Soviet P36 4-8-4

In a land the size of the old U.S.S.R., rail traffic played a major part in the country's economy, and despite the rapid growth of air travel the railways of Russia were expanding and modernizing on a very large scale.

For many years under the Soviet regime, freight traffic had priority, indeed passenger travel was in many cases limited by a strict system of permits and controls.

For ten years after the war no passenger locomotives were either constructed or imported, except for a solitary Czech Class '476' 4-8-2 presented in 1951 as a ' token of friendship '; in 1950, however, the Kolomna locomotive works had produced a prototype 4-8-4, the first of this type in Russia, and in 1954 construction of ' Project 36 ' began in earnest. In two years some 250 were in service.

All built at Kolomna, the P.lft 4-8-4s have two 23 in.x31 in cylinders and 6 ft 1 in driving wheels; equipped with roller bearings throughout, and with a grate area of no less than 73 square feet and 213-lb boiler pressure, they develop 2,500 hp with an axle load of only 18 tons.Certainly the most impressive locomotives to be found in Russia  at the time, the majority of the class were concentrated on the Moscow-Leningrad (St Petersburgh) and Moscow-Brest main lines before electric and diesel traction took over.

Both these routes carried tourist traffic, and largely for prestige purposes the locomotives were painted in apple green or light blue, with red and white wheels; our picture shows two of the engines, one tucked tightly in right behind the other, leaving Leningrad with a heavy express for Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus.