Narrow gauge goodnes

[KvadratGnezdo]

2 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

What about this for above the doors

The roof kind of stops halfway on top of the door and with the piece you suggested it will look just like all the other roof sections. Im still working with the prototypes to get most things right:

Edited December 14, 2020 by KvadratGnezdo

[KvadratGnezdo]

Second update about the passangers, TU2s and the DZhD is almost ready! Meanwhile, here are some prtotypes for PV-40 in traditional green livery.

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by KvadratGnezdo

[Electricsteam]

Has anyone tried using the studly micromotor to power any narrowgauge trains?  I know it's an off brand product but it seems like a good way to power these trains since they are all such a space crunch.

[zephyr1934]

On 12/14/2020 at 10:48 AM, KvadratGnezdo said:

The roof kind of stops halfway on top of the door and with the piece you suggested it will look just like all the other roof sections. Im still working with the prototypes to get most things right: 

Ah, okay, yes, that looks a lot more prototypical. I was not familiar with the original units. Though comparing your model to the original, did you try making the small side windows 3 plates tall instead of 2? You would have to drop to 5 windows instead of the 6 but the windows on the prototype look to be wider than they are tall.

 

2 hours ago, Electricsteam said:

Has anyone tried using the studly micromotor to power any narrowgauge trains?  I know it's an off brand product but it seems like a good way to power these trains since they are all such a space crunch. 

I think that is brand new, but that question probably belongs in a different thread. I'll add it to the ongoing thread on studly parts, probably best to move the discussion of the third party parts there.

[KvadratGnezdo]

On 12/20/2020 at 6:06 PM, zephyr1934 said:

Ah, okay, yes, that looks a lot more prototypical. I was not familiar with the original units. Though comparing your model to the original, did you try making the small side windows 3 plates tall instead of 2? You would have to drop to 5 windows instead of the 6 but the windows on the prototype look to be wider than they are tall.

 

I think that is brand new, but that question probably belongs in a different thread. I'll add it to the ongoing thread on studly parts, probably best to move the discussion of the third party parts there.

Thats just to my taste I suppose. I'll just make an alt-build of it with more accurate windows. I hope, todays evening will actually let me make a few additions to whats being done here.

Edited December 21, 2020 by KvadratGnezdo

[KvadratGnezdo]

Part number... who does even care at this point?

Stupid university exams and stupid soulsucking preaparations... So where was I? As far as I remember it was somwhere around the end of TU series, passanger wagons and such. 

Small legend

Narrow gauge modernisation was not at the top of post-war USSR's to-do list but somwhere around the 1950s said problem finally emered and as economy was rapidly advancing with dieselisation and electrification initiatives at large on the main gauge it was decided that ng also needed some love. Since the most modern engines were built under Kolomna P24 program and were steamers (sort of an oopsie during the time when abandoning steam traction was considered a question of prestige) they were mostly scrapped or sent DHzD centers as training equipment all the while the narrow gauge was being prepared for the new wunderwaffle to take their place.

Polish-built P24-Kp4 steam engine, the line also included Chezch Kch4, Hungarian Kv4, Finnish (sic!) Pt-4 and Kf4 and Soviet VP4.

As an engine TU1/2 (TU1 being the first prototype to pass all the tests needed) were largely influenced by the world around and the Soviet economy in general. For example: as opposed to most narrow gauge diesels of the tile TU2 recieved a diesel-electric transmission from the start and rolled with it, even though manufacturing said transmission was kind of a problem in the world of 1950s. One of the key details which signalises said transmission were bigger wheels and bulkier bogies. Secondly, it recieved a very unorthodox cab design and true purposes of that decision are still unknown, as it limits the view and was not really needed to be fair, seems to be just and odd design quirck. Another one of said quircks was placing the doors deeper into the body than every other outside detail. 

