The method of transporting goods in carts along longitudinal guides was invented in ancient times. In the 15th - 16th centuries in Europe, some factories already used railroads, along which trolleys with goods were moved manually or with the help of horse traction (for a relatively short distance). Such roads also appeared in Russia. Initially, they used wooden rails and wooden trolleys.
One of the largest horse-rail roads appeared in 1810 at the Zmeinogorsk mine (the current Altai Territory). The rails were already metal, had a convex surface. The line was 1,876 meters long and had a track gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in).
The moment of the birth of the railway is considered to be the beginning of movement on the rail tracks of a mechanical crew. motherland railways is the UK. At the beginning of the 19th century, the first steam locomotives were built and tested there. In 1825, the world's first public railway opened, connecting the cities of Stockton (Stockton-on-Tees) and Darlington (Darlington). The length of this railway was 40 kilometers, the gauge was 1435 mm (later this gauge became an unrecognized global standard).
The author adheres to the following point of view: railroad tracks on which locomotive traction has never been used for the movement of rolling stock (the muscular strength of animals and (or) humans, cable traction has been used or is used), are not railways. In the lists of narrow-gauge railways, such rail tracks are entered "optionally".
In exceptional cases, rail tracks that use only cable traction can be considered as railways (example - "cable tram" in the city of San Francisco, many funiculars).
The rail track becomes a railway from the moment locomotive traction appears, that is, from the moment the first locomotive (or trolley, multiple unit train) passes along it.
Russia entered the "epoch of the railway" in 1834. The birthplace of Russian railways is the city of Nizhny Tagil. At the mine, located near Mount Vysokaya, the first trip was made by a steam locomotive created by the father and son Cherepanovs. The first Russian railway was short (length 854 meters), had a wide gauge (1645 mm). The steam locomotive was destined to work for a short time - soon horse traction began to be used again instead of it.
The officially recognized date of foundation of Russian railways is 1837. Then traffic was opened along the line St. Petersburg - Tsarskoe Selo - Pavlovsk, 23 kilometers long. Her track was also wide - 1829 mm (6 feet).
In 1843-51, the construction of the first major highway, the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway, took place. It was decided to install a track width of 5 feet (1524 mm, later - 1520 mm) on it. It was this gauge that became the standard for domestic railways. Meanwhile, in foreign Europe and in North America another gauge standard was adopted - 1435 mm.
The consequences of this decision in the middle of the 19th century are estimated inconsistently. On the one hand, the difference in gauge helped us in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War - the enemy could not immediately use the railways in the occupied territory. At the same time, this hinders international traffic, leads to significant costs for the replacement of wagon bogies and transshipment of goods at border stations.
Variable gauge bogies have been around for a long time, but are still expensive and difficult to maintain. Therefore, in Russia they have not yet received distribution. As for abroad, passenger trains, made up of wagons capable of moving on roads with different gauges, run between Spain and France on a regular basis. In modern Japan, there are wagons that can switch from 1435 mm gauge tracks to a gauge that clearly falls under the definition of narrow - 1067 mm.
The advent of narrow gauge railways
Narrow gauge railways appeared several decades later than broad gauge railways. Several factors prevented the spread of narrow gauge railways for a long time, one of the main ones was that the narrow gauge was considered unreliable in operation, more prone to accidents than the wide gauge. It was widely believed that with an increase in the gauge, the probability of a train crash decreases.
In 1836, the Ffestiniog horse-drawn railroad was opened in North West Wales (Great Britain). The length was 21 kilometers, the track width was 597 mm. The road was designed to transport oil shale from the mining site to the seaport. In the empty direction, the trolleys were pulled by horses; in the freight direction, the trains moved without the use of traction due to the presence of a slope (while the horses were transported in special trolleys).
In 1863, steam locomotives began to be used on the road. Perhaps the moment of transition of the Festignog horse-drawn railway to steam traction can be considered the date of the appearance of the world's first narrow-gauge railway.
During the 19th century in Russia there was a large number of narrow gauge railroads, on which horse or hand traction was used. To facilitate the walking of animals between the rails, a "foot" - a wooden flooring - was often laid. Horse-drawn narrow-gauge railroads were in many cases created to deliver goods to plants and factories - where it was not possible to build a "normal" railway. The narrow gauge was chosen in order to reduce construction costs.
The largest horse-drawn narrow gauge railroad operated in 1840-62. It connected the Dubovka pier on the Volga with the Kachalino pier on the Don River (in the present Volgograd region), its length was about 60 kilometers.
The first narrow-gauge railway in Russia, as is commonly believed, appeared in 1871. It ran between the Verkhovye and Livny stations (now the Oryol region), had a gauge of 1067 mm. The existence of the first narrow gauge railway turned out to be short-lived: in 1896 it was replaced by a normal gauge railway line.
But that was only the beginning. Almost immediately, mass construction of narrow-gauge railways began in various regions of Russia. They began to develop rapidly throughout the country - and on Far East, and in Central Asia. The largest networks of narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of 1067 mm or 1000 mm appeared in underdeveloped regions separated from the center of the country by large rivers. From the station Uroch (it was located near the banks of the Volga, opposite Yaroslavl) in 1872 a line was opened to Vologda, in 1896-1898 extended to Arkhangelsk. Its length was 795 kilometers. From the city of Pokrovsk (now Engels), located on the left bank of the Volga, opposite Saratov, a meter gauge line (1000 mm) was built to Uralsk. Branches also appeared - to Nikolaevsk (Pugachevsk), and to the Alexandrov Gai station. The total length of the network was 648 kilometers.
The first known 750 mm narrow gauge railways appeared in the 1890s. In 1892, the first section of the Irinovskaya narrow-gauge railway was opened, running in the direction of St. Petersburg - Vsevolozhsk. According to unconfirmed reports, in 1893 a narrow-gauge railway was opened in the vicinity of Ryazan (later becoming the initial section of the Ryazan-Vladimir narrow-gauge railway). Soon, narrow-gauge railways, small in scale (in many cases, with a gauge of 750 mm), began to appear, serving industrial enterprises.
