IS (Joseph Stalin) - passenger locomotive

Some historical photographs of one of the most charismatic steam locomotives of the Soviet era - the high-speed passenger "IS", pre-war production. Design speed - 115 km/h without a fairing, 155 km/h - with an aerodynamic fairing.

IS 20-16 in fairing with courier train (presumably Kursky railway station in Moscow)

IS 20-08 in depot.

The first, experimental, copy of the IS 20-1 steam locomotive, produced by the Kolomna Plant in 1932 (in 1935, production was transferred to the Lugansk/Voroshilovgrad Plant). For steam locomotives without a fairing, the design speed was 115 km/h.

IS steam locomotives, “clad” in an aerodynamic fairing, reached speeds of up to 155 km/h.

Here is another photo from the depot (IS on the left).

Another photo from the Kursk station Moscow, from the shooting point just below.

Before the war (1937-1941), ISs served mainly fast, high-speed lines: Moscow - Leningrad, Moscow - Minsk - western border, Moscow - Kiev, Moscow - Kharkov - Sinelnikovo - Simferopol, Moscow - Rostov-on-Don - Armavir - Minvody, Kiev - Odessa, Moscow - Kirov - Perm. The ISs also drove the “Red Arrow” (see photo of the Moscow train station in Leningrad, 1938).

After the start of the Great Patriotic War, the fate of the IS-s did not turn out very well: almost all the steam locomotives of this series were transported to the east, mainly to the Krasnoyarsk and East Siberian railways, where they participated in the Trans-Siberian military transportation that took place in the second half of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, an extremely tense character. Since the ISs were initially designed for good coals, for service in depots with a fairly high technological level and for strict compliance with regulations and loads, it is not surprising that after a year and a half of very harsh military operation, many of them became completely unusable. After all, this is a peacetime locomotive, not a wartime locomotive. And yet, with their work, the ISs helped to hold out until the arrival of the American Lend-Lease Ea and Em in 1943, without resuming the production of steam locomotives - the capacity of the factories at that time was much more needed for the production of weapons.

But still, quite a few ISs survived the war and then drove trains in the post-war period.
Here is a very interesting photo of an IS driving a train with all-metal carriages (early 50s).

And one more rare photo: two ISs on the tracks and two IS drivers in front of them.

In the 1960s, almost all ICs were cut into metal.
How and why the authentic “Joseph Stalin” monument in Kyiv managed to survive is not entirely clear to me. They say that Pyotr Krivonos, Hero of Socialist Labor, achieved this, but I don’t know if this is true.

For that time it was a very advanced car, both technically and aesthetically. Its elongated cylindrical body with a wide short pipe. it really gave the impression of swiftness, power, and evoked in people a feeling of admiration that, say, a modern passenger airliner evokes today.

Artists loved to draw the locomotive; it appeared on many postcards and stamps of the 30s and 40s. The powerful courier locomotive faithfully served people during the harsh years of the Great Patriotic War: it rushed passenger ambulances, military trains, and ambulance trains weighing a good thousand tons strictly on schedule.

The design of this mainline passenger steam locomotive and a freight locomotive of type 1-5-1 of the FD series began simultaneously. The designers were faced with a difficult task: they needed to create a locomotive that would dramatically increase passenger transportation. What was needed was a steam locomotive capable of developing traction at least 1.5 times greater than the C U, equally suitable for driving postal and passenger, fast and courier trains.

The maximum load (20 tons) from the wheelset on the rails and other parameters suggested that it would be advisable to make the weight of the new passenger locomotive equal to the weight of the freight FD, and this, in turn, led to the equality of the axles - 7.

However, passenger trains are lighter than freight trains and run at higher speeds. Therefore, the number of driving axles of the new locomotive could be taken to be smaller than that of the FD freight locomotive, but the driving wheels should have a larger diameter. It was adopted, like the steam locomotive of the C U series, 1850 mm. Of the two options for axle formulas 2-4-1 and 1-4-2, the designers preferred the second. In this case, it was more convenient for them to position the boiler. It was placed above the crew section.

In February 1932, K. Sushkin, L. Lebedyansky, A. Slominsky and other designers of the Central Locomotive Design Bureau began developing working drawings, and on November 5 - just six months later - the Kolomna Machine-Building Plant produced the first steam locomotive of type 1-4-2. On November 5, 1932, the new locomotive was tested, and on November 7 it arrived in Moscow. From June 8 to September 19, 1933, the locomotive underwent testing, during which it developed power of up to 3,200 hp. With. Under normal operating conditions, it operated at 2,500 hp. s., which is twice as much as that of the C U series locomotive.

The locomotive's power was increased because the designers used the same boiler as a freight locomotive and introduced some technical improvements. For example, mechanized heating not only greatly facilitated the work of the locomotive crew, but also made it possible to almost double the boiler boost (the amount of steam removed from 1 m 2 of the boiler heating surface per hour) and bring it to 80 kg/m 2 hour versus 40-50 kg /m 2 hour for steam locomotives with manual heating.

To observe the combustion process, it was necessary to quickly open and close the firebox doors. This was done using a special machine using compressed air. As soon as the driver’s assistant lightly pressed the pedal, the firebox doors instantly opened. The spool chamber is of considerable size - in the C U series steam locomotive this principle has already been applied - and the straightened steam inlet pipes served as a kind of steam accumulators, which reduced losses when steam was admitted into the cylinders of the machine. To facilitate the release of exhaust steam, the spool rod was made in the form of a hollow pipe. As a result, the exhaust steam exited each half of the cylinder through both the front and rear exhaust ports.

To better navigate the curves of the railway track, the runner and the first moving axles were rigidly connected to each other and formed, as it were, a biaxial cart. The designers also took into account the thermal elongation of the boiler. The booth was not mounted on the frame of the locomotive, but attached to the boiler. Thus, when the boiler lengthened during heating, it moved along with the firebox, which later began to be used on other locomotives.

During 1934-1935, the Kolomna Machine-Building Plant manufactured 5 steam locomotives of the FD series. In 1936-1941, they drove the “Red Arrow” between Moscow and Leningrad, serving such busy passenger routes as Moscow - Mineralnye Vody, Moscow - Minsk and others, replacing locomotives of the S U, S, L series. By the end of the second Five-Year Plan, steam locomotives of this series became the main ones in the country's passenger locomotive fleet.

Passenger locomotive FD p (IS) series

Axial formula	1-4-2
Operating weight	134 t
Hitch weight	82 t
Diameter of driving wheels	1850 mm
Cylinder diameter	670 mm
Piston stroke	770 mm
Steam pressure in the boiler	15 atm
Superheated steam temperature	350° C
Evaporating surface of the boiler	295 sq.m
Grate area	7.04 sq.m
Design speed	115 km/h
Estimated traction force	16,200 kg
Power at design traction force	2000 hp
Maximum efficiency when tested	7,45%

Based on materials from the magazine Tekhnika Molodezhi

· Railway equipment

Lyubchenko D.I., Trubacheva V.F.

Such a monument at the Bryansk-2 station could become the second in the CIS
exhibit of the steam locomotive IS

Table 1. Passenger locomotives of pre-revolutionary Russia

Poster by Pavel Sokolov

It would seem that elegantly folded metal, national pride, but what a fate! Destroyed as a hostile class, at the root, because of one name.
And yet something remains. Kievsky Station, which has its own museum of railway equipment, stands out from all other stations of the former USSR not so much for its beauty in the architectural style of the times of the same Stalin, but for the free-standing, and even on a pedestal, steam locomotive IS (we placed a photo of this instance under the title of the article) . True, there is a version that another “last of the Mohicans” may be entirely surviving (though conditionally) after the debunking of the personality cult, and a huge concrete block the size of a steam locomotive at the Bryansk-2 railway station gives every reason to hope for this - protruding from it front part of the IS, or FDP No. 2549.

But at the time of its creation, the IS steam locomotive was the most powerful passenger locomotive in Europe, and was and remains the most powerful Soviet steam locomotive. He received the Grand Prix Award at the Paris World Exhibition in 1937 and the secret dream of any machinist to work on the idol of “all times and peoples.” And if Soviet posters depicted I.V. himself. Stalin as a driver of an IS steam locomotive (and you are unlikely to find Stalin in an IS tank), then this means something, which means that it is useful to take Polish courses in Kharkov.

NEW PRINCIPLE - LESS IS BETTER!