TU1 experimental engine during a test run

The result of said testings and designs was a very useful (pun intended) engine that to this day somehow qualifies to be one of the best soviet-built locos in terms of comfort, durability and pulling power (even though most of these things are either scrapped or used as museum demonstration pieces all over the CIS block and Eastern Europe). It's overall design also relied quite heavilly on wide gauge mainline diesels like early TEs which also made it fit for training operations in youth training centers. With time passing by it was first redesignated for passanger operations, and then as DZhD only locomotive together with it's Chezh TU3 cousin (more on that one later).

Now to Lego models:

Two trains in liverys of Svobodny city DHzD and "Minor October railroad". The main problem with the models was probably making them in the right scale with the minifigures as their shape and details were really out of proportion on my first couple of tries. Also, heres a guide to ALL existing TU2 liveries out there: http://www.dzd-ussr.ru/other/color/index.html

Now, about the wagons at the back - these are series PV40 general passanger cars. They were designed together with TU as a next generation of rolling stock and were paired with polish pafawag 40 passanger cars. Nowadays enthusiasts are mostly hunting for remaining non-scrapped and abandoned pafawags but there are plenty of updated PV40s and PV51s rolling around and being produced. They are a perfect testbed for official and unofficial mods and upgrades. For example, why do you even need steam heating when you can place a couple of extra benches inside and mount a basic "bourjoika" furnace in the middle of said car and force passangers to heat themselves up? Too hot outside - remove both the heater and the toilet and voila - "Tropical" variant. Other versions include but are not limited to: platzkart, prison car, dining VS series car, additional comfort car, DMU motorised car and so on and so forth.

Pafawags (top) and PV40/51 (bottom)

Lego models:

Next time: ugly TU2 cousin and some foreigners, merry Christmas everyone (although I prefer New Year, and yes, that one song will pop up here soon enough)

Edited December 26, 2020 by KvadratGnezdo

[zephyr1934]

On 12/25/2020 at 10:16 AM, KvadratGnezdo said:

The prototype looks like it was built out of lego, with 1x1 round tiles on a roof of 1x3 curved slopes above a bunch of 1x2x2 windows and a flat base

[KvadratGnezdo]

New Year's here!

And the song: 

 

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG: Cheap jokes, more czech chubs and plan B.

Existance is pain, economy is pain, exams this year are a freaking poopshow and I will never cease complaining about life. This day I bring one of the last TU series locomotives I've not built yet, long polish passanger cars and some interesting facts. So let us get to it.

Overweight supplement

With narrow gauge expierencing it's second golden age of popularity in the 50s and having only about two and a half factories to produce everything (with Kolomna and Lugansk sometimes summoned in to aid with specialists and resources) MPS was actually about to face a lot of problems with narrow gauge modernisation programme and so everyone remebered about a certain country which became member of the socialist block relatively recently and had an enormous amount of heavy industry both of local and german origin, certain amounts of experience with building and maintaining complex industrial machinery. Czechoslovakia! In order not to trigger yet another random internet ethnic conflict out here, I shall cease talking about politics and instead talk about czech trains which are certainly overlooked outside of post-Soviet territories. When it came to the railway gauges there things would get complicated for the Soviet side: unlike the 750 mm of the Russian Empire, czechs decided at the time to prioritize on the 760 and 1000 mm wide tracks. As a result it was decided to start a cooperation project between two countries to build an engine that would be simultaneously suitable for three (!) different gauges using TU2s powerplant and czech frames and bodyshells. The resulting engine was called T47 or TU3 (depends on who you ask). There it is:

T47 fresh out of factory and ready for service.

The resulting engine, despite having very good on-paper technical specifications, was not really popular or successful because of a couple of factors that weren't accounted for during the development stage:

1) Too heavy - this thing weighed at about 30+ metric tonnes which is a LOT for an engine of such size. But TU2s powerplant was good enough for this thing and it was very good at hauling rather big consists? Well, it was, but the problem came from down below. Most narrow gauge railways of the Union were built with using light profile rails meant to ease their transportation, deployment, repairs and to prevent the track from sinking into the ground. Since the trials were conducted in Czeckoslovakia with its sturdier grounds and heavier, more stress ressistive rails this problem didn't occur, but it quickly became apparent that changing 2/3 of all track in the country for one engines sake would be suicidal and as a result production numbers started to shrink rapidly.

