MODERNIZATION OF THE URAL RAILWAY ROLLING STOCK IN 1956 - THE 1980S
The article is devoted to the modernization of the Ural railway rolling stock under the conditions of their intensive electrification and introducing diesel locomotive traction. Relying on archival documents the author describes the basic stages of the rolling stock renewal, the formation of new infrastructure to maintain and repair the electric locomotives and diesel locomotives. The researcher points out that the Ural region with its severe natural-climatic conditions and mountainous surface profile became a testing ground for all types of electric locomotives and diesel locomotives that were produced serially by the USSR industry. Finally the paper concludes on the delay of the rolling stock development at the Ural railways from the growth rates of traffic flow. However new locomotives allowed the railways to cope with the huge growth of cargo and passenger transportation, to secure the delivery of cargo to newly emerged industrial regions in Western Siberia and the Far East.