The first known narrow gauge public railway opened in 1871. It ran between the Verkhovye and Livny stations (now the Oryol region), had a gauge of 1067 mm. But that was just the beginning...
The method of transporting goods in carts along longitudinal guides was invented in ancient times. In the 15th - 16th centuries in
Europe, some factories already used railroads, along which they moved manually or with the help of horse traction
trolleys with goods (for a relatively short distance). Such roads also appeared in Russia. Initially in them
wooden rails and wooden trolleys were used.
One of the largest roads of this type appeared in 1810 at the Zmeinogorsk mine (the current Altai Territory). Rails already
were metal, had a convex surface. The length of the line was 1876 meters, the gauge was 1067 mm ( 3 feet
6 inches).
However, the moment of the birth of the railway is considered to be the beginning of movement on the rail tracks of a mechanical crew. IN
This happened to Russia in 1834. The birthplace of domestic railways is the city of Nizhny Tagil. It was there that it was built
the first Russian steam locomotive, created by the father and son Cherepanovs, was tested. Our first railroad was short ( 854
meters), and "wide" (gauge 1645 mm). The steam locomotive was destined to work for a short time - soon it again began to be used
horse traction.
The officially recognized date of foundation of Russian railways is 1837. Then traffic was opened along the line
St. Petersburg - Tsarskoye Selo - Pavlovsk, 23 kilometers long. Her track was also wide - 1829 mm (6 feet).
In 1843-51, the construction of the first major highway, the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway, took place. She had
it was decided to establish a track width of 5 feet (1524 mm, later - 1520 mm). It was this gauge that became standard for domestic
railways. Meanwhile, in foreign Europe and in North America, another gauge standard was adopted - 1435 mm.
The consequences of this decision in the middle of the 19th century are estimated inconsistently. On the one side, the difference in track width helped us
In the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, the enemy could not immediately use the railways on the captured
territory. At the same time, it hinders international communication, leads to significant costs for the replacement of wagon
trolleys and transshipment of goods at border stations.
Variable gauge bogies have been around for a long time, but are still expensive and difficult to maintain.
Therefore, in Russia they have not yet received distribution. As for abroad - passenger trains, made up of
wagons capable of moving on roads with different gauges, regularly run between Spain and
France. In modern Japan, there are wagons capable of switching from 1435 mm gauge tracks to a gauge definitely
falling under the definition of narrow - 1067 mm.
During the 19th century in Russia there was a large number of horse-drawn rail narrow-gauge roads. The largest of them
about 60 kilometers long, operated in 1840-1862. It connected the Dubovka pier on the Volga with the Kachalino pier.
on the Don River, in the present Volgograd region. These roads were built mainly for the delivery of goods to factories and
factories - where it was not possible to lay a "normal" railway track. The narrow gauge was chosen in order to reduce
construction costs.
The first known narrow gauge public railway opened in 1871. She ran between stations
Verkhovye and Livny (now the Orel region), had a gauge of 1067 mm. The life of the first narrow gauge railway turned out to be
short-lived: in 1898 it was rebuilt into a normal gauge line.
But that was only the beginning. Almost immediately began mass construction of narrow-gauge lines in a variety of
regions of Russia. They began to develop very rapidly and Far East and in Central Asia. The largest networks of narrow gauge
railways with a gauge of 1067 mm appeared in underdeveloped regions, separated from the center of the country by large rivers. from the station
Uroch (it was located near the banks of the Volga, opposite Yaroslavl) in 1872 a line was opened to Vologda, in 1896-1898
years extended to Arkhangelsk. Its length was 795 kilometers. From the city of Pokrovsk (now Engels), located on
On the left bank of the Volga, opposite Saratov, a meter gauge line (1000 mm) was built to Uralsk. There are also branches To
Nikolaevsk (Pugachevsk), and to the station Aleksandrov Gai. The total length of the network was 648 kilometers.
The first known 750 mm gauge railways were opened in 1894. One line ran through the Russian capital and its
nearby suburbs (St. Petersburg - Borisova Griva, length 43 kilometers), another appeared in the Lensky area
gold mines, in the current Irkutsk region (Bodaibo - Nadezhdinskaya, now Aprilsk, 73 kilometers long). Soon
small-gauge railways began to appear in large numbers, serving industrial enterprises.
At the very beginning of the 20th century, there were already many narrow-gauge railways intended for the export of timber and peat.
Subsequently, it is precisely such roads that will form the “backbone” of narrow gauge lines in our country.
In the USSR, the overall pace of railway construction in comparison with the era of the Russian Empire has noticeably decreased. But the number
narrow gauge railways continued to grow rapidly.
The years of terrible Stalinist terror brought a new type of narrow-gauge railways - "camp" lines. They appeared on
enterprises located in the Gulag system connected factories and camps with mining sites. Scales
railway construction of those years are impressive. Contrary to popular belief that what's in the northeast
our country never had railways, known about the existence on the territory of the present Magadan region of at least
seven narrow gauge railways, some of which reached a length of 60 - 70 kilometers.