2) It was too big. It's minimal turning radius was way bigger than most turnes of the soviet narrow gauge raiways. There was a fun story about a unit arriving at Tbilisi's depot and never leaving it's territory because it simply was not fit for sharp turns of the local track.

It also recived a lot of nicknames with the most prominent being "Tuzik" because it still looked cute despite it's many shortcomings and mini-battlecruiser as it heavily resmbled TEP60:

 

And about the lego model. I hated it. I just hated building this thing with the whole process being filled with compromises. At this scale copying the plows shape is almost impossible and so at a certain I've just stopped caring about it. The result you can see below with second picture showing and unfinished proto and the last picture showing a multitude of liverys the engine was painted in.

The round transparent tile is meant to symbolize the factory emblem because I liked it that way.

Next one up - a polish passanger car

Pafawag is a passenger car manufacturer (factory) located in Poland. I've told most of the important info in the post above this one as this unit's story is not that different from PV40s but inlike PV40 very little number of pafawags remained to this day and are deeply loved by russian enthusiasts.

Lego model:

More pictures will arrive tomorrow as I've not finished working with full consists made out of these models.

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by KvadratGnezdo

[ColletArrow]

32 minutes ago, KvadratGnezdo said:

exams this year are a freaking poopshow

I agree with you on that one, doing my 3rd year uni exams online is an... interesting experience. Oh, the uni says "they won't be any harder than normal exams", but then lecturers go and add extra questions, release the paper 40 minutes late, and give you practice questions that are full of typos, missing vital information or on topics they missed out this year... all sorts of fun.

Anyway; I think you've chosen a subtly difficult loco to model here! At first glance it looks relatively easy, but then you notice the gently curved nose, the full skirting and the integrated plow... given all of these challenges, I think you've managed to construct a very neat little loco with a good level of detail from the real things. The coach, too, is full of cute little details, and it looks fantastic in dark green.

I'm looking forward to seeing a full train of these! Keep up the good work!

[KvadratGnezdo]

No major uploads today (except for the TU5 and the family photo), just pics:

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG: Service trains

Since I'm actually done with mainline diesels a this point (TU10 doesn't count - nobody likes TU10) and the time for electic engines has not come yet, I will make around two transitory posts about things I'm not going to wait on for three more months before the final part about obscure stuff and "motortugs". Today I will tell you about two railcars and TU2s wierd forgotten unrelated cousin of an engine.

Service trains for narrow gauge lines are almost identical to their standard/wide gauge counterparts with two small differences:

- no need for specialised equipment the size of a small building

- everything is so lightweight that most service equipment can be installed on regular rolling stock without reducing their primary functions

A medium sized SZ-800 ballasting vehicles consist (above) and probably the biggest general narrow gauge piece of service equipment SRP-train (below).

Also a preview of some of the byproducts of gloomy soviet genius:

 

But we are here for a simplier stuff (for now until I will get to the ESU series).

TU6D - light service engine (railcar). Basically it's a TU6 body with less powerfull engine and a single hidraulic manipulator with a maximum lift capacity of 2 tonns. It was meant to be a support vehicle for loading and unloading medium sized objects like rails or heavy freight from flatcars. A lot of these still work to this day and are very popular because of their overall cheapness and self-sufficiency. A variant of this thing exists with the manipulator removed and it is basically used as a regular railcar with extra space for bulky equipment.

TU6P (and later variants) are generally utilised as passanger railcars. This variant uses the same layouta as model D but replaces the flatbed with an extended crew compartment. Nothing special or surprising here - just a mainline engine with a passenger compartment (even a VL10 had the same treatment once). These things are videly used on smaller lines where maintaining a small fleet of passenger cars is just too expensive so your average "commuter" train may consist of this things plus one or two PV40s for good measure. It is also appreciated by workers for it's ability to carry a small consist of everything they would need while saving around 4 meters of length and few tonnes of extra weight.

