Работы автора

In India, as in many countries, railways originated as industrial gauge tracks for the transportation of ore, timber, stone, and other building materials. These were the fi rst industrial railways in India to deliver supplies to construction sites, in particular, Chintadripet in Madras (1835), Red Hill Railroad line (1837), Godavari Dam Construction Railway (1845), and others. Initially, the promoters of the construction of railways, based on the general social and economic situation in the country, did not count on the development of passenger traffi c, taking into account the virtually impoverished situation of the vast majority of the population. Efforts were focused on freight transportation. The colonialists proceeded from the need to develop railways as an important exploitation tool for exporting the country’s natural resources to the parent country and to the world market. Throughout almost the entire period of British colonial rule, passenger transportation was intended for a narrow stratum of colonizers and a few of the richest representatives of the country’s indigenous population. By the 1860s, there was a system of dividing passenger traffi c on the railways of India into four classes. Saloon coaches were used to serve the ruling elite. The difference in travel conditions in luxury saloon coaches and fi rst-class compartment carriages in comparison with third- and fourth-class carriages was huge. It refl ected the social class structure of Indian society. At the same time, railway passenger transportation did not affect the interests of the majority of the population at all, as with their level of wealth they could not afford to travel by rail at all, remaining outside the line of progress in transport of the 19th century.

The Baikal-Amur Mainline is one of the most ambitious and controversial Soviet projects on the sociopolitical and historical trail of perception. The proposal to build a new railway north of the Trans-Siberian Railway was put forward at the beginning of the 20th century. The idea was approached in the 1920s and 1930s. Surveys were conducted, and construction began on one of the sites, which was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War (World War II). Moreover, during the war years, the upper structure of the track and a number of engineering structures were dismantled on the constructed site, which were used for the construction of the extremely important rockade railway in the Stalingrad area, which played a signifi cant role in supplying Soviet troops during the Battle of Stalingrad. The interest in the construction of the BAM of the Soviet leadership in the 1960s and 1970s arose again in the context of an aggravation of the political situation — the complication of relations between the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. However, already during this period, the question was reasonably raised not only about the political, but also the economic strategic signifi cance of the project from the perspective of the country’s development prospects, the development of natural resources in this region, the development of transport links between the European, Siberian, and Far Eastern territories of the state. In the period after the collapse of the USSR, the BAM construction project, not without the infl uence of those who were under Western infl uence in the country’s leadership circles, was classifi ed as erroneous, extremely costly, economically and socially unjustifi ed. Today, in society, the state, under the infl uence of many factors of recent years, there is an understanding of the importance of completing and developing the BAM construction project. This project has played a big role in the lives of millions of people, many organizations and institutions. Among them is the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers — today the St. Petersburg State University of Railways of Emperor Alexander I, whose students, graduates, scientists and specialists have been involved in various forms in the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline for half a century.

On June 10–11, 2024, the Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg Transport University (PGUPS) in St. Petersburg hosted the III Conference of the Association of Rectors of Transport Universities of BRICS+.