If you come across information anywhere that the IS locomotive was a passenger version of the FD, do not believe it. The efficiency of the FD locomotive did not even reach 7%, the efficiency of the IS locomotive was 7.45%. These locomotives were created almost simultaneously, with different goals and obviously not in development of each other. If FD looked like a giant, heavyweight, push-pull, then IS gave the impression of a certain lightness and sophistication of forms. The constructive use of many identical components could hardly bring the FD closer to the IS - the first appeared as a result of the development of the American steam locomotives Ta and Tb, the latter - the domestic SU with its own separate family of passenger ancestors and relatives of the Russian school of locomotive building...

Even in the Russian Empire, they realized the problem of operating numerous series of steam locomotives. Despite timid orders for the unification of machines, there were about a hundred series and modifications of steam locomotives in the country. Moreover, steam locomotives of different power were assigned to strictly defined areas, depending on certain operating conditions for which they were created, and fuel. Even suburban passenger trains had their own special series of locomotives for specific areas. During the First World War, this system suffered horrific failures, the supply of spare parts and the variety of repairs were confused and haphazard to such an extent that the tsarist authorities had to resort to purchasing new imported locomotives in 1915. But that didn’t help either. By the time Russia exited the war, the number of steam locomotives requiring repairs reached 60%.

The route speed of both passenger and freight trains of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century rarely exceeded 25 km/h, and the train schedule implied very long stops, while in the period from 1893 to 1913, passenger traffic increased almost fourfold.

Steam locomotive K U

Steam locomotive S U

Steam locomotive type M with number 160-02 developed by A.S. Raevsky with a 2-4-0 wheel formula. It is curious that the runner pair behind the cylinders had a larger diameter than the runner pair in front. There are foreign notes in the locomotive - the sloping windows of the driver's booth, a high coal bunker, a spacious area in front of the smoke box

IS20-01 with a four-axle tender during testing by specialists from the Kolomna plant

Moreover, it was in Russia that the world's first sleeping cars, adapted for long-term passenger travel, appeared. This is understandable, because such vast expanses cannot be covered in a day.
By the beginning of the First World War, Russia had its own worthy, strong and promising school of passenger locomotives (see Table 1).
If in the Russian Empire the railway, at the very least, was forced to carry out work to unify its locomotive fleet, then with the advent of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks took up this matter with all determination - the introduction of minimal differences between the series of steam locomotives made it possible to quickly restore the country's economy, destroyed by two wars. peaceful rails.

The first to thoroughly tackle this problem was the People's Commissar of Railways L.D. Trotsky. He voiced his revolutionary ideas in the report “On Transport” at the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920: “The number of necessary types of locomotive can be reduced to a minimum number, three or four. Of course, with such a repair procedure, all work should speed up several times... To develop the front of mass repairs at factories that would specialize in individual parts so that the repairs would eventually turn into a new steam locomotive building, into the production of new similar Soviet steam locomotives.” As can be seen from the table above, L.D. Trotsky had very convincing arguments to justify the need to unify new Soviet steam locomotives.
As a result, locomotive factories were redistributed to repair strictly defined series of locomotives - specialization emerged. And following this, the production of spare parts was adjusted - instead of depots, they were now handled by specialized factories, where production planning and delivery times were introduced.
In other words, Trotsky’s goals led through the unification of components and spare parts to the production of a minimum variety of steam locomotives. These goals were successfully implemented in the creation of all Soviet steam locomotives - from the first-born FD to the latest LV and OR.

The IS steam locomotive was unified with the FD in terms of boiler, steam engine, axle boxes, axles, spring suspension, etc. This is quite a lot.

GENETIC EGO - SPEED!

Man still strives to achieve great speeds - in everything. In terms of locomotive traction, this looked like two ways - increasing the boiler boost (increasing the speed/amount of water evaporation per unit time) and increasing the diameter of the driving axles (with a constant piston stroke). The second method was simpler and more reliable, but the first could lead to an explosion of the boiler, and this sometimes happened. In this regard, we will briefly dwell only on some of the most significant moments of the world passenger locomotive construction.

The world's first recorded speed record was set on October 8, 1829 in England. On the Manchester-Liverpool railway, locomotive races, the so-called Rainhill competitions, took place. Their winner was Stephenson's steam locomotive "Rocket", which reached a speed of either 38.6 km/h or 48 km/h. However, now this is no longer important. Another thing is more significant - then engineering thought about the 100 km/h bar.

