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Author Guidelines

Update: December 21, 2023.

The Author Guidelines for Authors are compiled according to CSE’s White Paper on Promotion Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications, 2012 Update.

I. GENERAL TERMS

The main topics of the Russian Railway Science Journal cover a wide range of problems of railway transport development in Russia and the CIS countries. The journal publishes the results of scientific research in the field of improving transport technologies and technical means of railway transport.

Original scientific and review articles are accepted for publication, the subject of which corresponds to the following areas:

• Automation and Control of Technological Processes in Railway Transport.
• Technical Means of Railway Transport.
• Transport Materials Science.
• Transport and Transport-technological Systems of the Country, its Regions and Cities, Production Organisation in Transport.
• Economics and Management

The journal accepts materials from specialists, experts, postgraduates, applicants, candidates and doctors of sciences.

Publication of articles is free of charge for the authors.

The editorial board reserves the right not to review or send the following materials to the corresponding author for revision without reviewing:

• articles that do not correspond to the theme of the journal or written in violation of the rules;
• duplicate articles published in other scientific publications, in any media, including the Internet;
• articles containing a large proportion of borrowed text (plagiarism).

All incoming articles are checked for borrowings in the “Antiplagiat” (www.antiplagiat.ru) system.

II. BEFORE SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE

Submitting an article to the Russian Railway Science Journal implies that:

- the article has not been previously published;
- the article is not submitted for publication elsewhere;
- all co-authors agree with the publication of the current version of the article.

Prior to sending an article for consideration, the author must make sure that the file(s) contain(s) all the necessary information in Russian and English, the sources of information placed on the figures and tables are indicated, all quotations are correctly formatted.

III. RULES FOR SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE

Manuscripts are uploaded via electronic editorial office (after registration of the authors on the journal’s website).

At the initial stage, the following materials should be uploaded:

• The manuscript is in *.doc, *.docx format (title of the article, full name of the authors, affiliations, abstract (up to 250 words), key words (up to 8), full text of the article; tables, diagrams, illustrations, captions are inserted along the text; literature is drawn up according to the rules of the journal; information about the authors; contribution of the authors).
• An extract from the protocol of the relevant department or scientific and technical council in *.pdf format for graduate students, applicants and persons with no academic degree.
  This extract is for informational purposes only and cannot be considered as an unconditional basis for the possibility of publishing an article in the journal.
• Additional materials (at discretion).

The manuscript should include:

1. UDC Index (Universal Decimal Classification).

It is given in the upper left corner of the first page of the manuscript. The author chooses the UDC Index in accordance with the subject of the article.

2. Article title

The title of the article in Russian must reflect its content.
The title of the article in English must be an accurate rendition of the Russian title in terms of its meaning. It must also be in proper, grammatically correct English.

3. Names of author(s)

Authors are people whom the scientific group has identified as the main participants in the work and who agreed to take responsibility for their work. In addition to responsibility for his/her part of the work, the author should be able to indicate which of his/her co-authors is responsible for other parts of the work.

Each author must meet the following criteria of authorship:

1. make a significant contribution to the concept and design of the study, data collection or analysis and interpretation;
2. contribute to the article manuscript preparation or its critical review in terms of important intellectual content;
3. finally approve of the article manuscript for publication;
4. should agree to be responsible for all aspects of the work, proper study and resolution of issues related to the reliability of data or the integrity of all parts of the article.

The list of authors does not include people who are not the authors of the article manuscript. The names of people who are not authors, but who provided different support, are indicated in the “Acknowledgments” section.

4. Affiliations of the author(-s)

Affiliation includes the following information: full official name of the organisation, full postal address (including zip code, city and country). Authors should indicate all places of work related to the study.

If several authors took part in the preparation of the article manuscript, it is necessary to indicate the affiliation of each author to a particular institution using a superscript.

It is necessary to specify the official English-language name of the institution for the information section in English.

5. Abstract

The text of the abstract should be concise and clear, contain no secondary information and insignificant wording.

Recommended length of the structured abstract is 200-250 words.

The abstract should be structured according to the following mandatory sections: Introduction (main topic, object and aim of the research), Materials and methods, Results, Discussion and conclusion (general conclusions, area of application).

The abstract should not repeat the text of the article itself and its title. It is not necessary to include in the text of the abstract terms introduced for the first time, abbreviations (except for well-known ones), references to literature.

The abstract in English should not be a tracing of the Russian-language text with a literal translation.

