Re: This is the Modern Golden Age of Trains

While the Rocky Mountains are home for me, I just moved to Moscow this summer and will be here for the next couple of years. I photographed train 6697 on the Bologoye-Ostashkov line on two separate weekends this past month. It's a really neat and entirely authentic example of steam-powered passenger operations in the 21st century. The vast majority of passengers aren't tourists, but regular old babushkas trying to get from village to village with their gross jars of pickled tomatoes and freshly gathered mushrooms. Unfortunately, photographing the line is extremely difficult due to the often non-existent roads between villages. It's a very beautiful and authentic part of Russia though.


I keep trying to tell people stateside that Russia is currently a paradise for lovers of mainline steam. You can catch beautifully restored 4-8-4s running on the mainline nearly every weekend here. When the steam crews aren't running excursion trips, they are often put to task doing menial switching work in the yards, or other random jobs around town. One time I randomly stumbled upon a 4-8-4 switching freight cars in the middle of the night. There's not many places in the world where you can see something like that nowadays.
There must be a serious foamer occupying a high post in Russian Railways' corporate office, because they are restoring more steam locomotives than they know what to do with.



For anyone who's curious, you can find a few other photos of Red Star Steam in my Flickr album.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2019 06:15AM by Pkwlsn.