In June 2007, the Russian Railways JSC, the Transmashholding CJSC, Machinery & Industrial Group N.V. and Russian Corporation of Transport Manchinery JSC (RCTM) established the noncommercial partnership "Union of Industries of Railway Equipment" (UIRE).

Globalization processes and changes in the traditional world economic ties make Russian Federation to face a problem of rational use of its unique geographic location and rich transit potential. In the present-day economic conditions, creation and implementation of innovative technologies offer a huge resource for improving efficiency of the railroad business, and enhancing the importance and competitive advantages of the railways. The innovative activities of the Russian Railways, which cover almost all operational fields and promote expanding of the market potential of the Russian Railways, are integrated into the company’s business development strategy.

In the times of the economical crisis the promptness, confidence and completeness of information about the current tendencies play the decisive role for government authorities and business for efficient managerial anti-crisis decision-making. There are two principal methodological approaches to get the basic macroeconomic indicators, such as industrial production index (IPI): classic – by aggregating the primary statistical information (‘bottom-up’); and alternative – by correct analytical calculation on the basis of the basic integral reliable data (‘top-down’).

There was no standard gauge at the beginning of railways construction in XVII-XIX centuries: the administration of each new railway had her own idea of what gauge should be. As a result there could have been several railways of different gauge in one country. Later, as the railway network developed, the roads of different companies began to join and the necessity to reload goods from cars of one gauge to cars of another gauge occurred (and passengers from car to car passing), it often was more expensive than the transportation itself. The essential necessity to find the “golden mean” appeared. But there were several “golden means”.

There have been many publications on the ineffectiveness of Russian anti-crisis policy in 2008-2010. The policy is criticized for the fact that the bulk of funds (42% of the anti-crisis package) was directed towards the banking sector. However, there was no proper state control over the use of these funds. As a result, banks made profit on foreign deposits instead of lending the allocated money to the real economy sector. By 2009 the banking sector showed one of the best results among the economic sectors - only 0.8% fall as compared to 2008.

In the modern conditions of the severe marketbased economy, competitive ability and efficiency of Russian railways activity depends upon actual traffic and carrying capacity of railways. It is known that the freight traffic makes the main share into profit. Today Russian railways bear the considerable expenses caused by numerous speed limitations affecting the efficiency of high-speed trains as well as due to car derailing, their detachments due to different failures and other after-effects. Due to the above reasons and some other factors, the level of container transportation via the East-West transportation corridor remains still insignificant (only 1%) as compared with the global movement of goods.

The modern period of global economic development and globalization processes in the vehicles market and equipment rise new requirements to the national transport machinery. The saturation of the railway equipment producers market in developed countries is leading to the reorientation of marketing strategies of the world's engineering industry leaders towards the CIS countries, in order to fill free market niches that appeared in connection with the necessity to fully modernize the railways on the post-Soviet territory. In such circumstances, extensive established traditional approaches to manufacturing organization and a substantial backwardness of scientific and technological development of the national machine manufacturing from the foreign one may lead to the displacement of national railway equipment producers from the market in the future.

One of the key ways to improve the interaction of transport industry and rail transport is to change the pricing on their products. The transition from the "cost plus" pricing to the life cycle cost estimating methodology has to give a stimulus to the development of innovative products, since it would form a reasonable price for a more productive and improved rolling stock. In this case, the use of a uniform methodology by producers and consumers can obtain predictable calculation results, make economically sound solutions and more confidently plan their activities.

Every product, including innovative one, is an aggregate of tangible and intangible effects that companies create for consumer. Their goal is to compose such an aggregate of effects that would make target customers not only accept it in a positive way, but also make them willing to pay extra for receiving this particular product. Every product is accepted so far as it helps solve the customer’s problem, and innovative products are no exception.

The statistic material was prepared by the Institute of Natural Monopolies Research (IPEM). Source: Official data of Russian state authorities, Russian Railways JSC, rolling stock manufacturers.

