Industrial Transformations on the Sverdlovsk Railway during the Great Patriotic War

The paper analyzes changes in the production process of railway workers who worked during the Great Patriotic War on the Sverdlovsk Railway, which was operated from Sverdlovsk and connected the European part of the country with the Urals and Western Siberia. The paper shows an unprecedented rise in the labor activity of railway workers, manifested in the wide deployment of various competitive forms, rationalization movements and innovative initiatives that took shape both in the pre-war period and arose taking into account the peculiarities of wartime. The paper also draws attention to the development of railway infrastructure and improvement of the locomotive and wagon fleet of the Sverdlovsk Railway in accordance with the changing situation at the front and in the rear. The paper notes that the implemented technical and construction measures, manifested in the commissioning of new railway lines, stations, depots, stopping points and way posts, and transfer of individual sections to electric traction, successfully solved problem of increasing transportation plans determined by the needs of national economy completely transferred to military rails. The paper concludes that the experience of selfless and heroic labor of railway transport workers, which is an important component of the nationwide victory over Nazism, is more relevant today than ever. For its effective use in today’s conditions can and should contribute to the unity of modern Russian society in the fight against the revived «brown plague».