Facts about Russian railways. Interesting and little-known facts about trains and railway

: the history of the appearance of the first locomotive and the first railways. The most unusual railway stations and railways. "Station" laws of France and a monument to a dog in Shibuya.

1. The first trains, which are trolleys driven by horses, appeared in the 17th century... In Europe. The first steam locomotive in history to push carriages was built by the English inventor Richard Trevithick. It happened in 1801. The purpose of such a transport was to transport iron ore at the Pen-y-Darren plant, and the speed of its movement was 8 kilometers per hour.
2. The first railway in the world was opened in England in the first half of the 19th century.... The final stops of the train route were located in the cities of Stockton and Darlington, and the road itself was intended to carry both goods and passengers. The length of such a section was 50 km, and the train consisted of only 6 cars.
3. The first competition of the American steam locomotive Tom Thumb (in translation "Boy-with-finger") with a horse-drawn carriage took place in September 1830. The action took place along the track from the village of Railies Tavern to Baltimore. Mechanical breakdown of the transport itself and malfunctions in the operation of the boiler decided the fate of the competition. The animal was victorious, and "Thumb Boy" never made it to the finish line.

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4. What can be in common between professional musicians and trackmen? It turns out an exceptional ear for music. It is the sensitive hearing of the latter that makes it possible to detect wheel defects in time by the differences in the tone of the knock.
5. At the beginning of the XX century. In France, a law was passed prohibiting couples in love from kissing on the territory of railway stations. The reason for this was the frequent disruptions in the train schedule caused by long, “passionate” goodbyes. This rule still applies today. Warning signs are posted everywhere, and separate areas are allocated for the farewells of lovers.
6. Ferrocaril Austral Fueguino (Argentina) is called a train to the very end of the earth... It is the narrowest-gauge railway in the state (gauge - 50 cm). On the trajectory of the train there is a station called "End of the World", which is incredibly popular among those who want to get to the final stop on the "iron horse", and not on a cheaper bus. Interestingly, this road was originally intended to transport prisoners to correctional labor.

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7. Monument to Hachiko, dedicated to the faithful and devoted dog, is located on the territory of the Shibuya railway station (Japan). The animal became famous throughout the country in the 30s. XX century, after the publication in one of the largest newspapers of an article about an old dog, daily waiting at the station for its owner, who died several years ago. At the opening of the monument, a year before his death, Hachiko was personally present.

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8. You can travel between the most romantic cities in the world - Venice and Paris on the "train of love".

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9. The food market of one of the settlements in Thailand is located right on the railway tracks... Several times a day, 10-15 minutes before the approach of transport, traders pack their food and lower the awnings. After the trains pass, the market fully resumes its work.
10. Passengers arriving in Monte Carlo by train for the first time are often greeted by locals... Strangers offer newcomers to play in the casino instead of them, promising a solid reward.
11. The smoothest railroad, without a single turn, is in Australia... Its length is 500 km.
12. The fare on the "The Eastern & Oriental" express, which route passes through Southeast Asia, is 3000-9000 USD. The train includes several restaurant cars, decorated in different styles, a library, a shop, a bar, and a splendid observation terrace is equipped at its back platform.

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13. The three-kilometer section of the railway, located near the village of Klevan (Ukraine), is called the "Tunnel of Love".
14. At the end of the XIX century. the locomotive became the protagonist of the film by the Lumiere brothers... Today, dozens of films have been filmed about trains, among the most famous are "Runaway Train", "Highway", "Station for Two", etc.

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15. Although a train is considered several dozen times safer than a car, it is advisable to give preference to seating in the central carriages when buying tickets.

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1. Two lengths of the equator.

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

2. Russian railways consume up to 6% of all electricity generated 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 in booklets, banners with their advertisements hang everywhere on the company's website. Today, Russian Railways has five trains, which are called high-speed trains. Two of them - "Sapsan" and "Nevsky Express" - run between Moscow and St. Petersburg, between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod go "Sapsan", "Burevestnik" (twin brother of "Nevsky Express") and "Lastochka". And from St. Petersburg to Helsinki "Allegro" goes. The fastest of them are Sapsans 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 the opposite direction - 9715 km).

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

5. The railway line rises to the highest point on the Transsib between the stations Turgutui and Yablonovaya. The train moves here at an altitude of 1040 meters. The second highest altitude is occupied by the Kizha station, which is west of Petrovsky Zavod, which is more than 900 meters high. And in the third place of the high-rise pedestal is Andrianovskiy pass, which is located west of Lake 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 most northerly in terms of geography, but the coldest in terms of climate. This place can be called a real pole of cold, 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 1,300,000,000 passengers use rail 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 journeys for each 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 9,438 kilometers. There are 97 major stations on this road.

