Museum display Tsarskoye Selo Railway

At the very beginning, trains were horse-drawn and only on Sundays — steam-powered. The railway was completely converted to steam traction on April 4 1838

A permanent timetable for five pairs of trains per day was first introduced on May 15 1838 The travel time was 42 minutes, the average speed was 32 km/h. By the end of the 1860s 19th century the average train speed was 42.7 km/h.

May 22 1838 the section Tsarskoye Selo — Pavlovsk was opened.

Locomotives, carriages and rails were mainly ordered abroad, but some carriages and equipment began to be manufactured at the Alexandrovsky Plant in St. Petersburg.

As a result of experimental purchases of locomotives and other rolling stock, Russian requirements for locomotives, carriages and other railway mechanisms were formed.

Long-term operation of a wide gauge was carried out, as well as experiments with the gauge width, which showed the economic disadvantage of this size and led to the choice of a normal rail gauge, which has been preserved to this day.

On May 5, 1876 the second route opened for service, which significantly increased the speed and safety of train traffic.

The Tsarskoye Selo railway existed as an independent railway until January 2 1900, after which it was purchased, included in the Moscow-Window-Rybinsk Railway and converted to the Russian gauge.

In addition to the two main ones, the "Imperial Route" was built, along which the royal trains passed between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo.