Facebook Narrow Gauge Russia

[Mike Fox]

Received an email tonight, about a facebook page in for NGR, which I figure is Narrow Gauge Railway Russia. Interesting photos and scenes. Thought I'd share.

https://www.facebook.com/NGR.ru

[john d Stone]

Interesting. I hope WW&F isn't considering a streamlined shroud for #9 or 10. Also, their WW2 reenactment photos look a bit more intense than any I've seen at stateside museums. Hope there weren't any casualties! Some of the photos appear to be taken on a Rumanian logging line. There are several Youtube videos of that line, including a nice one on a winter, steam-powered photo freight. I'll try to find it.
Found it: https://youtu.be/HZPbff9wbx0
They do some pretty loose railroading. Poling, gravity stuff, link and pin couplers. How'd you like to be the brakeman who seems to always be riding the log racks?

Did you notice the 750mm gauge dining car on the Russian sight?

Thanks Mike!

[Greg Klein]

If you scroll through the pictures, there is some really neat equipment!  Rail tucks,cars,buses, a plow that looks like a house...

[john d Stone]

Here's a Polish narrow gauge sight. 600mm, 750mm and meter gauges.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/NarrowRail/145737922206954

I really like the 600mm 0-8-0 #805, class PX38. Kind of US looking. Looking at some of the equipment on the Russian sight, they really do think outside the box!

[Steve Klare]

Years ago I was on Russia's Sakhalin Island (I talk about it somewhere else here...)

This was a northern Prefecture of Japan until the Soviets came flooding in during the last weeks of WWII and booted them out. It's been Russian ever since. As a consequence, the Soviet and then the Russian governments operated a decent sized 42" narrow gauge line for 60 years, including Japanese Steam left behind until the late 1970s.

Since the end of Soviet days they've discovered the place has huge resources of oil and natural gas and have decided to integrate the island more closely with mainland Russia. (Part of the Problem: Japan still wants it back.)  Part of this  move is a possible direct connection to the Russian Railways system by a fixed bridge or tunnel to Siberia, but first they want to fix their gauge disconnect.

The old Cape Gauge system is becoming dual gauged right now with Russian Standard Gauge (5',0"). It's entirely possible some day not very long from now they'll do what they did from Alamosa to Antonito: lift that middle rail and call it a day.

[Philip Marshall]

Very interesting! Sakhalin Island remains disputed territory (Japan still claims it, and the Kuril Islands as well) and as a result of that there was never a peace treaty between Russia and Japan at the end of the WWII, which I guess means they're still technically at war.

I've never been to Sakhalin but if it's anything like Hokkaido just to the south then it must have some lovely scenery. I visited Hokkaido in 2007 and it was easily my favorite part of Japan: rocky coastline, forested mountains, little farms and towns in the valleys. They also have some nice narrow gauge (Cape Gauge) railroad museums there. It was like an Asian version of Maine.  

[Steve Klare]

It's a fascinating place: kind of at the crossroads of the major far east powers, which means depending on who held the upper hand militarily at the moment, they marched in and kicked the other guy out.

The Russians took it from the Japanese in 1945. The Japanese took it from the Russians 40 years before.

We were in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the capitol city. The Soviets doing business the ways the Soviets did, when they marched into Toyohara (The Japanese name) they tore down every building but the governor's palace, rebuilt with Soviet buildings, established Lenin square, and gradually shoved the Japanese residents onto boats headed for Hokkaido when mainland Russians showed up to take their place (most of whom didn't really want to move there...).  There were many Koreans there who the Japanese brought as slave labor to work the coal mines. The Soviets wouldn't let them go. After the end of the Soviet Union some of their descendants tried moving to South Korea and found they weren't really at home there either.

It's like Hokkaido: very mountainous and quite beautiful.

I would loved to have seen the railroad run, but we were there as part of a group and not allowed to run loose. All I could do was press my face against the window whenever we drove across a crossing!

It was obviously some kind of narrow gauge, but I didn't find out until I got home and Googled it!