On September 27, 1825, the world’s first public railway, Stockton and Darlington, was opened in England, marking the beginning of railway transport, the current technical and technological achievements of which are largely embodied by high-speed railways. In July 2025, the 12th World Congress on High-Speed Rail in Beijing noted the continuity of the history of railway transport, from the first railways to high-speed railway lines, and discussed the prospects for their development. The first congress on high-speed rail was held in Brussels in 1992. Since then, the congresses, which are held by the International Union of Railways (UIC) every 2–3 years, have become a traditional forum for representatives of government and public organizations from different countries, railway companies, scientific and design institutes, manufacturers of rolling stock and other railway equipment, as well as universities engaged in the training of professionals for the transport industry. The purpose of the meetings is to review the implemented projects and make proposals for the development of high–speed services — a particularly important segment of railway transport. Igor Kiselev, a railway engineer, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Emeritus of Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University (PGUPS), and Chief Scientific Editor of the BRICS Transport Journal, talks about the history of railways and the congress held in Beijing. In the light of the implementation of the first St. Petersburg–Moscow high-speed railway project in Russia, the results of the congress are of great interest to those engaged in railway transport, as well as employees of research organizations and specialized higher educational institutions.

Creating Russia’s first high-speed railway line between Moscow and St. Petersburg is an important sociopolitical, complex engineering and technical, as well as major economic project. In addition to the design and construction of fixed track, power supply, automation, telecontrol and telecommunication facilities and other infrastructure components, the project includes, in a single package, the design and commercial production of a Russian-made high-speed train. In 2025, the BRICS Transport (vol. 4, issues 1 and 2) published the Report on the plenary session of the VI Betancourt International Engineering Forum “High-speed railway line St. Petersburg–Moscow: Challenges, solutions, personnel” in both Russian and English. The Report presented the background of the project and its infrastructure component. To complete the picture, we are publishing the slightly abridged presentation “On engineering of an electric train for the first phase of the high-speed railway network in Russia” made by Head of the Department of Technical Policy of JSC Russian Railways, Candidate of Engineering Sciences Vladimir E. Andreev for students and professors of Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University on April 2, 2025.

In the context of the rapid growth of passenger traffic by rail, one of the priorities is to increase the efficiency of rolling stock use. The key direction in solving this problem is to increase the passenger capacity of railway coaches while ensuring a high level of their structural strength, reliability and safety. This study presents an improved design of the body of a passenger coach with increased capacity, developed taking into account modern requirements for comfort, environmental friendliness and operational efficiency. To assess the design characteristics, a comprehensive analysis was carried out, including theoretical calculations of the stress-strain state of the body elements using the finite element method. Numerical modeling made it possible to identify critical areas of the structure and optimize its parameters to increase strength and reduce material consumption. The simulation results were supplemented and confirmed by experimental tests of the prototype, conducted in conditions as close as possible to real operation. The data obtained indicate that the design meets the requirements of current regulatory documents, including safety and durability standards. The proposed design demonstrates improved operational characteristics, which makes it promising for use in the design and modernization of new-generation passenger coaches. The research results can serve as a basis for further developments in the fi eld of innovative railway transport, providing an increased level of comfort and efficiency.

The article discusses the main aspects of the interaction between transport universities of Russia and the People’s Republic of China for improving the performance of the railway industry in terms of transportation of goods and passengers. The analysis takes account of the specific features of the transport and logistics sectors in the exchange of goods between the two countries. Cooperation in the fi eld of transportation of goods and passengers is based on the market situation. However, approaches to training professionals for solving new challenges are not given sufficient attention. Given the reorientation of the main transport flows towards the East and the active loading of the traffic in international transport corridors, improving the performance of the transport systems in the two countries requires further development of transport hubs bringing together logistics and capacities of various transport modes. This will require training highly skilled personnel on the basis of common educational standards of both Russia and China. At the same time, students, as prospective specialists, should understand the specific features of geo-economic interaction, the nature of the development of cross-border logistics centres, and have an idea of the full operational cycle: from industrial to transport implementation in logistics of transportation. The solution lies in the development and implementation of joint educational programmes and curricula of industry-specific educational institutions in the two countries. Volga State Transport University and Liaoning Railway Vocational and Technical College implement joint educational partnership programmes within the framework of their cooperation agreement. In the future, it will be necessary to implement joint educational projects with elements of a multicultural approach for training both students and working professionals.

Shipbuilding is a major labour-, capital- and technology-intensive industry for Russia providing products for water transport, offshore and onshore construction, state defence procurement programme, mining, fi shing, etc. A current crucial task to identify factors preventing the long-term development of shipbuilding in Russia and analyse government support measures aimed at mitigating them. The paper examines the state of the shipbuilding industry in Russia and related strategic public management issues. The materials used include regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, official statistics, and works by Russian scholars. The study uses scientific methods such as formalization, visualization, comparison, synthesis, induction, and generalization. The paper considers both global and domestic trends in shipbuilding and its main participants. It identifies and validates both endogenous (ineffective management; obsolescence and physical depreciation of equipment and fleet; instability of the industry as a socio-economic system; inadequacy of the number and capacities of existing enterprises to the growing demand; use of outdated shipbuilding technologies; increase in the key interest rate, and inflation processes) and exogenous (sanctions policies of unfriendly countries; deglobalization processes, the increasing numbers of international intermediaries, changes in international logistics and supply chains) factors that hamper the development of shipbuilding in the country. The authors analyse the state strategic instruments for the regulation of the industry in the long and medium term, including their drawbacks, and assess the level of financing of the subject sector from the national budget. The analysis has led the authors to the conclusion that endogenous factors prevail over exogenous ones, hindering further strategic development of the subject industry. In practical terms, the study puts forward a number of activities intended to mitigate the negative internal factors identified. These specifically include amending the Law “On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation”; using more rigorous measures to monitor and control spending of special-purpose funds and ensure efficient achievement of strategic goals and objectives; and increasing regulation for providing full responsibility of top executives of state corporations for failures and non-achievement of long-term goals and objectives defined earlier.

The paper examines the origins of scientific and engineering approaches to design and construction of public railways in the 19th century. The underdeveloped engineering and technologies of the time severely constrained the aspirations of designers and builders to reduce the length of the railway route. The high-speed railways (HSR) that began to be built in the 1960s were created in new engineering and technological conditions. The paper compares the characteristics of a number of railways built in the 19th century and high-speed railways of the 20th century. Some of the major railway lines built in the 19th century have high technical performance, such as a straight route. For example, the parameters of the 650 km long St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway2 built in 1851 allowed for the arrangement of high-speed traffi c (up to 250 km/h) after the reconstruction of its facilities without fundamentally altering the horizontal and vertical alignment.