RAILROADS IN RUSSIA
Railways: total: 87,157 kilometers (second in the world after the U.S.); broad gauge: 86,200
kilometers. The entire system is 1.52-meter gauge. About 46 percent are electrified. Narrow
gauge: 957 kilometers 1.067-m gauge (on Sakhalin Island). An additional 30,000 kilometers of
non-common carrier lines serve industries (2006). [Source: CIA World Factbook =]
The countries with the most kilometers of railroad tracks: 1) USA (296,497); 2) former USSR
(144,900); 3) Canada (120,000); 4) Germany (83,244); 5) India (61,478).
Russian Railroads Company (RZD), the state monopoly, has an extensive train network with
56,000 miles of track. Since most of Russia is flat, building railroads lines was relatively easy
and the result are trains connect with almost every city and town in the country. The better trains
are fairly punctual and, although a little shabby and old, comparable in comfort to Western
European trains.
Railroads are a vital economic link, particularly important for hauling coal, coke, ferrous metals,
ores, chemicals, fertilizers, grain, and timber products. Largely because of increasingly poor
long-distance road conditions, between 1992 and 2004 the share of total freight haulage by the
railroads increased from 34 percent to 43 percent, and in 2005 they carried 80 percent of
Russia’s non-pipeline traffic. Rail transport of oil to seaports increased significantly in the early
2000s.
The prominence of railroads is the result of several factors: the vast distances that need to be
covered; the penchant of Soviet economic planners for locating manufacturing facilities in
politically expedient areas rather than where raw materials and other inputs were available; and
the conditions for granting state fuel subsidies, which provided no incentives to break up cargo
transportation into shorter-haul operations that could be covered by road. Cargo traffic is the
predominant use of railroads, in contrast to the emphasis on passenger traffic in West European
railroad systems. This pattern is a product of the Soviet emphasis on heavy industry and
production rather than on consumers. [Source: Library of Congress, July 1996 *]
Large chunks of Russian railway system were built to transport convict labor and move
resources and precious metals mined by the convict labor. Trains carry more passengers and
freight than any other means of transportation in Russia. They carry 38 percent of all passengers
and 70 percent of all freight, compared to less than one percent of the passengers and 30 percent
of the freight in the United States. найти глаголы, выписать и определить их
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