ECONOMIC - RAILROADS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600250113-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2011
• Sequence Number: 113
• Publication Date: August 29, 1949
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFIC^''10N
CENTRAL INTELL ENCY REPORT
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
COUNTRY
SUBJECT
HOW
PUBLISHED
WHERE
PUBLISHED
DATE
PUBLISHED
LANGUAGE
& rnomic - Railroads
Daily newspapers
USSR
7 - 27 Jul 1949
Russian
Ills SOCOMRIT COIITAIMS INVOIIAIO1 YMCTIMI TMS MACS/ II? SIR
Or TMS OIITfO STAIRS VMIN TIIS MSAMISI Or 4IOSMI ACT k
1. S. C.. II AMO SS. AS AY110u. ITS Tg11MIUIOM 01 At SIWILAT10M
or ITS COSTIMTS l0 AMI 1AYMt1 TO M OIAUSOUI10 PIRSON II PSI.
MIOITI9 01 LAV. 1IIM/SSCTIOM Or ISIS x011 it PMell1I1S.
SOURCE 'Newspapers as
DATE DIST.,29 Aug 1949
NO. OF PAGES 4
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS ' UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
MECHANIZATION OF FREIGHT HANDLING CONTINI.HS;
RAIIROADSI POSITION 1N ECONOMY -NOTED
USSR railroads are increasingly mechanizing heavy labor-consuming
operations. In 1948, 24.4 percent of freight handling was carried out by
wechanioal methods, or 4.4 percent more than in 1947. This was accomplished
by the addition of new and the better utilization of old machinery. This
mechanization released 2,000 stevedores for other duties and speeded up
the turnaround time of freight care. As a result of mechanization of
'freight-handling operations, the average standing time of freight cars being
Iocded and unloaded on the Western Railroad Okrug was about 83 percent
less in 1948 than in 1947.
The fuel dumps of many locomotive depots are equipped with coal dumping
oidings, coal-fueling gantries, systems of section bunkers designed by
Stalin Laureate Rozhnovskiy, and powerful steam and electric bucket cranes.
Last year 40 percent of dumping, 80 percent of moving and piling, and 85.3
percent of locomotive fueling o, coal was mechanized in these dumps.
Ballast-laying machines, track-layers, track planes, and self-dumping
care are replacing shovels, picks, and crowbars in the construction and
repair of railroads. Work with the track-laying machines is four times as
fast as manual methods. Mechanization of track-laying operations increased
from 34 percent in 1947 to 54 percent in 1948, and the corresponding increase
in earth operations in railroad construction work was from 57.6 to 68.5 percent.
The Ministry of Transportation is considering the mechanization of
repair and ru3riing operations on such truck lines as the Moscow-Sochi and
the Moscow-Kirov-Novosibirsk.
STATE MAW
ARMY ^ AIR
CLASSIFICATION
MSR5
771
F8I
I;ISTRI8~ U~TION -I
H
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50X1-HUM
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care` and hatches in gondola care. The use of bridge cranes In
for them is insufficient. The setting up of snow fences should 1,e sieobpai
Dba'a:RA.'4IED 1?J IGHT HANDLING GOOD IN PLACES, LAGS ELSMfMM -- Gudok, No 01j,
X 2
4
u
9
of the railroad network who are reporting on the mechanization In freight
st
ations and ind"trial sidins
g,
Mechanizaticn is being successfully employed on the Kizel section of the
Perm' Railroad System, especially in the stations of Kizel, aubslba
,
Obogatitel', and Slazhenno. Loading has been doubled through the installetica
of a new transporter at the potassium combine served by the Bolikamsk Station'
Prmyael, of the Pechora System, has considerably raised earloadings and
reduced car delay.
Delay of roiling stock being loaded with timber products grows greater
every month in the station of Pay, Kirov System. Disorder in the timber
exchange and lack of coordination in the operations of the railroad workers
Bud shippers has turned the station into a bottleneck. The elevators,
automatic cranes, and electric hoists are not being used. The Kostausovo
Station of the Sverdlovsk System does not organize its work properly and
does not make efficient use of.its machinery.
PROFITABL&N 5 OF RUMP YARDS DISCUSSED -- Gudok, No 89, 27 Jul 49
There are at present more mechanized hump yards in the USSR than in
any capitalist country, including the US. The question of profitable
operation of mechanized hump yards is one of primary Importance. Unfortunately,
many of these yards are not operated or. a profitable basis. In Koohetovka,
losses resulting from poor organization of hump operations amounted to
500,000 rubles in my 1949. Delay of cars in transit was 8.3 hours above
the normm.
