Railway Preservation News :: View topic - Soviet Locomotive Imports

Apparently the Tsarist government had huge open orders for broad gauge locomotives from Alco (2-10-0) and narrow gauge locomotives from Baldwin (mallet), and the communist government attempted to continue these orders, but the US government enforced a trade ban. The War Department took control of hundreds of completed but unshipped engines, and held these engines for years pending a change in trade policy. This change did not occur, and the result is the delayed release to market of the many converted engines (such as Frisco 1630).

Author:	softwerkslex [ Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Soviet Locomotive Imports
Occasionally the topic of whether one locomotive or another was originally broad gauge and destined for Russia comes up in this forum. I have just finished an interesting academic volume entitled "Modernising Lenin's Russia" (1999, Anthony Heywood, Cambridge University Press) that reviews in detail Russian, and then the Soviet Union's, locomotive import policies. Apparently the Tsarist government had huge open orders for broad gauge locomotives from Alco (2-10-0) and narrow gauge locomotives from Baldwin (mallet), and the communist government attempted to continue these orders, but the US government enforced a trade ban. The War Department took control of hundreds of completed but unshipped engines, and held these engines for years pending a change in trade policy. This change did not occur, and the result is the delayed release to market of the many converted engines (such as Frisco 1630). Incidentally, apparently Russian engineer Iu V. Lomonosov was also an early advocate of diesel power, and actually had constructed a prototype diesel-electric locomotive in Germany in 1924, which was placed into service in Moscow in January 1925. With so many other needs, the emphasis by the Soviets on diesel power seems odd, but it was tied up with many other beliefs that the solution to their problems lay in dramatic technological change.

Author:	survivingworldsteam [ Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:34 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Soviet Locomotive Imports
softwerkslex wrote: Apparently the Tsarist government had huge open orders for broad gauge locomotives from Alco (2-10-0) and narrow gauge locomotives from Baldwin (mallet), and the communist government attempted to continue these orders, but the US government enforced a trade ban. The War Department took control of hundreds of completed but unshipped engines, and held these engines for years pending a change in trade policy. This change did not occur, and the result is the delayed release to market of the many converted engines (such as Frisco 1630). One of the narrow guage Baldwin mallets was shipped instead to the Phillippines; and survived there until just recently. It was last being used as a stationary boiler; but appeared to be intact. It was scrapped along with the rest of the mill a few years; a big loss in my book when you consider how rare a narrow-gauge Baldwin mallet is. (There is only one other survivor I know of; also preserved in the Phillippines.

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