"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. It is common on children's railways and other 750 mm gauge railways in the countries of the former USSR, although, according to reviews, it has a slightly lower level of comfort than Polish-built PAFAWAG cars, in particular, the 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, the reduced weight and 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 UZD 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. 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 platform onto the canvas, and their owner, often a rather ancient old woman, jumped out for things. Inexperienced passengers were frightened, and experienced passengers, twisting goat 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

Speaking about narrow-gauge railways, it is worth immediately noting their high cost-effectiveness in terms of construction. There are several objective reasons for this. Due to the fact that the actual track width is much less than, it was required to use much less resources for its construction. If the task was to punch a tunnel through a rock or an earthen rampart, then the amount of the selected rock in terms of volume was minimal. It is also worth considering the fact that the narrow-gauge railway was originally intended for wagons, as well as locomotives with smaller overall dimensions and weight. In this case, it was enough for the engineer to design light-type bridges, for which fewer material resources were used. Saving financial estimates is obvious for the budget. One more noteworthy fact should not be overlooked, which made it possible to strengthen the leadership of the narrow-gauge railway in places with a mountainous landscape. We are talking about the possibility of using steep curves on these types of railways (as opposed to standard railways).

In order not to lose objectivity about the characteristics of the narrow gauge railway, it is necessary to mention its obvious shortcomings:

• the impossibility of transporting goods with a large weight and dimensions. This applies to both the traction power of the locomotives used and the strength of the bridges along which the railway (railway) was laid;
• decrease in the stability of movement with cargo on the way. When traveling, much attention is paid to observing the speed limit, as well as overcoming difficult sections of the road. If you neglect this rule, you can only provoke an emergency and disable the working equipment;
• closure and alienation of the network. This problem was relevant for Europe and our country almost equally. It should be understood that narrow-gauge roads were designed and built by large industrial enterprises for their internal needs. The only purpose of it (the road) was to transport raw materials to places with good infrastructure for further redistribution of cargo. No one even thought to take care of the implementation of the project of an integrated network of narrow-gauge roads.

Here it is worth mentioning the transport type of narrow gauge railways. They were intended to create a bridge between existing and under construction railways. Over the years, they have lost their relevance and functionality. Some of them simply ceased to exist. A small number of haul roads have been modified by "recasting" them into standard, technical gauges. It was a rational decision that allowed us to eliminate the time-consuming stage of moving cargo from one type of road to another.

The historical purpose of narrow gauge railways

As already mentioned in the article, the main and original purpose of the narrow gauge track was to serve industrial enterprises. And here you can give a fairly extensive list of industries where such a transport system was in demand:

• places of development of peat deposits and forest plantations. For example, the Shatura narrow-gauge railway, commissioned in 1918. Until 2008, peat was transported through it to the local GRES. After the transfer of the GRES to another source of fuel, the need to operate the road completely disappeared. Since 2009, the dismantling of the narrow gauge railway began. This result was quite expected, since on April 10, 1994, an official order was issued to start stopping traffic on the narrow gauge railway. This document concerned absolutely the entire operating network. So shatura lost its historical uniqueness;
• coal mines and closed mines (Yamal railway);
• virgin lands at the time of their active development. Often, the use of RR was the only available option for the development and formation of the surrounding infrastructure in such a region. Over time, such roads have also lost their relevance and functionality due to the wide development of highways.

Narrow-gauge railways occupied a special place in industrial enterprises engaged in the production of equipment and complex, large-sized mechanisms. This, of course, is about a special (micro) modification of the road. She was inside the assembly shops and helped to quickly move individual parts to the equipment. Also, with its help, it was possible to export already finished products from the workshop premises, and even transport the working personnel around the facility (if it was a large, industrial complex). To date, narrow-gauge railways have been replaced by modern, mechanical means in the form of mobile forklifts.

A special page in the history of narrow gauge railways is the war years. With the active construction of defensive areas, they (roads) served as a transport network, which made it possible to quickly and reliably deliver manpower and military equipment to the battlefield. A noteworthy point is the fact that the iron rails were already laid on the finished road surface. It could be both asphalt concrete and earth embankment. This simplified and accelerated the current work on laying the narrow gauge railway. The length of such a transport network varied greatly and could even reach more than a hundred kilometers. In the fortification outpost itself, there was also a need for laying railway tracks. This was necessary for the rapid delivery of large shells to the guns.