In 1945, the first section of a sufficiently powerful and technically advanced 1067 mm gauge railway was opened,
started in Magadan. By 1953, its length was 102 kilometers (Magadan - Palatka). The railroad should
was to become a significant highway crossing the vast Kolyma region. But after the death of I.V. Stalin began mass
the closure of the Kolyma camps, which meant the actual curtailment of the industrial development of the North-East of the USSR. As a result,
plans to extend the railroad were abandoned. A few years later, the constructed site was dismantled.
Small narrow-gauge railways also appeared in other regions of the Northeast - in Kamchatka, in the Chukotka Autonomous
district. All of them were later demolished.
Already in the 1930s, two main specializations of the narrow gauge were clearly manifested: timber transport and transportation
peat. The standard narrow gauge of 750 mm was finally approved.
In 1940, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were included in the USSR. These states had an extensive network
narrow gauge public railways. In terms of their technical condition, these roads turned out to be almost the best in
country. It was in Estonia that the record for the speed of movement on the 750 mm gauge railway was set. In 1936, the railcar
covered the distance from Tallinn to Pärnu (146 km) in 2 hours 6 minutes. The average speed was 69 km/h,
the maximum speed achieved is 106.2 km/h!
During the Great Patriotic War, the number of narrow-gauge railways was replenished by many dozens of "military field"
railways built both by the enemy and by our troops. But almost all of them lasted a very short time.
In August 1945, South Sakhalin was included in the USSR, where there was a network of railway lines with a gauge of 1067 mm,
built in compliance with the technical standards and dimensions of the main railways of Japan. In subsequent years, the network
railways has received significant development (with the preservation of the existing gauge).
The first half of the 1950s proved to be the "golden age" of narrow-gauge timber-carrying railways. They developed from
amazing speed. Dozens of new narrow-gauge railways appeared during the year, and the length of the lines increased by
thousands of kilometers.
The development of virgin and fallow lands was accompanied by the mass construction of narrow-gauge railways in Kazakhstan. Later
many of them were converted to broad gauge lines, but some remained in operation until the early 1990s. As of
As of 2004, only one "virgin" narrow-gauge railway has survived - in Atbasar (Akmola region).
Narrow-gauge public lines owned by the Ministry of Railways (in 1918-1946 it was called NKPS) occupied the last place
among narrow gauge railways. But since the 1960s, their length has been steadily reduced. Mostly, railways
750 mm gauges were replaced by broad gauge lines built in parallel, along one embankment, or slightly to the side, but by that
same direction. The 1000 mm and 1067 mm gauge lines were most often "changed" ( a new rail track was laid on the same embankment
other gauge).
In the 1960s, it became clear that the better days for narrow-gauge timber-carrying railways were over. New narrow gauge
peat-carrying railways were built until the end of the 1970s (and isolated cases of the creation of new "peat carriers"
noted later).
Until the early 1990s, the development and mass production of new rolling stock continued. chief, and then
The only manufacturer of narrow gauge trailer rolling stock was the Demikhov Machine-Building Plant
(Demikhovo, Moscow region), and the manufacturer of diesel locomotives for 750 mm gauge - Kambarsky machine-building plant
(Kambarka, Udmurtia).
The 1990s were the most tragic years in the history of narrow gauge railways. economic downturn along with
transition to new form economic relations and political changes led to the fact that what started a landslide
reduction in the number and length of narrow gauge railways. Each passing year "diminished" thousand kilometers
narrow gauge railway lines.
In 1993, the production of cars for ground narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of 750 mm was completely stopped. Soon
the production of locomotives also stopped.
A narrow-gauge railway or just a narrow-gauge railway is a lightweight railway with a gauge less than normal (on domestic railways- less than 1520 mm). Narrow-gauge railways serve mainly industrial enterprises, cutting areas, mines, mines. Separate sections of public railways also have a narrow gauge. Narrow gauge railways have gauges of 1000, 914, 750 and 600 mm. The main advantage of the narrow-gauge railway is the relative simplicity of construction due to the smaller volume of earthworks, the simplified and lightened superstructure of the track, and, consequently, the lower initial investment compared to the railway. d. norms, gauges. The disadvantages include: lower carrying capacity, the need to reload cargo at the junction of their norms, gauges, a greater need for locomotives, rolling stock (due to the lower mass of trains). Narrow-gauge railways play an important role in the internal transport links of some industrial regions; they can be economical with small freight turnover and short transportation distances. To increase economic efficiency on a narrow-gauge railway, special diesel locomotives and heavy-duty wagons are used, adapted for the transport of certain goods (timber, ores, peat, etc.).For the first time, narrow gauge railways appeared in the middle of the 18th century in the mines of Scotland, where they were given the name of economical railways, then they began to be built in France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. The first narrow gauge railway in Russia was built in 1871 between st. Livny and Verkhovye are 57 miles long with a track width of 3.5 feet (1067 mm). A special rolling stock worked on the line: two passenger and four freight locomotives. In 1898 the road was changed to normal gauge.
In the USSR, a narrow-gauge railway was preserved near the city of Ventspils - the old Kurzeme line, built at the beginning of the 20th century. On Sakhalin Island, there is a separate network of narrow gauge railways with its own rolling stock. Some of the narrow-gauge roads have been converted to a broad gauge, and some have been given over to the organization of children's railways.