Narrow gauge railways in the 20th century
At the very beginning of the 20th century, there were already many narrow-gauge railways intended for the export of timber and peat. Subsequently, it is precisely such roads that will form the “backbone” of narrow gauge lines in our country.
In the USSR, the general pace of railway construction in comparison with the era Russian Empire decreased markedly. But the number of narrow gauge railways continued to grow rapidly.
The years of terrible Stalinist terror brought a new type of narrow gauge railways - "camp" lines. They appeared at enterprises located in the Gulag system, connected factories and camps with mining sites. The scale of the railway construction of those years is impressive. Contrary to the widespread belief that there have never been railways in the North-East of our country, it is known that there are at least seven narrow gauge railways in the territory of the present Magadan Region, some of which reached a length of 60 - 70 kilometers.
In 1945, the first section of a sufficiently powerful and technically advanced 1067 mm gauge railway was opened, starting in Magadan. By 1953, its length was 102 kilometers (Magadan - Palatka). The railway was to become a significant highway crossing the vast Kolyma region. But after the death of I.V. Stalin, the mass closure of the Kolyma camps began, which meant the actual curtailment of the industrial development of the North-East of the USSR. As a result, plans to extend the railway were abandoned. A few years later, the constructed site was dismantled.
Small narrow-gauge railways also appeared in other regions of the Northeast - in Kamchatka, in Chukotka autonomous region. All of them were later demolished.
Already in the 1930s, the two main specializations of the narrow gauge were clearly manifested: the transport of timber and the transport of peat. The standard narrow gauge of 750 mm was finally approved.
In 1940, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were included in the USSR. These states had an extensive network of narrow-gauge public railways. According to their technical condition, these roads turned out to be almost the best in the country. It was in Estonia that the record for the speed of movement on the 750 mm gauge railway was set. In 1936, the railcar covered the distance from Tallinn to Pärnu (146 km) in 2 hours and 6 minutes. average speed movement was 69 km / h, the maximum speed achieved - 102.6 km / h!
During the years of the Great Patriotic War the number of narrow-gauge railways was replenished by many dozens of "military field" railways, built both by the enemy and by our troops. But almost all of them did not last long.
In August 1945, it was included in the USSR South Sakhalin, where there was a network of railway lines with a gauge of 1067 mm, built in compliance with the technical standards and dimensions of the main railways of Japan. In subsequent years, the railway network has been significantly developed (while maintaining the existing gauge).
The first half of the 1950s proved to be the "golden age" of narrow-gauge timber-carrying railways. They developed at an astonishing rate. During the year, dozens of new narrow-gauge railways appeared, and the length of the lines increased by thousands of kilometers.
The development of virgin and fallow lands was accompanied by the mass construction of narrow-gauge railways in Kazakhstan. Later, many of them were rebuilt into broad gauge lines, but some operated until the early 1990s. As of 2004, only one "virgin" narrow-gauge railway has survived - in Atbasar (Akmola region).
Narrow-gauge public lines belonging to the Ministry of Railways (in 1918-1946 it was called NKPS) occupied not the last place among narrow-gauge railways. But since the 1960s, their length has been steadily reduced. Basically, 750 mm gauge railways were replaced by broad gauge lines built in parallel, along one embankment, or slightly to the side, but in the same direction. The 1000 mm and 1067 mm gauge lines were most often "altered" (a new rail track of a different gauge was laid on the same embankment).
In the 1960s, it became clear that the better days for narrow-gauge timber-carrying railways were over. New narrow-gauge peat-carrying railways were built until the end of the 1970s (and isolated cases of the creation of new "peat carts" were noted later).
Until the early 1990s, the development and mass production of new rolling stock continued. The main and then the only manufacturer of narrow gauge trailer rolling stock was the Demikhov Machine Building Plant (Demikhovo, Moscow Region), and the Kambarka Machine Building Plant (Kambarka, Udmurtia) was the manufacturer of diesel locomotives for 750 mm gauge.
The 1990s were the most tragic years in the history of narrow gauge railways. The economic downturn along with the transition to new form economic relations and political changes led to the fact that a landslide reduction in the number and length of narrow gauge railways began. Everyone last year"reduced" thousands of kilometers of narrow gauge railway lines.
In 1993, the production of cars for ground narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of 750 mm was completely stopped. Soon the production of locomotives also stopped.
Since the late 1990s, the country has experienced economic stabilization and a gradual transition from decline to development. However, the process of liquidation of narrow-gauge railways has not slowed down.
Initially, the railway track was very wide. This was due to the fact that a large distance between the wheels was considered safer, since the narrow gauge was considered for a long time to be much more prone to emergencies associated with derailments and rollovers of cars. Therefore, the first narrow-gauge railways began to appear only a few decades after the emergence of broad-gauge "brothers".
The beginning of time…
The first horse-drawn narrow-gauge railway was called Rheilffordd Ffestiniog. This railway was commissioned in 1836 in a British city called North West Wales. The length of the railway track was 21 km, the track width was only 597 mm. This narrow-gauge railway was used to transport oil shale from the extraction point to the place of loading - the seaport.
Empty trolleys were delivered to their destination using horse traction, while loaded trains were set in motion independently due to the existing slope. At the same time, the horses also moved in specially designated mobile units.
The first steam locomotives on the road began to be operated only in 1863. Some historians are inclined to believe that it was the date of the first launch of a train with a locomotive, and not horse traction, that can be fully called the moment the narrow gauge railway appeared.
Domestic roads
In the vastness of Russia, narrow-gauge railways were widespread throughout the 19th century and were used for industrial purposes. Basically, a narrow gauge rail track was created in order to save consumables or in those places where it was not physically possible to lay a wide gauge railway track. Initially, as in Great Britain, horse traction was used here. To make it convenient for horses to step between the rails, most often, a “foot” was laid - a flooring made of wood.
One of the largest narrow gauge railways, where horses were used as traction, is considered to be the road that existed from 1840 to 1862. This path united the Kachalino pier on the Don River with the Dubovka pier on the Volga River. Its total length was approximately 60 km.
