In this paper the method to determine tire optimal switching instants in order to reduce the transient surges during switching not relevant to the neutral treatment of shunt reactors is presented. This method consists of the following two steps. First, the instants of the voltage peaks between the contacts of each poles and the voltage magnitude as well as the moments of the current zero crosses were found out analytically. Next, the instants of the contact touches or separations were determined in consideration of the rate of decrease of dielectric strength or a circuit breaker and the variation of the its operating time. The results obtained from the EMTP(Electromagnetic Transient Program) analysis studies show that the making instants are established at the peak voltage of each three poles for any conditions of a neutral point and the possible upper limited values of inrush currents due to the variation of the mechanical operating time can be estimated.