Narrow gauge railway track
In 1919, the Committee of State Constructions installed two types of sleepers (bar and plate) for the main tracks of 1000 mm gauge and two types for station tracks. Later, in our country, a standard gauge of 750 mm was established for ground narrow-gauge railways (up to 90% of narrow-gauge railways in operation). For it, the use of sleepers of the same types, but somewhat shorter in length, was envisaged. The width along the top of the subgrade for the 750 mm gauge was determined by the data given in the table.The narrow-gauge rails corresponded in cross-sectional shape to normal gauge rails, but differed in weight and length.
Turnouts of narrow-gauge railways were characterized by the following parameters:
Locomotives of narrow gauge railways
The main supplier of narrow-gauge locomotives of various series until the 1960s was the Kolomna Locomotive Plant. In addition, steam locomotives of the Maltsevsky, Nevsky, Podolsky, Sormovsky and Novocherkassk plants worked on the lines."The narrow-gauge railway in the Meshchersky forests is the most leisurely railway in the Union. The stations are littered with resinous logs and smell of fresh felling and wild forest flowers."
The Meshcherskaya Mainline (Ryazan-Vladimir narrow-gauge railway) was one of the largest Russian railways. Sung by Paustovsky, the forest narrow-gauge railway has become one of the symbols of the Meshchera region. Once upon a time, a small train was the only connection between many villages and villages on the left bank of the Oka with Ryazan and the "mainland" in general. Almost the entire road was dismantled and plundered in the 90s, the rest is being dismantled now.
Narrow gauge railways were cheaper to build and operate than standard gauge railways. You can build lighter bridges; when tunneling, it was required to extract a smaller cubic capacity of soil, steeper curves were allowed than on ordinary railways, which led to their popularity in mountainous areas. The disadvantages of narrow-gauge railways are: smaller size and weight of transported goods, less stability and lower maximum allowable speed. However, the most important disadvantage of narrow-gauge railways was that they usually did not form a single network. Often such roads were built by enterprises for one specific purpose (for example, for the transport of peat). Naturally, there could be no talk of any single network of narrow-gauge railways.
The Meshcherskaya Mainline is a narrow-gauge railway (750 mm gauge), which used to connect the cities of Ryazan and Vladimir. The road started from the station Ryazan-Pristan, which was located in the river meadows to the north-east of Ryazan. The length of the main route was 211 km. Passengers and cargo entered the station through a pontoon bridge across the Oka. A full-fledged bridge across the river was never built, which led to the lack of transit traffic along the branch. The Meshcherskaya highway played a significant role in the development of forested areas on the left bank of the Oka.
"The narrow-gauge railway in the Meshchersky forests is the most leisurely railway in the Union. The stations are littered with resinous logs and smell of fresh felling and wild forest flowers." - K.G. Paustovsky. Meshcherskaya side. 
For several decades, a huge "peat empire" existed in the east of the Moscow region. Peat was mined at dozens of sites, and delivered to Shatura at GRES-5 along narrow-gauge railways with a length of more than 300 kilometers. The most distant areas of peat extraction were located in the Ryazan region. In 1952, the Meshchersky peat enterprise was founded - the easternmost part of Shaturtorf, almost 70 km away from Shatura. A narrow-gauge railway line was laid from the Proksha station, in the area of Radovitsky Mkha, through the Pilevo station of the Meshcherskaya highway to the base village of Bolon. This line became the connection between the Meshcherskaya highway and Shaturtorf. Pilevo station has changed forever. 
The collapse of the economy during the perestroika era destroyed the Shaturtorf system. Part of the peat enterprises closed, the rest began to drag out a miserable existence. 3/5 of the narrow gauge lines were destroyed. Even the old Meshcherskaya highway, which was in the department of the Ministry of Railways, did not survive this time and was dismantled. But the Meshchersky peat enterprise, together with Ryazanovsky, Radovitsky and Baksheevsky, were able to survive this time. 
Meshchersky peat enterprise is the only narrow-gauge peat-carrying railway left in the Ryazan region. Now the remaining locomotives are used to parse the road. 
A special crane removes the rails. 
Although the stationmaster said that they would be laid out elsewhere, it seems to me that they will be sold for scrap. 
PV51 car (basic version - PV40 car) is a 4-axle passenger car with load-bearing body for 750 mm gauge. It is important to note the use of a load-bearing body, which is practically unique in the design of UZD cars. Common on children's railways and other 750 mm gauge railways in countries former USSR, although, according to reviews, it has a slightly lower level of comfort than Polish-built PAFAWAG cars, in particular, a small number of vents and stiffness caused criticism. 
Initially, the car was built for UZhD of the Ministry of Railways of the USSR and for UZD industrial enterprises, reduced weight and a small radius of passable curves (9.5 tons versus 16 tons for PAFAWAG and 40 m versus 60 m, respectively) made it possible to operate cars on the UR with a light superstructure. 
Warehouse of unnecessary sleepers. Once again comparing the number of sleepers and rails, I confirmed my confidence in the delivery of the latter for scrap. 
The rest of the rolling stock. 
