Railfan Tour of the Soviet Union - Novosibirsk

We overnighted in Moscow, then out to the airport Intourist lounge and were boarded separately on the plane for Novosibirsk with a stop at Kubishev. The meal was a cup of hot water with a tea bag, a cup of something sweet, a roll (no butter), a hard boiled egg, piece of cake and a slice of chocolate. We were met at Novosibirsk by the Vice President of one of the railways and given an excellent dinner while our bags were taken directly to our rooms.

We started the next day with a discussion with railway officers then we went to the passenger car maintenance shop.

This four-wheeled car took us out to the passenger car shop

There is a good system for programming maintenance

The Siberian

We made an inspection of "The Siberian" a train which runs to Moscow.  There are even books provided for people to read. Throughout the shop there was a marked absence of people working on the cars.  In fact the floor was empty.  One of us happened to look up into one of the cars under repair and we could see that everyone on the shop floor had been put into the cars where they looked out at us from the windows.

After lunch we visited the main Novosibirsk yard which was very busy indeed.  We were not allowed to photograph and the drapes were lowered in the yard control tower so that we could not see too much.  It was obviously a very busy yard with electrically hauled trains passing every few minutes.

From the yard we visited a switch plant.  The whole experience was bizarre.  It was not included in the official program we had been given and the tour was conducted under very tight security.  The plant manager was very nervous and repeated several times that no photographs were allowed.  After the fourth or fifth time our leader got up and said, "If you don't want us to take photographs you had better look after my camera."  The rest of us followed suit and hung our cameras around the manager's neck.  (In those days 35mm SLRs could be very heavy).  We were almost tied together and not allowed to dawdle.  The seven of us had fifteen people watching us including a character in brand new, pressed overalls.  None of us had any expertise in the metallurgy of railway switches so we didn't really learn very much.

That evening we visited the Novosibirsk Opera House to see a performance of Swan Lake.  It is enormous with a great dome and many classical statues both inside and outside.  There is a separate concert hall.  We were introduced to the Assistant Director over cognac in an ante room then escorted to our seats in the front row.  In the three intervals we were taken to a small museum and had two lots of sandwiches and cognac.  By this time several of our party were getting fatigued and took the opportunity to sleep - they had to be poked when they started to snore during the quiet bits.  After the performance we were given cognac then taken back stage.  The stage itself is circular and slopes towards the front.  Behind there are rows and rows of props.  The safety curtain is two large slabs of concrete which drop down and rise up across the stage.

I enjoyed the performance with its familiar music but the theatre was only two thirds filled.