This year we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the famous plan for the electrification of our country — the GOELRO plan, developed in 1920 by the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia on the instructions and under the direct supervision of V. I. Lenin.
At the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Vladimir Ilyich called it the second program of the party. The plan envisaged the restoration of all power plants destroyed during the civil war within 10-15 years and the construction of another 30 with a total capacity of 1,500 thousand kW. And by the beginning of 1926, the first thermal power plants were put into operation: Kashirskaya, Krasny Oktyabr, Kizelovskaya and Nizhegorodskaya. It became possible to start electrifying rail transport.
At that time, some capitalist countries — the USA, Italy, Switzerland — already had electrified railway lines. Their experience showed that it was advisable to use electric traction primarily on mountainous sections with tunnels, in the suburbs, and for shunting traffic within the city limits.
In 1925-1927, seven two-axle electric locomotives were produced for use on access and intra-plant tracks of industrial enterprises. The State Electrotechnical Trust (GET) initiated the construction of these first locomotives with electric traction in our country. Hence the name of the machines — 0-20-0 GET. In particular, the traction motors, rheostats, and controllers (speed regulators) were manufactured by the Moscow Dynamo plant, which was part of the trust. The body and chassis were built at the Mytishchi Carriage Works, which was part of the Steam Locomotive and Diesel Construction Trust.
The locomotives operated on 550 V direct current, which was used in the tram network. The drive for each wheel pair was made through a gear reducer from a DB-2 electric motor with a power of 75 kW. It was also used for the motor cars of the Baku-Sabunchu railway, the electrification of which was going on in parallel. On one side, the engines were suspended from the bogie frame on sprung brackets, and on the other, they rested on the axles of the wheel pairs.
The design weight of the 0-20-0 GET type machines was 17 tons. To improve the adhesion of the wheels to the rails, ballast (metal ingots) weighing up to 8 tons was placed on the platform. In working order, the electric locomotives developed a tractive effort of up to 1900 kg at a speed of 25 km / h, which corresponds to a power of 177 hp.
Speed \u200b\u200bcontrol was the same as that of trams of that time - with direct inclusion of the controller in the traction circuit. When the locomotive moved off, the engines were switched on sequentially through rheostats located on the roof of the cabin and connected to the pantograph. As they accelerated, the rheostat sections shorted out. With further increase in speed, the engines were switched on in parallel, first through rheostats, and then directly from the contact network.
The new locomotives were used on the electrified tracks of Dynamo and Elektrozavod, as well as for freight transportation along the Baku tram lines. In 1926, a 5.5 km long branch was adapted for electric locomotive traffic. It connected the Cherkizovo station of the Moscow Ring Railway with Elektrozavod, on the territory of which the transformer and electric lamp factories are now located. This line is still in operation. It was on this line that two "old men" 0-20-0 GET were recently discovered. One of them is no longer so much in operation as being repaired, and the other is still serving people faithfully. True, it has somewhat lost its original appearance: the brake system compressor has been removed from the cabin, and the rheostats from the roof. They were placed in the ballast compartments of the body.
The first electrified branches were supposed to connect the railway marshalling yards with the city tram lines. And therefore, both a tram coupling and a screw railway coupling were installed on electric locomotives.
The first industrial locomotive with electric traction turned out to be an unusually successful machine: easy to operate, easy to repair, reliable in operation. In 1930, its production was resumed. The mechanical part was entrusted to the Podolsk Cracking and Electric Locomotive Plant. And the electrical equipment, as before, was made at Dynamo.
Locomotives of this type were produced in two modifications: with a narrow body 2230 mm wide and a wide one - 2900 mm. The first model was intended for servicing tram companies, the second - for maneuvering on tram tracks and railways.
Some of the machines served coke ovens and had a slightly different design: a platform along the driver's cabin and a slightly raised body. Since rails cannot be used as a current carrier in hot shops, two current collectors were mounted on the side wall of the machine. Moreover, these locomotives operated without ballast and with the engine ventilation muffled.
The first two-axle industrial electric locomotives were replaced by EK series locomotives. The production of various modifications of these machines was first mastered by the Kharkiv Plant of Transport Engineering named after V. A. Malyshev, and then by the Murom Locomotive Plant named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky.
OLEG KURIKHIN
Candidate of Technical Sciences