Virtual Railfan Tour - Soviet Union 1974 - Second day in Leningrad


Leningrad

Our second day ay Leningrad was full of activity.  I know the city name has now changed but I knew it by its earlier name
I should have shown this picture as part of the previous day's visit to the Leningrad hump yard. The freight trains had heavy power.

From my hotel window I could see the warship Aurora which is now a museum.  A car took us to the Leningrad station where we had a special train to look at a high speed switch at Chudovo.  On the way through the station we could see the beautiful painted ceiling over the concourse and we waited in the VIP lounge. On the way to Chudovo I noticed several hay ricks with a pole through the middle and a roof to keep the rain off.  The roof slides down the pole as the hay is taken from the bottom.
Chudovo

Moving frog switch. I believe similar frogs had been installed on British Railways. Nothing very special - although a novelty for Canada

There was a lot of traffic on the main line,

Our locomotive went off to run round its train

After inspecting the switch we took pictures in front of the locomotive with the lady Station Mistress.  I then rode the locomotive YC2 -815 back to Luvan where we had lunch in the station.  This was another excellent meal accompanied by many toasts of vodka, two of the railway officers drinking vodka from a wine glass.  After lunch we saw the bust of Nicolayev Petrovich, the engineer who built the railway between Leningrad and Moscow, then continued back to Leningrad in our special train.

Me with the heads of the two delegations.

I was in the head end of the locomotive which is a 3,000V DC Bo-Bo, painted a beautiful red. I was surprised that I was the only one of our delegation who wished to ride the head end.  There is a two-man crew.  The engineer, on the right hand side, has three stars on his uniform sleeve while the second man has two stars.  The throttle is in the form of a circular wheel and there is a notching up lever just under it.  The brake column, AWS and speedometer are on the right hand side.  There are two brake valves, train and locomotive.  The speed recorder makes a ticking sound.  At the top of the cab and in the middle there is a cab signal which repeats the indication of the signals through the track circuitry.  The indications, from top to bottom are:
Green
Yellow
Yellow over Red
Red
The driver. The speedometer/tachometer is at the top left

We passed many trains on the opposite track on our return - a good indication of train density.
TimeOur Speed (km)Opposing Trains
1420120Freight 30 cars
Diversion 80 km/h
1423100EMU
143970Freight
1440EMU
1445Freight with diesel running backwards
145020EMU
creep to signal 10km/h
1456EMU (steam locomotive in yard)
1458EMU
1506Leningrad station.
The heating and ventilation in the cab was good.  The crew repeated the signal indications.  There was radio communication with the dispatcher. I saw many people, including women, working on the track, all were wearing yellow jackets.  We were chasing a train ahead running under yellow and yellow over green signals.  At one time we could see the train ahead.  At Leningrad I had a look through the locomotive.  There was good light as the roof panels were translucent fibreglass.

Yellow over yellow

At Leningrad
From the Leningrad station we were taken to the Hermitage Museum and given a guided tour. It is an incredible place with a wonderful selection of paintings although they can only exhibit one fifth of the collection.  The settings for the paintings are beautiful.  Each gallery is ornately decorated and there is much gilt and inlay work.  No western modern art has been acquired since the revolution so that, Picasso, for example, finished before his most well known period.

After the Hermitage we were taken for a sight seeing tour in the dark.  Leningrad is situated on about 100 islands and 10% of the city is water.  The street cars run on separate reservations in some areas and I saw some running up to four cars in multiple. 

We took the subway back to the Finland station, the fare was 5 kopeks.  Some stations had doors on the platform which opened with the arrival of the train.  There was no litter and the architecture was similar to Moscow,

At the station we found our private car to which was attached an additional sleeping car to give us a little extra room.  My compartment shared a washroom/shower.  There was a bed from the seat, an upper berth, luggage storage over the corridor, a table, seat, lamp, mineral water and a fan.  It was very comfortable and ornate with brass door knobs etc.

Dinner was in the private car: hors d'oeuvres, fish, liver and mashed potatoes, fruit and biscuits.

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