The lego models: two TU6Ps in their most prominent and often used liverys and a TU6D with a mind boggling choice of colours (inspired by a real thing actually) and a clear flatbed + a small service consist with a regular TU6D

And a bonus - TU2 motortug (railcar) unit. This thing has no connections to the actual TU2 and it would seem that it's name was a bureaucratic mistake but who does actually care. It was made during the early 50s and it follows the usual soviet layout for such a thing - cab in the middle and everything else at the front/back. This thing was not really popular as it was technically unreliable and prone to derailments. It is mostly forgotten and no units have been preserved to this day. Also no coloured photos of this vehicle exist so this is just my phantasies based on general observations of soviet liveries:

Edited January 22, 2021 by KvadratGnezdo

[ivanlan9]

Dear КвадратГнездо:

For a "gloomy soviet genius" you are a very funny guy.  Also a talented modeler.

Metta,

Иван

[KvadratGnezdo]

4 hours ago, ivanlan9 said:

Dear КвадратГнездо:

For a "gloomy soviet genius" you are a very funny guy.  Also a talented modeler.

Metta,

Иван

Спасибо!

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG transit 2

AM1 was a secondary railcar project which was worked on parallel to the TU6 based railcars, but took a different approach in choosing a base model. Instead of using a diesel loco as a base designers decided that in order to increase passanger capacity without compromising the comfort it would be ideal to motorise a passanger wagon (PV40 in that case). The resulting product was a PV40 with two cabs on each side and the heating room replaced with the engine room which provided both electricity and heat. Considering it's overall reception it was no here, nor there. Less than 300 units were produced as technical and organisational problems started to emerge. The three main being:

1) Low pulling power - engineers decided to leave most of the framework untouched so when the railcar would attempt to pull too much weight it would probably just tear itself apart. And the engine overall was pretty weak - something that an unfinished APU0 project tried to fix but failed because of the late 80s financial crisis.

2) Cramped cabin - for two people it was pretty okay (engineer and his assistant), but when it came to supplying these things to DZhDs it quickly became apparent that a third person (instrucrtor) definitely would not fit in even with the two engineers being kids. So the idea got turned down.

3)There were better alternatives

As a result - most of these were resupplied to factories or minor railroads with rolling stock insufficiency problems.

Lego models:

[Feuer Zug]

Great work on the research, modelling, and presentation of the narrow gauge options of the Eastern bloc.

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG: electric engines part 1.1 K-series
 

- Daaaad! They're bullying me!!!

Good news everyone! We have officialy finished mainline diesel locos (not counting specialised units like ESU mobile generators and it seems I'm currently repeating myself with that statement). Unlike diesels electric locos need powerlines to properly operate. But what powerlines need to work as expected -  stable ground. How can one achieve stable ground? By creating concrete bases for each separate pole and... There is a single problem: narrow gauge usually is not supposed to be built as a long-lasting piece of infrastructure, with separate lines using basically construction waste and broken branches instead of actual sleepers. Do you see where I'm going with this? Using electric engines on narrow gauge lines from an economic standpoint is like shooting yourself in the leg - you're spending too much resources on infrastructure that will last twice as long as the railroad it is created for! As a result the main places with electric narrow gauge engines were: quarries with soft soil and small factorys where operating actual wide gauge trains was just unnecessary (I seem to be repeating myself again) as well as mines and mountain lines where the ground was dense enough to support all of the equipment involved without spending extra money.

Mining-only locomotives won't be touched here until the time for specialised units will come (where they are positioned somwhere between construction equipment and modified cars and trucks). But, thankfully, K-series locos, despite being being intended as mining-only, were later redirected to factory and quarrys, recieveng overhauls and complete rebuilds from scratch.

