The profession of a railway engineer. It is difficult for the people living in the 3d millennium to imagine their life without railways. But many people were afraid of the railways when they first appeared and did all in their power to stop railway construction.
However the railway is the most important means of transportation in our country nowadays. There are some reasons to determine the necessity for a widely developed railway transport net-work in our country. They are the tremendous territory and population, great distances between the sources of raw materials and plants, plants and ports. It is the railways that are able to effectively transport fuel and energy goods, metallurgical, constructional, agricultural and other mass goods on the vast territory of our country. The Russian railway transport takes the first place in the world for the volume of transportation of cargo and passengers. This country's railways network is being completely modernized, and this is based on the electrification of railways, wide introduction of diesel and electric traction, reinforced concrete ties, long-welded rails, automation and computerization, optical fiber technology in safety and communication systems, one- hundred-vans trains, through trains and so on.
The railways are a complicated branch of national economy, where hundreds of thousands di-verse specialists such as engineers, technical personnel, economists are employed. The leading role here belongs to engineers who occupy the key posts in every branch of railway's complicated sys-
tem. It is the engineers who provide continuous scientific and technological progress and railway development. Their task is promotion of advanced technologies, introduction of scientific methods into production process, perfection of management.
Thus highly qualified specialists are needed for work on the railway transport. They are trained at the railway schools and universities of our country to satisfy the needs of the railways. The future railway engineer has to obtain advanced theoretical and specialized knowledge. In junior courses students study general subjects, theoretical mechanics, strength of materials, descriptive geometry and the general course of railways. These branches of science lay the foundation for studying special subjects. They are traffic safety, railway stations and junctions, rolling stock, integrated transport, computer graphics, power engineering, hydraulics, science of materials, science of cargoes, electrical engineering, heat engineering, applied mechanics and others. While studying the speciality of a railway engineer students attend lectures, do laboratory tests and computer tests to master their majors. The Irkutsk State Railway Transport University is one of them. It provides higher professional education on a high level. Training is offered in 9 specialties: wagons and coaches and their maintenance; railway construction and transportation machines; railway managerial engineering; enterprise economics and management; automation and telecommunication facilities of railway vehicles; information technology; software of the computing technique and automation systems; railway electric transportation; railway power supply.
In addition to the theoretical course of studies students get their practical knowledge at the railway enterprises and electrical train depots.
All that enables future specialists to introduce advanced techniques into their work. As a result our University solves one of the main tasks - the formation of qualified staff potential which insures the railway efficiency growth while meeting the traffic safety requirements.
5. Read and guess the meaning of the international words:
Депо электровозов, железнодорожное предприятие, получать практические знания, ре-шать главную задачу, вводить передовые методы, гарантировать рост производительности труда, отвечать требованиям безопасности движения, электроснабжение, научные методы, совершенствование управления, удовлетворять потребности железнодорожного транспорта, получать передовые теоретические и практические знания, занимать ключевые посты, плети рельсов, железобетонные шпалы, оптико-волоконные технологии, сто-вагонники, сквозные поезда.