In 1871, the first full-fledged narrow-gauge railway between Livny and Verkhovye stations appeared on the territory of Russia (today it is in the Oryol region). The track width in it was equal to 1067 mm. But already in 1896, this railway was reconstructed into a normal gauge railway track.
But, nevertheless, the construction of the first narrow-gauge railway was only the starting point in the massive widespread opening of such railway lines with a gauge from 1000 mm to 1067 mm. They were built mainly in poorly developed regions, remote from the central part of the state by large rivers.
So, in 1872, a narrow-gauge railway appeared, connecting the Uroch station (near Yaroslavl) with Vologda, which was extended to Arkhangelsk in the period from 1896 to 1898. Now its length was as much as 795 km. A narrow 1,000-mm track was laid to Uralsk, leading from Pokrovsk (today it is the city of Engels). There was also a railway branch to Alexandrov Gay and to Nikolaevsk (now known as Pugachevsk). In total, the resulting railway network reached the mark of 648 km.
A railway with a gauge distance of 750 mm first appeared in 1892 between Vsevolozhsk and St. Petersburg. Also, narrow-gauge roads began to be widely used in industrial enterprises.
Narrow gauge railway (narrow gauge) - a railway with a gauge less than standard; the rolling stock of such roads is incompatible in a number of ways with normal gauge roads (that is, the technical problems are not limited to the rearrangement of bogies). Usually narrow-gauge railways are called railways with a gauge of 600-1200 mm; roads with a smaller gauge are called micro-gauges, as well as decavils, which is not always correct. Decavile gauge is a track with a width of 500 mm.
Characteristic
Narrow gauge railways are cheaper to build and operate than standard gauge railways. Smaller locomotives and wagons allow lighter bridges to be built; when laying tunnels for narrow-gauge railways, it is required to extract a smaller volume of soil. In addition, narrow-gauge railways allow steeper curves than conventional railways, which has made them popular in mountainous areas.
The disadvantages of narrow-gauge railways are: smaller size and weight of transported goods, less stability and lower maximum allowable speed. However, the most important disadvantage of narrow-gauge railways is that, as a rule, they do not form a single network. Often such roads are built by enterprises for one specific purpose (for example, for the transport of peat).
In addition to industrial narrow-gauge railways, there were also supply lines that connected ordinary railways with those areas where it was unprofitable to build standard gauge railways. Such narrow-gauge railways were subsequently “re-made” to a standard gauge or disappeared, unable to withstand competition with motor transport, since all their advantages were covered by a big drawback: transshipment of goods from one railway to another was a long and laborious process.
Areas of application for narrow gauge railways
Industrial and national economic use
Narrow-gauge railways were built to serve peat extraction, logging sites, mines, mines, individual industrial enterprises or groups of several related enterprises, areas of virgin lands at the time of their development.
Micro-gauge railways were built inside workshops or across the territory of large enterprises to move large workpieces, large quantities of materials, machine tools, export large-sized finished products from workshops, and sometimes to transport workers to remote workshops. Currently, forklifts and electric cars are used for these purposes.
Military use
During wars, in preparation for major military battles or when creating border fortifications, narrow-gauge military field roads were built to ensure the transfer of troops and military cargo. For laying such roads, existing roads with dirt or asphalt concrete pavement were often used. The length of the roads ranged from several to a hundred kilometers.
In addition, separate narrow-gauge railway lines were built inside the fortifications. Such roads were used to transport ammunition with large dimensions.
Children's Railways
Other
Separate railway lines were built as narrow gauge, this was done to save money. In the future, with an increase in freight traffic, such lines were changed to a normal gauge. An example of this approach is the Pokrovskaya Sloboda - Ershov - Uralsk and Urbakh - Krasny Kut - Aleksandrov Gai lines of the Ryazan-Ural Railway. On the Odessa-Kishinev road there was a whole department of a narrow gauge - Gayvoronskoe.
Gauge of narrow gauge roads
Among micro gauges, the narrowest gauge (only 260 mm) is used in the UK on the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway. Most micro gauge railways are 381 mm or 15 inches wide, which is the unwritten standard. Widths of 500 mm, 457 mm, 400 mm are also common.
Rolling stock of narrow gauge roads
Locomotives, railcars and locomotives
Snow plows and other special equipment
- Construction and repair train manufactured by: KMZ
Passenger and freight cars
- Passenger cars for narrow gauge roads supplied by the PAFAWAG plant (Poland)
- Demikhov Carriage Works (cars PV-38, PV-40, PV-40T)
- Passenger cars VP750 produced by: KMZ
Among the republics former USSR there is not a single surviving narrow-gauge railway only in Azerbaijan(after the closure of the Baku ChRW) and Moldova. The most dense operating narrow-gauge railways is Belarus. Narrow-gauge railways are being actively built and developed there, new locomotives and wagons are being built for them.
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Russia
Narrow-gauge railways are also common in many countries in Africa and South America, while there is great amount gauge options ranging from 600 mm to Cape gauge.
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An excerpt characterizing the narrow gauge railway
After Nikolai's departure, the Rostovs' house became sadder than ever. The Countess became ill from a mental disorder.Sonya was sad both from separation from Nikolai and even more from that hostile tone with which the countess could not but treat her. The count was more than ever preoccupied with the bad state of affairs, which required some kind of drastic measures. It was necessary to sell the Moscow house and the suburban one, and to sell the house it was necessary to go to Moscow. But the health of the countess forced her to postpone her departure from day to day.
Natasha, who easily and even cheerfully endured the first time of separation from her fiancé, now every day became more agitated and impatient. The thought that so, in vain, for no one is wasted the best time, which she would use to love him, relentlessly tormented her. Most of his letters annoyed her. It was insulting to her to think that while she lives only by the thought of him, he lives a real life, sees new places, new people who are of interest to him. The more entertaining his letters were, the more annoyed she was. Her letters to him not only did not bring her consolation, but seemed to be a boring and false duty. She did not know how to write, because she could not comprehend the possibility of expressing in a letter truthfully at least one thousandth of what she was accustomed to express in her voice, smile and look. She wrote him classically monotonous, dry letters, to which she herself did not ascribe any significance and in which, according to bruillons, the countess corrected her spelling errors.
