Railway colleges in the Soviet Union

Railway colleges during the Soviet era prepared students for careers in various aspects of railroading, primarily as engineers.[1] During the Soviet period they were often known as "higher educational institutes" (for railways) or vuz (вуз (in Russian), (an acronym ), and this designation is still in use. In 1967 (Soviet period) they had a total of 215,000 students enrolled, about half of which were correspondence students.[2] However, less than 7000 students graduated each year, mostly in engineering (such as electrical, mechanical, or civil engineering with emphasis on railway applications).

Almost 10 years later (in 1976) they had a total of 130 thousand students: 50k daytime students, 12k nite school students, and 52k correspondence students. There were 21 different fields of study including 3 new ones: computer science, applied mathematics, and automatic control systems. During the 9th 5-year plan (1970-1975) they graduated 66 thousand engineers (a little over 12 thousand per years) which is more than reported for the 1960s per above.[3] In 1976 there were then a total of 15 institutes and 86 Tekhnikums.

Today (2015), about 25 years after the demise of the Soviet Union that founded many of these colleges, railway universities are still quite active but the mission statements of the two largest ones don't even mention "railways". Instead, they imply their major mission is "transportation" which, of course, includes railways. Two major railway universities in 2015 are in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The Moscow "University" claims to be the 5th largest university in the world in terms of the number of students (about 60,000). [4] This excludes correspondence students but might include students in the over 40 branches of the university in other cities and also might include students in the tekhnikum that merged into the university.[5] However, only "17,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students" are claimed on the English part of the official university website:[6]

Besides railway colleges/universities, there were railway tekhnikums.[7] These were schools which were mid-level educational institutions somewhat below the college level. They are often known as "colleges" in Russia today[8] There was also a somewhat lower level of railway school known as a railway uchilishche (in Russian) or ПУ = PU for short. Graduates of these two types of schools were qualified to become technicians, maintaining and repairing railway equipment and track, etc. Some became locomotive drivers along with some graduates of railway colleges.

The first two links in a line for a college are: 1. web-article in the Russian Wikipedia (ru wiki) 2. the college "official (web)site". Many of the college sites are either in Russian or have a Russian version of the site. Even if you can't read Russian, there are pictures to look at. Some sites have an English version which is usually quite incomplete. The date at the end of each entry is the founding date of the college. Today's college (university) names have been much changed since the Soviet era.

A large number of titles of railway textbooks were published in the USSR.[13] Examples of subjects covered are railway track, cars, locomotives, signalling and communications (including remote control and automation), transport economics, accounting, etc. Many such textbooks included mathematical formulas (and some had differential equations). Every year saw several new such textbooks (or revised editions of existing textbooks).[14] Railway textbooks were also published for use by #Railway vocational schools.

There is no comparison of railway colleges in the Soviet Union with the United States since there were no railways colleges in the United States. However, the [US] once had railway University courses in Civil Engineering[15] and there was a failed attempt at Harvard Business School to create a cadet-system of railway education in the 1920s.[16]

After World War II the University of Illinois was the only major institution in the US providing instruction in railway engineering (in the Civil Engineering Dept.). After professor W.W. Hay retired from teaching railway engineering there, his position was not replaced and the railway courses were thus abolished. However, in the 1990s the University of Illinois restarted its railway engineering program and has the US' most robust railroad engineering and research program. A few other American universities, notably Michigan Tech and Purdue offer railroad engineering classes.

At Harvard Business School there were great expectations for the "cadet" program but the railroads failed to support it and the graduates from the program obtained positions in other industries. One observer of the railroad's attitude towards education stated that railway senior officials were the result of producing "the 'practical man' who had little use for anything learned in school".[17] Wyckoff's book states (regarding the railroad's "Attitudes toward formal education") that "There was even evidence that the educated man was put upon and ridiculed by other middle managers and workers." Thus the railroads themselves appear to be at least partly responsible for the lack of college level railway education in the US.