Gauge of narrow gauge roads

According to accepted standards, even in the Soviet Union, the width of each track of such a road was 750 mm. This value applied to more than 90% of the entire network in the country. By the way, one of the first railways with such a gauge was the IRINOVSKAYA narrow-gauge railway. It owes its appearance to the industrialist of Corfu, who needed to transport peat from places with developments, starting in 1982. Later, in pre-revolutionary times, it was widely used for passenger transportation and was widely loved by the townspeople (due to its low speed, passengers were allowed to board even during the active movement of the car). During the siege of Leningrad, it was along it that the land section of the "road of life" was laid.

There were exceptions when the track width was 600, 900 and 1000 mm. On Sakhalin, it was completely equal to 1067 mm. By the way, a few separate words should be said about the Sakhalin road. It has a long history and was built when the island was under the jurisdiction of Japan. In addition to the canvas itself, the entire rolling stock of the narrow gauge railway was preserved. In the early 2000s, there were disputes about her future fate. It was decided to start work on re-profiling the track into a wide gauge with a natural re-equipment of the rolling stock.

It is worth mentioning here also about the gauge that the VESIMO-UTKINSKAYA narrow-gauge railway had. It was 884 mm.

The fate of some narrow-gauge railways in Russia

Today, many of the narrow-gauge railways attract the close attention of not only rare technology lovers, but even representatives of world organizations. A vivid proof of this fact is the KUDEMSKAYA narrow-gauge railway, which was put into operation in 1949. Now its exploited length is 35 km (with an actual length of 108 km). It still carries passenger traffic. It will be a real pleasure to be able to ride this narrow-gauge route as it was included in the top 10 worldwide in 2010. To popularize the narrow-gauge railway in 2013, a new car was even purchased - model VP750.

The fate of the Beloretsk narrow-gauge railway was completely different. Its history, which began back in 1909, was completed at the beginning of the 21st century. The oldest narrow-gauge railway with unique rolling stock and architectural monuments at the stations became unnecessary. Under the guise of a lack of funding and the "unsatisfactory" state of the railway track, the leadership of the Beloretsk Metallurgical Plant decided to decommission the railway from their operation. No arguments about the significance and uniqueness of this object from the side of local residents and museum activists were heard. In memory of the narrow-gauge railway, there was a steam locomotive - a monument to GR-231, installed in Beloretsk.

It is noteworthy that the beginning of the 21st century in our country was the end of an entire era of narrow-gauge stations (not all of them, of course). Among such losses is the VISIMO-UTKINSKAYA narrow-gauge railway, built at the end of the 19th century in the Sverdlovsk region. Only since 1960, the width of its track became 750 mm after the work carried out. Initially, this parameter was equal to 884 mm. "Cuckoo" (as it was nicknamed by the local population) ceased to exist in 2008, when the stage of its dismantling was concluded. Although back in 2006, freight and transport transportation was carried out on the narrow gauge railway. An unenviable fate went to all the rolling stock, buildings, and even the pedestrian bridge across the river Mezhevaya Duck.

Time, of course, puts many events in their place, but do not forget that it is in our power to preserve the memory of past pages of history. But the main task is to preserve the remaining cultural monuments, some of which still regularly serve people. Narrow-gauge railways are undeniably one of them. We hope that many of the readers will be interested in the topic raised and want to learn more about narrow gauge railways. Some of these roads can still be seen today!

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 Russia, formerly famous for bread and accordions. The merchants in it hosted an important one - 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 road was changed in 1943, during the 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, talented engineer-inventor and outstanding public figure Sergey Ivanovich Maltsov designed and built an extended inter-factory narrow-gauge road at his factories with a three-foot gauge, which ran along 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 a narrow-gauge line Vladimir - Ryazan in the Meshchersky region, it found its own poets. With one of the stations of the road - the current regional center of Spas-Klepiki - the early years of Sergei Yesenin are connected. 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 platform 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 Meshcherskaya 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 the 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 from 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 usual, 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 of the modern Russian, tired of overseas goods. After the unprecedented economic development of the Meshchera environs, which was the result of the opening of a narrow gauge railway (even new villages and settlements were born), the traffic 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 of what “was-died” ... The road began to fade 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 recent years in Spas-Klepiki, the wooden bridge over the Pru has 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 clanking buffers, as if 100 years ago, moving as if through force, stumbling like a peasant cart on 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 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 in the opposite direction to Golovanovka, we learned from the road foreman that in order to get to work, he adapted a personal motorcycle to the railway cart - and drove along the line like on the autobahn! And about how once in the winter they went after snowstorms to the line with a snowplow and got stuck with it in the most often in snowdrifts - 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 will be 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 a forced labor camp, where they were engaged in logging, which was supplied to ... Germany, to the Messerschmitt factory. 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 have already been cut down for the most part, so there is no purpose for narrow-gauge railways here either, especially since now wood is being transported directly from the clearings in autotrailers. 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 “An 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 an iron forged 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 no longer standing still, but slowly floating ... 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.

