Narrow-gauge railway Ryazan – Vladimir

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Meshchorskaya Mainline
Mothballed diesel locomotive of the SŽD class ТУ7
Mothballed diesel locomotive of the SŽD class ТУ7
Line of the narrow-gauge railway Ryazan – Vladimir
Meshchorskaya Mainline
Route length: 1901: 211 km

1913: 209 km

2007: 30 km
Gauge : 750 mm ( narrow gauge )

The narrow-gauge railway Ryazan Vladimir ( Russian Рязанско-Владимирская узкоколейная железная дорога , . Transkr Rjasansko-Vladimirskaya uskokoleinaja schelesnaja doroga , . Transl Râzansko-Vladimirskaâ uzkokolejnaâ železnaâ doroga ) or Meschtschorskaja - Mainline ( Russian Мещёрская магистраль , transkr. Meschtschorskaja magistral , transl. Meŝorskaâ magistral ' ) was a narrow-gauge railway up to 211 kilometers long from Ryazan via Tuma to Vladimir in Russia . It had a track width of 750 millimeters and played an important role in the development of the wooded areas on the left bank of the Oka .

location

The route connected the industrial character Meshchera Lowlands region (региона Мещёра) over the station Tuma with the broad-gauge railway. It began at the Ryazan-Pristan train station (Рязань-Пристань), which was located in the floodplains in the northeast of Ryazan. The length of the main line was 211 kilometers. Passengers and freight reached the station via a footbridge over the Oka River . A railway bridge across the river was never built, which resulted in no transit traffic.

history

In 1893 there was a large forest fire east of Kriuscha (Криуша), after which it was decided to use the dead trees as firewood. For the removal of the wood that was Waldeisenbahn Oka Penkin (Ока-Пенкинской линии) built, which went from the banks of the Oka River in the forest area, which was cut in two years.

During the railway boom of the late 19th century, which led to the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and many other lines, it was decided to connect Vladimir and Ryazan with a narrow-gauge railway, partly reusing the Oka-Penkin Forest Railway. Construction began in 1897. The originally planned route was abandoned at the request of merchants, so that the main route ran through the town of Spas-Klepiki differently than planned . This lengthened the route by 20 kilometers and required the construction of a 200-meter-long wooden bridge over the floodplains of the Pra river , but this was amortized by the increase in freight and passenger traffic.

Cotton factories were opened in the Spas-Klepiki region, supplying almost all of Russia with their raw materials. In 1898 the branch line to Tuma and 1900 to Vladimir was completed. From 1901, there were continuous trains on the 211-kilometer route from Ryazan-Pristan station to Vladimir.

During the construction work it was taken into account that every spring part of the railway would be flooded during the Oka floods. The Meshchorskaya Mainline was regularly flooded over a length of about six kilometers. The original Ryazan-Pristan train station was flooded again and again.

In 1924, the portion of Tuma was to Wladimir at a track width of 1520 millimeters umgespurt . It is still in operation today. The narrow-gauge railway practically did not suffer during the Civil War, and during the industrialization of the 1920s and 1930s it was expanded with numerous branch lines for logging. The longest of them led to a settlement south of the Gurejewo Pass (Гуреево) to the Golowanowo Datscha station (Голованова Дача) and the Tscarus sawmill (Чарусский лесозавод). At Kurscha-2 station, which was on this branch line, there was a fire in the summer of 1936 that claimed many lives.

During the Second World War , the German troops approached the city of Ryazan within sixty kilometers, so that the factories and their equipment had to be relocated further inland via the narrow-gauge railway. In the post-war period and the 1950s, the narrow-gauge railway was used to transport peat. During this time steam locomotives were switched to diesel locomotives of the SŽD series ТУ2 .

Climax and decline

Night train with the TU7A-2895 diesel locomotive near Golowanowo Datscha

After the construction of the road bridge over the Oka in 1972 and the construction of the motorway, freight and passenger traffic on the Meshchorskaya Mainline began to decline, as road transport had a competitive advantage over the narrow-gauge railway. In the spring of 1971 the last train reached the Ryazan-Pristan station, and then a six-kilometer flood plain was dismantled to Shumashi. In 1976, the Piljowo station of the narrow-gauge railway was connected to the broad-gauge railway line Kriwandino-Ryazanovka.