Reliable data on the taking of this record, which is understandable, are vague. If you believe the British, then in September 1839, their steam locomotive “Hurricane” with a 1-1-1 wheel arrangement and a driving wheel diameter of over 3 meters reached this speed. If you believe the Americans, then it was their steam locomotive type 2-2-0 No. 999 with the Imperial State Express train, which on May 10, 1893 reached a speed of 181 km/h.

The Russian Empire did not follow the train either. Since 1907, a type B courier locomotive has been running at a maximum speed for Russian roads of 125 km/h. Of course, one type of locomotive was not enough. Without further ado, in 1911 the Russian Kulibins simply increased the diameters of the moving axles of the K-type steam locomotive, which entailed an awkward raising of the boiler above the axles. Under the designation KU (K reinforced), such a locomotive was produced until 1914. The speed of this “Cuckoo” reached 115 km/h.

QUICK START

One of the features of railway transportation during the years of the end of the civil war and intervention, when the system of train movement according to schedules was collapsed, was the so-called “leader” trains (leading, out of turn), equipped to carry out targeted government tasks.

The first IC has just rolled out of the factory gates. The inscription “Stalin” will be painted on it (pictured). With such an inscription, IS20-01 will go to Moscow for the first time, after which the inscription will be made in three-dimensional letters. It is still a “non-original” tender, there are conical nozzles on the spool cylinders. For the display in Moscow, an inscription will be placed on board the tender: “There are no fortresses that the Bolsheviks could not take. Stalin"

By May 1, 1935, Komsomolskaya Square of the capital of the USSR was prepared in a special way, the stylized IS still had to finish decorating the boiler... Below you can see the silhouettes of two people

Table 2. Comparison of design characteristics of the first IS and FD20-1

More and more often, such trains were also intended for individual passenger routes. The development of a new serial passenger steam locomotive, capable of reducing the frequency of high-speed trains by increasing the length of trains, was already considered as one of the ways to restore the transportation system. Many revolutionary specialists at that time considered projects of structurally complex multi-cylinder steam locomotives with cranked axles. The arguments for such ideas were promises to introduce a new, proletarian steam locomotive construction, and rejection of them was considered almost an inhibition of progress. In the years of devastation and shortage of everything, the entire third cylinder, installed under the frame and additionally rotating the wheelsets through the crankshaft, would significantly increase the power of the locomotive and reduce fuel consumption. As a starting point, the already existing locomotives of the latest pre-revolutionary developments were considered - passenger steam locomotives of type C, SV and LP, but soon all of them ceased to satisfy the Bolshevik requirements for the accelerated construction of a new powerful state. From this perspective, the need arose to create more advanced locomotives.

So, in 1923, under the leadership of engineer A.S. Raevsky at the Petrograd plant "Krasny Putilovets" began the development of a project for a new three-cylinder passenger steam locomotive of type 2-4-0 with a wheel diameter of 1700 mm and a single-cranked axle. The locomotive design included the introduction of a number of complex innovations, namely:

With a three-cylinder engine and the drive cranks positioned at an angle of 120°, the pins of the twins were placed in the wheel cranks at an angle of 90° (like two-cylinder steam locomotives);
- a firebox with an afterburning chamber, which had not been used before on Russian locomotives;
- part of the weight of the locomotive was transferred to the tender through the coupling;
- the design of the connecting rod mechanism, which made it possible to position the inner cylinder horizontally and not obliquely;
- crank axle of the second drive wheel pair, etc.

This locomotive received the designation M. However, despite Raevsky’s desire to simplify the design as much as possible, the locomotive turned out to be quite complex. Therefore, in 1924, immediately after the death of A.S. Raevsky, the entire project was seriously reworked and significantly simplified, even the tilt of the third cylinder was returned, and in 1927 the first steam locomotive M160-01 was built at Krasny Putilovets. Later they were built at the Lugansk plant.

M locomotives had a number of significant shortcomings, the main ones of which were the significant tilt of the internal cylinder, slipping, rough running, sideways rolling, shaking with hard impacts of the boiler on the frame (!!!), insufficient size of the firebox and ash pan. In addition to all this, the third cylinder was of little use - there was not enough steam for it after the two outer cylinders. However, this experience turned out to be of little intelligibility.