Not! 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 at which the narrow-gauge railway was docked with the main broad 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. It's amazing - 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 one 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 are 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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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 with the roads of 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, 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 State Constructions Committee installed two types of sleepers (bar and plate) for the main tracks of 1000 mm gauge and two 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.

Narrow gauge railway of the Sofrinsky brick factory. The starting point is the village of Sofrino, located near the Sofrino station on the Mytishchi railway line - post 81 km (Moscow - Yaroslavl).

The narrow gauge railway was completely dismantled. The approximate date of liquidation is the beginning of the 1970s.

Narrow gauge railway of the Krasnoarmeiskaya cotton factory. The starting point is the city of Krasnoarmeysk, located near the Krasnoarmeysk station on the railway line Sofrino - Krasnoarmeysk - a training ground.

The narrow gauge railway was completely dismantled. Estimated liquidation date - 1994.

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Broad gauge rail track at the Krasnoarmeisky training ground. Location - Krasnoarmeisky (Sofrinsky) artillery range.

There is an "accelerator track" on the territory of the Krasnoarmeisky (Sofrinsky) artillery range. It tests jet engines mounted on specialized transport "trolleys". The accelerator track is a broad gauge rail track (most likely 1520 mm) with a length of 2650 meters. Until 2010, information was actively disseminated on the Web that the test track had a narrow gauge (1000 meters), so it was included in the list of narrow gauge railways.

The path is perfectly straight in plan and perfectly flat in profile (constructed taking into account the curvature of the Earth's surface). There is no path development. Especially heavy type rails are used (perhaps 75 kilograms per 1 meter). There are no traditional sleepers - the rails are laid on a reinforced concrete base, there is a groove between the rails, which is necessary to prevent the destruction of the superstructure of the track by heated exhaust gases during the passage of a jet engine. "Locomotives" can travel at great speeds (probably over 500 km/h).

As of 2006, the "accelerator track" has not been dismantled, although it has not been used for a long time. Its future is unclear.

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Narrow-gauge railway of the Ivanteevsky textile mill (?). A possible starting point is the city of Ivanteevka.

The proposed route of the narrow-gauge railway on a topographic map.

According to unconfirmed reports, the narrow-gauge railway was located on the territory of the Ivanteevsky textile mill. Perhaps it connected the territory of the plant with the Ivanteevka-Gruzovaya station.

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Narrow-gauge railway Bolshevo - spinning mill in the village of Starye Gorki. The starting point is the Bolshevo station, located on the railway line Mytishchi - Fryazevo.

Narrow-gauge railway on a topographic map (shown conditionally, not shown in full).

The approximate date of opening of the narrow gauge railway is the 1910s. A narrow-gauge railway connected the Bolshevo station with the F. Rabenek paper-spinning and weaving mills in the village of Starye Gorki (now Pervomaisky).

The narrow gauge railway was completely dismantled. Estimated liquidation date - 1920s. Parallel to the line of the narrow gauge railway, a broad gauge railway line Bolshevo - Ivanteevka was built, as well as an access road to the factory.

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Narrow-gauge railway of the Mytishchi peat enterprise. The starting point is the village of Peat Enterprise (the official name is Central).

The narrow gauge railway was completely dismantled. Estimated liquidation date - 1966.

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Narrow gauge railway in the village of Podlipki. Location - the village of Podlipki (since 1928 Kalininsky, since 1938 the city of Kaliningrad, since 1996 the city of Korolev), located near the Podlipki-Dachny station on the railway line Mytishchi - Fryazevo.

A narrow-gauge railway connected the construction site of one of the factories (presumably the artillery plant No. 8 named after M.I. Kalinin) with a sand pit.