The main line Schumasch-Solottscha-Spas-Klepiki-Tuma was in operation until the 1990s. After the closure, the rails were first removed from the Shumash – Solottscha and Solottscha – Laskowo lines, and in 2000 the rest of the line was dismantled. The bridge in Spas-Klepiki burned down in the winter of 2003. The narrow-gauge railway is the last line in Russia with a gauge of 750 millimeters operated by Russian Railways and is part of the general railway network. The Gorky Railway has to operate the six-kilometer route in Klepikowski rajon from the Tumskaya station to the Gurejewski Pass and on to the Golowanowo Datscha station (25 kilometers further), as this is the only connection from the village of Golowanowo to "the big wide world" is.

In April 2008, operations were largely suspended due to disputes with the administration of the Ryazan region. From that time on there were only railcars. In the summer of 2010, the bridges on the route from Gurejewski to Golowanowo Datscha were destroyed by forest fires. They were supposed to be restored, but the necessary work was never done. In March 2009, the Gorki Railway classified the tracks and structures on the basis of an inspection carried out on May 11, 2008 as a "threat to the safety of train traffic and the lives of passengers". There were a total of 79 violations, 27 of which "require the cessation of operations". To resume operations, eighteen wooden bridges and three tunnels would have had to be replaced.

The cost of the minimal work required was estimated at 311.1 million rubles, and it would have taken 428.3 million rubles to complete the repair. The cost of running the road was 3.991 million rubles per year, while the fees (based on 14 rubles per 10 km) were 0.336 million rubles per year.

"At the moment the administration of the Ryazan region and the federal executive bodies are unwilling to finance these expenses."

In reality, however, the condition of the Tumo – Golovanovo line was much better than that of other lines where there is still passenger traffic, such as the Severodvinsk – Beloye Osero line (Северодвинск – Белое Озеро), on which the average speed of the Trains are only 30 km / h and on the Kadnikowski – Beketowo (Кадниковский – Бекетово) line.

Dismantling

snow plow

At the beginning of July 2011, work began to remove narrow-gauge lines in the section from Gureevsky to Tumskaya. It was later found that the dismantling of the tracks without a prior decision by the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation constituted a violation of the applicable legislation.

The Meshchorskaya Highway in Literature

The Russian writer and journalist Konstantin Georgijewitsch Paustowski wrote about the narrow-gauge railway in the late 1930s:

“In Guse-Chrustalny, the quiet Tuma train station, I took the narrow-gauge railway. It was like a move from Stephenson's time. The locomotive whistled like a samovar with a childish falsetto . The locomotive had an offensive nickname: ' Wallach '. She really looked like an old gelding. In the turns she grunted and stopped. Passengers went out to smoke. The quiet forest surrounded the panting 'Wallach'. The smell of wild carnations, heated by the sun, filled the cars.
Passengers sat on the platforms with things that didn't fit in the cars. Occasionally sacks, baskets, carpenter's saws began to fly around along the way, and their owners, especially a rather old woman, jumped out from behind things. Inexperienced passengers were scared but cross-legged and declared that this train was the most convenient way to get close to their village.
The narrow-gauge railway in the Mesjtsjerskaya Forests is the slowest railway in the Union. The stations are littered with resinous tree trunks and the smell of fresh cuttings and wild forest flowers. "

Individual evidence

  1. Смирнова Ю., Волошин В. В 1936 году в СССР от жары и пожаров умирали тысячами. Но об этом никто не знал // Комсомольская правда от 14.08.2010.
  2. Архангельский А. С., Архангельский В. А .: Железнодорожные станции СССР. «Справочник» . Archived from the original on February 2, 2014.
  3. www.norino.ru/golovanovo_rjd.jpg
  4. Разбор Тумской узкоколейки
  5. Разбор Тумской УЖД. Решение прокуратуры

Web links

Commons : Narrow-gauge railway Ryazan – Vladimir  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 54 ° 55 ′ 53 "  N , 40 ° 26 ′ 57.6"  E