Joseph Stalin: a steam locomotive of the USSR that had no equal

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

This locomotive is simply impossible to get around if you are at least a little interested in the history of locomotive building. At the time of construction "Joseph Stalin" became the most powerful steam locomotive in Europedesigned for the carriage of passengers. During its development, the latest achievements were used, competently combined with the existing developments: many parts were taken, without making major changes, from freight steam locomotives of the FD series ("Felix Dzerzhinsky").

The outdated design of the most common steam locomotives - "Sushki" (Su series) and even the Nikolaev N-ok, with extreme reliability and efficiency, was not able to provide an increase in the speed of movement and an increase in the adhesion weight of trains (for "Sushki" this parameter was forty-five tons.).

1-4-2 (four driving wheels) - wheel form IS20

In 1932, after two years of intense development, a new unit was assembled, which received, by the decision of the workers, a series of IS ("Joseph Stalin"), which had a wheel axial formula "one-four-two". It was the application of this formula that made it possible to use the boiler and cylinders from cargo PDs.

Scheme and main dimensions of IS20-1 (1-4-2)

Requirements were made to the technical characteristics specified in the assignment: increase the thrust by fifty percent (compared to Su), the load from the driving wheels no more than twenty tons, the maximum possible unification with the units and parts of the existing steam locomotives. After the design stage was completed, only seven months passed, and the IS20-1 was manufactured on the basis of the Kolomna plant. IS20-1 received a "start in life" when it was delivered on October 7 to Moscow and shown to the "high authorities".

The first one. IS20-1

Until the end of the year, two more such steam locomotives were assembled, and almost all of 1933 they were tested on three different railway sections, which showed that the power of the IS was almost twice as high as the Su - on average, two and a half thousand hp, and in some moments the power reached three thousand two hundred hp. True, these tests also revealed a negative point - the ISK could not significantly increase the speed.

Additional studies by NIIZhT and MAI to reduce air resistance proved that the use of a special cowl-fairing can not only win about two hundred more hp, but also lead to an increase in speed. In 1937, the IS20-16 steam locomotive equipped with such a fairing was being built at the Voroshilov plant. At the same time, another new steam locomotive, IS20-241, participated in the Paris World Exhibition, and won the Polish Pm36, receiving the main prize.

IS20-16 with a streamlined casing.

In "everyday" work, steam locomotives of the IS series were used mainly without fairing casings. During the years of production (1932-42), about six hundred and fifty IS steam locomotives were built. In the sixties of the twentieth century, the designation of the series was changed to FDp, and in the seventies ISK was massively written off and sent for processing.

The only steam locomotive of the IS series that has survived to this day is installed in Kiev: this is FDp20-578

Characteristics of steam locomotives of the IS series: length 16.3 m, diameter of driving wheels (like that of Su) 1.85 m, weight of an empty (empty) steam locomotive 118 t, adhesion weight up to 82 t, power 2500-3200 hp. sec., speed 115 km / h (the maximum for the IS20-16 is 150 km / h), the number of cylinders is 2, with a diameter of 67 cm.