I guess with the yesterday's news of the opening of the Friendship Bridge between Uzbekistan and the Afghanistan border, we learn Afghanistan has some rails in it after all. The photo of the first train across the border since 1997 shows a very Alco-looking diesel pulling a relief train. I had heard the Russians had made copies of American Alcos that were sent to them through World War II Lend-Lease or exchanged at the Iranian border by U.S. Army railway battalions there.
Years ago I saw an Alco-like Czech diesel making the border crossing between Austria and Czechoslovakia. It could have been a Russian-built clone or a Czech copy of a Russian clone.
Anyone out there with any facts on Alco diesel look-alikes in the former Russian sphere of influence?

denmeg_hogan@msn.com

> Anyone out there with any facts on Alco
> diesel look-alikes in the former Russian
> sphere of influence?

The Soviets mass-produced the TEM1 and several refinements of it after taking apart and reverse-engineering one of the Lend-Lease locos. They showed up on both 5' trucks and standard gauge ones as well. I've never seen one in the Czech Republic (then again I wasn't looking for them), but I did see one as the Krakow station switcher in Poland in 1996. Outside the USSR proper, "Ludmilla" (the typical Soviet carbody diesel) seemed more common than the Alco knockoffs.

JAC

Last year when I was in the Czech Republic I saw quite a few of the "Ludmilla" type locos. Interestingly enough, the Czech rail calendar I bought showed how they were working the Caterpillar to repower the locomotives. Evidently they are working hard to improve service and their physical plant.

wilkidm@wku.edu

The original Alcos were operated by the Railway Operating Battalion over the so called "Back Door Line" into Russia during WW-II. The back door ran through Tehran, and the diesels were perferred for the run over the Iranian desert because they didn't require as much water for operation as a steam locomotive.

A number of the military Alcos were retained by Russia after the war. Once in Soviet possesion, they were taken apart, minutely examined, and became the basis for the first successful Soviet built diesels. I saw a number of the Soviet era locomotives and a few of the original Alcos during my tenure as U.S./Soviet Maritime Liaison Officer between 1974 and 1991. One of the interesting things about the early TEM's was that they were so slavishly copied from the Alcos that they had "American Locomotive Company" cast into the cylinder heads of the prime movers.

> I guess with the yesterday's news of the
> opening of the Friendship Bridge between
> Uzbekistan and the Afghanistan border, we
> learn Afghanistan has some rails in it after
> all. The photo of the first train across the
> border since 1997 shows a very Alco-looking
> diesel pulling a relief train. I had heard
> the Russians had made copies of American
> Alcos that were sent to them through World
> War II Lend-Lease or exchanged at the
> Iranian border by U.S. Army railway
> battalions there.
> Years ago I saw an Alco-like Czech diesel
> making the border crossing between Austria
> and Czechoslovakia. It could have been a
> Russian-built clone or a Czech copy of a
> Russian clone.
> Anyone out there with any facts on Alco
> diesel look-alikes in the former Russian
> sphere of influence?


kenneth.willis@marad.dot.gov