During the past year of 2011, the Russian economy continued to recover from the global financial crisis. Started in 2010, the growth of freight and passenger transportation continued and the business activity increased. In order to support the economic growth during this period, the Government of the Russian Federation pursued the containment policy of the tariff growth for rail transportation. As a result, the indexation of the tariffs for freight traffic lagged behind the growth of industrial, fuel and energy prices, affecting, first of all, the volume of the Russian Railways JSC investment program. Thus, the restoration of production volumes in the industrial sector took place in conditions of external constraints on the growth of effective demand for its products.

The situation on the railway transportation market requires innovative approaches in the design from the manufacturers of electric rolling stock (ERS), as well as for the manufacturing and service of manufactured products. Contributing to the solution of this problem are the introduction of new technologies for ERS design and manufacturing, the use of modern technical solutions, devices, components and units that implement the functions of electric traction and traffic safety.

Zheldorremmash JSC the Development of the Railway Transport in the Russian Federation till 2030 ranges the innovative technologies implementation into Russian Railways JSC activity priorities. Upon that the company gives importance to new types of traction rolling stock construction, which includes multi-engine diesel locomotives. The purpose of multi engine diesel locomotives development is to increase the fuel efficiency, decrease hazardous atmospheric emission and to amend operators' conditions.

Recently, Russian railwaymen have been quite satisfied with single-deck carriages. Yet time passes. The Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation has been reformed into Russian Railways JSC, from which the Federal Passenger Directorate was assigned, which in turn was recently transformed into "Federal Passenger Company" JSC. These reforms were aimed at improving the economic efficiency of the passenger transport and made Russian railwaymen consider the possibility to improve the economic efficiency of passenger long-distance traffic.

TSNII-KH3 railcar bogie started operating in USSR in 1956 after the long-term study and testing; later conditional number of 18-100 model was attributed to it. Any changes were implemented very severely in its design: in 1995 friction bearings were completely changed by rolling bearings; in 1996 the works were started upon equipping the rolling stock by wear-resistive elements; these works are not completed up to now. Since 1999, freight carrier manufacturers for the rail gage 1520 mm have been starting works upon launching of alternative bogies into manufacture.

All technical facilities used at the railways fulfill exclusive requirements for reliability. And through all exclusive requirements the modern technologies do not ensure the complete safety of traffic. Multiple factors such as location of settlements along the railway lines, high interference level for physical security techniques, high intensity and velocity of trains, have an effect on traffic environment and contribute to the occurrence of extraordinary circumstances [1]. A solution of the problem of safe movement on rail with increasing speed of the train is complicated by the presence of “human factors”. It is very difficult for a man to react properly to the danger situation when the trip is extensive and performed at great speeds. The solution of such problems as modernization, duplexing, enhancement of functional capabilities of facilities, minimization of “human factors” impact on railway traffic can enhance the reliability of technical facilities providing traffic safety.

A serious attention has been given to the subject of products quality in numerous research works, dissertation papers, articles, and many decisions concerning it have been taken at all levels. Certainly, now every specialist knows that the socialist system, based on administrative management, had some advantages in the crisis periods of a society’s development, but quickly deteriorated to standstill if things were in their normal way. It happened because the basic fault of the system was its resistance to innovative development, to creating new technical means and changing to modern technologies, and inability to focus on the task of improving product quality.

Russian Railways JSC Board of Directors has set a strategic task to improve the quality of technical equipment that is used in the infrastructure of the Russian Railways JSC. Within this instruction on the 17th of September 2009 the main directions of the Policy of the Russian Railways JSC in the sphere of strategic management of production quality, used by the Russian Railways JSC, were confirmed. Nowadays the Policy is posted on the websites of the Russian Railways JSC and the UIRE and provides the certification of business management systems (BMS) of the railway engineering enterprises to comply with the specifications of IRIS standard.

In general the analytic formula for locomotives technical readiness coefficients was obtained. It indicates the relation of this coefficient to the reliability and the utilization indexes, as well as to the planned maintenance system parameters. On the basis of the calculations results the conditions of required readiness and reliability indexes values performance for freight locomotives were established. The physically and statically adequate regression three-index model of additive type for technical readiness coefficients was deduced.