Apparatus for the inspection of railway pantographs including: - a mechanical structure consisting of a main body and connecting structures suitable for detachably connecting said main body with a fixed frame of a railway pantograph; and characterized by including: - a hybrid transmission comprising: - at least one flexible and substantially inextensible connecting element associated at one end with said main body and detachably associated at a second end, in a first operational configuration of said apparatus, with the mechanism of said railway pantograph, - rigid transmission elements suitable to be connected, in a second operational configuration of said apparatus, on the one end to said main body and to said second end of said connecting element and on the other end to said mechanism; - a first actuating unit arranged to exert a direct tractive force on said connecting element in the direction of the only degree of freedom of the pantograph mechanism and in such a direction as to oppose the lifting of the mechanism itself, so determining the height position of said mechanism; - a second actuating unit arranged to impose an alternating vibratory movement in the direction of the only degree of freedom of the pantograph mechanism on the said rigid transmission elements, - force sensors and/or position sensors and/or vibration sensors, - a processing unit configured to process the data of said sensors to perform a diagnosis of said railway pantograph, so that in said first operational configuration the pantograph mechanism is subject to the traction action of said connecting element determining its height position, while in said second operational configuration the pantograph mechanism is subject simultaneously to the traction action of said connecting element determining its height position and to the action of said rigid transmission elements transferring to it the alternating vibratory movement of said second actuating unit. - a mechanical structure consisting of a main body and connecting structures suitable for detachably connecting said main body with a fixed frame of a railway pantograph; and - a hybrid transmission comprising: - at least one flexible and substantially inextensible connecting element associated at one end with said main body and detachably associated at a second end, in a first operational configuration of said apparatus, with the mechanism of said railway pantograph, - rigid transmission elements suitable to be connected, in a second operational configuration of said apparatus, on the one end to said main body and to said second end of said connecting element and on the other end to said mechanism; - at least one flexible and substantially inextensible connecting element associated at one end with said main body and detachably associated at a second end, in a first operational configuration of said apparatus, with the mechanism of said railway pantograph, - rigid transmission elements suitable to be connected, in a second operational configuration of said apparatus, on the one end to said main body and to said second end of said connecting element and on the other end to said mechanism; - a first actuating unit arranged to exert a direct tractive force on said connecting element in the direction of the only degree of freedom of the pantograph mechanism and in such a direction as to oppose the lifting of the mechanism itself, so determining the height position of said mechanism; - a second actuating unit arranged to impose an alternating vibratory movement in the direction of the only degree of freedom of the pantograph mechanism on the said rigid transmission elements, - force sensors and/or position sensors and/or vibration sensors, - a processing unit configured to process the data of said sensors to perform a diagnosis of said railway pantograph,