K-4, K-7 and K-10

A single K-10 with an enlarged pantograph and a consist made up of VO-3 minecarts filled with clay

These two (K-4 and K-7) are only mentioned as direct predecessors of the K-10 and K-14 and look almost the same as the regular K-10. The key difference being the lights configuration, window size (to small of a difference to replicate in lego form). Both of these engines are meant to work under D.C. and were almost never seen outside of mines. Hundreds were built and these things prooved to be very reliable and powerfull for their size. One of the main downsides was a very cramped cabin - something which was taken care of with "surface mods and variants" made on the K-10. Also these units can be fit with a bumber of different pantographs with the most popular being "the long straight one" which actually has hinges in the middle and can be collapsed if need be and the "classical romboid" which is more compact but is always unused on the surface due to the first one having more contact surface.

K-10 electric loco with a reenforced frame (above) and a regular K-10 with two dumcars attached to it (below)

Btw, all K-series engines were tested with remote controll equipment and were successful at it resulting in commercial supply starting at around 2018-19.

Zamaisk Zeppelin

This name refferences a special modification performed mostly on K-10 class by a request of the Zamaisk clay quarry. These units still retain their entire frame and elctrical components, but have actual proper bodyshells mounted on said frames to provide more comfort for their crews. The nickname comes from the fact that the original livery had the bodyshell painted tan and the frame painted brown, so, when looking at them work from a distance it would look like the bodyshell (heavilly resembling a zeppelin gondola) was levitating above the landscape. Most of these locomotives are still intact and working, however they were repainted into a mostly green livery.

And now lego models:

K-10s and all major variants

K-10 with a consist of VO-3s

Modernized K-10 and two dumpcars

K-4 (rear) and K-7 (front)

Next one will be about the K-14

[KvadratGnezdo]

[KvadratGnezdo]

"Transfering to another server on the Internet is like wakening up an alcoholic - him being awake and standing upright are two noncorrelative events"                                          - Russian Internet wisdom №103

NGG: electric engines part 1.2 K-series

The time where I live is around 10 in the evening and I shall continue this "blog". You know how you start off with two intermediate-sized databases and at some point you think: "Oh, it looks like I've actually finished a major part of what I was doing" and you feel satisfied... well, until you remember that ex-Japanese lines on Kurils are counted as narrow gauge, than you go down into a rabbit hole of a diesel engine and finish it all by adding armoured trains to your to-do list. Hoorah! Probably.

Soviet/Russian railforce BP-1 a.k.a. "Battlebulls**t"

And now let's get to something a bit more comprehensive. The K-14. This electric engine is the last one in the K-series (as far as I and anyone else on the Internet knows no other electic engines were planned). As the previous installments it is supposed to perform the same small-scale shunting and multitasking operations deep under the Earth's surface. Unlike the previous three it drastically changed it's layout by relocating the cab to the center of the locomotive to reduce shaking and elongating the wheelbase. As all the previous models it is still D.C. fit and I don't think any of these will ever transfer to AC (insert project "Pullpush" joke here). There's not much to talk about here - just another motorised wheelbarrow.

Two early models with smaller windows and an extended roof.

As any other K-series loco K-14 can also be modified into a "robot" aka programmable RC unit, here's a small demonstrational video that I've managed to find online:

This is the advertised SUEK-fitted model:

So yeah, that's it for the mining electic engines. There is a couple more existing bau there is so few info about them that they may as well be custom built and as such they will be told about in the mods section.

Today brings a small post since I don't know how long the service will live until the next shutdown. Tomorrow or near future will be about EL3 and 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by KvadratGnezdo

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG Of germans and REN TV materials

(Dedicated to the three and a half or more theoretically existing germans, who regularly read through my conciousness stream)

LEW EL3 "Deutchlander"

These B-B-B type vehicles (not to be confused with the NSB El3)  were produced by the LEW (Lokomotivbau-Elektrotechnische Werke) and supplied to the USSR (probably) by a collective request of  "Satka-Magnezit" combine, Voskresensk chemcombine and Kamysh-burun iron combine in the 1957. Unlike the orginal versions used in Europe which were originally made for the 900 mm gauge and voltage of 1200 V these were refitted with meter gauge bogies as well as getting a completely different set of pantographs, lights and onboard D.C. equipment for the 600V voltage. A total of 93 units were sent of which 15 are kept in service at "Magnezit", as most ore shipments from the quarry they are working in is now being sent via Belaz trucks. These engines are to work in the quarry for the next 10-20 years and after that they will probably get scrapped with 2 or 3 being preserved. Little is known about the electric locos that were sent to the two other factories.

