more civilized :-)

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

Sometimes planes and trains are literally seconds apart! This outlandish "denouement" is perhaps the first offer to tourists from New Zealand guides! Agree, a locomotive and a plane rushing towards each other is a common sight for Hollywood or Indian films, but not for everyday life!

If you have already found your soul mate or are still just looking, then the railway highly recommends visiting the beautiful “Tunnel of Love”, located near the village of Klevan in Ukraine. This scenic three-kilometer stretch of railway leads to a fibreboard factory. The train runs here three times a day, delivering wood to the Orzhevsky woodworking plant. It is the train that makes the growing tree branches bend around the tracks and maintains the tunnel in this state.

A beautiful sunny summer green corridor 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 guess cherished desire, then it will definitely come true.

The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway in the world, today it has 9300 km of tracks and is a whole network of railways between Moscow and the Russian Far East. In addition, the road has branches to all neighboring border countries. Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in full force It began back in 1891, under the personal control of Sergei Witte, who, being then Minister of Finance, clearly understood that Russia simply had to be a strategic partner between East and West. 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 at the same time, striving inland. To understand the scale of the project, suffice it to say that only in 2002 was its full electrification completed!

Having reconstructed some sections of the road 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 the further development of the Far East as a strategic region.

The original name of the road is the Great Siberian Way. And it is great not because the construction of the road was carried out for almost a century, but because the Russian government then deliberately refused Western "aid", not wanting to allow the strengthening of the influence of foreign capitalists in the Far East. They built only with their own forces! And they did! Built!

No wonder they say that to drive along the Trans-Siberian Railway means to see half the world. Is it a joke? The famous Photographer Todd Selby, who has made a long journey from Paris to Shanghai by rail, claims that this is the real truth: still in Siberia! Siberia is very big. And Baikal is very big. But this is just a part of great Russia!”

If all the previous facts about railways did not cause you any emotions, then do not despair. There is still one railway in the world, which they do not get tired of admiring to this day! Well, even if you are an avid critic and the word “to admire” is not for you, then don’t worry, you will also find a huge “portion” for discussion and condemnation here for yourself. What is this railroad? This is BAM!

I would not like to argue with those who claim that the BAM is a “dead end” of the Soviet era, that the convicts built it, that the whole territory of the BAM is a huge zone or camp ... This, whatever one may say, this ingenious engineering project still goes around a huge number of tales and legends ... But, nevertheless, for thousands of thousands of BAM residents, this construction site remained the happiest and brightest memory. And they speak of it as a bright, romantic, heroic and the best time in their lives. So it was.

The best youth ever Soviet Union I came, I worked, I lived. Families were created here, real labor feats were accomplished, discoveries were made. BAM was built by the whole country.

« Through passes, rivers and swamps
We will lay the highway for centuries. We are not afraid of any work,
At the call of our hearts, we have come here!”

BAM was designed as part of a systematic project for the development of significant natural resources little-explored areas, through which, in fact, the road ran.

On the way to the BAM, it was planned to build about ten territorial-industrial complexes-giants, but a very "promising" Gorbachev's perestroika, allowed to complete the construction of only oneSouth Yakutsk coal complex. Then, no less "promising" privatization, with great hopes, transferred a number of resource deposits into private hands, but instead of loading the capacities of the BAM and massive development of mineral deposits in the zone of the highway, "at the exit" only oligarchs with yachts turned out. By the early 2000salmost all projects for the development of the Baikal-Amur Mainline zone were suspendedunder the "ideological" pretexts of inexpediency, and the decision of the Soviet leadership to build BAM was diligently hung up with the stigma of fallacy and futility. How truly "oligarchic" is it to hide behind the sudden "futility" of a project that for half a century was considered simply vital for Siberia and Far East according to all experts.