Although at the station you can see a lot of rolling stock set aside from work, the depot of the peat enterprise has retained several operable diesel locomotives and ECS 
As of 2007, only one section remained in working order. It is the only 750 mm track in Russia, which is run by Russian Railways and is part of the general public railway network. The Gorky Railway is forced to maintain a 6-kilometer section in the Klepikovsky district from the Tumskaya station to the Gureevsky junction and then along the branch to the Golovanova Dacha station (another 25 kilometers), since this is the only normal road connecting the village of Golovanovo with the "mainland".
In April 2008, traffic was stopped due to disputes with the administration of the Ryazan region. 
Today, almost the only employee of the road, lineman Sergei Alekseevich Nikulin, has been living and working on the Gureevsky platform for 39 years. With his own hands, he made a motorized rubber and carries people on it to the village of Golovanova Dacha (25 km). Acquaintance with Sergey did not work for me from the very beginning. I arrived without a call, he was drunk, offended that I kicked his dog (who wanted to bite me), categorically refused to ride a trolley, as he was sorry for the motor. 
A new motor costs 5000 rubles. If you still want to ride, it is better to call Sergey in advance, here is his mobile phone: 8-905-691-48-96. 
As of March 2009, the Gorky Railway, after inspecting the tracks on May 11, 2008, recognized the track facilities as "threatening the safety of train traffic and the life of passengers." A total of 79 violations, 27 of which "require the closure of traffic." Restoration requires the replacement of 18 wooden bridges and three pipes.
The costs for the minimum required work are estimated at 311.1 million rubles, and 428.3 million rubles for a complete repair. The cost of operating the road is 3.991 million rubles per year, while the toll (based on 14 rubles per 10 km) is only 0.336 million rubles per year.
“After Gus-Khrustalny, at the quiet Tuma station, I changed to a narrow-gauge train. It was a Stephenson-era train. The samovar-like engine whistled like a child’s falsetto. On the curves it groaned and stopped. Passengers went out to smoke. Silence of the forest stood around the gasping gelding. The smell of wild cloves, heated by the sun, filled the carriages.
Passengers with things sat on the platforms - things did not fit into the car. Occasionally, on the way, sacks, baskets, carpenter's saws began to fly out from the site onto the canvas, and their owner, often a rather ancient old woman, jumped out for things. Inexperienced passengers were frightened, and experienced passengers, twisting the goat's legs and spitting, explained that this was the most convenient way to disembark from the train closer to their village.
K.G. Paustovsky, Meshcherskaya side
The first narrow-gauge railways in Russia
The first narrow-gauge public railway in Russia was the Verkhovye - Livny branch, which belonged to the Orlovo-Gryazskaya railway. By the way, what does "public use" mean? This means that this line was intended for regular (that is, on schedule) train traffic and is available for use by any citizen of the country (not to be confused with industrial, military, temporary, special railways). Previously, such roads belonged only to the department of the Ministry of Railways - the Ministry of Railways. The narrow-gauge railways belonging to the Ministry of Railways worked strictly according to the instructions that existed in this department.
The narrow-gauge railway Verkhovye - Livny was laid in 1871 (1067 mm gauge - that is, 3 feet 6 inches). This was preceded by a foreign visit of the Imperial Russian Technical Commission to the first Festignog narrow-gauge railway in the history of England. In the same place, the members of the commission saw in action a "push-pull" steam locomotive of the Ferli system (subsequently, steam locomotives of such a system worked on a wide gauge on the hardest Surami pass in Georgia). The advantages of a narrow gauge and "push-pull" immediately made themselves felt. According to L. Moskalev, the author of the book “Our narrow-gauge steam locomotives”, L. Moskalev, for the Livny railway, steam locomotives were purchased in England and Belgium (there were no steam locomotive building capacities and experience in this area yet), including the same Ferli steam locomotives designed to work with heavy trains without a turn at the final point of the route (their driver's booth was in the middle of the locomotive, as later on many European shunting diesel locomotives). On the Livenskaya narrow-gauge railway, steam locomotives received poetic names: “The Lyubovsha River”, “Russian Ford”, “Livny”, “Verkhovye”, “Robert Furley”. They were heated first with wood, and then with oil.
The "Livenskaya" passed through the rich grain-growing districts of the Oryol province and therefore did not suffer from a lack of cargo. During the harvest season, the flow of export grain abroad was such that even on this branch it was necessary to build elevators and warehouses for storing grain - there was never enough space for storing "bulk" storage. Livny is a city in Rus', formerly famous for bread and accordions. The merchants in it were in charge of important things - they could afford to have their own cast iron. Although the road was supposedly built at public expense, it certainly could not have done without the involvement of merchant capital - merchants gave one and a half million, according to the legend. How great was the productive power of such small towns in the south of Russia that the railways were drawn to them - and on what a grand scale! According to the Narrow-gauge Railways website, a certain engineer-inventor Shubersky, a member of the Road Construction Administration, took part in the construction of the Livenskaya narrow-gauge railway. He applied a number of his own inventions: a safe system for coupling cars, a new type of five-ton freight car, special lubrication boxes, buffers, introduced sleeping cars (!) - and this is just on one narrow gauge railway. And how many such innovations were used throughout Russia!
Soon a similar narrow-gauge grain-carrying branch was laid from Okhochevka near Kursk to the large county town of Kolpny. Subsequently, English steam locomotives of the Furley system from the Livenskaya were transferred to it. Already in 1896, the Livny road was changed to a wide one due to the increased volumes of cargo shipments, and the Kolpenskaya - in 1943, during Battle of Kursk, for enhanced supply of troops. In 2006, life on these roads still somehow flickered.