All these problems were significantly reduced in the MR locomotive, in which the ill-fated third cylinder was eliminated, the cranked axle was replaced with a straight one, and the steam pressure in the boiler was increased from 13 to 14.5 atm. With such innovations, fuel consumption has even decreased. The weight of the locomotive was 99 tons (rail load from the axle was 16.5 tons), the coupling weight was 69 tons. There are documentary video footage about this locomotive; it even appeared in the feature film “Government Official” in the 1920s.

And yet, in general, the unsatisfactory performance of the M steam locomotives - which is why only 100 of them were produced - served as the basis for the design of the next passenger steam locomotive. The technical design of such a steam locomotive was completed in 1929 at the Kolomna Locomotive Plant, with a grate area of 6 m2 and a diameter of driving wheels of 1700 mm. The new locomotive received the foreign name “Mikado” due to its 1-4-1 wheel arrangement (many wheel arrangements had personal foreign nicknames; the SU with its own axle arrangement, for example, was often called “Prairie” or “Soviet Prairie”). However, due to the already insufficient power for the early 1930s, this locomotive did not go into production.

The only viable steam locomotive developed in the early 1920s was the SU, created at the Petrograd “Krasny Putilovets” as a development of the pre-revolutionary SV. And since it was not created “from scratch”, like the FD or IS, this locomotive can only be considered with a stretch as the first Soviet passenger locomotive. In reality, the first and “from scratch” were the FD freight locomotive and the IS passenger locomotive.
The SU was developed in parallel with the M-type steam locomotive, but had one advantage - minimal improvements in comparison with its predecessor, the SV:

The length of the firebox and smoke box has been increased;
- the number of flame and smoke pipes has been changed;
- improved steam superheater;
- the boiler is raised relative to the rails;
- increased steam pressure in the boiler, etc.

In comparison with the M locomotive, the alterations were truly insignificant and in the shortest possible time, which determined the success of the new locomotive.
The SU developed a speed of 115 km/h, had elegant shapes, and an efficiency of about 7.5%. It was produced from 1924 to 1951 and throughout the existence of the IS steam locomotive it was a serious competitor. According to its characteristics, the SU is considered one of the best passenger locomotives in the world. It is clear that, released in 1925, it became the standard and starting point for both the NKPS and designers...

"OVERCOME!"

But there was still a need to surpass; by the end of the 1920s, the SU began to seem rather weak, especially in the conditions of the accelerated industrialization of the country. A train with a maximum length of 12 cars and a total weight of up to 600 tons, driven by this locomotive, according to the calculations of the NKPS theorists, could no longer support the growing passenger turnover of the Country of Soviets. Here it was necessary to increase either the number and intensity of traffic of SU trains, or the number of cars (in one train) with a constant number of trains on the route. And this entailed the development of a more powerful passenger locomotive. Naturally, its power, speed, and therefore weight, must exceed the control unit by at least one and a half times. So, it turned out that the new heavy steam locomotive had to drive 20 four-axle passenger cars at a speed of at least 100 km/h, and if the same 12 cars were driven, then at a much higher speed.

But it was impossible to completely abandon the SU - this locomotive was ideal for suburban transportation and seemed indispensable for easy track coverage, which was so abundant in the entire railway network of the country. We have already dwelled on the problems of railway covering (NiT No. 8, 2012), analyzing the FD steam locomotive, but there is no point in repeating this here, because the IS steam locomotive was in equal weight categories with the FD and received the same problems that the heavy one had already encountered FD.
In order to study foreign experience, the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1930 bought from the United States under contract the drawings of freight steam locomotives Ta and Tb and ten such locomotives in addition. However, the study and implementation of advanced and complex technologies for Russian factories took time, and the United Main Political Directorate (OGPU) considered such “sabotage” unacceptable. As a result, in April 1930, many specialists led by P.I. Krasovsky, who previously held the position of head of the Traction Department of the Central Railway Administration of the NKPS, found themselves gathered in one special design bureau, but behind bars, and were forced to study overseas experience under the supervision of the Transport Department of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. One of several parallel tasks before them was the development of a powerful high-speed passenger steam locomotive.

