Talk:Railway electrification in the Soviet Union

Underlying Reasons
Interesting piece. thanks. Long shadow of Lenin--"Communism plus electrification = soviet power". I am doubtful that electrification of the 5000 miles of Trans Sib line was cost effective. The soviets had just built a fleet of steamers and then sidelined them for electrics. I think it was Politburo policy rather than sensible economics. The Milwaukee Line tried electric in the US and went bust as a result. In Siberia it was policy, GOELRO, and mega projects. Dunno where the energy playing field comes in as Siberia had oodles of hydro power which was non-transportable, and oil which was exportable for hard currency. Reading other work suggests a long 50 or 60 year period for payback on busy routes of the expensive poles and power lines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.156.111.87 (talk) 20:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Soviet system and Lenin's Long shadow
Dunno why the soviets electrified and drove out steam so early other than Lenin really liked the Swiss electric traction he saw. Russia has much coal and oil and cheap labour thus no need for expensive catenary wires. Besides, the power poles marr the landscape. Other than the high volume corridors, steam should have been kept. It, and the BAM project, were idiot Brezhnevian megaprojects the country could ill afford. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.135.36 (talk) 21:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The USSR was very slow in replacing steam by electrics and diesels. They had a high percentage of steam still running after the US had completed dieselization.  Labor was a somewhat scarce commodity that the USSR needed for development of the country,  So I think that electrification was a reasonable decision.  Re BAM: They expect to spend 1/2 trillion R. on upgrading it by 2023.  Traffic with China is growing.  See Railway Gazette and Baikal–Amur Mainline.  BAM tuned out at first to be a mistake and a somewhat lame excuse is than no one foresaw the Soviet collapse which resulted in a 30 year depression in railway traffic in Russia.  But BAM is now getting more use and provides a bypass for routing around any accidents, etc. on the trans-sib.David S. Lawyer 22:28, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Russia and the Soviet Union
Naming and categorizing these articles is difficult because one has to consider Russia before, during and after the Soviet era. One can either treat Russia and the Soviet Union as synonymous (which is not strictly accurate) or duplicate the categories, which seems excessive. Please discuss. Biscuittin (talk) 14:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a big problem with the articles on Soviet/Russian rail transport. But it's not so much of a problem with this electrification article since there wasn't any electrification in the Russian empire (except for streetcar lines in cities).  After the demise of the USSR, there were no new electrification projects in Russia, only completions of projects previously started in the USSR.  Of course this could change, or they could re-electrify some lines at higher voltage (such as at high-voltage DC which was being investigated in the USSR). David S. Lawyer 23:18, 16 November 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dlawyer (talk • contribs)

Article lead
Tags noted. I will re-write the lead section. Biscuittin (talk) 08:28, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Biscuittin (talk) 08:50, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you were right the original lead was really an early history. I re-wrote the lead again.Oranjblud (talk) 13:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I rewrote it again as I added more on later history, and plan to add still more re the economics of electrification David S. Lawyer 01:32, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

1,500 volts
I have just discovered that the Moscow to Zagorsk line was originally electrified at 1,500 volts DC but I don't know the date. Does anyone have further information? Biscuittin (talk) 01:56, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The Rissian railway history book that might contain that info is not in any US library. But I'll make changes to cover 1.5 kv.David S. Lawyer 00:27, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Electricity vs. Diesel efficiency
Why are electric and diesel trains being compared on a tonne-km/tonne fuel basis? The discrepancy here could be driven entirely by the higher energy density of diesel compared to coal and natural gas. It seems these comparisons should be done on an energy basis (e.g. tonne-km/J). I can't make the conversion because I don't speak Russian and can't track down the source data, but I think this change would make for a much better comparison. Beezorphlegmon (talk) 17:50, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I wrote this article and thanks for you suggestion. The Russians mean the heat equivalent of a of standard fuel (coal I think).  I've added a footnote to explain it.  In a way it's better this way than using Joules since a kg of a specified fuel is a defined amount of something while Joules can be ambiguous due to the higher/lower heat value of fuels.David S. Lawyer 21:06, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

3kV DC vs 25kV AC clarified.
Despite what the article writes, the efficiency of DC and AC system cannot be compared for USSR/Russia, because the determining difference lies elsewhere. For 3kV DC, the sub-stations that supply the catenary cannot be spaced further apart than 20km and ideally there needs to be one located every 8-10km. Furthermore, a single DC sub-station can only supply a total of max. 6000kW overhead power, even if the catenary uses two parallel filaments.

Such dense sub-station spacing is simply unsuitable for a vast sized empire that spans 11 time zones east to west and runs across desolate places. Furthermore, 6000kW of power per sub-station is too little for the double-articulated russian electric locomotive leviathans that haul 100+ wagon long, super heavy freight trains.

Because of these reasons, high-tension AC is a necessity in the remote regions of Russia. 25kV allows many tens of thousands of kW of power via single-wire catenary and the sub-stations can be placed 50-70km apart and often can be operated unattended, using just ZBD transformers. (DC sub-stations traditionally used rotary converters and/or mercury rectifier tanks that usually needed people on-site all the time.)

Even though USSR experimented with 6kV DC circa 1950-60, they dropped that attempt and nowadays the superiority of 25kV AC system is undoubted in Russia. (Even though Russia doesn't use IGBT/GTO yet, but simple silicon diode locomotives, which burn braking return power in special, super-high temperature ceramic-metallic resistors mounted on the roof. These can run over 1000C deg hot. If they used the current western hi-tech with DSP-controlled IGBT with regenerative feedback to the catenary, their traction power needs would decrease 25-30% more.) 82.131.156.136 (talk) 11:17, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * With perhaps about 50% utilization of regeneration due to lack of it on AC locomotives, only about 3% of traction power was returned to be recycled in the USSR. So the 25-30% figure is way too high.  Trains is the Soviet Union did a lot of coasting prior to braking and this is a 100% recovery of kinetic energy (during the coasting phase).  Thus a lot of the kinetic energy of trains can be recovered by coasting policies without regenerative braking.  It pays to initially coast even prior to application of the regenerative brakes.  So regenerative braking doesn't save as much energy as one might expect if trains are rationally operated.  David S. Lawyer 19:04, 19 July 2019 (UTC)