Satka vehicle with a service train consisting of normal 1524 mm train cars rebogied to a meter gauge.

\

EL3 next to a refitted AGV railcar

Lego versions:

One of nature's mysteries!

P-KO-1 - the one of a kind! Basically - a single electric narrow gauge engine built by NEVZ in collaboration with "Dinamo" for testing by STU on performances of 750mm gauge electric locomotive as shunters. That's it. There is a total of two photos, a single generalised blueprint and single promo made for this vehicle. There is explanation of the main equipment used onboard, but little is known about it's performance or fate (probably scrapped). But there is a rather interesting detail about this little engine that couldn't: it's bogies. What about them? Well, you see, this thing was comissioned in 1951 - at the dawn of narrow gauge modernization era and so - this vehicle was the first one to recieve an electric transmission, which was so good, that it outlived it's original user and was transferred with almost zero changes to a promising new generation of diesel-electric locomotives. Of course, I'm talking about the TU2.

Go, figure it out yourself how this wheeled shed looked in colour...

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG and remembering that passion projects need passion

Okay, almost half a year has passed since the last time I've awkwardly descripted the models of vehicles almost nobody on this forum even knew exist. Why the hiatus? Idk, probably just lost my interest in it all and since Moscow siezed to be on lockdown at some point during February I was really laking any meaningful amount of time to collect info, translate it and not forget to make a model. Things always happen to get in the way of simulated toy trains.

So, whats this time? The roadmap created mostly for the lulz and awkward memes is still sorta active but with a few additions made in between like re-gauged trains (remember the photo with narrow gauge AGV) and some additional locos found purely through random search results, cropped journal articles from 80 years ago and a friendly help from a friend of mine resulted in adding about 15 vehicles and service units to my long list of things to build. Todays victim of choice will be one of the more famous late Soviet electric NG engines, that being ChS11. Well it ain't actually Soviet, but a joint project between USSR and Czechoslovakia. The context of it was finishing infrastructure upgrades in Georgia - a mountainous land full of technically seismically stable elevations, cheap wine, fruits and a locomotive factory somwhere around Tbilisi producing my soul's healing bricks - those being VL series freight engines.

Strollin' through the neighbourhood

One of the more challenging parts of the project was modernising the Borjomi-Bakuriani narrow gauge line. The line itself was originally built to transport tourist between the two towns  as Georgia was rich with resorts for Soviet citizens and was one of the more prestigeous republics at that. Before 1966 the line was steam powered and went through the hills surrounding local mountains. The journey itself took about 2-2,5 hours to make from one end to the other where the train would then go back. Unlike many narrow gauge lines this one is still operating and is still undergoing renovative procedures. During it's golden era the system consisted of: the main line connecting Borjomi and Bakuni, shunting yard(s) and a secondary branch heading to the local andesite quarry (which went bankrupt during the period sometimes referred to as "The great IMF mining cleanse" shortly after Georgia left the union).

The map as it was

Also this bridge near Bakuriani was designed and built under direct supervision of Gustav Eiffel, yeah, THAT Eiffel

Now to talk about the engines. As was previously mentioned - the line was primarily intended to transport relatively small groups of tourists with it reaching peak capacity during summer vacations. Secondary andesite branch was constructed under the Soviet rule of the region and was also supposed to be electrified just like the main line. So the mission was rather simple - find an already existing engine model to modify to be able to handle tighter curves and occasionally pulling heavy weights like maintenance cars and freight. The final decision was to use Skoda designed 17E series vehicles. The resulting model being called 17E9 aka ChS11 was built as batch of 12 units and supplied exclusively to the above-mentioned line. Also exclusive to the line was a batch of PV-900 passenger cars purpose-built by the Demihov plant. They were bigger than their 750vv PV40 counterparts and were able to take in more passangers as a result, but their construction overall was not that different.

