Russian Railways Museum

Trains are an integral part of Russian life. The new Russian Railways (RZD) Museum is a living monument to trains, and the roles they played under the Czar, Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. 

Adjacent to the Baltiysky Railway Station and Baltiyskaya Metro Station in St. Petersburg, the RZD Museum opened in November 2017. Many locomotives are on display as well as a number of multiple unit trainsets (self-powered railcars) and rolling stock (railcars). The museum is housed in an 1857 depot (roundhouse) of the Peterhof Railway. While most depots in the US are round and include a turntable outside, this one is U shaped although it includes two small turntables inside to protect workers from winter weather. Some trains are displayed outside. Similar to the Udvar Hazy Museum and Steamtown USA, there is an overhead walkway to provide a different view of the locomotives and rolling stock.

The museum had electronic displays which described the locomotives in Russian but also had a button to select an English translation. There also neat white figurines which stories and photos were projected onto (only in Russian). More photos and details available here. 

My father-in-law bought me an extra ticket to use the train driver simulator. I only saw children driving but it was still a lot of fun. Russian trains have different horns for grade crossings and stations, the former is the standard loud horn and the latter is a higher pitched whistle-like horn. Sounding the correct horns would encourage various cars and people to move off of the tracks. Failure to do so would result in the windshield cracking. The electric locomotive simulator was very similar to the Siemens Cities Sprinter locomotive cab I saw in Amtrak’s Ivy City yard. There is space for families to cluster behind and laugh at the driver’s mistakes. 

Differences from foreign railways

Russian loading gauge (dimensions in which locomotives and rolling stock fit) is far more generous than in the US and Europe, presumably due to lack of tunnels and wider track gauge (4'11 27/32" versus 4’8 1/2” in the US and Europe). Therefore, locomotives are as tall as 17’, taller than the largest US locomotive, the Union Pacific’s Big Boy (16’ 2 1⁄2”). This allows for a large gap between the locomotive drivers (large wheels) and the boiler, a unique feature. All of the Russian steam locomotives were enormous!

There is a common myth that the Czar chose a wider track gauge to prevent European armies from using its railways. However, American consultant George Washington Whistler recommended a 5’ gauge when constructing Russia’s first railways in the 1840’s which was the standard in the US at the time. The difference with European lines was not considered important because the Russian network would not connect anyways. In times of war, it was relatively simple to adjust the gauge as invading armies would simply nail new holes into the wooden track ties. In fact, the Nazi’s did this when invading Russia and then the Red Army put it back when they pushed the Nazi’s back. From the 1960’s to the 1990’s, the Soviet Union reduced the tolerances of the 5’ gauge its present 4'11 27/32". This difference is small enough that the high-speed Allegro train from Helsinki, Finland (5’ gauge) to St. Petersburg does not need to adjust its wheels when crossing the border. In contrast, the Moscow-Berlin Talgo trainsets use an automatic gauge charger (takes 20 minutes) while other routes to Central and Western Europe (such as Warsaw, Paris, Nice) all require several hours to change bogies (wheels) from Russian to standard gauge.

Foreign expertise

While the Soviet Union had a reputation for self-reliance, I was surprised to find a number of US-built locomotives and reliance on foreign technology and consultants for some parts of the railway.

In 1915, the war had dramatically increased railway traffic and new locomotives were necessary. The railway ministry ordered 400 locomotives from US and Canadian manufacturers. The first locomotive, a YeS Class, arrived dismantled in Vladivostok in October 1915, and were assembled by Chinese contractors in Harbin, China which was a major stop on the Russian owned East-China Railway (a Russian-built shortcut line to Vladivostok for Trans-Siberian trains). The initial locomotives had problems with spare parts (incompatible with domestic spare parts) and were designed to burn energy-dense anthracite coal rather than less-energy dense Siberian coal. Future orders were renegotiated to account for those issues and in November 1916, the railway ministry ordered 40 each from the Baldwin Locomotive Company and the American Locomotive Company (ALCO). Named Class YeN, they had a subscript in their name, “F” for Philadelphia (F replaces ph in the Cyrillic alphabet) and “S” for Schenectady, to designate where each company was based. Additional locomotives were ordered after the US entered the way in 1917, However, when the Russian Revolution had disposed the Czarist government and withdrawn from the war, the deal was terminated but because the Czar’s government had made a 20% down payment, 100 locomotives were to be delivered and the remaining order was canceled.

The Nazi invasion of Russia decimated the Soviet railways and as the Nazi’s were driven back, there was an immediate need for new locomotives. In 1943, Stalin allowed the USSR railway ministry to acquire up to 2,000 locomotives from the US under the Lend Lease Act. Two options, used class YeL locomotives which had already been delivered during WW1 or the Decapod locomotive (Class ShA) were considered and ultimately, about 200 Class ShA were delivered via the Arctic convoy route to Murmansk. 

Many Russian rail lines have electric overhead catenary. Even the Trans-Siberian Railway is electrified although it took 73 years and electrification was only completed in 2002. Like in the US, the first electrified lines went through mountain passes where steep grades and curves such as the Suram Pass on the Trans-Caucasian Line. The Soviet Union acquired 8 GE Boxcab and 6 Brown Boveri (Italy) electric locomotives and trialed them on the Suram Pass. Railway workers found the GE design performed better and acquired design documents for domestic manufacturing. From 1932-1934, 21 SsM-14 locomotives were manufactured and were used until 1974. The locomotives bear a strong resemblance to the Boxcab locomotives used in Montreal until 1995. The museum’s SsM-14 came from Perm.

War

Some of the more interesting rolling stock was military-related. Railway guns were used with limited success in WW1, serving more as a terror weapon against civilians rather than a vital part of military objectives. Given the limited mobility and network of railway tracks in war time, their use was constrained. The TMK-3-12 railway gun was originally designed in 1907 for the Russian navy in response to problems identified in the Russo-Japanese War. The three TMK-3-12 railway guns were built using guns from the sunken Russian navy ship, Imperatritsa Mariya, in 1938 because no large guns were built from 1917 until the 1930’s.

 

The RT-23 Molodets missile train was developed in the late 1980’s to launch ICBM’s from a mobile platform. While more difficult to detect as the missile hides in a railcar which looks like a refrigerator car, satellites would merely have to look along railway tracks in warmer climates (snow could block tracks in cooler ones). The last missile train was withdrawn in 2005.

Should you find yourself in St. Petersburg, the Russian Railway Museum should not be missed. Look out Steamtown, the Russians are coming!