Tsarskoye Selo Railway

Tsarskoye Selo Railway
Arrival of the first train from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo on 30 October 1837
Overview
Status	Passenger and cargo service
Termini	Vitebsky Rail Terminal, Saint Petersburg Pavlovsk, through Tsarskoye Selo
Operation
Opened	1837
Closed	1899
Character	Passenger and freight
Technical
Line length	27 km (17 mi)
Track gauge	6 ft (1,829 mm)
Operating speed	30–45 km/h (19–28 mph)

The Tsarskoye Selo Railway was the first public railway line in the Russian Empire. It ran for 27 km (17 mi) from Saint Petersburg to Pavlovsk through the nearby (4 km) Tsarskoye Selo. Construction began in May 1836, and the first test trips were carried out the same year between Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk, using horse-drawn trains. The line was officially opened on 30 October 1837, when an 8-carriage train was hauled by a steam locomotive between Saint Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. Until the construction of the Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway in 1851, it was the only passenger train line in Russia. In 1899 it was merged into the Moscow-Windau-Rybinsk Railways and now forms part of the Oktyabrskaya Railway.

The first railways in Russia were short and narrow-track lines with wooden and then steel rails, which were used in the 18th century to transport carriages with ore at numerous mines of the Urals. In particular, the Nizhny Tagil line built in 1833–1834 was equipped with a steam locomotive and could transport a few miners, together with the load of ore. The steam locomotive was constructed by the Russian engineers, father and son Cherepanovs. However, their design had not found application outside of their factory, and most hardware for the Tsarskoye Selo Railways, including rails, carriages, locomotives and railroad switches, was purchased abroad.

The first European railways had demonstrated their great economic potential, and in August 1834, the Russian Mining Ministry invited a prominent Austrian-Czech engineer for exploring the possibility of building railways in Russia. After several months of travel through the country, in January 1835, he submitted a written report to Nicholas I and then met him in person, suggesting to build railways between Moscow and St. Petersburg and then between Moscow, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod. The proposal of Gerstner was evaluated by a commission headed by Mikhail Speransky. The commission found the project feasible and recommended to start with a short railway between St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo and the nearby Pavlovsk. This resolution was supported by the imperial decrees of 21 March and 15 April 1836.