  

My model of ChS11...

 

I

...in liverys that were used by the line (including the ones that were sometimes used for hauling cargo)

Also, since we're still here I'd want to also mention two rather specific units. First will be the only (known to me at least) ChS11 being stripped and used as a snowplow car and ChS11-05. Unit 05 is the prime example that there is no need to fix stuff that is not broken. Basically the line management wanted their trains to feel more like commuters. What's special about commuters? The loco does not immidieatly stick out. Solution - modify a single engine by replacing the hooded sections with basically unusable space, make the shell more wagon like with windows and voila - we got ourselves a cleaner shape! What's that? The controls are hard locked to center of the chasis? No problem - leave them in the middle, it's not like the driver needs to see where he's going. There are like 2 entire photos of this thing and the best one is that one, so small details may differ.

Also yay I am back at it!

Edited July 8, 2021 by KvadratGnezdo

[Rise Comics]

Gotta admit, seeing Soviet Narrow Gauge stuff is a rare thing, but a very welcome one. Nice builds you got, and they are quite accurate for the scale you're going for.

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG and the stupid rabbit hole that shouldn't exist

Ok, once again I get back to this topic to share some knowledge about a topic nobody has ever asked about. And since the hardest thing about it all was me getting so high on nostalgia that it forced me to complete an entirely different project, I've decided that it was about time to get back on track *pun intended* and continue. This will be a two parter about stuff I never knew existed, why it existed the way it did and so on and so forth. Behold: the experimental hybrid powerplant engines and a plethora of unrelated vehicles that look just like them. The ED/TEU series.

So we start of rather simple - with ED-16 and some background info. Honestly - there is not much of it. So ng diesels were used on routes which were considered temporary, low intensity or too intense for the local power grid to handle. Electrics were used on routes that were situated in terrain that directly messed with material supplys or on short factory lines that were cheap to electrify and maintain. But then some bright mind came up with a brilliant (not really) idea - combine the two and roll with it. Of course this idea did not appear from thin air - when some weird solution makes it this far it means there is an important enough reason. Said reason was - partial electrification. Supply lines were still recovering from ww2 and narrow gauge lines were not at the top of priority list of stuff to quickly repair. As a result it was decided to test a handful of hybrid vehicles created from already existing rolling stock. The first one was ED-16: a heavily modified TU4 with an extended bodyshell and a tacked on pantograph. This is the only photo of this unit on the Internet.

It's service life went as follows: delivered to the Shatur powerplant as a reserve vehicle for the local peat quarry in 1958; crashed into a truck in 1961, was scrapped for parts which were used to create ED-18 and ESU-0 mobile generator.

ED-18 and the mess around it: this is ED-18

This is ETu-04/EKu-04

and this is SEP4 mobile generator, notice anything?

So yeah, the look basically the same and there is next to no info why that is or how these vehicles are related. My best guess - all of these were produced by DMZ around 1960 and so using almost the same bodyshells, bogies onboard controls and crew comfort items was logical. As a result people constantly mix these up and also there are next to no photos of them online either. What about ED-18? It's service life was better than that of it's predecessor - so much so that there were 3 whole ED-18s produced. The vehicle as it was was deemed successful but too copper hungry and later - underpowered when compared with purely diesel or electric models that did not need the extra equipment for functioning in two modes.

TEU-1. Basically - ED-18 but better. It was transferred to peat harvesting at Nazia, but was used as a purely diesel engine. Current location and service history are unknown.

Lego models: ED-16, ED-18 and TEU-1.