The health of the countess did not improve; but it was no longer possible to postpone the trip to Moscow. It was necessary to make a dowry, it was necessary to sell the house, and, moreover, Prince Andrei was expected first to Moscow, where Prince Nikolai Andreevich lived that winter, and Natasha was sure that he had already arrived.
The countess remained in the village, and the count, taking Sonya and Natasha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.
Pierre, after the courtship of Prince Andrei and Natasha, for no obvious reason, suddenly felt the impossibility of continuing his former life. No matter how firmly he was convinced of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, no matter how joyful he was at that first time of being carried away by the inner work of self-improvement, which he indulged in with such fervor, after the engagement of Prince Andrei with Natasha and after the death of Joseph Alekseevich, about which he received news almost at the same time - all the charm of this former life suddenly disappeared for him. There was only one skeleton of life left: his house with a brilliant wife, who now enjoyed the graces of one important person, acquaintance with all of Petersburg and service with boring formalities. And this former life suddenly presented itself to Pierre with unexpected abomination. He stopped writing his diary, avoided the company of his brothers, began to go to the club again, began to drink heavily again, again became close to single companies and began to lead such a life that Countess Elena Vasilyevna considered it necessary to make him a strict reprimand. Pierre, feeling that she was right, and in order not to compromise his wife, left for Moscow.
In Moscow, as soon as he drove into his huge house with withered and withering princesses, with huge domestics, as soon as he saw - driving through the city - this Iberian chapel with countless candle lights in front of golden robes, this Kremlin Square with snow that had not been driven, these cab drivers and the shacks of Sivtsev Vrazhka, saw the old men of Moscow, wanting nothing and slowly living their lives nowhere, saw old women, Moscow ladies, Moscow balls and the Moscow English Club - he felt at home, in a quiet haven. He felt calm, warm, familiar and dirty in Moscow, as in an old dressing gown.
Moscow society, everything from old women to children, accepted Pierre as their long-awaited guest, whose place was always ready and not occupied. For the Moscow world, Pierre was the sweetest, kindest, smartest, cheerful, generous eccentric, absent-minded and sincere, Russian, of the old cut, master. His wallet was always empty, because it was open to everyone.
Benefit performances, bad pictures, statues, charitable societies, gypsies, schools, signature dinners, revels, masons, churches, books - no one and nothing was refused, and if not for his two friends, who borrowed a lot of money from him and took him under their guardianship, he would give everything away. There was no dinner in the club, no evening without him. As soon as he leaned back in his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margot, he was surrounded, and rumors, disputes, jokes began. Where they quarreled, he - with his kind smile and by the way said joke, reconciled. Masonic dining lodges were dull and sluggish if he wasn't there.
When, after a single supper, he, with a kind and sweet smile, surrendering to the requests of a cheerful company, got up to go with them, joyful, solemn cries were heard among the youth. At the balls he danced, if he did not get a gentleman. Young ladies and young ladies loved him because, without courting anyone, he was equally kind to everyone, especially after dinner. “Il est charmant, il n "a pas de sehe", [He is very nice, but has no gender,] they talked about him.
Pierre was that retired chamberlain, good-naturedly living out his life in Moscow, of which there were hundreds.
How horrified he would have been if seven years ago, when he had just arrived from abroad, someone would have told him that he did not need to look for and invent anything, that his track had long been broken, determined eternally, and that, no matter how he turn around, he will be what everyone in his position was. He couldn't believe it! Didn't he, with all his heart, wish now to produce a republic in Russia, now to be Napoleon himself, now a philosopher, now a tactician, the conqueror of Napoleon? Didn't he see the opportunity and passionately desire to regenerate the vicious human race and bring himself to the highest degree of perfection? Didn't he establish both schools and hospitals and set his peasants free?
And instead of all this, here he is, the rich husband of an unfaithful wife, a retired chamberlain who loves to eat, drink and easily scold the government, a member of the Moscow English Club and everyone's favorite member of Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the idea that he was that same retired Moscow chamberlain, the type of whom he so deeply despised seven years ago.
Sometimes he comforted himself with the thought that this was the only way, for the time being, he was leading this life; but then he was horrified by another thought, that for the time being, so many people had already entered this life and this club with all their teeth and hair, like him, and left without one tooth and hair.
In moments of pride, when he thought about his position, it seemed to him that he was completely different, special from those retired chamberlains whom he had despised before, that they were vulgar and stupid, pleased and reassured by their position, “and even now I am still dissatisfied I still want to do something for humanity,” he said to himself in moments of pride. “And maybe all those comrades of mine, just like me, fought, looked for some new, their own path in life, and just like me, by the force of the situation, society, breed, that elemental force against which there is no powerful man, they were brought to the same place as I, ”he said to himself in moments of modesty, and after living in Moscow for some time, he no longer despised, but began to love, respect and pity, as well as himself, his comrades in the fate .
On Pierre, as before, they did not find moments of despair, blues and disgust for life; but the same illness, which had previously expressed itself in sharp attacks, was driven inside and did not leave him for a moment. "To what? What for? What is going on in the world?” he asked himself in bewilderment several times a day, involuntarily beginning to ponder the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience that there were no answers to these questions, he hurriedly tried to turn away from them, took up a book, or hurried to the club, or to Apollon Nikolaevich to chat about city gossip.