The only thing that warms the soul is that the current leadership of the country is seriously aimed at reviving the BAM and the region as a whole. And it's not just words. RecentlyThe Elga deposit is successfully operating, where the first coal was mined in the summer of 2011. An access railway line is being built, connecting it with the highway. The first freight trains super heavy weight, allowing to transport 7100 tons instead of the previous weight norm 4800 tons, which should increase the profitability of transportation at times. This became possible after the commissioning of new powerful two-section locomotives of the 2ES5K Ermak series and diesel locomotives 2TE25A Vityaz. The trains successfully overcome the most difficult section of the route - the Kuznetsovsky Pass.

The railway tracks themselves at the pass were reconstructed and strengthened, and the New Kuznetsovsky Tunnel was put into operation.I will note for critics: “The trains have gone, but they will not go. The pass has been reconstructed, but will never be. "Ermaki" and "Vityazi" are put into operation, and are not at the design stage.

I am sure that BAM has a bright future because a road built with love cannot but live forever!

For all mankind, trains have already become more than a familiar mode of transport. However, the world of wagons and railroad tracks is not at all simple. In this article, we will talk about some interesting facts related to this vehicle: from historical to funny.

• The railway connects cities, countries, and sometimes entire parts of the world! Such a road is the Trans-Siberian Railway. Its length is about 9300 km.
• The collection of Faberge eggs also has a copy depicting the Trans-Siberian Railway. The egg contains a clockwork model of the imperial train, made of gold and platinum.

• As in Bologoye, where, according to legend, the St. Petersburg curb turns into the Moscow curb, the Trans-Siberian Railway has its own middle - this is the Polovina station. Historically, the Trans-Siberian Railway ran from Vladivostok to Miass, and the "Half" divided this path in half.
• The first railway line was the road between Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the year of the death of Nicholas I, during which construction began, it was named Nikolaevskaya. For the first three days, the trip along the Nikolaev railway was free, since no one wanted to ride on an unfamiliar "terrible thing."
• The first train in our country with a refrigeration unit was designed and built specifically for transportation to royal table fresh oysters from Sevastopol.
• In France, for a hundred years now, there has been a law prohibiting kissing at train stations. The reason for the release of such a rule was the frequent delays of the train due to the touching farewells of passengers and mourners.

In Russia, so far they are limited to simple warnings - at one of the airports you can see a poster with the words: “We ask passengers to start kissing right now so that the plane takes off on time.”

• Do you know what the similarities between a violinist and a lineman are? They both need absolute pitch. A railroad worker needs it in order to determine the presence of malfunctions in the wheels. But many thought that any person could cope with this work - go and knock at your pleasure.
• In our relatively flat country, there is no problem with the construction of high mountain roads. But in Peru, the paths pass high in the mountains - at an altitude of 3 km from sea level. Passengers on this section are offered oxygen bags.

• All branded trains in Russia they have their own name written on the side of the carriage. But some trains also have names given to them by passengers. Such, for example, is the Rostov-Odessa train. He was nicknamed "Papa - Mama."
• The Australian Railway, passing through the desert plain, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. On its section of 500 km there is not a single turn.
• A monument to a dog that has been waiting for the return of its owner who left by train for nine years stands at Shibuya Station in Japan. This story has become the most famous illustration of canine devotion and loyalty.
• On the first section of the road built between Liverpool and Manchester, the British decided to hold a competition between five locomotives. However, immediately before the race, the fifth participant was suspended from the competition with the wording "due to an outdated engine." Real horses were hidden under the skin of the locomotive.
• The Ahvaz-Tehran train driver was severely punished for moving during namaz (prayer). The fact is that during the ceremony, a Muslim must be turned strictly towards Mecca, and at each turn of the train, passengers had to spin in place.
• Security experts advise buying tickets for seat place in the center and avoid the first and last cars, in case of an accident. In general, the safety of a train is estimated to be 45 times higher than that of a car.
• It is said that once there was a case of collision completely different types transport - trains and boats. Lake Ohio in the United States burst its banks and flooded the railroad tracks with a meter layer of water. The driver decided to continue along the flooded track, but collided with the steamer. Obviously, neither life nor education prepared these drivers for such a turn.

