Repair Train

a railroad train designed to repair damages caused by collisions and derailments, as well as to repair the track and electric-power network after natural disasters and to render first aid to injured persons.

Repair trains are assigned to major locomotive depots and are subdivided into two groups depending on the capacity of their equipment. In the USSR repair trains of the first group are equipped with cranes that have a lifting capacity of 60 tons or higher; those of the second group have cranes with a capacity of up to 50 tons. The equipment of a repair train includes multiton hydraulic jacks, tow cars with winches, tractors with bulldozers, motor vehicles, garage cars, flatcars with rails and ties, a car with an electric power plant and searchlight unit, a storage car with tools and materials, passenger cars with power packs, and hospital cars. Repair trains are equipped with fire-fighting apparatus, lifting and transporting accessories, tools for cutting and welding metal, and so on. A repair train is on 24-hour alert; from the moment of a call it proceeds nonstop to its destination, ahead of all other trains.