“Elena Vasilievna, who never loved anything except her body and one of the most stupid women in the world,” thought Pierre, “appears to people as the height of intelligence and refinement, and they bow before her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by everyone as long as he was great, and since he became a miserable comedian, Emperor Franz has been trying to offer him his daughter as an illegitimate wife. The Spaniards send prayers to God through the Catholic clergy in gratitude for having defeated the French on June 14th, and the French send prayers through the same Catholic clergy that they defeated the Spaniards on June 14th. My brother Masons swear by their blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, and do not pay one ruble each for the collection of the poor and intrigue Astraeus against the Seekers of Manna, and fuss about a real Scottish carpet and about an act, the meaning of which does not know even the one who wrote it, and which no one needs. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of offenses and love for our neighbor - the law as a result of which we erected forty forty churches in Moscow, and yesterday we whipped a man who had run away with a whip, and the minister of the same law of love and forgiveness, the priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before execution " . So thought Pierre, and this whole, common, universally recognized lie, no matter how he got used to it, as if something new, every time amazed him. I understand the lies and confusion, he thought, but how can I tell them everything I understand? I tried and always found that they, in the depths of their souls, understand the same thing as I do, but they just try not to see her. It has become so necessary! But me, where do I go?” thought Pierre. He tested the unfortunate ability of many, especially Russian people, the ability to see and believe in the possibility of good and truth, and to see the evil and lies of life too clearly in order to be able to take a serious part in it. Every field of labor in his eyes was connected with evil and deceit. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he undertook, evil and lies repelled him and blocked all the paths of his activity. And meanwhile it was necessary to live, it was necessary to be busy. It was too terrible to be under the yoke of these insoluble questions of life, and he gave himself up to his first hobbies, only to forget them. He went to all sorts of societies, drank a lot, bought paintings and built, and most importantly read.
He read and read everything that came to hand, and read so that when he arrived home, when the lackeys were still undressing him, he, having already taken a book, read - and from reading he went to sleep, and from sleep to chatter in the drawing rooms and the club, from chatter to revelry and women, from revelry back to chatter, reading and wine. Drinking wine for him became more and more of a physical and at the same time a moral need. Despite the fact that the doctors told him that with his corpulence, wine was dangerous for him, he drank a lot. He felt completely well only when, without noticing how, having knocked several glasses of wine into his big mouth, he experienced pleasant warmth in his body, tenderness for all his neighbors and the readiness of his mind to superficially respond to every thought, without delving into its essence. Only after drinking a bottle and two wines did he vaguely realize that that intricate, terrible knot of life that had terrified him before was not as terrible as he thought. With a noise in his head, chatting, listening to conversations or reading after lunch and dinner, he constantly saw this knot, some side of it. But only under the influence of wine did he say to himself: “This is nothing. I will unravel this - here I have an explanation ready. But now there’s no time—I’ll think it over later!” But that never came after.
On an empty stomach, in the morning, all the previous questions seemed just as insoluble and terrible, and Pierre hurriedly grabbed a book and rejoiced when someone came to him.
Sometimes Pierre recalled a story he had heard about how, in a war, soldiers, being under fire in cover, when they had nothing to do, diligently find an occupation for themselves in order to more easily endure the danger. And to Pierre, all people seemed to be such soldiers fleeing life: some with ambition, some with cards, some with writing laws, some with women, some with toys, some with horses, some with politics, some with hunting, some with wine, some with state affairs. “There is nothing insignificant or important, it doesn’t matter: if only I can save myself from it as best I can!” thought Pierre. - "If only not to see her, this terrible her."
At the beginning of winter, Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky and his daughter arrived in Moscow. In his past, in his intelligence and originality, especially in the weakening at that time of enthusiasm for the reign of Emperor Alexander, and in that anti-French and patriotic trend that reigned at that time in Moscow, Prince Nikolai Andreevich immediately became an object of special reverence for Muscovites and the center of the Moscow opposition to the government.
The prince has grown very old this year. Sharp signs of old age appeared in him: unexpected falling asleep, forgetfulness of the nearest events and memory of long-standing ones, and the childish vanity with which he assumed the role of the head of the Moscow opposition. Despite the fact that when the old man, especially in the evenings, went out to tea in his fur coat and powdered wig, and, touched by someone, began his abrupt stories about the past, or even more abrupt and sharp judgments about the present, he aroused in all his guests the same sense of respect. For visitors, this whole old house with huge dressing tables, pre-revolutionary furniture, these lackeys in powder, and the last century itself, a tough and smart old man with his meek daughter and pretty Frenchwoman, who were in awe of him, represented a majestically pleasant sight. But the visitors did not think that in addition to these two or three hours, during which they saw the owners, there were another 22 hours a day, during which the secret inner life of the house went on.
AT recent times in Moscow, this inner life became very difficult for Princess Marya. She was deprived in Moscow of those of her best joys - conversations with God's people and solitude - which refreshed her in the Bald Mountains, and did not have any benefits and joys of metropolitan life. She did not go out into the world; everyone knew that her father would not let her go without him, and he himself could not travel due to ill health, and she was no longer invited to dinners and evenings. Princess Marya completely abandoned hope for marriage. She saw the coldness and bitterness with which Prince Nikolai Andreevich received and sent away young people who could be suitors, who sometimes came to their house. Princess Marya had no friends: on this visit to Moscow, she was disappointed in her two closest people. M lle Bourienne, with whom she could not be completely frank before, now became unpleasant to her and for some reason she began to move away from her. Julie, who was in Moscow and to whom Princess Mary wrote for five years in a row, turned out to be a complete stranger to her when Princess Mary again met with her personally. Julie at this time, on the occasion of the death of her brothers, having become one of the richest brides in Moscow, was in the midst of social pleasures. She was surrounded by young people who, as she thought, suddenly appreciated her dignity. Julie was in that period of an aging socialite who feels that her last chance of marriage has come, and now or never her fate must be decided. Princess Mary, with a sad smile, recalled on Thursdays that now she had no one to write to, since Julie, Julie, from whose presence she had no joy, was here and saw her every week. She, like an old emigrant who refused to marry the lady with whom he spent his evenings for several years, regretted that Julie was here and she had no one to write to. Princess Mary in Moscow had no one to talk to, no one to believe her grief, and much new grief has been added during this time. The deadline for the return of Prince Andrei and his marriage was approaching, and his order to prepare his father for that was not only not fulfilled, but, on the contrary, the matter seemed to be completely spoiled, and the reminder of Countess Rostova pissed off the old prince, who had already been out of sorts for most of the time. . A new grief that has recently been added for Princess Marya was the lessons that she gave to her six-year-old nephew. In her relations with Nikolushka, she recognized with horror in herself the quality of her father's irritability. How many times she told herself that she should not allow herself to get excited while teaching her nephew, almost every time she sat down with a pointer at the French alphabet, she so wanted to quickly, easily pour her knowledge out of herself into a child who was already afraid that here was her aunt she would be angry that, at the slightest inattention on the part of the boy, she shuddered, hurried, got excited, raised her voice, sometimes pulled his hand and put him in a corner. Putting him in a corner, she herself began to weep over her evil, bad nature, and Nikolushka, imitating her sobs, would leave the corner without permission, come up to her and pull her wet hands away from her face, and console her. But more, more than anything else, the Princess was irritated by her father's irritability, which was always directed against her daughter and had recently reached the point of cruelty. If he had forced her to bow down all night, if he had beaten her, forced her to carry firewood and water, it would never have occurred to her that her situation was difficult; but this loving tormentor, the most cruel because he loved and for that he tormented himself and her, deliberately knew how not only to insult and humiliate her, but also to prove to her that she was always and in everything to blame. Recently, a new feature appeared in him, which tormented Princess Mary most of all - this was his closer rapprochement with m lle Bourienne. The thought that came to him, in the first minute after receiving the news of his son’s intention, was the joke that if Andrei marries, then he himself marries Bourienne, apparently liked him, and with stubbornness lately (as it seemed to Princess Mary) only in order to offend her, he showed a special kindness to m lle Bourienne and showed his displeasure to his daughter by showing love to Bourienne.
