Engineer V.V. Salov on building and exploitation of cheap railways in the Russian Empire (70th of XIX century)

Ihor Suchenko

Abstract— The article deals with construction of cheap railways in the Russian Empire at the time of the so-called "golden decade" of establishment and operation of the railway network (1865-1875). In summer of 1869 the Minister of Railways Count V. Bobrinskii sent V. Salov to Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway to learn about cheap railways. There he got the on-site knowledge of construction approach and operation of Swedish and Norwegian railways and put the general description of them as the main part of his article "Construction and operation of cheap railways" (1870). The 142 page article published by V. Salov, became a kind of guide and information to action for railroad builders in 70-90-s of XIX - early XX. For a long time it was a desk book for those who were building build cheap railways. As this scientific work contains much statistics and many recommendations on how to reduce the cost of construction, it is today not only of historical interest, but can be used now by builders of cheap railways.

Key words: Vasyl Salov, cheap railway