The developers were given the task of creating a new steam locomotive with an axial load on the rails from the driving wheel pairs of no more than 20 tons, with a traction force of at least one and a half times greater than the control unit, and there should be a maximum number of interchangeable parts with the freight locomotive being developed in parallel (hello to Trotsky! ). The design speed was assumed to be 100 km/h.

Preliminary sketches showed that it would be advisable to make the weight of the new passenger locomotive equal to the weight of the freight locomotive (future FD), which led to equality of the axles. We agreed on seven. However, passenger trains are shorter and therefore lighter than freight trains, and they run at high speeds. Therefore, the diameter of the driving axes must be made as large as possible, and the number of driving axes, of course, must be reduced. After some deliberation (“the father’s” supervision of the OGPU in action), their diameter was taken to be 1850 mm, like that of the SU steam locomotive. The large dimensions of the axles entailed the problem of the location of the firebox, so of the two options for axial formulas 2-4-1 and 1-4-2, the latter - with two small runner pairs under a huge firebox - seemed logical. Taking into account the wishes of the party and government, the firebox, boiler and cylinders were unified with the cargo FD.

In February 1932, the preliminary design of the future IS was completed (the preliminary design of the cargo FD was completed in April 1931), and it was immediately transferred to the Kolomna Locomotive Plant to the designers of the Central Locomotive Design Bureau of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR K.N. Sushkin, M.N. Shchukin (son of the developer of the pre-revolutionary steam locomotive Shch N.L. Shchukin), A.V. Slomyansky, V.V. Filippov, A.A. Chirkov and
L.S. Lebedyansky (future author of the first post-war steam locomotive L) and others for the development of working drawings. And already in April, the working design of a new powerful steam locomotive of type 1-4-2, which was given the designation 2P (1P was assigned to the FD steam locomotive), was completed (for the FD steam locomotive the working design was completed in August 1931). The drawings were immediately transferred to production.

Such short development times (even shorter than those of FD) were achieved through judicious borrowing. The design of the rear bogie, which supports the firebox, was borrowed from the Ta locomotive purchased in the USA (the single-axle rear bogie Tb “came to the yard” of the FD). Since the sum of all axles of a locomotive must satisfy seven, as discussed above, only one axle remained for the front bogie, although the laws of a high-speed locomotive required two. And they tried, although not always, to comply with this requirement all over the world; even in our country, the subsequent P36 passenger locomotive had two front runner pairs. Without hesitation, the front axle was taken from FD. Many units were also unified - the FD and IS had them in common, and the coal feeder (stoker) was the same. But in comparison with the FD tender, they decided to make the six-axle tender more elegant in appearance - they gave it beveled edges of the sides, increased water reserves and, to counter the increase in the height of the tender, reduced the diameters of the wheels.

We decided to repeat the successful solution with the steam regulator from the FD - a device with which the driver injects steam into the cylinders (similar to the gas pedal on a car). The regulator is located in the steam hood above the boiler and collects steam. Previously it consisted of one or two valves. Single-valve regulators had a very large opening force, and in two-valve regulators, a small valve helped open the large one and reduced the driver’s efforts to act on the lever. In addition, the use of a small valve made it possible to save steam on the uniform, stable movement of the locomotive, which even gave rise to the expression “walking on a small valve.” On the FD and IS locomotives, the steam regulator had five valves.

The inclined placement of the stairs to the driver's box was also repeated. This turned out to be extremely convenient in comparison with the vertical ladders on steam locomotives of tsarist times.
The question also arose about the color of the locomotive. When choosing a coloring for the new passenger locomotive, they decided to introduce the successful green color of the SU locomotive, by analogy with the color of passenger cars, into the factory standard from now on, but at the request of the locomotive crews, sometimes they deviated from this and painted it both black and blue. But nevertheless, green for a long time became the main color for all subsequent passenger and then freight locomotives of the Soviet Union.
It is interesting to compare the design characteristics of the first IS and FD20-1.