The narrow gauge railway was completely dismantled in the 1930s. The topside of the track was partly used for the construction of a children's railway.

http://www.yubileyny.ru/index.php?id=ogorod&sub=korolev/14):

Even at the time when the workshops were being built, a narrow-gauge railway was laid from the sand pit to the construction site. A locomotive with a cargo platform ran along the rails.

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Children's railway near Podlipki-Dachny station. Location - the village of Kalininsky (since 1938 the city of Kaliningrad, since 1996 the city of Korolev), located near the Podlipki-Dachnye station on the railway line Mytishchi - Fryazevo.

The children's railway in Kaliningrad was opened approximately in 1935. The initiator of its creation was the head of the children's technical station in the village of Kalininsky M.M. Protopopov. The narrow-gauge railway was a ring line 250 meters long, it used one self-made electric motor (an electric passenger car).

According to unconfirmed reports, the narrow gauge railway operated for less than one year.

Quote from the material "Podlipovskaya Mosaic", author - L. Bondarenko (http://www.yubileyny.ru/index.php?id=ogorod&sub=korolev/14):

The thirties are marked in memory by their sign. Most of the Podlipovo teenagers gravitated toward the pioneer club and the children's technical station. An aircraft modeling club and even such an exotic sports section as archery worked here. But the main thing that united many was the construction of an electrified children's railway. The idea of ​​its construction was submitted by the head of the technical station, Mikhail Mikhailovich Protopopov. The road was only 250 meters long and with one trailer, but they were very proud of it.

Everything was extremely simply arranged, but it worked flawlessly, ”recalls Ivan Alekseevich Fedoseev. - Three-phase current motor, bronze bearings embedded in wooden posts, one switch, no rheostats.

The old motor was given at the factory, gears were also chosen from the junk. The car itself was made from boards and bars sheathed with plywood, painted with oil paint.

Where did you get the rails?

They were also given at the factory. Even at the time when the workshops were being built, a narrow-gauge railway was laid from the sand pit to the construction site. A locomotive with a cargo platform ran along the rails. This narrow-gauge railway was decided to be used. Near the pioneer club, they made an embankment of sand and gravel, laid sleepers, and rails on them. The current was supplied through wires that did not go above the car, but from the side. They made the road for about a year. The main "foreman" was Vasya Mironov from our class. And I was the driver. There were always a lot of girls and boys eager to ride.

Ivan Alekseevich remembers that a documentary was filmed about the children's technical station - it was in the autumn of 1935. Pravda, Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote about the children's railway.

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Narrow gauge railway at the construction site of the A107 (?). A possible starting point is a concrete plant in the vicinity of the village of Talitsy.

Possible route of a narrow gauge railway on a 1:100,000 topographic map published in 1984.

According to unconfirmed reports, during the construction of the A107 highway (known as the "Small Concrete Ring" or "Betonka") in the Pushkinsky district, a temporary narrow-gauge railway was used.

Information received in 2007 (private correspondence):

According to rumors (almost exclusively rumors) in the Pushkinsky district of the Moscow region there was a little-known narrow-gauge railway. It went from the intersection of the Yaroslavl highway (47 km from Moscow) and the so-called "Betonka" - the A107 highway.

Starting a few hundred meters west of this place, the narrow-gauge railway went east almost parallel to the Betonka, and had a length of about 3 kilometers. It owes its existence to a concentration camp for the Germans, which existed in the same places. Captured Germans were building the nearby Betonki section.

At the beginning of the narrow gauge railway (in its western part) there was a small factory for the production of concrete, which was serviced by the same Germans, and the finished concrete was exported using the narrow gauge railway and used for the construction of the road.

There was a narrow gauge railway from about 1943, and it was dismantled no later than 1957 (but I believe much earlier). Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the archives, but on the maps of those times it is not indicated (on civilians, in any case), and this is understandable - the object is secret, the concentration camp itself was not indicated on the maps, but it occupied considerable space.

The only material confirmation of the existence of a narrow-gauge railway is the presence of a clearing in the forest, and on it something is guessed in the ground that is extremely reminiscent of half-rotten railway sleepers. In the 1960s, this area was partially built up with summer cottages, and watchmen say that when they first received them, traces of this narrow-gauge railway were very clearly visible there, someone even used wooden sleepers for household needs.