The Pereslavl Narrow Gauge Railway Museum, Russia 2012

The English part of the Museum's website is http://www.kukushka.ru/english/ .

James Waite previously visited the museum in 2009, the pictures from that visit are still available elsewhere on this site. The text below is an updated version of that which formerly appeared on that page, but all the pictures below are new and were taken in June 2012.

It’s often forgotten that narrow gauge railways were enormously important to the old USSR. The earliest lines predated the 1917 revolution and were built to a wide variety of gauges. In 1918, in the very early days of the Communist state, a decision was taken to provide the country with a proper electric system. Many of the power stations were fired by peat and enormous narrow gauge systems developed to transport the peat to the power stations. The rapid development of industry and forestry along with the construction of secondary public railways brought many other lines into existence. Many aspects of narrow gauge construction were standardised including the gauge itself at 750mm. The system reached its greatest extent in the late 1960’s when it’s believed that around 100,000km of line were in use. Since then the story has been one of rapid decline. The Pereslavl narrow gauge museum was set up in the loco shed and yard of an old peat line in 1991 with support from the regional government. By then much stock had been lost but the museum has assembled a good representative range of what was left.

The museum is located at Talitsy, a small village about 20km west of Pereslavl, an old town in a popular holiday area a little more than 120km north east of Moscow on the main route north to Archangel. Initially it had the use of the forestry line into Pereslavl but more recently local political chicanery resulted in most of the railway being closed and its route sold off to a property developer/oligarch. The track was lifted almost at once but fortunately the route runs through a protected area and no development has actually taken place. Now the museum has the use only of a branch line some 3km long which connected Talitsy with the main peat system. At least this branch belongs to the museum and so its future should be secure.

Three of the museum’s steam locos are in working order. They are 0-6-2T F^t-4-028 (Tampella 559/1945), 0-8-0 no. K^p-4-469 (Chrzanow 4384/1955) and 0-8-0 no. Gr-269 (LKM 15366/1950. The locos are only steamed occasionally, partly to conserve them and partly because the museum is a popular attraction for the Russian public and it hasn’t proved possible to provide a safe running track which is secure from trespass. The museum has another three 0-8-0’s which are awaiting restoration.

We visited in June 2012 during a week when the museum was steaming the first two of these locos, mainly for test purposes. A thorough rebuild of F^t-4-028 was completed last year. The Jokioisten Railway in Finland has been very helpful in supplying the original builders’ drawings and technical info such as the code for the correct shade of paint. The loco looked quite magnificent and was running with a replica of an open carriage built in 1923 for the Azerbaijan Oil Trust. Like the original it runs on the chassis of a WW1 military vehicle, the new wooden body being needed as the original had decayed beyond repair. No. K^p-4-469 was put into steam later in the week. It was found to need attention to its front end and to a sticking regulator before it can move, perhaps not surprising as it's been standing out in the cold Russian winters for the past four years since it was last steamed. Much of the remedial work has already been carried out and the remainder should be completed shortly.

The museum has a large range of diesel and petrol locos and railcars. Full details are in the list below. There’s also a comprehensive collection of passenger and freight rolling stock, some of it dating back to pre-revolutionary times. Of particular note to western enthusiasts are a carriage and covered van built for the Pommeranian narrrow gauge system in north-eastern Germany which was dismantled and taken bodily to the USSR as booty after WW2. Like much of this equipment these vehicles ended up at the huge Shatura peat railway system east of Moscow from where they were rescued for the museum in 1990. The museum has assisted in the recovery and return to Germany of two more of these vehicles where they are now on display.

Since 2001 the museum director has been Sergei Dorozhkov, a very keen enthusiast with an immense knowledge about the Russian narrow gauge and who is passionately involved in conserving more of the country’s narrow gauge heritage as and when it is found and becomes available. Sergei is an extremely helpful and hospitable person. Sergei and many of the museum’s volunteers were immensely helpful and hospitable throughout our visit.

