The article is devoted to highlighting the contribution to the development of railway transport by the famous scientist and engineer, a member of the Society of South-Western Railways – Maximilian Semyonovich Filonenko (1855–1906). The main stages of his life are analyzed. It has been proven that the scientific works of the scientist are devoted to various issues of railway transport and transport economy, and are related to the process of managing and operating railways, improving the organization of train traffic and compiling instructions for the transportation of goods and passengers, contain experiments and experiments in the field of the functioning of South-Western railways. It was found that M. S. Filonenko published a number of articles on topical issues of traffic service, rolling stock and railway tracks, as well as the resistance of materials (in connection with solving the problem of the strength of railway rails).

In general, the scientists scientific research was carried out in the context of the tasks of engineering science in the last quarter of the 19th – the first quarter of the 20th century. The creative activity of M. S. Filonenko is conventionally divided into three main parts: development of issues of railway transport, support of materials, historical and scientific and editorial (management of the magazine Inzhene). His scientific works are a significant contribution to the development of railway transport, thanks to which he became one of the famous scientists and railway engineers in the sub- Russian Ukraine and Europe.

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