9. The middle station of the Transsib 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 society were Russian, Polish, English and French bankers. The capital of the company was 275 million rubles in silver. The first chairman of the Board of Management of the society was Baron Pyotr Kazimirovich Meyendorff, and the chief director was Karl Caldignon, the chief inspector of bridges and roads in France.

A lot of effort, time and money was spent on the creation of such a large-scale project as railways. At times, great design geniuses have come up with crazy decisions and create ridiculous situations. Curious cases have become common in this reformatory activity. And also with the development of high-speed transport, the topic of trains and long-distance travel has become very often mentioned in art - music, films, theatrical performances; and even in politics. Here are the most interesting facts and mentions about railways:

1) Who lives at the bottom of the ocean?

In 1896, an unusual vehicle called Daddy Long Legs began to run between the English cities of Brighton and Rottingdean - a cross between a tram and a ferry. Laying a railroad overland on this route required many engineering structures, and engineer Magnus Volk suggested laying the rails directly along the seabed - the total track length was 4.5 km. The platform with passengers towered above the rails on four supports 7 meters long and had a flag, a lifeboat and other maritime attributes, since it was formally considered a vessel. The service was canceled in 1901 when new breakwaters were decided to be built near Brighton and the relocation was deemed too costly.

2) When and where did the runaway train travel more than 100 km, accelerating to a speed of 76 km / h?

On May 15, 2001, in Ohio, USA, a railroad brigade was moving a train of 47 cars from one track to another. Due to a technical error, an uncontrolled train called CSX 8888 picked up speed and set off on an independent journey, during which it accelerated to a speed of 76 km / h. Having traveled more than 100 km, the train was stopped by the driver of the diesel locomotive that caught up with him, who grappled with the last car and applied rheostat braking.

3) What mechanism got its name from the name of the inventor of the prototype bicycle?

The prototype bicycle was designed and patented by the German Baron Karl von Drez in 1818. This mechanism had a wooden frame, metal wheels and a steering wheel, but there were no pedals - for it to move, you had to push off the ground with your feet. The surname of the inventor was not fixed in the name of the bicycle, but gave the name to the trolley - a device for moving on rails with mechanical traction.

4) How did Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign influence the lyrics of the Time Machine?

During Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, many works of art were censored. For example, Andrei Makarevich changed the lyrics in the song "Conversation on the Train": after the line "Carriage disputes are the last thing" instead of "when there is nothing else to drink" he began to sing "and you can't cook porridge from them."

5) What was the main reason for the transition to a system of time zones in the 19th century?

Until the 19th century, there was no division into time zones, everywhere the time was determined by the Sun. There was no need for time zones, since there was no high-speed transport. The development of railways in England led to unification, because due to the differences in time in each city, it was very difficult to draw up a normal timetable. It was the railway companies that ensured that there was one time zone in Greenwich all over the country. And then gradually the time zone system began to spread throughout the world.

6) Who was the victim of the murderer, whose brother had previously saved the life of the victim's son?

US President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at the theater by John Booth in 1865. Shortly before this, by coincidence, the latter's brother, Edwin Booth, saved the life of the president's son, Robert Lincoln, on a railway platform.

7) Where did the language barrier train crash happen?

In 2001, a train crash occurred in Belgium in which 8 people, including both drivers, were killed in a head-on collision of trains. Among other accidents, this one is unique in that the language barrier became its main cause. When the driver of the first train left the station despite the red light of the semaphore, the dispatcher called the next station to warn about it. However, the dispatchers did not understand each other, as one spoke French and the other Dutch. Both of these languages \u200b\u200bare official in Belgium, and according to the rules of the railway company, staff must know at least one of them.

8) What accident did the Americans arrange in 1896 to entertain the public?

In 1896, one of the American railway companies put on a show - the deliberate collision of two trains at full speed. 40,000 tickets were sold for the "performance", and a temporary town was built for the spectators who bought tickets. However, the engineers miscalculated the force of the explosion, and the crowd was not withdrawn to a safe enough distance, as a result of which three people were killed and several more injured.

9) What were the military armored tires?

It is known that in the wars of the 19th century, the First and Second World Wars, many countries used armored trains. However, in addition to this, they tried to fight with the help of separate combat units - armored rubber. They were almost tanks, but limited in movement only by rails.

10) S series?

From 1910 to 1920, the Y series freight locomotives were mass-produced in Russia.

11) Why did the direct railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg have a curvilinear bend in one place?

The October railway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg is now a set of straight lines, although there used to be a slight curvilinear bend between Okulovka and Malaya Vishera. There is a legend that when designing the road, Emperor Nicholas I personally drew a straight line between the two capitals, and the bend appeared due to the fact that the pencil went around the finger attached to the ruler.

In fact, there was a difference in elevation in that place, which made it difficult for trains driven by low-power steam locomotives to move. In order not to engage an additional locomotive, a detour was created.

