Russian railways are one of the greatest mysteries of the past. And looking at the old historical materials, you begin to understand what scale of falsifications was carried out in their history, as, indeed, in the entire history of Tsarist Russia.
The theme of the old railways of the Russian Empire is very interesting, just like any industrial theme of the 19th century. About railways in the Russian Empire, even poems were added about what hard work there was. The work there was really hard, with such a volume of work the degree of labor mechanization was extremely low.
The photo shows the construction of the Amur railway at 568 versts in 1911. The embankment in the background is hand made, which is an enormous amount of work. And you can see the huts, which were covered by a mudflow, which, most likely, was quite recently. The builders lived in such huts. The conditions, you understand, are very difficult. But in the end, the country received communication routes that gave a powerful impetus to its development. These routes of communication were not at all the same as they are now, but at that time it was the greatest achievement of technology. Well, as historians say, the Russian development of railways, as always, lagged behind the European. This is not surprising - the distances are not at all the same and another specificity of the state structure. And what were the very first routes of communication? Of the technical solutions used then, only the track and carriage facilities have now remained, and even then not without changes. The traction part (PM), the encryption part (SH), the power supply part (ECH) and other services have fundamentally changed exactly the opposite (the railway workers will understand what these abbreviations are). But have these changes always been driven by technical progress? Let's take a look and start small - with the water supply systems of steam locomotives.
As you know, a steam locomotive needs water in the same way as fuel. The steam boiler will not work without it. And naturally, at every large station there was a point for refueling steam locomotives with water, as for example in the photo. Water for such a point was obtained in general according to the standard scheme of water intake-water-lifting device-storage device-distribution device. Many old photos of these nodes have been preserved. For example, a photo of the not preserved water-lifting building of the Ob station of the Central Siberian railway (now it does not exist in that form, now it is Novosibirsk-Glavny), the official publication of the Great Way photo album from 1899.
Photo as photo, if not for one "but", namely the same photo, for example, like this.
Promotional video:
Obviously, this is the same photo, only smoke is painted on the top of the pipe. What for? If you take a closer look at the bottom photo, you can see that there is no smoke at all and even the leaves of the trees above the chimney are visible very well. From the experience of working with such photos, I can definitely say that if the retoucher has painted on some detail to another existing detail in the photo, then in this existing detail you need to look for a catch. Where can he be here? Oddly enough, there is another photo of this place, and it was clearly not taken on the same day with the previous one:
And again, something is painted on or inaccurately whitened near the top of the pipe. Why did the retoucher need to pay so much attention to this part of the pipe, namely to artificially show the presence of escaping smoke? If we argue in the East from the opposite, it turns out that there was no smoke here at all and could not be. But what about water for steam locomotives? It is needed regardless of the season, both in winter and summer. And in the case of the example with the scale of the Ob station, the volume of water consumed was significant, and even on the way from this water-lifting building to the catchment there were intermediate water-lifting stations, which were still preserved in places in that region of Novosibirsk.
It is difficult to say now how this system looked geographically. The Ob station has been reconstructed almost completely, there are no cartographic materials about its original form in the public domain. Why did you need to paint on the smoke? The answer, most likely, must be sought in similar photos of other water-lifting devices at other stations of that time. Moreover, I came across another interesting photo.
This is a view of the Violiema water-lifting building of the Vilna station of the Warsaw railway in 1911. The photo clearly shows that the pipe is sealed with a metal casing and even smoke was not added. And why did the pipe need to be repaired like this? Most likely, this is not conservation for decommissioning, there were simply no other water lifting systems there. So, is it a pipe at all? By the way, a lot of old photos of similar structures from different geographical locations have survived.
This is the Luga station of the Warsaw railway in 1911.
This is the Kamala station of the Siberian railway in 1910.
This is the Darg-Kokh station of the Rostov-Vladikavkaz railway in 1913.
As you can see, everywhere the same thing - no smoke comes out of the chimneys, there are no brackets for lifting the stoker on the chimney. Knowledgeable people will confirm that such pipes will not work for long without periodic cleaning of the combustion products on the walls. But the fact is, the chimney sweep cannot get on top of such a pipe from the outside. It seems strange at first glance, but everything will become clear, if these pipes are nothing more than a part of a pump operating using atmospheric electricity. As you understand, no such structures have survived anywhere to this day. There are many typical drawings of water-lifting buildings on the network. Maybe there is something interesting there? For example, here is such a drawing, but it is difficult to understand whether it is a worker or executive.