6. Keywords

5-8 words or short phrases on the topic of the article. It is recommended that keywords complement the abstract and the title of the article.

7. Main body of the text

The main text of the article should be well structured and consist of the following components: Introduction, Materials and methods, Research results, Discussion, Conclusion. The author has the right to use his own titles for sections of the article in agreement with the editorial office of the journal.

The minimum recommended text size is 30 thousand characters with spaces, including tables, captions, references and appendices.

The maximum recommended text size is 50 thousand characters with spaces, including tables, captions, references and appendices.

When submitting an article in Russian, its title, full name of the author(s), affiliations and keywords must be translated into English. Specific terms that facilitate the translation of the abstract into English should also be given in separate lines after the keywords.

8. Acknowledgements

In this section, the author(s) express(es) gratitude to people / companies, etc., who participated in the work on the article, but are not warranted authorship.

Participation in the work on the manuscript implies: recommendations for improving the study, provision of place for research, departmental control, and provision of financial support.

9. Funding

This section indicates all sources of research funding.

10. Conflicts of interests

The author(s) must indicate a real or potential conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, then it should written the following way: "the author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest."

11. References

The bibliographic description of the documents is drawn up in accordance with the requirements of GOST R 7.0.5–2008 (literature in Russian) and the Vancouver citation style (literature in a foreign language).

In accordance with the accepted style (GOST R 7.0.7-2021), links are placed strictly in the order of mentioning / quoting sources in the text of the article. The numbering of records is continuous (regardless of the source language). Bibliographic references in the text of the article are indicated by numbers in square brackets: [2]. The page is indicated inside parentheses, separated by commas: [6, p. 8].

The references should be as complete as possible and include only peer-reviewed publications. It is advisable to use 15–20 Russian and English sources.

It is not recommended to include abstracts, dissertations, textbooks, manuals, GOST standards, information from websites, regulatory documentation, statistical reports, articles in socio-political newspapers, on websites and blogs in the list of references. If it is necessary to refer to such sources, information about the source should be placed in a footnote in the text.

Source description should include its DOI if it is possible to find it (for foreign sources, it is possible in 95% of cases).

The links must be verified and the output data checked on the official website of journals and/or publishing houses.

It is necessary to translate the list of references into English. After the description of the Russian-language source, an indication of the language of work is placed at the end of the link: (In Russ.).

The BGN/PCGN standard should be used to transliterate the names and surnames of authors and journal titles.

12. Information about the authors

This section includes: surname, full name and patronymic (the latter, if accepted by the authors), academic degree, academic title, position, names of organisations of all authors and postal addresses of organisations, scientific identifiers (ORCID), e-mail for communication. The author is indicated to contact the editorial office, as well as his phone number for communication (not published).

Mind that you have to register in ORCID (https://orcid.org/). An ORCID ID is obligatory for each author. The full name is indicated in Latin letters.

Example:

Ivan Ivanovich IVANOV, Dr. Sci. (Eng.), Professor, Chief Researcher, Rails, Welding and Transport Materials Science Centre, Railway Research Institute (129626, Moscow, 10, 3-rd Mytishchinskaya St.), https://orcid.org/0000-....-....-...., e-mail: …@...

13. Contribution of the authors

At the end of the article, the actual contribution of each author is explained. The procedure for specifying the authors and co-authors of the article is agreed upon by them independently. It is given in Russian and English.

IV. TECHNICAL RULES FOR THE ARTICLE DESIGN

1. Main body of the text

The article file uploaded to the system must be in Microsoft Word format (with the extension *.doc, *.docx).

The text is typed using the Times New Roman font, size 14 and an interval of 1.5 lines. The margins on all sides are 2 cm. An indentation of 1.25 cm is made at the beginning of each paragraph. Alignment is by width. The text is formed in one column. Hyphenation is not allowed.

2. Formulas

Formulas should be typed in the MS Word Equation Editor or MathType. Latin characters in formulas and designations (both in the text and in the figures) are typed in italics. Formulas are numbered in parentheses.

3. Figures, screenshots and photos

All figures and tables should have links to the source. If the table or illustration was developed by the author(s) independently, then the following should be indicated: "Compiled (developed) by the author(s) based on the research materials." If the table or illustration is copied from another source (including numerical data), then it is marked "Source" with a link to the source.

Figures must be of a high quality and suitable for printing.

All figures and tables must have captions (above the figure).

Figures are numbered using Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear in the text.

References to figures should be as follows: “Fig. 3 indicates that ..."or “It is indicated that ... (Fig. 3)".