Once in Moscow, in the presence of Princess Marya (it seemed to her that her father had done this on purpose in her presence), the old prince kissed m lle Bourienne's hand and, drawing her to him, hugged her caressingly. Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later, m lle Bourienne entered Princess Mary, smiling and telling something cheerfully to her pleasant voice. Princess Mary hurriedly wiped away her tears, with resolute steps approached Bourienne and, apparently not knowing it herself, with angry haste and outbursts of her voice, began to shout at the Frenchwoman: “It is disgusting, low, inhuman to take advantage of weakness ...” She did not finish. "Get out of my room," she screamed and sobbed.
The next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter; but she noticed that at dinner he ordered the food to be served, beginning with m lle Bourienne. At the end of dinner, when the barman, according to his old habit, again served coffee, starting with the princess, the prince suddenly became furious, threw a crutch at Philip and immediately made an order to give him to the soldiers. “They don’t hear ... they said it twice! ... they don’t hear!”
“She is the first person in this house; she is my best friend, the prince shouted. “And if you allow yourself,” he shouted in anger, addressing Princess Marya for the first time, “once again, as you dared yesterday ... to forget yourself in front of her, then I will show you who is the boss in the house. Out! so that I do not see you; ask her for forgiveness!
Princess Mary asked for forgiveness from Amalya Evgenievna and from her father for herself and for Philip the barman, who asked for spades.
At such moments, a feeling akin to the pride of the victim gathered in the soul of Princess Marya. And suddenly, at such moments, in her presence, this father, whom she condemned, either looked for glasses, feeling around them and not seeing, or forgot what was happening just now, or made a wrong step with weakened legs and looked around to see if anyone had seen him weakness, or, worst of all, at dinner, when there were no guests to excite him, he would suddenly doze off, letting go of his napkin, and leaning over the plate, his head shaking. “He is old and weak, and I dare to condemn him!” she thought with self-loathing at such moments.
In 1811, a French doctor, who quickly became fashionable, lived in Moscow, huge in stature, handsome, amiable, like a Frenchman and, as everyone in Moscow said, a doctor of extraordinary art - Metivier. He was received in the homes of high society not as a doctor, but as an equal.
Prince Nikolai Andreevich, who laughed at medicine, recently, on the advice of m lle Bourienne, allowed this doctor to visit him and got used to him. Metivier visited the prince twice a week.
Narrow gauge railways have played a huge role in the history of Russia. They worked in agriculture and industry, fought in two world wars, explored virgin lands, worked where there were no other means of communication. Unfortunately, by the end of the 20th century, they practically disappeared from the face of our Motherland, unlike other countries where narrow-gauge railways are protected by the state and are museum exhibits.
But when did narrow gauge railways appear?
Great Britain is considered the birthplace of railways. There they were built for the first time in the early 19th century, and in 1825 the first public train was launched between the cities of Stockton and Darlingon. The length of the road was 40 kilometers, and the width of the glue was 1435 millimeters (now this is the world standard).
In Russia, for the first time, the railway appeared in Nizhny Tagil at a mining mine. The creators of the locomotive were the Cherepanov brothers. The length of this road was 854 meters, and the track width was 1645 millimeters. Soon it was closed.
Railways officially appeared in Russia only in 1837. The line ran between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo. And already in 1843-1851 the railway appeared between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The track gauge was 1520 millimeters, which is now the standard for domestic railways. In the modern world, different countries different gauge standards, which is a particular problem in the transport of passengers and goods.
Narrow gauge railways appeared a little later than conventional railways. It happened in 1863 in the UK in Northwest Wales. The road was intended to carry oil shale from the mine to the port. The length of the road was 21 kilometers, and the track width was 597 millimeters.
In the 19th century in Russia there were many roads with narrow gauge and with horse or hand traction. This made it possible to transport goods in places where the construction of a normal railway could not be carried out, and reduced costs.
The largest narrow-gauge horse-drawn railway in Russia at that time was the road that connected the Dubovka pier on the Volga River with Kachalino on the Don River. The length of the road was 60 kilometers and operated in 1840-1862.
The first narrow-gauge railway in Russia existed in 1871-1876 in the Oryol region. The track width was 1067 millimeters.
From the end of the 19th century, the construction of a whole network of narrow-gauge railways to the underdeveloped regions of the country began. For example, there were branches: Yaroslavl-Vologda-Arkhangelsk (795 kilometers), Pokrovsk-Uralsk. Their gauges were 1067 and 1000 millimeters in size.
Since the 1890s, narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of only 750 millimeters began to appear. For example, branches: St. Petersburg-Vsevolozhsk, Ryazan-Vladimir narrow-gauge railway. They were built mainly to serve industrial enterprises.
At times Soviet Union the number of narrow gauge lines continued to increase.