The museum’s official opening hours are Wednesdays to Sundays at 10.00 to 17.00 in the winter and to 18.00 in the summer. though Sergei told us that they try never to turn any visitor away and that it must be the only museum anywhere which it may be possible to visit 24 hours a day for 365 days a year! However it’s securely locked up when it’s unattended so stick to the proper times and don’t count on finding anyone around if you call out of hours. It’s hard to see how anyone could get there except by private transport. If you’re heading there from the Moscow direction along the M8 main road to Archangel turn off the main road at the outskirts of Pereslavl where the bypass starts and follow the old road towards the town centre signposted “Переславль-Залесский”. After around 1km turn left at the foot of a hill onto a secondary road signposted (in English) “Peter I Boat” and leave the town passing the kremlin, the old fortified heart of the town, on your left. Pass through Веськóво (Veskovo), a small village about 3kms west of Pereslavl and continue on through the woods, skirting the southern shore of a lake, for around a further 15kms until you reach Купанское (Kupanskiy), the next village. Turn left in the village centre at a large blue sign reading “Музей паровозов 3 км” (steam locomotive museum 3km). If you reach the large red church in the village you’ve gone too far and have missed the turning! From the turning follow a dirt track across sandy terrain for 2.8kms until you reach the village of Talitsy. The museum is at the far end of the village. The museum’s website at http://kukushka.ru now has pages in well-written and idiomatic English. There's a particularly helpful page with directions for reaching the museum and photos of the turnings at the key junctions en route - very useful if the Cyrillic script on the signposts has the potential to baffle you!

This is an excellent museum in every way and it’s particularly impressive considering the difficulties which have beset its history in many ways. Well worth going to visit.

Loco list

Steam locos

F^t-4-028 0-6-2T Tampella 559/1945. One of 30 locos of this class built by the Finnish builder as a part of the country’s post- WW2 reparations to the USSR and the only survivor. Its design closely followed that o a successful class of Finnish narrow gauge locos. Once worked in a tufa quarry in Armenia and was later stored at a pioneer railway in Leninakan (now Gyumri) in Armenia where it was fortunate to survive a major earthquake in 1988. Arrived at the museum in 1990 as its first loco and restored to working order soon afterwards. See http://www.dzd-ussr.ru/towns/gumri/index-eng.html. 

Gr-269 0-8-0 LKM 15366/1950. One of more than 400 of these heavy 0-8- 0’s to have been built by LKM (the old O&K Babelsberg plant) for the USSR as WW2 reparations. The locos incorporated many parts manufactured for LKM by O&K at its plants in West Germany as the Babelsberg plant had been stripped of its machinery by Russian forces immediately after the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945. Gr-269 went new to Tallinn-Vaike in Estonia where it remained until the closing days of narrow gauge steam operation on the Estonian narrow gauge. In about 1960 it was transferred to Ukraine. In 1982 it moved again to Grozny in Chechnya and was placed in store in connection with a project to build a new pioneer railway there which never materialised. Moved from Grozny to the museum in 1991. In working order but has not been steamed for the past 4 years.

157-469 0-8-0 Kolomna 5674/1928 In many ways this is one of the museum’s star exhibits. The 157 class was designed at Kolomna works in 1927, the first post-revolution narrow gauge loco though its design was a development of previous types. The locos are generally considered to be the most successful narrow gauge locos in the USSR. However their axle loading at 6.5 tons made them too heavy for many of the peat lines and only 247 were built, a tiny number by Soviet standards. No. 157-469 is gradually being restored to working order though it’s very much a long-term project. Only four of the class have survived into preservation. No. 157-469 was supplied to the Chernoramensky peat trust near Nizhny Novgorod to serve the city’s power station at Balakhna. It was plinthed in 1978 to mark the power station’s 50th anniversary and arrived at the museum in 1998 after the closure of the Chernoramensky railway system. The loco was test-steamed in 2003 but will require extensive overhaul which is regarded as a long-term project.

K^p-4-469 0-8-0 Chrzanow 4384/1955 Supplied to a sleeper creosoting plant at Zeleny Don, Tatarstan. Arrived at the museum in 1990 and restored to working order soon afterwards. One of what most of us call the PT-4 family though strictly speaking it’s only the earliest members of the class built by Tampella in the late 1940’s which are PT-4’s. The Chinese C2 class are a close copy of the PT-4 design. More than 5,000 locos were built altogether, by far the most numerous narrow-gauge steam loco type that the world has ever seen. The 790 Polish-built locos form the K^p-4 class.

