ACTUAL SECURITY ISSUES
Track economy of the railways of Russia due to its material consumption is the most costly branch in the system of Russian Railways. On the railways of a number of foreign countries, for example, Australia, the United States, South Africa, the operating costs in the track economy, attributed to the unit of transportation work, are much smaller than in the domestic ones. It is known that the reliability of roads on the roads of Russia, despite the relatively high quality of the rails, is much lower than a number of foreign ones for a number of operational parameters (mean time between failures, technical resources, etc.) This situation is largely due to the lack of effective controls technical condition of roads. Numerous examples of premature rail replacement are known, carried out according to the regulations. At the same time, examples of unexpected emergency situations are known due to the sudden destruction of the rails, which could not be prevented due to the lack of the necessary measuring equipment. Here it is necessary to take into account that in the current conditions of intensive track maintenance fatigue phenomena accumulate imperceptibly in the structure of rail steel, making it fragile. The process of softening began to go unnoticed. Therefore, the rail can break down suddenly, without the appearance of fatigue cracks and other signs of fatigue wear. Existing methods of nondestructive testing in this case are completely ineffective, since there are no signs of a future fracture. The need for additional measures to protect against such accidents is the reason for additional costs, which may amount to 50% of the total operating costs. It follows that it is necessary to develop new, more effective methods for monitoring the technical condition of the rail, which can detect problems in advance, and take preventive measures to eliminate them.