Merchants were attracted by the simplicity and cheapness of building narrow-gauge railways with their relatively large transportation capacity - however, the reader sees that such savings, in a sense, went sideways, because many of these roads then had to be changed to a normal gauge. In May 1871, the Chudovo-Novgorod narrow-gauge railway (1067 mm) was opened, and then it was extended through Shimsk to Staraya Russa along the western shores of Lake Ilmen. The Chudovo-Novgorodsky section was changed to a normal gauge in 1916, and the line to Staraya Russa was decided not to be restored after the Great Patriotic War due to the small size of traffic. In 1872, a narrow-gauge railway was stretched from Urochya to Arkhangelsk with a length of 837 km (a whole line, a separate legend! - Powerful multi-cylinder steam locomotives “mallets” worked on it), which was changed to a wide gauge only by 1917. And in 1877, the Bryansk industrialist, a talented engineer-inventor and an outstanding public figure Sergey Ivanovich Maltsov designed and built an extended inter-factory narrow-gauge railway at his factories with a three-foot gauge, which ran through the Kaluga and Bryansk regions in the Lyudinovsky industrial region. Moreover, the rolling stock for this narrow-gauge railway was built by the factories of the Maltsov partnership according to Sergey Ivanovich's own projects.
The first organization in Russia, engaged in the systematic construction of narrow-gauge public railways, was the so-called First Society of Access Lines (1898). The name of this organization clearly indicates the auxiliary nature of the activities of narrow-gauge railways. The society paved its first road in Ukraine from Rudnitsa to Olviopol, and it was vividly described by Sholom Aleichem in the collection "Railway Stories".
When the society built the Vladimir-Ryazan narrow-gauge line in the Meshchersky region, it found its own poets. With one of the stations of the road - the current regional center of Spas-Klepiki - are connected early years Sergei Yesenin. By the way, in the color album of 1967, dedicated to his biography and work, a fragment of the poem "Sorokoust" ("Have you seen how he runs across the steppes, hiding in lake fogs ..") is illustrated with a frame from this narrow gauge railway. Perhaps it was made near the Gureevsky junction at the site of a branch to Golovanov Dacha. But this road gained real fame thanks to perhaps the best story by Konstantin Paustovsky "Meshcherskaya Side":
“For the first time I came to the Meshchersky region from the north, from Vladimir. Behind Gus-Khrustalny, at the quiet Tuma station, I changed to a narrow-gauge train. It was a Stephenson train. The locomotive, resembling a samovar, whistled like a child's falsetto. The locomotive had an offensive nickname: "gelding". He really looked like an old gelding. At the curves, he groaned and stopped. Passengers went out to smoke. Forest silence stood around the panting gelding. The smell of wild cloves, heated by the sun, filled the carriages.
Passengers with things sat on the platforms - things did not fit into the car. Occasionally, on the way, sacks, baskets, carpenter's saws began to fly out from the site onto the canvas, and their owner, often a rather ancient old woman, jumped out for things. Inexperienced passengers were frightened, while experienced passengers, twisting the "goat's legs" and spitting, explained that this was the most convenient way to get off the train closer to their village.
The narrow-gauge railway in the Meshchersky forests is the slowest railway in the Union.
The stations are littered with resinous logs and smell of fresh felling and wild forest flowers…”
I especially want to talk about this narrow gauge railway. Because today it is the last narrow-gauge public railway in Russia. It has always been subordinate only to the department of the Ministry of Railways.
Meshchera is still a reserved kingdom on the Ryazan land with pristine forest nature, secluded monasteries and hermitages, springs and lakes, “village huts” ... Sung by Yesenin and Paustovsky, Meshcherskaya land is original. One of its symbols is this narrow gauge railway.
As usual, let's start with history. In the 90s of the 19th century, the eyes of energetic Ryazan and Vladimir industrialists increasingly turned towards the Meshchera lowland - the primitively untouched space between the Klyazma and the Oka. The wilderness, frightening for a resident even of the then Russia, complete impassability, fabulous tracts and swamps - it would seem, what kind of railway can pass where even the goblin can easily get lost? However, the unfinished wealth of Meshchera - timber, resin (pine resin), peat, sand - prompted the true, "old" Russians to invest in business: in 1897, Vladimir began to quickly build the Ryazan narrow-gauge railway, making his way with axes through a clearing in the thickets and bogged down with bast shoes in the swamps.
By the beginning of 1900, the construction of 213 kilometers of track was completed. All buildings and structures were built in the same style, in the noble spirit of wooden railway architecture. At Ryazan, the line began near the port on the Oka (the station was called Ryazan-Pristan), from Yesenin's Spas-Klepikov to Tu we went along the crowded and lively Kasimovsky tract, but basically to Vladimir itself it rested in forest silence. The frightened forest creatures saw for the first time the curls of steam hanging on the spruce paws, and heard the piercing whistle of a locomotive with a huge chimney, puffing rapidly on strips of rails as wide as a footpath.
