When you consider the number of 2-10-0’s and light 4-8-4’s that were operated because of light rail, I would think that Russian rolling stock had a lower capacity than comparable North American equipment.
Well, the rail weight would enter into the equation, but the additional 3.5" of gage could make a fundamental difference. That Russian rolling stock almost looks a little bigger than U.S. equipment.
Here is an interesting video of wheel slip of a TEM2 road switcher. Notice the man on the ground placing chunks of ballast on the rail ahead of the locomotive to crush them to get traction.
I remember something an OLD Time and I mean OLD time Driver told me about a Diesel Engine back when I was first starting to drive trucks. If it Aint SMOKING it anit HAPPY. But then again he drove a Screaming 318 for Years were you could Read at times from the Flames shooting out the STACKS.
Last tru ck I drove was a Tester and she was set up for over 600hp but never smoked a whiff. The3 day she began to smoke out the stack I knew something was going wrong.
That footage must have been shot where there are some severe grades; otherwise why would such a short train need 6 units working at what looks like maximun capacity?
Hi,
This is slightly off topic, but it came up tonight at dinner with my Russian father-in-law, who used to be an engineer on Russian freight trains.
What is the state of Russian freight trains vs U.S freight trains? One opinion (of course) was that Russian freight trains were technologically equal to U.S. freight trains and the other opinion was that Russian freight trains are far behind U.S. freight trains. My father-in-law was an engineer on the 3te 10u locomotives (or something similar) and he has some fairly strong opinions.
Any information is appreciated.
Thanks.
dl
Getting back to the first video, I believe that those white cars with the horizontal ribs are mechanical reefers. The shorter car in the center with the louvres on the side contains a diesel generatio set which provides the cars in the group with electricity.
The same basic setup was used on the early APL double stack cars when they first appeared. Some of the 5-car sets contained a generator which supplied power to the refrigerated containers on that 5 unit set. The cars containing generator sets were painted red instead of blue.
These cars travelled with crews, From the borders of Iran to Archangelsk and Sakhalin. USSR vintage. Thanks to Yevgeni Suhanov