Despite the presence of its own, and even an all-Union, design bureau, the technological preparation of the production of the Kolomna Plant for the production of IS did not lead to independence, just as it happened at the Lugansk Locomotive Plant, where the first FDs were already being assembled at full speed. The Kolomna plant was able to master the production of steam engine cylinders, the frame of the rear bogie and the tender, the Krasnoye Sormovo plant had to be given the stamping of sheets for the steam boiler, steam superheaters, etc., and the Izhora plant was loaded with the side panels of the main frame. Subsequently, such a significant share of cooperation had a negative impact on the timely construction of six-axle tenders for both the FD and the IS themselves. And yet, using the same Lugansk methods - shock nights, three-shift work, working weekends, but six months later - on November 4, 1932 - the Kolomna plant produced the first steam locomotive of the 2P type (the Luhansk residents built the first FD on August 10, 1931 for 100 workers days). The next day, the locomotive made its first successful runs and, like the FD locomotive, they began to hastily prepare it for Moscow to demonstrate the next proletarian achievement on the day of the 14th anniversary of the October Revolution.

(To be continued)

The year 1937 became a landmark year for Paris due to the World Exhibition taking place there. "Iska" (the affectionate name for the passenger locomotive "Joseph Stalin") received the Grand Prix on it.

At that time it was Europe. It remained so in the history of Soviet steam locomotive building.

Ahead of time

The IS steam locomotive was a passenger modification of the already existing freight steam locomotive "Felix Dzerzhinsky", produced from 1931 to 1941 at the Lugansk Locomotive Plant. It was created due to the increased volume of trade turnover - industrialization was underway in the country. The IS steam locomotive was a 1-4-2 type. What does it mean? It had 4 moving axles in one rigid frame, one running and 2 supporting. The IS20-241 model was presented at the World Exhibition. The opinion was unanimous - this locomotive was ahead of its time.

A completely new locomotive

By the time the production of this technological miracle began, powerful locomotives for passenger transportation had already been created in the USA - “Mountain”, “Hudson” and “Locovanna”. The North American freight carrier Berkchir had the same axial formula as the IS.

But in some respects it was fundamentally different from the Soviet steam locomotive, designed for heavy postal and passenger transportation over long distances, moving at low speed on heavy “2a” type rails.

Prerequisites

The IS locomotive did not appear out of nowhere. Soviet steam locomotive construction began to actively develop in the 20s of the last century. Taking into account all the accumulated experience, the Mikado steam locomotive project was created at the Kolomensky Plant in 1929. But the project was not implemented, and in 1931 they began to create a more powerful locomotive. One of the main requirements was maximum interchangeability of parts with steam engines of the Felix Dzerzhinsky series. In addition, the IS steam locomotive had to have a traction force that was 50% higher than that of the SU type steam locomotive, or “Sormovo reinforced” (“Sushka”), produced since 1924.

Plans exceeded

In February, the sketch was submitted to the Central Locomotive Bureau for detailed design, and in April the calculations were completed.

The assigned tasks were exceeded - the designers managed to make not only the cylinder, boiler, axleboxes, axles and other parts interchangeable with the FD, they made it possible to use its spring suspension scheme (a system for adjusting body vibrations). In April, the developments go from the design bureau to the locomotive-building plant in Kolomna, which, with the participation of the Izhora enterprise, produces the first steam locomotive in early October 1932.

More than impressive performance

By the end of December of the same year, the second locomotive was assembled. Throughout 1933, this model was tested on three railways - Southern, Ekaterininskaya and Oktyabrskaya. The average power that the locomotive showed was 2500 hp, and once on an 8% climb on the Moscow-Bologoye section it reached 3400 hp. The average figure was more than twice (planned to be only 50%) the capacity of "Drying". The boiler boost was also the largest in Europe (80 kgf/m².h), exceeding even the “FD” indicator (65 kgf/m².h).

Put it on stream

At the next party congress, held in 1934, an important decision was made - steam locomotives of the IS series ("Joseph Stalin") in the next, second five-year plan should become the main ones in the country's railway passenger fleet.

But it did not have the capacity to launch such locomotives into mass flow. By the end of 1935, only six of them were produced. However, the new workshops of the Voroshilov Machine-Building Plant, built in 1927-1931, could begin producing locomotives with block cylinders and block frames.

Even better, even more beautiful

In 1936 alone, 3 locomotives were produced. Some details were improved compared to the Kolomna steam engines, for example, these machines had a 6-axle tender instead of the 4-axle that existed in the previous six. The water tender became safer and had a more elongated shape, which improved the appearance of the locomotive itself and the entire train. And already in 1937, the plant, having switched to large-scale production, produced 105 locomotives. The largest number, 174, were produced in 1940; before the start of the war in 1941, another 81 locomotives were produced. The last steam engine of this series was completed in Ulan-Ude in 1942. A total of 649 units of Joseph Stalin steam locomotives were produced.

