myaroslav
Rare documentary shots taken in 1950s show the electrification of trans-siberian railway (exactly Omsk and Tomsk railways, as they were called those days). Works started in the western Siberia, where the lack of pure water forced to use unreliable condenser steam locomotives (in the last photo). In the first post-war years the primary targets for electrification became mountainous Urals and dry Siberia, being overloaded with coal services added to large transit traffic. An important part of equipment, including substation apparata and even catenary poles, was received via 'special shipments', as transfers from Germany were called in papers. They allowed to quickly increase the capacity, although most of old equipment had required replacement as soon as after 10-20 years of service. To accelerate mounting, engineers had gradually transited from mounting catenary after hanging the wires to hanging fully assembled network with all strings. Unlike the stationary equipment, German locomotives were considered non-suitable for soviet conditions and/or requiring complex and costly rebuild, so the road initially received newly-built well proven VL22m boxcabs, soon replaced with newer and heavier 8-axle VL8. These districts became the last large region in USSR which received the 3kV DC system. Although DC technology has been still widely used to interconnect already electrified lines, after 1958 new mainline regions started to be electrified with 25kV AC. #photo #train #electric