For some reason, the technique in the building is not indicated, but the essence is not important, perhaps the emphasis was on the building itself. The specialist will immediately notice some inconsistencies in logic. First, the chimney of the furnace with a relatively low chimney for some reason goes in a horizontal section below the zero mark. In the absence of a smoke exhauster, the draft of such stoves will leave much to be desired. Such designs are used mainly in Ammosov furnaces or in retort furnaces, where charcoal is made, and even then not in all. Well, or in cold-smoked smokehouses, if anyone has seen. Secondly, the premises of steam boilers (on the left) and pumping equipment (in the center) are somehow strangely located. When organizing the transmission according to the logic of things, the pumps should be in a parallel line to the boilers, and not perpendicular, to simplify the construction of the pulleys. Here, the opposite is true. Three places are indicated for boilers and three for pumps. Maybe they were used in such a quantity, if not for another drawing.
Oddly enough, it is in gas factories that retort furnaces are used, and the water-lifting building itself, although without a pipe, looks completely different. Obviously, in the first drawing, an engineer (or not quite an engineer) simply adapted a drawing of a gas plant into a water-lifting building. Everything is really simple there, three ovens and no transmission. In favor of this conclusion, there is one more drawing found.
Boiler specialists, take a look and be surprised. What kind of incomprehensibility is drawn instead of boilers, so that there is an insert in the pipe with a mandatory clearance from the pipe material? There can be no open fire in the chimney, and hot air there is clearly not a destructive factor. But the pipe is drawn according to all the rules, the horizontal part of the chimney is at the required level. And no transmission from "boilers" to pumps, and not only transmissions, but even pulleys are conventionally not drawn. The pumps are indicated quite realistically, but what are the cylindrical parts on them? Very strange. In the receiving well at the ends of the inlet pipes there are some similar elements, but most likely they are just filters. In such a scheme, second pumps are not needed, although here it also depends on the distance between the well and the building, as well as the diameter of the supply pipe. As you know,nothing like this has been standing in Kherson for a long time, not even buildings.
Well, actually, the statement of the drawings ended there, and the assumptions began. The fact that this is not a steam boiler is already clear to me personally (please, if I am mistaken, object). And most likely, this is a slightly modified fireplace, which did not use fuel combustion. More precisely, the liner in the pipe performs the very function of collecting atmospheric electricity, which is directed into a large cylindrical object at the place of the boiler. Some kind of energy transformation takes place in it, as a result of which heat is released, which in the form of heated air is removed through the pipe. In one of the photos, there is a grid on the pipe, which means that the gas escaping from it has no impurities. But this heat is ordinary losses due to energy conversion, the useful component from which is used (or received) by a small cylinder standing on the pump,and serving as a pump motor. It turns out a kind of transformer that works according to completely unknown laws. The pump, judging by the input-output pipes, is drawn quite realistically, it is a conventional liquid rotary pump of the "snail" type, without any valves. Perhaps the drawing is simplified, and these liners in the pipe go along its entire height, it is not for nothing that the entire inner part of the pipe is divided into three conical sections. For an ordinary chimney, this is not necessary at all. Actually, pay attention to the building on the left in the main picture. What's sticking out of the pipe?and these liners in the pipe run along its entire height, it is not for nothing that the entire inner part of the pipe is divided into three conical sections. For an ordinary chimney, this is not necessary at all. Actually, pay attention to the building on the left in the main picture. What's sticking out of the pipe?and these liners in the pipe run along its entire height, it is not for nothing that the entire inner part of the pipe is divided into three conical sections. For an ordinary chimney, this is not necessary at all. Actually, pay attention to the building on the left in the main picture. What's sticking out of the pipe?
It turns out that again some forces have misled us, throwing in standard drawings of buildings and structures of old-fashioned railways. And at the same time painting on the smoke in the photo where it could not be in principle.
Continued: Part 2
Author: tech_dancer