Experimental model

In 1937, the IS 20 16 steam locomotive was created as an experiment. The model had a streamlined shape. You look at this locomotive and agree with people asking why, having made such perfect machines back in 1937, the country is now buying similar ones abroad? Moreover, back in 1930, comprehensive tests of a steam locomotive in a streamlined casing were carried out in a wind tunnel. As a result, it turned out that thanks to the shape, you can gain 200-250 hp in power, and the speed also increased. A locomotive of this shape with disc wheels could reach speeds of up to 160 km/h, which was an undisputed record at that time. Outwardly, he was very, very aesthetic.

The cabin of the locomotive was at the end. The tender itself is four-axle, on two bogies. The IS locomotive was equipped with a Westinghouse brake. It can be added that the boiler had a wide firebox, which was located above the frame and had an American-style radial ceiling and combustion chamber. A miracle of Soviet technical thought was the IS 20 16 steam locomotive, whose technical characteristics were so perfect that they did not correspond to the roads. Trains driven by such locomotives were called courier trains in Soviet times. Detailed technical specifications, understandable to specialists, are widely available.

Some data

It can only be noted that the Joseph Stalin locomotive had seven axles. Of these, four were leading. As noted above, it differed from the FD steam locomotive in its wheel arrangement. Its mass was 133 tons, adhesion weight was 88 tons, average speed was 100-115 km/h. These locomotives were powered by superheated steam and a single-acting two-cylinder engine.

The pride of engineering, the IS locomotive, is depicted on three Soviet stamps. In a popular Soviet film released after the war (The Train Goes East), this locomotive is the focus.

Not far from the Kyiv main station there is a steam locomotive on a high pedestal with the inscription “USSR” and the number FDp 20-578. But in fact, this is the only surviving one in the world "Joseph Stalin" (IS), a high-speed passenger steam locomotive, the pre-war flagship of the railways of the Soviet Union, which carried the Red Arrow to Leningrad and fast courier trains to the Crimea and the Caucasus. The IP was exhibited in 1938 in Paris, at the World Exhibition, and received awards. And FDp is just its Khrushchev renaming from the late 50s.
That’s how fate ultimately decreed it - of the more than 600 ISs released, only this one, in Kyiv, has been preserved in its entirety. Nowhere else. Approximately half of them “burned out” in the unusual intensive work of transporting military trains in 1941-1942. on the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the rest were mercilessly cut into metal in the 1960s. It's a shame, of course, but it's true.
It is not surprising that the Kiev IP was in my plans as a mandatory object for inspection and filming.

Kiev "IS" can be found if you go from the main station Kiev-Passazhirsky along the covered walkway over the tracks to where the new large station building, built in the early 2000s, is located, and then follow the road to the left.
You can see him there, in the distance.

Let's come closer.
The IS is installed on a high pedestal and is located behind a fence.

Front view.

The projection is slightly from the side.

Side view (locomotive without tender).

Cabin and room.

View of the entire locomotive, with a tender (it has six axles, as you can see).

Nearby is the entrance to the Kyiv locomotive depot.

And now - some historical photographs of the IS steam locomotive in its original, pre-Khrushchev form (all photographs, except for “Red Arrow,” are from the collection of Ivan Andreev).

IS 20-08 in depot.

IS steam locomotives, “clad” in an aerodynamic fairing, reached speeds of up to 155 km/h.

Here is another photo from the depot (IS on the left).

IS 20-16 with a train (presumably the Moscow - Leningrad line).

Another shot, from a slightly lower shooting point.

But still, quite a few ISs survived the war and then drove trains in the post-war period.
Here is a very interesting photo of an IS driving a train with all-metal carriages (early 50s).

And one more rare photo: two ISs on the tracks and two IS drivers in front of them.

In the 1960s, almost all ICs were cut into metal.
How and why the real “Joseph Stalin” managed to survive in Kyiv is not entirely clear to me.
They say that Pyotr Krivonos, Hero of Socialist Labor, achieved this, but I don’t know if this is true.

To be continued.