The emergence of "camp lines" is associated with the times of Stalinist terror. They connected camps and factories to mining sites. Narrow-gauge railways were built mainly in the north-eastern regions of the country (Magadan region, Kamchatka, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug).
In the 1930s, the specialization of narrow gauge railways was finally developed - this is the transportation of timber and peat. The standard for the track is 750 millimeters.
In the 40s of the 20th century, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became part of the USSR, where there was perhaps the best network of narrow gauge roads in the country.
During the Great Patriotic War, the network of narrow-gauge railways was replenished due to the construction of roads, both by our troops and by the enemy.
And in 1945, Sakhalin was annexed to the USSR with a developed system of narrow-gauge railways, which was further developed.
From the middle of the 20th century, a real boom in the construction of narrow gauge railways began. It is associated with the development of virgin and fallow lands in Kazakhstan.
But since the 1960s, the number of narrow-gauge roads has been declining. This is due to the fact that narrow-gauge railways began to be replaced by roads of normal width, which were built in parallel. So narrow-gauge railways for peat and timber purposes were built until the end of the 1970s. Until the 1990s, trailer rolling stock and locomotives for narrow gauge railways were produced. In 1993, production was stopped.
At the request of readers, I slowly begin to talk about the old, already forgotten, roads. In the stories I will use texts from my guidebook and new, previously unpublished information.
Introduction
The short road is the familiar road. I remember in my childhood, when I was 10 years old, my father and I were picking mushrooms in the forest, of which there were “at least a scythe” at that time. We came to some fairly straight clearing, already overgrown with large frequent lindens and birches, but still distinguishable in a dense, strong forest. My father then said to me: “Look, son, this is the old Moscow road!” Moscow road! Then it seemed to me that if you walk along this overgrown clearing for a day, two, a week, you will go straight to Kremlin wall with crimson stars on the towers! From delight, from a sense of the significance of this road, it took my breath away! Then, having matured, I nevertheless ended up in Moscow, though not along this road, I lived there for twenty years, but I don’t feel any particular enthusiasm about this. But since childhood, a reverent awe and some kind of very filial, respectful attitude towards forest roads remained in my soul. In fact, our whole life is a road! The first half of life is the road from home, the second half is the road to home! At the beginning of my story, I want to tell you a little secret. You only think that it is you who choose the path. In fact, the road chooses you! And further. furthest and hard road starts with the first step.
narrow gauge railway
Perhaps the most famous, most significant old forest road in our district. This is a road going northwest from the Lakes to the village of Stoyanyevo. The length of the road is 15 km. Initially, it was a narrow-gauge railway built by the Ozersky manufacturer M.F. Shcherbakov for the transportation of firewood from the Stoyanevsky forestry (and, in the future, peat briquettes from forest swamps) for heating the Ozersky factories. There was a small train going along this road. But first things first.
Road history.
Narrow gauge. This road is a project of the manufacturer Mikhail Fedorovich Shcherbakov. According to his idea, as I said, it was supposed to supply the factories and the city (then still a village) Ozyory with forest and firewood from the Stoyanevsky forestry and peat briquettes from the swamps (Bolshie Torf, Small Torf and Zhuravenka). And Mikhail Fedorovich planned to divert a branch from it to the village of Alyoshkovo, where he had an estate and a solid factory production with his own brick factory. (The presence of a brick factory indicated that the production facilities in Alyoshkovo were planned to be expanded, so the need for a railway line to Alyoshkovo became an urgent matter). Somewhere in 1912, it began to be built. It started from the north-eastern side of the factory complex (in the same place where the abandoned branch line is now near the "foam" house), went along Zheleznodorozhnaya Street parallel to the Kolomenskaya railway, in the area of the 38 km platform (Tekstilshchiki) began to gradually move away from the Kolomekskaya road by south. Such a neighborhood of a branch from the Kolomna railway and the narrow-gauge railway under construction was very justified economically. Rails, sleepers, and building materials brought from Kolomna were reloaded at the factories on the platforms of the Narrow Gauge Railway and transported to the construction site. Everything is close, everything is at hand!
First, naturally cut a clearing under the road. I must say right away that even now, walking along this clearing, I want to take off my hat to the Shcherbakov engineers. The glade was pulled not just anyhow, but along the driest, highest places, along the ridge of the watershed of the basins of the Oka River and the Gnilusha River. In order to minimize the number of bridges, embankments, drainage ditches. (Then money was not “sawed” and they knew how to count). And another clearing went next to the swamps of Zhuravenka (Crane), Small Peat, Big Peat. If the clearing comes close to the Small Peats and Zhuravenka, then it is 800 meters further south from the Big Peats. The terrain there is lowered and it was considered costly to bring the road closer to the swamp. It was planned to carry peat pressed into briquettes from these swamps. They managed to build part of the road through the forest from the factory to the forest, the narrow-gauge railway functioned, firewood from the forest was transported to the factories along it. Then came the first World War construction stopped. The revolution. (Well, there was no time for the narrow-gauge railway!)
Again, they returned to this road somewhere in 1920, when factories began to run again. Moreover, the road project was ready, M.F. Shcherbakov is still alive, and the road has already been partially built. Of course, there was no longer any talk about the branch to Alyoshkovo. I don’t know how it was before Stoyaniev, but before the Rebrovsky Forest (near Rebrovo), the narrow gauge railway was built accurately. I myself found "crutches" for sleepers there, and the guys used devices to find places for dugouts for workers and all sorts of railway pieces of iron. By 1925 the road was functioning. A steam locomotive with platforms for transporting firewood walked along it. Where he went, I don't know yet. But up to the Unfrozen ravine that goes to Komarevo, I went for sure. The Komarevka factory workers used it to reach the ravine, and then went down to the village on foot. Wells were dug along the road, from which the locomotive was refueled with water. (Some of them have survived to this day).
Starting somewhere in 1930, coal began to be delivered to Ozyory along the Kolomna railway. The narrow-gauge railway lost its economic importance, became unnecessary, and by 1935 was dismantled.