Colours used are based off their text descriptions and technical drawings which may have been different during their service time. Next time: EKu-04/ETu-04, EL1 and EL2 as well as some different renders.

[KvadratGnezdo]

NGG and resolving issues

So, last time I posted here the I've touched on the subject of bodyshell design and more or less prominent narrow gauge electrics. This time I shall continue doing basically the same thing but with more interesting details. The hybrid trio from the previous post was a bit uneventful - two of the models looked basically the same (not my fault) and the only exiting part of their history was ED-16 randomly crashing into a truck, ED-18 was boring and EKu-04/ETu-04 were basically the same thing. And thus, I've decided to dig a bit deeper into history - to the point when narrow gauge lines stopped being an oddity supplied by local workshops and an odd steam engine building factory en masse aka late 50s. This time periond is notorious for centralizing all of the existing lines, more or less unifying the gauges from whatever down to 750, 900 and 1000mm and providing early ideas and experimental vehicles for the new era of small trains. The process was well underway from even earlier periods of time (TU-2 was already built in massive quantities but there was still much to be done).

MDm-4 motorized unit - a vehicle of it's era (and it also looks like a Hollywood movie prop for эvil яussiаиs to ride on).

Today's topic are two experimental vehicles EL-1 and EL-2. The story behind these two is rather plain and simple. They were supposed to be the testbeds, proof of concept vehicles to: (1) test light electric locos outside of factories and shunting yards; (2) decide which overall unit layout would be more useful for further development. Both of the locos would be built around pre-existing stock - EL-1 would be built around the chassis of SEP-2 experimental mobile generator and EL-2 would be based on already existing MDe-4 diesel-electric locomotive. The choice of testing units was more or less obvious - both the engine and the generator were created to test diesel-electric transmissions, so converting them to full electric would be no problem. Moreover, these two were meant for the logging industry just like their future EL incarnations. The results of them being used for a couple of years showed, that EL-2 was more promising overall and so SEP-2m was left out and at least a single unit has been preserved to this very day (although in a very poor shape). What happened to MDe-4? Seeing the success the loco was having it's components would be used as a base for further projects, which eventually led to stuff like PEUs and whatnot.

EL-1

Lets begin with the EL-1 which was based around SEP-2M mobile generator and is the not-as-obscure-one. Like the basis for this thing still exists, there is also this neat schematic with all the components listed and at least I knew what colour it was. As you can see it was an assymetric vehicle with the pantograph being placed on top of the engine housing with the motor being placed inside of the modified cab part. It used standard narrow gauge couplings and was pretty powerful for it's size despite the pantograph's rather awkward position which was never seen on later vehicles. Fun fact: it has the same name as an el-1 jigsaw. Anyway:

EL-2 aka the wierd one

So what is known for sure about EL-2? It was built using the body of an experimental logging engine called MDe-4 (aka TUe-4 for some reason). It was on Krestetskaya narrow gauge line as a general use unit. There are many photos of the MDe-4 online and all of them are black/white, but no mentions of livery, dimensions and any sort of historical data. The best guess is that this thing existed somwhere in late 50s - early 60s and then was scrapped or disassembled without a trace. What's even funnier - because all of the photos were taken during the different parts of the day under different lighting it would seem as if the loco was constantly repainted. Oh well, i just used the standard red-green-yellow on the lego counterpart and because there were no EL-2 pictures at all, I created my version based around the centre-placed pantograph so take it with a grain of salt.

And thankfully - it's as obscure as I will get, for now.

Bonus renders:

And a hint of whats to come:

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by KvadratGnezdo

[zephyr1934]

When you are done with this adventure you should compile all of this into a single manuscript (including the lego builds), edit it bit, and then go to the likes of a rail magazine for a feature article based on the best parts and possibly Amazon to turn it into a print-on-demand book. I think the quirky combination of the history of Russian railroads (which do not get much attention outside of Russia), narrow gauge (which gets little attention outside of railfans) and Lego builds makes for an unexpected read.