And by the way - why did you choose a narrow (750 mm) gauge and not a wide (1524 mm) gauge? The flows of Meshchera cargo and passengers at first did not promise to be large - and when the gauge is twice as narrow as normal, then the costs of construction and operation are half as much. A narrow-gauge locomotive sawed birch round logs - it will be enough for him until Ryazan itself, and he can draw water from the bridge through a hanging sleeve from any river along the way. So, by the way, they did.
However, the Ministry of Railways is the Ministry of Railways - state order and supervision from above, regardless of the size of the track and dimensions. The steam locomotives and wagons of the society were painted according to the purpose and class with the application of sovereign eagles, signaling - kerosene, candle lanterns and a telegraph, each station agent dressed in uniform, in the waiting rooms there are stoves and wooden benches "MPS", there are timetables hanging - everything is as it should be.
In 1903, the company turned out to be in profit - 61,919 rubles of the time and 1 kopeck. They transported 139,497 people and 9.5 million pounds of cargo. The state tax in bulk did not exceed 13%, including 5% on profits: today there would be such financial freedom for the railways and for our entire economy! In 1904, the company turned out to be at a noble loss - they paid the due creditors, shareholders and reimbursed the bills. Things, therefore, were conducted honestly.
Along the line, puffing in smoke, there were undersized trains with hemp, wood, peat, cotton wool from Spas-Klepikov, glass from Gus-Khrustalny, with goods from Kasimov and Tum artisans, striking in their diversity the modern Russian, tired of overseas goods. After the unseen economic development Meshchera neighborhood, which was the result of the opening of a narrow gauge railway (even new villages and settlements were born), the movement increased so much that in 1924 the most stressful section of Tumskaya - Vladimir had to be changed to a broad gauge. This section is famous among fans of the old piece of iron for the fact that until 1980, steam locomotives ran here and, if it were not for the Olympics-80 with its window dressing, they would still be like. Some major nomenklatura figure, unfortunately for retro lovers, on the eve of the Olympics, saw a live steam locomotive at the Vladimir station and burst into noble anger: “Do you know that Vladimir is a city of international tourism ?! What will foreigners think about our country when they see such samovars here ?! And instead of creating a unique steam-powered tourist road and collecting dollars, francs and guilders from these same tourists, the steam locomotive traffic on the Tumskaya branch was closed overnight.
... You read the eloquent royal statistics of past passenger traffic on the Vladimir-Tumskaya road, and you still imagine men and women jumping into Ryazan-Pristan from a small train and waiting, sitting on the grass-ant, for a steamer near the Oka ...
But all this is long in the past. Only one rusty rail, lying in the middle of a country road near the Oka shore, now reminds us of what “was-died” ... The road began to freeze back in the 1960s, for various reasons. In Ryazan, after all, there was no bridge across the Oka before, and the line to Shumashi itself was often flooded during the flood. When a road bridge across the Oka and an asphalt highway to Spas-Klepiki were built, the need for a passenger train immediately disappeared. Yes, and the former customers preferred to send wood and cotton wool by cars immediately to the place, without transshipment on a narrow gauge railway. IN last years in Spas-Klepiki, the wooden bridge over the Pru was completely dilapidated, and this finally decided the fate of the reserved road.
The leadership of the Gorky Railway (the legal owner of the narrow gauge railway) did not try to do anything to preserve the line, despite the uniqueness and memorial significance of the Ryazan section and the abundance of tourists in these parts. On the contrary, in the late 1990s, the rails were quickly sold as scrap to an outside cooperative, while regularly reporting to the Ministry of Railways about the road as if it were operational. The legendary Yesenin Solotcha, Barsky, Spas-Klepiki will never again hear the noise of the train that has been running here for 100 years ...
Today (2006) the last living narrow-gauge section remains here: Tumskaya - Golovanova Dacha. The statistics are as follows: one diesel locomotive TU7, two 30-seat cars, two conductors, four drivers, a road foreman and four railwaymen for 32 km of track - that's all his economy. The train runs four times a week, twice a day. Finance? Income from transportation is 20 times less than expenses ... The administration of the Spas-Klepikovsky district compensates for this loss. Why? Yes, because just as there were no other roads to Golovanov Dacha under the tsar, there are none today. If the “narrow” is closed, the population of Kursha and Golovanovka will face a specific death.
... With a great enthusiast of the history of railways, locomotive engineer Konstantin Ivanov and the director of the only Pereslavl narrow-gauge museum in Russia, Vadim Mironov, went to Tumskaya in November 1997. The 953rd "narrow" left Tumskaya at 14.00, a ticket to Golovanova Dacha cost 4 rubles 20 kopecks in those days. Ride it with God!
Twitching and swaying, rattling chains of couplers and clanging buffers, as if 100 years ago, moving as if through force, stumbling like a peasant cart over bumps, a small, unusually comfortable train rides. First, through the fields to the Gureevsky junction, which miraculously preserved in its pristine houses all the ancient essence of the road, its hundred-year-old spirit, and then turns away to Kursha, Golovanovka, into the forests... they sometimes have to). Close branches of trees often stroke the car. Speed - 15 km / h, and once the passenger walked here 80 km / h!