But the life of the road went on. Straight, dry, running along watersheds and ridges, with drainage ditches and wells, the road was still in great demand. On it they rode horses (and then on rare cars) to distant villages and villages: Obukhovo, Rebrovo, Rechitsa, Moschanitsy, Alyoshkovo, Stoyanyevo, etc. The road gained its second wind, second life during the Great Patriotic War. It was then that the dismantled Narrow-gauge railway was very regretted. (But who knew!). Factories and the city, due to interruptions in the supply of coal, again began to heat with firewood and immediately, without waiting for the “bottom to be reached”, they took up the development of peat bogs, since the project for the development of peat bogs already existed, it remains only to implement it, which was done in the shortest possible time . All the men were taken to the war, and our women dug drainage ditches with shovels to drain the swamps (they are still preserved), they mined peat, molded briquettes from it, loaded it, drove it. Firewood and peat briquettes were brought to the city along the native narrow-gauge railway on horse-drawn carts and sledges. The narrow-gauge railway at that time became the real Road of Life for the Lakes!
It turns out that the deceased already by that time M.F. Shcherbakov saved our city from freezing in the cold winter, and factories from a complete stop! Deliveries of coal to the city were restored a little later, as the Germans were driven away from Kashira and from the railways. Then, after all, “they rose from their knees” quickly. After the war, the narrow-gauge railway did not lose its transport significance for a long time, until the construction of the Ozyory-Moshchanitsy ring highway (until 1980). They traveled along it from the Lakes to all the northwestern settlements of our area, they carried wood. Gradually, it became the road of hunters, berry pickers and mushroom pickers. For them, the Narrow Gauge Railway (the name of the road has been preserved since ancient times) is a kind of cult road that determines their forest activities. Where did you collect mushrooms? For the narrow gauge! Where did you get a jar of blueberries? In front of the narrow gauge railway! How to get to the raspberry? Along the Narrow Gauge to the former Devil's Bridge, which is opposite Komarev, and to the right! Mushroom pickers and berry pickers who got lost in the forest (hunters don’t stray) often ask: “How to get to the Narrow Gauge Railway?” (Then they will figure it out).
It is best to start a trip along the Narrow-gauge from the Lakes, from the Rogov Pole. A sandy, rolled road leads you into a pine forest. On the left is a transformer substation, on the right is the Ozyory-Kolomna railway. The road goes down to the Dolovaya ravine. On the right is a railway bridge, a concrete pipe under the rails, on the left is Krasnaya Gorka, known to all Ozersk skiers. Then the road takes a little up and to the right. Here the narrow-gauge railway and the Ozyory-Golutvin railway diverge. The railway turns sharply to the north, and the Narrow Gauge Railway approaches its first swamp (which is to the right of the road), Zhuravenka (or Zhuravlikha). On the left there will be a wide, straight clearing going to the edge of the forest. AT Soviet times it was a lighted ski run, along which winter evenings The lake dwellers loved skiing. (Everything was broken, everything was lost!). Then there will be a concrete pipe under the road in front of the swamp and a well miraculously preserved from ancient times, to the left of the road.
If you go further along the Narrow-gauge railway, then opposite Bolotov (opposite Buturlinka) there will be Small (or City Soviet) Torf. Three swamps. One to the left of the road and two to the right. Beautiful lilies grow on the left swamp (also called the Forest Lake). Further, on the right side there is a huge, approximately 800x600m fresh clearing - "Burned Clearing". In 2005, a forest burned here during a summer drought. This forest was then cut down. Hence the name of the cutting. Behind the clearing, the road is crossed by an unfrozen ravine. There is a concrete pipe. The ravine here is not yet deep, not gaining strength. If you go up from the ravine further along the road, then on the right there will be a round small swamp called Saucer. Having passed 200 meters further, we will see a road crossing the Narrow Gauge Railway. This is the old road between Komarev and Patkin. The road in the past is very famous, very significant. Having passed 100 meters farther, we see that the narrow-gauge railway passes through a lowland. This is the famous Kola ravine, originating from a swamp called Bolshie Torf, which is about eight hundred meters to the right of the road. This ravine, after long wanderings through the forest, goes to the Alyoshkovskaya river. To the left of the road there is a round puddle, four meters in diameter and up to one and a half meters deep, which dries up in summer. Behind the puddle solid sand begins, the ruts of the road, washed out by spring waters and rains, become deep. On the right, in a large pine forest, there is a raspberry well-known to all berry growers. Further on both sides of the road begins a large clearing. On the edge of it, on the left side, is a spruce planting. Ate large, even, tall. They stand in neat rows. In autumn, porcini mushrooms are collected here, and in winter, wild boars like to hide from the February winds. True, the dense spruce forest cannot hide them from a bullet.
Behind the spruce plantation on both sides of the road, large, overgrown with grass and young trees, clearings begin. Here is the Serpentine Gully overlooking the fields. Along this ravine on the field used to be the village of Obukhovo. Now only a pond surrounded by ancient willow trees, and one more pond, down the ravine, remains from the village. The snake ravine, having passed through all the Obukhov fields, flows into the Kola ravine. From the narrow-gauge railway, a road leaves to the left, leading to the Obukhov fields and further to Rebrovo.
Rebrovo The narrow-gauge railway bypasses, to the east, the forest. Behind Rebrov, it is noticeably withering, overgrown with aspen and linden forests. Here, they don’t ride anything on it, they just walk. Then it becomes a little cleaner and straightens like an arrow. Going downhill, the road goes to the Stoyanievsky fields and ends here. Nearby, a kilometer away, is the village of Stoyanyevo - the end point of the Narrow-gauge railway and the Moschanitsy-Ozyory highway.
Many thanks to my longtime and very good friend, the smartest person, a competent historian, an excellent local historian Evgeny Isaev for the information provided on the Narrow Gauge Railway. Eugene is a very modest man, does not stick out, keeps in the shadows, but knows very, very much about the history of the Lakes. Together with him, we have restored an approximate (I emphasize - APPROXIMATE so far) history of this road.
Sergey Rogov 10/19/2017.
Mikhail Fedorovich Shcherbakov (1871 - 1936). Ozersky manufacturer, philanthropist. It was on his instructions that a project for the construction of a narrow-gauge railway was developed. Part of the road he managed to build