Upkeep of the hump-yard installations in many cases amounts to 50
percent of the entire cost of marshalling freight cars. Tn many cases
station heads and engineers do not maintain the necessary control over
expenditures of compressed air and electric power. At present, to handle
one freight car requires up to 1.3 kilowatt-hours of electric power, as
against a norm of 0.25-0.60 kilowatt-hours, or 0.35-6.0 cubic meters
of o mipreesed air. It coats four times more to maintain hump-yard installations
in the stations of Khabarovsk, Likhaya, Chelyabinsk, Koehetovka, Kupyansk,
and Darnitea, than in the stations of Perovo, Baladzhary, and Debal'teevo.
One of the basic reasons for the unprofitable operation of mechanized
hump yards is the mistaken idea that control over the utilization of
installations is the concern only of those responsible for the operation
of the electromechanical equipment. Another reason is the insufficient
utilization of the yards' facilities. Mary yards operate at only 50-75
percent of their capacity. The mechanized hump yards of the Lyublino and
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The following data, taken from the financial reports of various stations,
show the influence of the quantity of care handled by mechanized hump yards.
depend little upon the quantity of cars handled by the yard.
About 20 percent of a hump yard's cost goes for capital repair of the
installations' fr materials and spare parts, electric power, and upkeep
of the establishment serving the mechanisms of the yard. These expenditures
Moscow-Ryazan' Railroad System. Their capacity is utilized only about
50 percent.
Kochetovka stations, for ineta.:ce,each handle 20 - 30 percent fewer cars
than the unmechanized hump yard of the Mcacow Marshalling Station of the
Cars Handled per Mont`
j.n thousands of carsj-
140-145
136-14o
130-135
Cost of Handling One Car
(exclusive of track maintenance)
1 ruble 62 kopecks
1 ruble 70 kopecks
1 ruble 92 kopecks
L000MOTrrEUTILIZATION IMPROVES -- Gudok, No 89, 27 Jul 49
In coparieon with the first 10 days of July, turnaround time of
locomotives in the USSR network as a whole during the second 10 days of July
was accelerated by 0.3 hour, the average daily distance traveled increased
by 3.9 kilometers, and the average speed excluding stops was raised by 1.1
kilometers per hour Forty percent of the locomotive park is operating
according to the turnaround schedule and 33.9 percent is operating by the
roundtrip schedule.
The number of engineers running their locomotives 560 kilometers or
more per day increased by 1,023. The locomotives of 1,621 engineers regularly
travel 500,kilometers or more per day; 1,860 locomotives make daily runs of
400 - 500 kilometers.
Locomotives of the Volga Okrug, however, are being utilized uonrly. Thr.ir
turnaround time rose during the second 10 days of July by 0.7 hour (by 0.9 hour
on the Orenburg System). Turnaround time In the okrug as a whole is 6
hours above the norm.
PASSEN(ER TRAINS ADDED -- Vechernyaya Moskva, No 162, 9 Jul 49
The Main Passenger Administration of Ministry of Transportation USSR
has added the following trains to the schedule:
Starting 10 July, fast train No 35 will run ;:et-seen Moscow and Riga.
Express train No 9 will leave Moscow for Sochi Wednesday and Friday. Fast
train No 18 between Moscow and Vladivostok now leaves the Yaroslavl' Station
every day except Friday. Starting 10 July a new train, No 52, will operate
between Moscow and Yaroslavl'. Extra train No 41 will leave twice a week
from the Moscow Belorussian Station icr Vil'nyus. i
The total length of railroads in the USSR is now 115,000 kilometers.
Double tracks have been laid on all sections subject to heavy traffic.
JLTR I
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.Y.
and personnel were evacuated to the east during the war. Mare thoim 5Q}olOO
kilometers of track destroyed by the Germane were repaired under enemy
of the funds of the. USSR economy. Transport requires a quarter of all the
metal,used in the country and one third of all the coal produced.
On the eve of World War II, there were about 2,000 kilometers of electrified
is the South Siberia Line from Yenisey to the Volga, stretobing almost 4,O0O
kilometers. The volume of construction on this line to 3 - 4 time that of
the Turkestan-Siberian line. The line transports the steed of Magnitogorsk,
coal of the Suzr.ete Basin, wheat from the steppes of the trans-Ural region.,
Kazakhstan, and Altay, ores of Bashkiria and Ala-Tau in the Siaznets Basin,
coal from Ekibaetaz, and salt from Malunda.
At the end of the postwar Five-Year Plan ,he volume of operations of
USSR transport will be four times the prewar volume of operations on the
railroads of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan put together.
stub
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