Cold climate regions need railroad ties with improved operational characteristics during the construction and repair of railroad tracks. The aim of the study is to create a technology and equipment allowing the manufacture of such sleepers. Low-value soft hardwoods, oily antiseptic, and drying press chamber are needed for the production of sleepers with improved performance characteristics. Technological modes for producing sleepers with high performance characteristics of softwood have been tested using the installation which enables to combine technological operations - drying, treatment, and wood pressing. The resulting sleepers can be used in the Extreme North conditions. The half ties have been laid at Chistye Prudy metro station in Moscow, and the ties have been laid at Scherbenka station on the experimental ring of Russian Railways (JSCo «RZD»). The tests have been carried out for four years in underground railway system and for two years on the ring of Russian Railways. The test results have found that wear of modified sleepers and half ties is about 3 times less than wear of pine sleepers and the average service life of sleepers made of modified wood will be about 50 years. An experimental batch is currently being manufactured.

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The paper is topical and up-to-date as analysis of regulatory documents showed that it is very important to develop managerial skills in future teachers so that they can successfully organize project activities of school leavers as this type of activity demonstrates how they have coped with the academic program of secondary education. As for the share of managerial skills in the pedagogical profession, the analysis of the regulatory documents showed that the most part of functions and competences are connected with management. Still FSES competences do not include the ability of managing pupils' project activities as a part of educational profession. Thus, we offer to add the managerial competence to the list. This competence shows if one is able to manage pupils' project activities in accordance with the requirements of FSES. The aim of the research is to find out the structure of the competence which characterizes the ability of future teachers to manage pupils' project activities. The research methods, such as look-back analysis and generalization of the research results content, helped us to state the grounds for distinguishing the professional competence and its structure. The methods also include decomposition of the competence, comparing the content of the professional standard of a teacher with the FSES HE so as to compare the managerial functions and managerial competences. The offered components, criteria, and tools let us see the formation level of structural components of the professional competence, to find the perspective trends of the activity which could help to increase effectiveness of teaching future teachers how to manage project activities of secondary school pupils.

Pressed (modified) wood is a technological process of drying, impregnation and pressing (R 54577-2011 State Standard). The density of pressed wood, depending on the degree of pressing, ranges from 750 to 850 kg/m3. Strength, hardness toughness of this wood is several times greater than of natural wood. Coal oil, TCL (thermocatalytic cracking liquid), shale oil are most often used as wood antiseptics. They are plasticizers and change the nature of deformations during pressing.Experiments with natural and were conducted to obtain comparative data. Pressed wood contained 10% of TCL oily antiseptic by weight of absolute dry wood. Birch wood was used as the starting material. In this case, an antiseptic agent in an amount of 8-10% by weight of dry wood is evenly distributed over the entire cross section of the specimen. Direct and reverse creep was studied to assess time changes in deformation composition of wood, pressed across fibers. Measurements of direct and reverse creep of wood were carried out on a lever installation. The obtained modes can be used to optimize the technology of obtaining plasticized wood, because plasticization of wood with TCL oil reduces toughness 3-5 times (in the first phase of deformation), in the second phase - 1.1-1.5 times, in the third phase - 2.5-3 times. Transverse strain coefficient increases 1.2-1.3 times. Using creep curves of plasticized wood, it was found that oil impregnation gives 4-5 times greater reduction in the proportion of elastic deformations and, accordingly, increases the residual ones.

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