Rail transport in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was heavily dependent on rail transport, not least during the Russian Civil War and World War II, but also for industrialization according to the five-year plans.

During the Soviet era, freight rail traffic increased 55 times (over that of the Russian Empire just before World War I), passenger traffic increased by almost 10 times and the length of the rail network almost doubled in size in this time as well.^[1] The Soviet Union had a railway network of 147,400 kilometres (91,600 mi) (excluding industrial railways), of which 53,900 kilometres (33,500 mi) were electrified.^[2]