"Expand the range, improve the quality of service...": about the organization of trade and public catering on the Moscow-Kursk-Donbass railway in the late 1950s

The relevance of the stated topic is determined by the special social significance of trade and public catering in the daily life of the population. Moreover, in modern conditions, their role is not decreasing, but only increasing. Improving the mechanisms of functioning of the service sector can be successful not only with the active use of the achievements of digital civilization, but also with the rational use of the experience of previous generations. In scientific and historical terms, the topic of organized satisfaction of consumer demand for food and basic necessities is little studied, especially in relation to the recent Soviet past. The issues of the history of departmental trade and catering have also not received adequate coverage in the scientific literature, which motivates their development from the standpoint of the methodological apparatus available to scientists today. The purpose of the study is to summarize the experience of organizing trade and catering in railway transport in the late 1950s on the basis of archival documents and published materials. The objectives: to reveal the specifics of transport trade in the period under review; characterize the problems of organizing catering for railway workers. Methodology. The research was based on the principles of objectivity and historicism. To solve the problems, the author used historical-genetic, historical-systemic, historical-comparative, typological, and retrospective methods. Results. The study of the experience of trade and catering enterprises of railway transport made it possible to objectively assess the role of departmental social policy in creating favorable conditions for the performance of professional duties by employees with a special working regime. Conclusions. The main problem in the organization of transport trade and nutrition during the study period should be recognized as the inability to organize an uninterrupted supply of food to workers who worked on remote crossings and linear sections. The other traditional flaws of Soviet trade and catering were also characteristic of the railway sphere of labor supply.