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Russia builds new rail line, trains for winter Olympics
The whole gauge issue is interesting in a way. Following the end of WW2 in 1945. the Potsdam (suburb of Berlin and summer homes of the Hollenzollerns for centuries) conference of the Allies, basically Churchill , Truman, and Stalin, met to divide Europe into spheres of influence, leading 3 years later to Churhill’s famous speech at Westminster College in Missouri in which the phrase “Iron Curtain” first appears. Stalin, in order to travel by rail to Potsdam from the Soviet Union, had Russian broad gauge laid by slave labor, i.e., German POWs, across the always moveable Polish frontier, Poland, and eastern Germany, which soon shrank at the conference, and into Potsdam through Berlin. Ironically, the station in Potsdam, not completely destroyed, was quickly restored to suburban service, with the usual gauge, was a busy place until the Berlin Wall’s erection and once again after the Wall’s fall in 1989.
And to think we thought Amtrak would have service to Atlanta from the Midwest by the start of the 1994 Games!
excellent story and great pics too! Thanks Trains for getting this news
excellent story and great pics too! Thanks Trains for getting this news
Check out the video of this train in service
http://www.dw.de/sochi-trains-made-in-germany-journal-the-news-program-on-dw/av-17412258