History of the museum

On March 22, 1974, the Road Committee of the Railway Workers’ Trade Union and the railway management issued a Decree ‘On Setting up a Museum of Revolution, Military and Labor Glory of the Oktyabrskaya Railway Workers’, which provided for the setting up of a central production museum at the railway.

Order 45N dated March 29, 1977.

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Extract from the minutes of the Road Committee of the Railway Workers’ Trade Union meeting dated March 22, 1974

On March 29, 1977, Head of the Oktyabrskaya Railway V.V. Chubarov signed Order No.45N ‘On Setting up the Museum of the Oktyabrskaya Railway’. Work commenced to collect materials and items for the collection.

On July 25, 1978, the Central Museum of the Oktyabrskaya Railway was opened to visitors at Liteyniy Proskpekt, 62, Leningrad.

Exhibition hall

Owing to the effort of both, progressive railway executives, and railway lovers who were very few, in the 1980s, specific action was first taken to preserve the rolling stock items. The decision was made to create the museum at the station of Shushary, in a district which is the closest to the city and acceptable in terms of transportation servicing. The allotted area was a swampy bushland near the Post 16 km station of the Vitebsk Route.

The beginning of the Railway Museum.

On August 1, 1991, Russia’s first Railway Museum was opened at the Shushary station near Saint-Petersburg as a branch of the Central Museum of the Oktyabrskaya Railway.

Opening a site at Shushary in 1991.

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The order on the Railway Museum opening .

By the time of the Railway Museum opening, on August 1, 1991, its total area was 7, 500 sq.m. Total length of exhibition track was 1000 m, number of exhibits — 40, including 9 steam trains, 8 locomotives, 1 electric locomotive, 8 passenger and freight railcars, and other items.

Over the years of active collection and restoration of the rolling stock, the museum collection grew from 180 items in storage, and its quality changed. Exhibits were brought not only from the Oktyabrskaya Railway, but also from across the entire Russian railways network, some arriving from around the world. Thus formed an impressive collection filled with unique exhibits, worthy to be called Russia’s national railway collection.

In 2001, the most significant exhibits were moved to the platform line of the Varshavsky Railway Station in Saint-Petersburg, by then closed for traffic of long-distance and suburban trains. Here, the Railway Museum — a branch of the Central Museum of the Oktyabrskaya Railway — was opened on August 2, 2001. Location in the city center and proximity to metro stations have made the museum site more accessible to the citizens of Saint-Petersburg and the city visitors, and have consolidated its inclusion into the city’s places of interest.

Preparing to the Russian Railway opening on July 25, 2001.

The museum having an area of 20, 000 sq.m. took 4 exhibition tracks with a total length of over 1.5 km and a track for vintage steam trains.

As part of the project for transferring the railway infrastructure from Saint-Petersburg’s Varshavsky Station (JSC Russian Railways order dated April 13, 2007 No. 653r) and due to the need to vacate the access railway tracks of the former Varshavsky Railway Station, the planning began to transfer the Oktyabrskaya Railway Museum.

Construction of the Museum of the Oktyabrskaya Railway at Saint-Petersburg’s Baltiysky Station is being performed under investment agreement No.399 dated May 22, 2012, entered into between JSC Russian Railways and LSS Varshavskaya LLC.