The everyday surroundings of the car, I remember, differed little from those described by Paustovsky in the Meshcherskaya side, from the times when the locomotive "had the offensive nickname" gelding "". The cars, when we were driving, were jam-packed, people even stood in cramped vestibules. I heard a lot of little things about the road, typical for the world of narrow-gauge railways. For example, that in Golovanova Dacha there is no connection with the outside world, except for the timber industry's walkie-talkie - telephone poles in the forest collapsed ... That sometimes there is no electricity for weeks. It is not known why the shop wagon was suddenly canceled and food is delivered to Golovanovka and Kursha from now on in shopping bags - whoever can. That in the summer, before the eyes of passengers and drivers, the station “on Curonian” burned down: a chimney collapsed behind its dilapidation, sparks scattered across the roof - and it started. The traveler, who lived in the station, was sleeping at that time, the brigade that arrived with the train woke him up when the house was already on fire. At first, he jumped out, but then rushed out the window for documents into the very smoke ...
While the diesel locomotive was maneuvering in Gureevsky, moving to the tail of the train to go to reverse side to Golovanovka, they learned from the road foreman that in order to get to work, he adapted a personal motorcycle to the railway trolley - and drove along the line as if on an autobahn! And about how once in the winter we went after snowstorms to the line with a snowplow and got stuck in the snowdrifts most often, for help in Tuma, the driver ran 10 miles on foot, fearing wolves.
Here is Golovanova Dacha - a dead-end station. On a large clearing in the forest there are huts, a boarded-up station with a royal ticket composter, a boarded-up grocery store, a boarded-up club. People, lined up in a row, meet the train. It's a tradition here. It is painful to think that when the train leaves, people are left here alone... You can drive an UAZ along the winter road to Golovanovka in dry weather, and even then only from neighboring villages.
But earlier, before the war, it was not a dead end. Another mustache stretched from Golovanovka to the forced labor camp, where they were engaged in logging, which was supplied to ... Germany, to the Messerschmitt plant. The last shipment was made on June 22, 1941.
... We drove back to Tuma on a clear frosty night under garlands of stars, and the headlight of the diesel locomotive artistically highlighted the patterns of branches floating right at the window. In the darkness of the car with a single flashlight flashing like a firefly, the conductors moved as if in some kind of blissful timelessness ...
I recently found out from the patriot and local historian of these places Gennady Starostin in Tum: he says that this road is the same now. He lives like a divine being: if he needs it, he lives. Vadim Mironov said well about the Tumskaya narrow-gauge railway: “She is a match for Meshchera - a shy worker with discreet beauty and charm, which can only be appreciated with a leisurely glance.”
I am sure that this road must be kept alive at all costs. She is part of our history. Her death will become irreversible both for herself, the “shy toiler”, and for hundreds of people in the desolate space of Meshchera, in the depths of Russia ...
One of the reasons for the death of narrow-gauge railways is the reduction in peat extraction. It is no longer needed in the previous quantities - power plants everywhere have switched to gas or fuel oil. Valuable forests in Central Russia they have mostly already been cut down, so there is no purpose for narrow-gauge railways here either, especially since now timber is being transported right from the clearings in auto trailers. The narrow gauges are leaving. There are fewer of them, and there will be very few - it was not for nothing that the production of PV-40 cars was stopped.
In the village of Talitsy, Pereslavsky district, Yaroslavl region, there is a unique museum of narrow-gauge railways. The impression of his visit with remarkable lyricism was expressed by a modern researcher of the history of locomotives, photographer and writer Leonid Makarov in a short essay entitled “Old narrow-gauge car”: “A passenger car that has served its purpose. Riveted trolleys, shabby sides and six narrow windows - all windows are lowered all the way down. Open areas. Get out on this one, lean on the forged iron handrail, look around, dream ... How such a car will sway, tremble weightily at the junctions of a weak track with its four axles. Light up if you smoke, but I'd rather drink a hundred grams and go to the site. The air there is amazingly fresh, smelling of forests and swamps, and our carriage is moving at a leisurely pace… From Vologda to Arkhangelsk? From Ryazan to Vladimir?
…How many hours will we drive? Or maybe a few days? But that car was rusty and the green paint had peeled off.
Timelessness.
No! It's just a long parking lot...
Here they are - the five tracks of the half-asleep station. Rare pine trees, black huts lost between them. Dranochny roofs and red brick rough. Somewhere a dog is barking, a child is screaming, a cow is mooing. Grasshoppers crackle in the tall grass. In a narrow open window - very close, you can touch it with your hand - the sharp nose of a snowplow, unnecessary until next winter, and on the last journey, in a trembling sultry haze - two small abandoned steam locomotives buried in a dead end ...
... Grasshoppers crackle, flood, and butterflies fly from one open window to another. Parking for four hours… Four months… Forty years.
Where is that reserved forest side from my dreams? Where is the distant narrow-gauge railway with a long and low locomotive that has turned gray from old age? Will the old wagon answer me?
Maybe doze off in it under the light noise of pines, and then wake up - and here it is, that inaccessible region ...
Old wagon, do a miracle, take me with you!
Quiet. Only butterflies fly from one broken window to another.”