People have always been fascinated by trains. And some of them gave rise to creativity. The Lumière brothers chose a steam locomotive as the subject of their first film. As we remember, the film was called "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station" and plunged the audience into horror with its realism.

In Russia, the possibility of a railway was discussed back in the twenties of the 19th century, when the emperor learned that the railway saves treasury expenses and even increases wealth, as happens in England (at that time, rails were used to transport coal).

The initial idea was to create a connection between St. Petersburg and Moscow, but the question of the effectiveness, and most importantly, the profitability of such an enterprise for investors, remained open.
As the proverb says, “If you don’t try, you won’t know.” The commission and all kinds of meetings that were convened to solve the problem did not give a clear and precise answer. As a result, invited in 1834 to the professor of Vienna polytechnic institute and the builder of the first public railway in Europe, Franz Gerstner, was offered to build a road that would “link” the suburbs of St. Petersburg - Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk.

In order for the zealots of progress not to be discouraged and not to think that the necessary road would never be built in St. Petersburg, they added that the Moscow-Petersburg line would appear "not before the end of the road ... and upon inquiry from the experience of the benefits of such roads for the state, public and shareholders.

How to raise money for construction

Speaking of shareholders, it is worth noting that 700 people took part in the purchase of the relevant securities. To create capital, fifteen thousand shares were issued. The required amount of three million rubles was collected by subscription within six months.

Count Bobrinsky became one of the main sponsors of the railway. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

One of the ardent supporters of the construction was the famous sugar factory, Count Aleksey Alekseevich Bobrinsky, the son of Major General Alexei Bobrinsky, born in an extramarital affair between Catherine II and Grigory Orlov. The grandson of the great empress acquired shares worth 250 thousand rubles.

Road opening

On November 11, 1837, the road was officially opened. For the sake of such a solemn occasion, Nicholas I and his wife were invited.

A prayer service was served on the station tracks, Gerstner, as a driver, got into the cab of a steam locomotive, and at half past one the train, to loud exclamations of surprise and approval, moved towards Pavlovsk, where it arrived thirty-five minutes later. Max speed the first steam locomotive was 64 kilometers per hour, but for the safety of passengers on the first trip, the amazing car did not show all its strength.

Steel horse locomotive

Gerstner personally was the first to travel by rail. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

In the Vedomosti newspaper that day one could read a note: “It was Saturday, the townspeople flocked to the old regimental church of the Introduction near Semenovsky parade ground. They knew that an unusual railroad was opening and "a steel horse carrying many, many carriages at once" would set off for the first time.

However, not everyone managed to see the first train. Commoners were not allowed to the station itself, which had been built recently.

Exactly at 12:30 pm, a tiny locomotive blew a piercing whistle, and eight cars with a noble audience set off along the route Petersburg - Tsarskoye Selo.

The first days of operation of the road were trial, the passage is free, and the quality, as they say, is at the risk of the buyer.

However, there were no dissatisfied people: up to fifty people were packed into each of the cars - people of humble origin were given the opportunity to try out the new transport.

Despite the fact that the road had serious problems, the people considered the invention a kind of carousel: fast driving, a breeze blowing in the face, the smell of fields and arable land, and a slight fright at the sounds of an oncoming train.

The excitement was monstrous, and the crowds that besieged the locomotive were endless.

What did the wagons look like at the time?

The carriages on the train were divided along social lines. Thus, the composition of eight cars and a steam locomotive, which was built at the Stephenson factory in England and delivered to St. Petersburg by sea, consisted of four classes.

