Abstract

In article the meaning of railway transport for economic, social and cultural development of the region has been emphasized. There have been studied the main problems of building of Prydniprovsk railway during the inter­war period, among them are impossibility to procure transportation of all industrial cargos to the full extent and high damage rate caused by bad condition of rail unit, old age and failure of steam trains and carriages, weakness of material and technical resources and insufficiency of qualified staff. Core measures of soviet government directed to optimization of railway operation have been examined. Since 1935 process of its reconstruction has been activated, steam and carriage stocks have been renewed partially, range of loading­unloading operations has been mechanized, railway junctions have been extended, new bridges, terminal stations, locomotive depots and car­repair yards have been built, numerous kilometers have been railed. All aforementioned helped to improve key performance indicators of the railway. In article methods to have been used by communist party and government in order to force and increase quality of railway employees’ work have been shown, namely moral incentives, socialist competitions of best employees and innovators, encourage of the Stakhanov and Krivonos movement and also material incentives of employees, raise in wages, bonus awards for the best labor collectives. Based on materials of «Steel Trunk» newspaper authors of the article have revealed the following nonconformance in railway operation: breach of train schedule, non­fulfillment of loading plan, carriage failure, low quality of repair operations, numerous accidents etc. In addition the conclusion of unsatisfactory social conditions of railway employees, their bad living conditions, insufficiency and bad sanitary condition of dormitories and canteens has been made based on newspaper publication.