.

I suppose many of us have read the booklet on the history of the US Army railroad transportation corps by Gen. Van Fleet, published in the 1950's by the AAR. What I remember, is that we bombed the North Korean railroad all the time, during the war, but they would be up and running trains in a matter of hours.

Kudos to everyone on the Ukrainien railroad team for doing such an amazing job under the most demanding conditions possible.

I'd like to offer them the use of the 614 but wonder how big a job it would be to adapt her to their " broad " gauge?? Anyone know how much wider that is vs. our standard gauge??

Thanks, Ross Rowland

Reconvert the Rusia Decapods - easier and reversable. Blacksmiths can keep them running.

Their system was built to “Russian” gauge - 1520mm or 4’11-7/8”. They were or are still building more standard gauge for interconnectivity to Europe. They also have a few operable steam locos for tourist trains.

I've been following Alexander Kamyshin on Twitter. His posts are incredible - go read them before Elon Musk finishes destroying the website Musk spent $44 billion to buy.

It's easier to adapt a locomotive built for 5' Russian gauge to 'standard 4'8.5" than it is to go the other way. There is an interesting example of a large modern road locomotive desighed to be 'convertible' from 5'3" gauge to standard -- the Victorian R-class Hudsons in Australia. These had among other things a 'reversible' dished driver construction; there are fun ways to optimize rod balance with the cylinders cast in the engine bed.

To convert an engine as large as 614 you'd need at least new axles for lead/trailing trucks and tender, with the seats further out, and you'd need to check if there is clearance in the trailer frame or if replacement boxes and thinner hubliners would allow. Brake gear would need to be extended, sanders realigned, etc.

But the big concern would be drivers -- one premise of the Timken lightweight rods is that they run as close as possible to the plane through the driver contact patch, to limit hammer-blow from vertical rod moment. That means there is no real accommodation for offset driver tires, like a Russian Decapod solution in reverse, and also precludes making new driver axles and centers on the wider spacing. There might be some arrangement that keeps the main rods aligned with the lateral piston-rod bores, or some arrangement of offset crosshead, but by the time you got done you'd have an expensive kludge of unknown reliability... probably after the 'special operation' has been concluded one way or t'other.

But it's the thought that counts, whether or not it was a practicable one (or related to historic preservation, which sending 614 into an active war zone is NOT).

https://steamgiants.com/news/steam-loco ... -war-zone/
https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/uk04001.htm
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate ... of_Ukraine

There was just an article today in Trains Magazine about how Ukraine wants to rid itself of all reminders of the former Soviet Union/ Russian Empire such as paint, street names, etc., including the railways, so I wonder about the future of locomotives with big red stars on them, etc. https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... ar-of-war/ They took down a giant Soviet-era bronze statue of Catherine the Great in Odessa recently, not sure what will happen to it, but it would be a pity if the steamers were cut up.

A bit of trivia, my great grandfather was born in what is now Ukraine but was then occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he fled when they drafted him prior to WWI and ended up working for the DL&W in Gouldsboro, PA. There he is second from the left.

My next door neighbors were Ukranians who emigrated to the USA to be coal crackers. They settled in Centralia, then moved to Philly to find work. They were also from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Philly has the Ukranian Catholic Cathedral for USA Ukranian Catholics. Their Rite is different from the Roman Rite and they are not subject to the Archbishop.

Phil Mullgan

"There was just an article today in Trains Magazine about how Ukraine wants to rid itself of all reminders of the former Soviet Union/ Russian Empire such as paint, street names, etc., including the railways, so I wonder about the future of locomotives with big red stars on them, etc. They took down a giant Soviet-era bronze statue of Catherine the Great in Odessa recently, not sure what will happen to it, but it would be a pity if the steamers were cut up."

Actions like this cause nothing but problems. You cannot erase the past. Imagine if English-speaking Canadians tried the same with French-speakers? Pure vindictive stupidity.

What hyperbole. Among other things, the French-speaking Canadians didn't intentionally starve the English-speaking Canadians to death, killing around four million in the 1930s in what the UN considers a genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor It would be as if the Germans renamed streets in Poland after certain of their leaders during the same time period, and decorated their buildings with certain symbols, Poles and others would be right to object to them after they regained independence.

Feature that Ukraine rail workers are performing in a similar fashion to those of the B&O during the years of the Civil War from 1861-65 where the Confederacy was doing everything within their power to disrupt the operations of the railroad and the B&O employees were doing everything within their power to restore operations and keep things moving.

Actually, the similar parallel--at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law--would be the still-ongoing ban in many European Union nations against just about anything expressing favoritism towards Nazism or denying the Holocaust........

What hyperbole. Among other things, the French-speaking Canadians didn't intentionally starve the English-speaking Canadians to death, killing around four million in the 1930s in what the UN considers a genocide.

That was then and this is now. As I wrote earlier, you can't change the past. This is the USA, just forget it and move on.

Illinois Railroad Museum's 1630 was built for Russia and not delivered. The gauge difference is visible in the oversize tires fitted to change the change.