K^p-4-300 0-8-0 Chrzanow 1954, works no. not known. Supplied to a sleeper creosoting plant at Tikhoretsk, Krasnodar in southern Russia.

VP-4-2120 0-8-0 Votkinsk 1958, works number not known. The Votkinsk factory assembled locomotives from stores of ready-made parts so the boiler number, works number, running number and numbers of different parts could be very close, but not the same. This loco has number 2115 on the right-hand motion and number 2126 on the left! The loco worked on a forestry railway at Vysha, Mordovia, about 400km south east of Moscow. It was used for target practice, rolled over onto its side and heavily damaged before being rescued for the museum in 2001 though the boiler and motion are believed to be in good condition. The VP-4’s (and their Votkinsk- built predecessors the VP-1’s and the VP-2’s) differ from the usual PT-4 appearance in that their steam domes and boiler-top sandboxes are housed in separate casings instead of an elongated single case. The appearance of the VP-4’s was radically altered by fitting a steam gas drier above the smokebox with a spark arresting chimney above the drier (though the top part of the chimney is missing from VP-4-2120). VP-4- 2356, built in 1960, was the last steam loco to be constructed for service in the USSR.

Internal combustion locos

MD54-2 4wDM IMZ. Recently restored and in full working order.

MD54-4-1547 BBDM Istye, 1963 Worked at Verbilky china factory and moved to the museum in 1999. In full working order.

ESU-2a-511 BBDM Gubino In working order

Tu4-1984 BBDH Kambarka 1969. One of numerous of these locos built to replace steam on the Soviet narrow gauge from about 1960 onwards.

Tu6D-0165 BBDH Kambarka

PMD3-259 2-2wPMR DMZ 1968 Fire railcar. Worked at the Baksheyevo peatery, part of the huge Shatura system east of Moscow. In full working order.

PD1-?? 2-4wPMR Ex-Kapanskoye Peat Industries. One of a huge series of small railcars built in passenger, ambulance, fire and lorry versions and based on the GAZ-51 lorry produced at the vehicle plant at Nizhny Novgorod. Widely used at peateries and on logging railways in regions without roads.

N-3104 4-2wPMR Shatura S1

Ua 4727 2w-2PMR Kaluga

2-2wPMR Zim, rebuilt Gor’ktorf This limousine, built at the car factory at Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) in the early 1950’s, was put on rails for the nearby Chernoramensk peat trust railway in the 1960’s and used by the railway’s general manager. To western eyes I guess these vehicles look more familiar in the road version carrying leading party members around. Maybe the railway manager had a particularly close relationship with the car factory to have persuaded them to turn out this example for him! Rescued for the museum in 1998 after the closure of the Chernoramensky system.

ECU-U no. 2 A modern industrial 8w diesel stored at the museum on behalf of a group of private enthusiasts.

The museum also has the frame and wheels of a 900mm gauge 0-6-0T probably built by Krauss, Munich in the 1880’s which was found in an abandoned quarry beside the River Oka and part of the frame and wheels of a 750mm gauge E class 0-6-0T built by Kolomna in 1921 for a factory at Yegoryevsk.

Three views of F^t-4-028 and K^p-4-469 outside the old peat railway's engine shed.

A rear view of F^t-4-028.

K^p-4-469 during its test steaming.

VP-4-2120 with its peculiar-looking steam gas drier above the smokebox and K^p-4-300.

Long-derelict K^p-4-300 on the right is no doubt envious as K^p-4-469 raises steam.

K^p-4-469 has steam to spare.

F^t-4-028 with the Azerbaijani carriage passing a level crossing on the Talitsy branch line. The signal is newly acquired and had only been installed earlier in the day, a job which involved the use of the electrically powered rail-mounted crane in the museum's collection. Many of the Soviet peat railways had one of these cranes in their stock. Power was being supplied by ESU-2a-511, one of a large class of purpose-built locos and mobile generators also found on most peat railways.

Sergei and his colleagues kindly drew Gr-269 out of the shed where it normally lives for this evening glint shot.