12) Who and where managed to survive and not become disabled after his brain was pierced by an iron bar?

In 1848, American railroad worker Phineas Gage was injured at work when a metal rod pierced his frontal lobes of the brain, entering through his left cheek and exiting near the crown of the head. Less than an hour later, Gage regained consciousness, and then went to the hospital and, on the way, calmly and calmly talked about the hole in his head. An infection developed in the wound, but the worker recovered and lived for another 12 years. His memory, speech, perception were not disturbed, only his character changed - he became more irritable and lost his inclination to work.

13) What myth of the Soviet era about the film "The Arrival of the Train" is still alive?

Contrary to popular belief (which even got into the Soviet textbook on the history of foreign cinema), the film Arrival of the Train was not shown at the famous first paid film show in Paris in the basement of the Grand Café on Boulevard des Capucines.

14) What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under the train?

In Lev Tolstoy's novel, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this settlement became a city and was renamed into Zheleznodorozhny.

15) Who Invented Morse Code?

Morse code in its usual form was invented not by Morse code, but by the German engineer Gerke. The original Morse code was inconvenient, although it was used on some American railways until the 1960s.

16) Who has more?

An interesting fact is that the railway track in Russia is 8 centimeters larger than in Europe. There is an epic that when Russian engineers came to the tsar and asked what width to make the track, the same as in Europe or more, he replied: nah ... th more. So they made the track exactly that much wider. European railway gauge was adopted long before the invention of the steam locomotive.

17) Whose standard?

The railway track exactly corresponds to the distance between the wheels of ancient Roman chariots, with which the Romans made conquest campaigns across the territories of modern England and France. The peoples of Europe made their chariots according to Roman models, this standard was taken into account in the construction of railways.

18) Mail trains under escort

In the first time of the existence of the Nikolaev railway, the mail was especially vigilantly guarded along the entire route. For this purpose, mail trains were sent under the escort of mounted gendarmes, galloping at full speed along the railway.

19) Rescue benches

On the first Russian railways, third-class carriages were installed in the front of the train, were equipped with rigid benches, but ... did not have a roof, and therefore passengers more often traveled under the benches, where they fled from sparks flying out of a steam locomotive pipe, and the cold.

20) Paradoxical Love

The most paradoxical is the fact that with a small length of Russian railways (only 7 percent of the total number of railways in the world), the Russian Federation accounts for about 35 percent of the world's rail freight traffic. These figures are explained by the unusual popularity of railways among Russian businessmen, and this type of transport is preferred by both owners of large enterprises and individual entrepreneurs who need to transport small consignments of cargo.
The reason for such love of the Russian people, and indeed of the entire former USSR, for railways is easy to explain, if we recall, at least, the fact that this type of transport is considered the safest. Let the speed of delivery leave much to be desired, but you can always be sure that the cargo will arrive at its destination safe and sound. Indeed, according to statistics, accidents on the railways happen dozens of times less often than on highways, and in every news release, messages about the next plane crash have become a common occurrence. A high level of safety is especially important when transporting valuable and fragile products, and such products make up a considerable part of the total cargo flow today. As long as the planes are falling, and the roads, as you know, continue to be one of the main problems of the CIS, trains will occupy a leading position in the cargo transportation market. It is no secret that in the remote corners of our countries, many roads in the spring-autumn period simply come to an impassable state, so delivery by train remains the only possible option.
An important factor in favor of the choice of rail freight is their relatively low cost. It is simply not possible to find a more profitable transport for transporting timber and building materials. There are no restrictions on the types of cargo either - bulk, liquid, volatile and food - it is possible to transport flour and cement, coal and alcohol. All that a cargo owner needs to do is to choose a suitable container (wagon, gondola car, platform, tank car, refrigerator).
But for all the economic attractiveness and reliability, rail freight has a number of disadvantages.
Firstly, in small towns there are simply no railway stations, so you still have to use road transport to deliver cargo to its destination. Second, there are a number of difficulties associated with different transport technology requirements in different countries. Therefore, international cargo transportation requires knowledge of many nuances and the ability to establish friendly foreign economic relations.
Today, transport companies, in order to ensure maximum comfort for the customer and the recipient of the cargo, develop a logistics scheme for each individual cargo, agree on the features and conditions of transportation, based on the characteristics of the products, and provide clear information about the movement of the train and the time of its arrival at the station.

21) The first mechanical (not manual or horse-drawn) elevator driven by a steam engine, called the "vertical railroad", was installed in the United States in 1850. By the 1880s, large hotels and wealthy buildings in the United States and Europe were equipped with this type of elevator.

22) "Underground Railroad" in the USA in the 1850s was called a secret organization of abolitionists (a social movement seeking the abolition of slavery), ferrying fugitive blacks from the South to the North.

