Railroad Transport, Institute of

(full name, All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Railroad Transport under the Central Scientific Research Institute of the Ministry of Railroads), an institute in Moscow established in 1918, replacing the Office for Experiments on Types of Steam Locomotives (founded in 1912).

The institute develops methods for increasing the operational efficiency and dependability of all technical equipment on railroads; it also devises means for increasing speed and carrying and traffic capacities through mechanization, automation, and telemechanics. The institute draws up technical specifications for new railroad equipment, predicts railroad development, and determines the basic parameters and characteristics of projected locomotives, cars, tracks, and installations. It also deals with problems of repairs and of increasing the period between overhauls of rolling stock, as well as of using cybernetics and computer technology in rail-road transportation.

The institute has research divisions in Moscow and Sverdlovsk, an experimental railroad loop, testing grounds, experimental factories, design bureaus, and experimental sections on railroads and at plants and depots. It has a graduate program and confers the degrees of doctor and candidate of sciences. Since 1918 the institute has been publishing scientific notes and newsletters, and since 1946, Trudy (more than 400 issues by 1970). Since 1942 it has been publishing the journal Vestnik Vsesoiuznogo nauchnoissledovatel’ skogo instituta zheleznodorozhnogo transporta. The institute has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1966).