In the following article, based on the printed and archived sources, we show the mostly unresearched in Ukrainian historiography topic – the construction of the railways during the period of the industrial capitalism development on the ethnic territory of Ukraine (second half of XIX). Railway transport is a considerable part of the capitalistic relations. It shows the influence of the railway building on the economical and industrial development of the country.

Based on the research of the printed sources related to the history of the railway transport, its economy, organization and functioning, in addition, on the Russian Empire Ministry of Transport archive, Financial Railway Department of the Russian Empire, South-West Railway archive, we showed the history of railway construction in Ukraine in the stated time span. Starting from the 1865 the process of railway building was begun, gradually replacing the archaic types of delivering goods across the country. The creation of the railway lines in the industrial regions boosted considerably the development of the various industries, among them was coal industry. Development of the railway transport in Donbas region increased all its economic effects. At the same time, railway transport increased the effectiveness of agriculture. Due to the faster delivery the price cost of such products as bread was reduced. Also, we noticed that the value of the lands with the railways increased.

By the end of the reviewed period there were four main railway lines on the territory of Ukraine which connected the regions and made it possible to transport goods to the ports of Black and Azov seas in the South and to the Baltic Sea in the North-West. Furthermore, the territory of Ukraine became the railway path between such economical centers as Warsaw, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The performed the analysis of the relation between the development of the railway transport, the amount of transported goods, and the drop of the goods cost price showed considerable impact of the railway development. As an example, we figured out that even the beginning of the implementation of the railway transport was able to twice increase the amount of transported goods.

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