In Russia, they started talking about the possibility of the appearance of a railway back in the twenties of the XIX century, when the emperor received information that the railway saves treasury expenses and even increases wealth, as is the case in England (at that time, rails were used to transport coal).

The initial idea was to create a communication between St. Petersburg and Moscow, but the question of the efficiency, 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 accurate answer. As a result, Franz Gerstner, a professor at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute and the builder of the first public railway in Europe, invited in 1834, 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 lose heart and not think that the necessary road will never be built in St. Petersburg at all, they added that the Moscow-Petersburg line will appear “not until after the end of the road ... and upon inquiry from the experience of the benefits of such roads for the state, the public and shareholders ”.

How money was collected for construction

Speaking about shareholders, it is worth noting that 700 people took part in the purchase of the corresponding securities. Fifteen thousand shares were issued to create capital. 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 refinery, Count Alexei Alekseevich Bobrinskoy - the son of Major General Aleksey Bobrinsky, born in an extramarital affair between Catherine II and Grigory Orlov. The grandson of the great empress acquired shares for 250 thousand rubles.

Road opening

On November 11, 1837, the road was officially opened. For 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 cabin of a steam locomotive and at half past midday the train, under loud exclamations of surprise and approval, moved towards Pavlovsk, where it arrived thirty-five minutes later. The maximum speed of the first steam locomotive was 64 kilometers per hour, but for the sake of the safety of passengers on the first trip, the amazing car did not show all its strength.

Steel horse - steam locomotive

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

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

However, not everyone was able to see the first train. The commoners were not allowed to go to the station itself, which had been recently erected.

Exactly at 12:30 pm, a tiny locomotive blew a shrill whistle, and eight cars with a noble audience set off on the route Petersburg - Tsarskoe Selo. "

The first days of the road operation were trial, travel was free, and quality, as they say, was at the buyer's risk.

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

Despite the fact that the road had serious tasks, 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 sound of an oncoming train.

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

What did the cars of that time look like?

The carriages on the train were socially divided. So, the train of eight cars and a steam locomotive, which was built at the Stephenson plant 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 audience could sit more relaxed in an easy chair, and people from the same social stratum sat opposite and on the side. There were eight such cars in total, followed by "stagecoaches" that could accommodate a large number of people and "lines" - open-type carts. Those that had a roof were called "chaos", those that did not have one were called "wagons". The latter had neither heating nor lighting.

In the first years, the fare for first and second class passengers was 2.5 and 1.8 rubles and 80 and 40 kopecks for the 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 weekdays and holidays, only horse-drawn traction was 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 the timetable was finally decided. The first train left at nine in the morning, and the last at ten 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 stopped at the "Imperial Pavilion" - the station, where the royal family was met.

Movement along the line Tsarskoe Selo - Pavlovsk was opened in May 1838. For the momentous day, a concert hall was built there, where Johann Strauss himself performed.

Steam locomotive "Elephant" and "Bogatyr"

Locomotives at that time were made at seven factories: in Belgium, England, Germany and the St. Petersburg Leuchtenberg plant. Each steam locomotive had its own name: "Agile", "Arrow", "Bogatyr", "Elephant", "Eagle" and "Lion". However, the romantic attitude towards the steam locomotive soon changed, and habit came to replace glee at the sight of it, and instead of names, the trains got a dry number and a series of letters.

They 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, in the first five years, not only all the funds spent on construction were paid off, but also what they spent on operation: the road brought significant income and made it possible to assume that the further construction of new stations would bring a truly fabulous income.

The first steam locomotive became a revelation for Petersburgers: they wrote about it in newspapers, drew posters, candy wrappers dazzled with its image, and in the repertoire of the Alexandrinsky Theater even a vaudeville "A Trip to Tsarskoe Selo" appeared, the main character of which was a steam locomotive.

1. The highest mountain railway in the world is the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which has a rise of 5 kilometers. On this railway, a train travels from individually designed wagons, the specificity of which is carried out in the supply of oxygen, and in addition, each passenger has an oxygen mask for individual use.

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

3. In Japan there is one interesting station named Shibuya, where a monument to the most faithful friend of the dog was erected. This faithful dog has been waiting for its owner for 10 years, who once got on a train and left on it, never returned. Thus, a monument to the dog for his devoted loyalty appeared at Shibuya station.

4. There is the legendary Australian railroad, which is 500 kilometers long without any turn, but it is laid on a desert plain. This railway is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

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

6. But the maximum speed of the train that traveled by rail was recorded in the United States 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 noblemen from Switzerland's high society gathered. On a solemn occasion, only carriages of restaurants were present on 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 gathered to meet them, the greeters were stunned by what they saw, how the honorary passengers, after stopping, very rapidly rushed from all the doors of the cars.