A caption includes the number of the figure and its title, aligned to the center:

“Fig. 2. Description of technical processes”.

A full stop is not included after the number and description.

Caption in English should be placed below the corresponding caption in Russian.

Graphs, schemes and diagrams are recommended to be designed in Microsoft Excel.

Photos, screenshots and other unpainted figures should be uploaded in a special section of the form for submitting articles in the form of * .jpeg, * .bmp, * .gif (* .doc and * .docx are possible if additional marks are made on the image). Image resolution should be > 300 dpi.
Image files should have names corresponding to the number of the figure in the text. In the file description, a caption corresponding to the photo title in the text in Russian and English should be given.

4. Tables

Tables should be suitable for editing and it is not allowed to insert their scan or drawing. Large tables are provided on separate pages in text format.

All tables should have headings. Table titles should be given in English.

Tables should be numbered sequentially in Arabic numerals in the text. If there is only one table in the text, it is not numbered.

References to tables should be as follows: “Table 3 indicates that ..."or “It is indicated that ... (Table 3)”.

The table heading includes its sequence number and its name.

It is aligned to the right: “Table 2”

The table title is aligned to the center: “Description of technical processes”.

There is no full stop at the end of the table title.

The translation of the table heading should be placed after the table heading in Russian.

At the end of the figure and table there should be a link to the source, or it should be indicated the following way: Compiled by the author based on the research materials.

5. Footnotes

Footnotes are numbered in Arabic numerals and placed page by page. It is recommended to place in footnotes the following information: links to anonymous sources on the Internet, links to textbooks, textbooks, state standards, statistical reports, articles in socio-political newspapers and journals, abstracts, dissertations (if it is not possible to cite articles published based on the results of dissertation research), comments of the author. Footnotes are drawn up in accordance with GOST R 7.0.5–2008.

6. References

References is placed at the end of the article and includes a bibliographic description of all the works cited in the text of the article. Sources in Russian are issued in accordance with GOST R 7.0.5–2008.

Example:

References

1. Коган А. Я. Динамика пути и его взаимодействие с подвижным составом. М.: ИПП «Куна», 2023. 280 с. [Kogan A. Ya. Railway track dynamics and its interaction with rolling stock. Moscow: IPP “Kuna”; 2023. 280 p. (In Russ.)].
2. Захаров С. М., Торская Е. В. Подходы к моделированию возникновения поверхностных контактно-усталостных повреждений в рельсах // Вестник Научно-исследовательского института железнодорожного транспорта (Вестник ВНИИЖТ). Т. 77, № 5. С. 259–268. [Zakharov S. M., Torskaya E. V. Approaches to modeling occurrence of rolling contact fatigue damages in rails. Russian Railway Science Journal. 2018;77(5):259-268. (In Russ.)]. https://dx.doi.org/10.21780/2223-9731-2018-77-5-259-268.
3. Kim Y. S., Samy Y., Serdar I., Kim S. J., Seo J. K., Kim B. J. Environmental consequences associated with collisions involving double hull oil tanker. Ships and Offshore Structures. 2015;10(5):479-487. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445302.2015.1026762
4. Dang Van K., Cailletaud G., Fiavenot J. F., Le Douaron A., Lieurade H. P. Criterion for high cycle fatigue failure under multiaxial loading. In: Brown M. W., Miller K. J., ed. Biaxial and Multiaxial Fatigue, EGF 3. UK, London: Mechanical Engineering Publications; 1989. p. 459–478.

The journal title as well as monographs and collections should be given in italics; periods are placed after the initials. There is no comma between the author's surname and initials.

Monographs

The structure of the reference to the monograph: Surname and initials of the author(s) (transliteration). Translation of the monograph title (italics). Place of publication in English, if it is an organisation, and transliteration, if the publishing house has its own name (indicating in English that it is a publishing house); year of publication. The number of pages.

For Russian-language sources

Сакало В. И., Сакало А. В., Коссов В. С. Механика контактного взаимодействия колеса и рельса. Москва; Берлин: Директ-Медиа, 2021. 376 с.

Sakalo V. I., Sakalo A. V., Kossov V. S. Mechanics of contact interaction of wheel and rail. Moscow, Berlin: Direct-Media;2021. 376 p. (In Russ.).

For English-language sources

Zhai W. Vehicle–Track Coupled Dynamics. Singapore: Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore; 2020. 436 p. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9283-3.

