ABSTRACT
During a visit to the U.S.S.R. shortly before its publication the author submitted galley-proofs to the scrutiny of Soviet railway experts and records their criticism of it, especially of his scepticism about the prospects of developing river transport. Dr Hunter starts by considering the effect on transport of Soviet policy towards industrial location. Shifting the location of industry towards the underdeveloped eastern regions could be expected eventually to be transport-economising because it tended to bring industries nearer to raw materials. The increased traffic of the early ‘3o’s was mainly for other reasons—consequent on the large volume of construction and movements of population, independent of location. This increased traffic was able to be carried with relatively modest investment in new lines, largely as a result of the policy of so-called ‘super-magistrals’, by intensive investment in key-lines of existing track so as to convert them from low carrying-capacity to high carrying-capacity lines.