Back in the early 2000s, the narrow-gauge railway museum in Pereslavl was connected to the network of the former P.Zh.D. - the industrial Pereslavl railway (750 mm gauge), once the most powerful transport network in this region, engaged in the transportation of passengers, peat and other goods. Dozens of locomotives worked here in the old days! The network stretched from Olkhovskaya through Kubrinsk with branches to Msharovo and Talitsy, where there was a depot (the building of the current museum), to Veksa, a large junction station, then after the junction of the Pereslavskaya branch, it went along the northern shore of Lake Pleshcheyevo through a dense forest to Beklemishevo station. There was a transshipment station where the narrow-gauge railway was docked with the main wide passage Moscow - Yaroslavl. There was an intersection with this narrow-gauge railway of the Yaroslavl highway in two places - in Pereslavl itself at the former bus station and on the Yaroslavl highway between Pereslavl and Petrovsk in the forest, near the village of Govyrino, where there was a guarded crossing with a barrier. Now there is no hint of these transfers.
The narrow gauge railway was finally closed in 2003. Amazingly, the trains from Pereslavl to Botik Petra were always full of tourists who were attracted by the originality of such a movement, but the administration of the Yaroslavl region nevertheless closed this road. It seems to me that we should try to preserve it, to include it in the Pereslavl reserve complex - well, let's say, to use it for tourism purposes, because nearby, in Talitsy, there is the only narrow-gauge museum in the country, not to mention ancient Pereslavl with its museums and temples. All over the world, narrow-gauge railways in such tourist places- a good business, and no less than on broad gauge retrolines - after all, the cost of operating a narrow gauge is much less. Not to mention the fact that this narrow-gauge railway is simply a considerable memory for the region.
However, who cares about memory these days? Now is the time to forget...
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Narrow gauge railways have played a huge role in the history of Russia. They worked in agriculture and in industry, fought in two world wars, mastered the virgin lands, worked where there were no other means of communication. Unfortunately, by the end of the 20th century, they practically disappeared from the face of our Motherland, unlike other countries where narrow-gauge railways are protected by the state and are museum exhibits.
But when did narrow gauge railways appear?
Great Britain is considered the birthplace of railways. There they were built for the first time in the early 19th century, and in 1825 the first public train was launched between the cities of Stockton and Darlingon. The length of the road was 40 kilometers, and the width of the glue was 1435 millimeters (now this is the world standard).
In Russia, for the first time, the railway appeared in Nizhny Tagil at a mining mine. The creators of the locomotive were the Cherepanov brothers. The length of this road was 854 meters, and the track width was 1645 millimeters. Soon it was closed.
Railways officially appeared in Russia only in 1837. The line ran between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. And already in 1843-1851 the railway appeared between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The track gauge was 1520 millimeters, which is now the standard for domestic railways. IN modern world different countries have different gauge standards, which is a particular problem in the transport of passengers and goods.
Narrow gauge railways appeared a little later than conventional railways. It happened in 1863 in the UK in Northwest Wales. The road was intended to carry oil shale from the mine to the port. The length of the road was 21 kilometers, and the track width was 597 millimeters.
In the 19th century in Russia there were many roads with narrow gauge and with horse or hand traction. This made it possible to transport goods in places where the construction of a normal railway could not be carried out, and reduced costs.
The largest narrow-gauge horse-drawn railway in Russia at that time was the road that connected the Dubovka pier on the Volga River with Kachalino on the Don River. The length of the road was 60 kilometers and operated in 1840-1862.
The first narrow-gauge railway in Russia existed in 1871-1876 in the Oryol region. The track width was 1067 millimeters.
From the end of the 19th century, the construction of a whole network of narrow-gauge railways to the underdeveloped regions of the country began. For example, there were branches: Yaroslavl-Vologda-Arkhangelsk (795 kilometers), Pokrovsk-Uralsk. Their gauges were 1067 and 1000 millimeters in size.
Since the 1890s, narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of only 750 millimeters began to appear. For example, branches: St. Petersburg-Vsevolozhsk, Ryazan-Vladimir narrow-gauge railway. They were built mainly to serve industrial enterprises.
At times Soviet Union the number of narrow gauge lines continued to increase.
The emergence of "camp lines" is associated with the times of Stalinist terror. They connected camps and factories to mining sites. Narrow-gauge railways were built mainly in the north-eastern regions of the country (Magadan region, Kamchatka, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug).
In the 1930s, the specialization of narrow gauge railways was finally developed - this is the transportation of timber and peat. The standard for the track is 750 millimeters.
In the 40s of the 20th century, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became part of the USSR, where there was perhaps the best network of narrow gauge roads in the country.
During the Great Patriotic War, the network of narrow-gauge railways was replenished due to the construction of roads, both by our troops and by the enemy.
And in 1945, Sakhalin was annexed to the USSR with a developed system of narrow-gauge railways, which was further developed.
From the middle of the 20th century, a real boom in the construction of narrow gauge railways began. It is associated with the development of virgin and fallow lands in Kazakhstan.
But since the 1960s, the number of narrow-gauge roads has been declining. This is due to the fact that narrow-gauge railways began to be replaced by roads of normal width, which were built in parallel. So narrow-gauge railways for peat and timber purposes were built until the end of the 1970s. Until the 1990s, trailer rolling stock and locomotives for narrow gauge railways were produced. In 1993, production was stopped.