Journal article

The structure of the article link includes: Surname and initials of the author(s) (transliteration). The title of the article is in English. The journal title (italics). Year;volume(journal number in parentheses):the numbers of the first and last page.

For Russian-language sources

Асалханова Т. Н., Осколков А. А. Организация транспортного производства путевых работ с учетом информационного моделирования // Транспорт Урала. 2021. № 3 (70). С. 65–67. https://doi.org/10.20291/1815-9400-2021-3-65-67.

Asalkhanova T. N., Oskolkov A. A. Organization of transport production of permanent way work with the consideration for information modeling. Transport of the Urals. 2021;(3):65-67. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.20291/1815-9400-2021-3-65-67.

For English-language sources

Arya F., Moss R., Hyde T., Shire S., Henshall P., Eames P. Vacuum enclosures for solar thermal panels. Part 2: Transient testing with an uncooled absorber plate. Solar Energy. 2018;174:1224-1236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2018.10.063.

Article design example

Совершенствование системы воздухоснабжения тепловозных дизелей

И. Л. Поварков¹, В. А. Рыжов², М. Е. Калугин², А. Н. Журавлев¹

¹ Научно-исследовательский институт железнодорожного транспорта (ВНИИЖТ),

Москва, Российская Федерация

² Коломенский завод,

Коломна, Московская область, Российская Федерация

Аннотация: Введение, Материалы и методы, Результаты, Обсуждение и заключение (не более 200-250 слов)

Ключевые слова: не более 5-8

Improvement of the air supply system for diesel locomotives

Igor L. Povarkov¹, Valeriy A. Ryzhov², Mikhail E. Kalugin², Andrey N. Zhuravlev¹

¹ Railway Research Institute,

Moscow, Russian Federation

² Kolomensky Zavod,

Kolomna, Moscow region, Russian Federation

Abstract: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion and conclusion (max 250 words)

Key words: max 8 words

The text of the article includes: introduction, a brief overview of the problem, methods and new techniques of analysis, factual data, analysis, discussion and conclusion, acknowledgements, funding*, conflict of interest, references.

*Funding: sponsors and research projects identifiers

References

Design rules (see above).

V. AUTHOR-JOURNAL INTERACTION

The editorial office correspond with the responsible (corresponding) author, however, if the team of authors wishes, letters can be sent to all authors whose e-mail address is indicated.

All incoming articles to the Russian Railway Science Journal are pre-checked for compliance with formal requirements and originality of the text via the Antiplagiat system. The editors have the right not to consider articles that are not complied with the rules. At this stage, the article can be returned to the author (authors) with a request to revise it, eliminate obvious errors, or add missing data. At this stage, the article may also be rejected due to its inconsistency with the goals of the journal, lack of originality, and low scientific value.

After a preliminary check, the responsible editor submits the article to the reviewers indicating the review period. The corresponding notification is sent to the author.

In disputable cases, the editor may involve several specialists in the review process, as well as the editor-in-chief.

If the reviewer's opinion is positive, the article is submitted to the editor for preparation for publication.

When making a decision to finalise the article, the reviewer's remarks and comments are transferred to the author. The author is given 1 month to eliminate the remarks noted in the comments. If during this period the author does not notify the editorial office of the planned actions, the editorial office removes the article from consideration within 2 months.

When a decision is made to refuse to publish an article, the corresponding editorial decision is sent to the author.

The final version of the layout is sent to the responsible (corresponding) author of the article accepted for publication, which he/she is obliged to check. The response from the authors is expected within 3 days. In the absence of a response from the author, the layout of the article is considered approved.

VI. PROCEDURE FOR REVIEWING THE DECISIONS OF THE EDITOR / REVIEWER

If the author does not agree with the conclusion of the reviewer and/or editor or individual comments, he/she can challenge the decision. The author must:

- correct the manuscript of the article according to the reasonable comments of reviewers and editors;
- clearly state his/her position on the issue under consideration.

The editors will facilitate resubmissions of manuscripts that could potentially be accepted but were rejected due to the need for significant changes or the collection of additional data, and are ready to explain in detail what needs to be corrected in the manuscript in order for it to be accepted for publication.

VII. EDITORIAL ACTION IN CASE OF PLAGIARISM, FABRICATION OR FALSIFICATION OF DATA

In case of detection of dishonest behavior on the part of the author, detection of plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, the editors are guided by the COPE rules.

Under "unscrupulous behavior" the Russian Railway Science Journal understands any actions of a scientist that include mishandling of objects of study or deliberate manipulation of scientific information in such a way that it no longer reflects observed research, as well as behavior of a scientist that does not meet accepted ethical and scientific standards.

