ABSTRACT Improving safety of rail transportation in the face of increasing speeds and traffic intensity and the presence of a terrorist threat requires introduction of new technical means of surveillance and control. A particular task is development of measures to prevent accidents and catastrophes, as well as to eliminate their consequences. The use of Earth remote sensing means, which allow to receive information from large areas and with a sufficiently high resolution, can significantly help in implementation of these tasks. The article deals with variants of satellites and remotely piloted aircrafts systems receiving information in various ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. Their advantages and disadvantages, opportunities of joint use are analyzed. Keywords: rail transportation safety, remote sensing of the Earth, satellites, remotely-piloted aircraft, aerial photography, radar sounding, image processing. The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in the framework of the scientific project No. 17-20-02086. The authors are grateful to the staff of the Experimental Railway Ring in Shcherbinka for their assistance in conducting RPA flights to obtain the necessary information.