For the English full text of the article please see the attached PDF-File (English version follows Russian version).ABSTRACT The article substantiates the weight standards for heavy trains, evaluates the technology of their formation, taking into account the existing factors and conditions. In particular, it is taken into account that in heavy traffic, locomotives with a large number of sections are used, the speed and travel time for all cargo trains should be the same, and the weight standards should be chosen so as to ensure the minimum cost of mastering the specified traffic volumes. The promising importance of heavy weight trains requires development of technologically substantiated weight standards for those trains, so that those standards should comply with harmonized standards for ordinary trains. So the article offers description of main factors that should be taken into consideration while substantiating weight standards for heavy trains. The authors quote examples of possible variants of weight standards, methods of calculation of mean weights, structure of freight costs for different weight standards for both ordinary and heavy trains. Keywords: railway, heavy trains, weight norms, linear loads, weight standard, distribution of actual train weights, distribution of trains’ lengths.