In the Russian Railway Science Journal, errors or discrepancies in the outline, conduct, interpretation or evaluation of research methods or results, or dishonest behavior not related to the scientific process are not considered to be “unscrupulous behavior”.

VIII. CORRECTION OF ERRORS AND RETRACTION OF THE ARTICLE

If errors that distort the results of the study are found in the text of the article or in the case of plagiarism, the discovery of dishonest behavior of the author (authors) associated with falsification and/or fabrication of data, the article may be retracted. The initiator of the retraction of the article may be the editorial board, author, organisation, individual.

The retracted article is marked with the sign "Article retracted", information about the reason for the retraction of the article is placed on the webpage of the article. Information about the retraction of the article is sent to the databases in which the journal is indexed.

IX. USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE PREPARATION OF THE ARTICLE

In connection with the spread of the practice of using programmes based on artificial intelligence, including preparation and writing of scientific articles, the editorial office of the Russian Railway Science Journal considers it necessary to focus the attention of the authors on the following provisions.

1. Chatbots such as ChatGPT (and similar ones) cannot under any circumstances be listed as the author of the article or the one who contributed to the preparation of the article. Programmes and tools based on artificial intelligence do not meet the requirements of authorship, since they do not (and cannot) be responsible for the submitted work, cannot declare the presence and absence of a conflict of interest, and also manage copyrights.
2. The use of chatbots or other artificial intelligence-based programs is not prohibited during article preparation. In some cases, such programmes can be useful for editing text, searching for additional sources of literature, and collecting and analysing data. However, it should be considered that chatbots often transmit false information to the user (literally "invent" non-existent facts and links to publications that never existed), so authors need to check the information received from chatbots.
3. If an artificial intelligence-based programme was used when working with the article, you must specify this information in the article. Always specify the version of the programme and the date of use.
4. Remember that the author is responsible for the final text of the article submitted for consideration to the Russian Railway Science Journal, regardless of the programmes based on artificial intelligence he/she used and to what extent.
5. The editorial board of the Russian Railway Science Journal uses the Antiplagiat module, which allows to detect the generated text.

The Russian Railway Science Journal shares the position of the international publishing community regarding the use of artificial intelligence in the preparation of scientific articles, as set out in the following documents: Chatbots, Generative AI, and Scholarly Manuscripts, Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making.

The Russian Railway Science Journal uses NeuroAssistant of Scientific Publishing software to work with manuscripts at all stages of work. The NeuroAssistant is suggested to be used by the authors for the analysis of articles, by the reviewer, as well as by the editor when preparing articles for publication.

NeuroAssistant of Scientific Publishing integrates the following services:

• Bibliographic reference recommendation service
• Key word recommendation service
• Citation source search service
• Article design quality assessment

The reviewer and the editor of the Russian Railway Science Journal receive a summary report on the use of NeuroAssistant services by the author. The reviewer is obliged to evaluate the expediency of using the recommendations of the NeuroAssistant. The editor must indicate in the final version of the article that artificial intelligence-based services were used in preparing the article for publication.

The results of the NeuroAssistant services can be interpreted and decided on the expediency of the proposed corrections and additions only by a person.

NeuroAssistant cannot be listed as the author of the article. The author, reviewer and editor may but are not obliged to accept all proposed corrections and additions by the NeuroAssistant. The author, reviewer and editor are responsible for the use of corrections and additions proposed by the NeuroAssistant.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. Type of article: original scientific article or review article.

2. The manuscript is accepted if it has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

3. The file of the submitted article is presented in Microsoft Word document format.

4. Internet links are provided as a complete URL.

5. Text should be typed with an interval of one line spacing, font Times New Roman, 14 pt; to highlight the accents it is recommended to use italics rather than underlining (except Internet links). All images, graphics and tables are placed within the text according to the meaning of the particular part of text (and not at the end of the document).

6. The text complies with the stylistic and bibliographic requirements described in the Author Guidelines.

7. The article does not contain plagiarism and self-plagiarism, i.e. it is not part of my previously published works (articles, dissertations, monographs).

8. The author(s) give(s) consent to the processing of his or her personal data according to the journal’s personal data processing policy.

Copyright Notice

Authors agree to the following terms:

1. Authors should retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

Specified when registering the names and addresses will be used solely for technical purposes of a contact with the author or reviewers (editors) when preparing the article for publication. Private data will not be shared with other individuals and organizations.