The most luxurious and vividly demonstrating the thickness of the gentleman’s wallet, who could afford to buy tickets for it, were the so-called “Berlins” - here the public could sit more relaxed in an easy chair, and people from the same social stratum sat opposite and to the side. There were eight such cars in total, followed by "stagecoaches" that could accommodate a large number of people and "rulers" - open-type carts. Those that were with a roof were called “chaises”, those that did not have one were called “waggons”. The latter had neither heating nor lighting.

In the early years, the fare for first and second class passengers was 2.5 and 1.8 rubles and 80 and 40 kopecks for third and fourth. It is curious, but, despite the fact that the train was designed not only to cover long distances, but also to keep pace with progress, until 1838 on a non-Sunday and holidays only horse-drawn vehicles were used. The steam method has become a kind of symbol of festivities or Sunday rest.

Imperial way

Since 1838, the movement has become regular and then finally decided on the schedule. The first train departed at nine o'clock in the morning, and the last at ten o'clock in the evening. The interval between movements was three or four hours.

Members of the Romanov family and European monarchs also used the railway. Only one train could move along the so-called "Imperial Way". In Pushkin, the train slowed down at the "Imperial Pavilion" - the station where they met the royal family.

Traffic along the line Tsarskoe Selo - Pavlovsk was opened in May 1838. By the significant day they built concert hall where Johann Strauss himself performed.

Steam locomotive "Elephant" and "Bogatyr"

Steam locomotives at that time were made at seven factories: in Belgium, England, Germany and the St. Petersburg Leuchtenberg plant. Each locomotive had its own name: "Nimble", "Arrow", "Bogatyr", "Elephant", "Eagle" and "Lion". However, the romantic attitude towards the locomotive soon changed, and the jubilation at the sight of it was replaced by a habit, and instead of names, the trains acquired a dry number and a series of letters.

People often went to the Pavlovsky Musical Station just for entertainment. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Despite the initial fear of shareholders not to make a profit from the enterprise, over the first five years, not only all the funds spent on construction, but also what was spent on operation were repaid: the road brought in significant income and allowed us to assume that the further construction of new stations would bring a truly fabulous income.

The first steam locomotive was a revelation for Petersburgers: they wrote about it in newspapers, drew posters, candy wrappers were full of its image, and the Alexandrinsky Theater even included the vaudeville “A Trip to Tsarskoye Selo”, the main character of which was a steam locomotive.

1. Two lengths of the equator.

The total length of railway lines owned by Russian Railways is 85.2 thousand km. If all the existing rails of the Russian Railways were laid out along the equator, then it would be enough for two circles and a little more would be left. Moreover, one of these two circles was electrified and electric trains and electric locomotives could go along it. The second circle would remain exclusively for diesel locomotives smoking the sky from a pipe. 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- the pride of Russian Railways. Their photographs are printed on posters and in booklets, banners with their advertisements hang 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", "Petrel" (twin brother of "Nevsky Express") and "Swallow". And from St. Petersburg to Helsinki goes "Allegro". 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), the distance is 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. For the most high point the railway track rises on the Trans-Siberian between the stations Turgutui and Yablonovaya. The train moves here at an altitude of 1040 meters. The second place in terms of height above sea level is occupied by the Kizha station, which is west of Petrovsky Zavod, the height of which is more than 900 meters. And on the third place of the high-rise pedestal is Andrianovsky Pass, which is located west of Lake Baikal. Its height reaches 900 meters.

6. The coldest place on the railway is located 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 cold pole, as the temperature in winter here sometimes drops to -62 degrees. It is hard to imagine how a railway was once laid in the permafrost zone.

7. Annually in Russia by rail used by 1,300,000,000 passengers. 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 is called “Half”. From it to Moscow and to Vladivostok the same distance.

10. Before the revolution in Russia, there was the eponymous Main Society of Russian Railways, formed on January 26, 1857 in accordance with the imperial decree of Alexander II. The founders of the society 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 society was Baron Peter Kazimirovich Meyendorff, and the chief director was Karl Koldinon, the chief inspector of bridges and roads in France.