Soviet Monster

UPDATE: The colours were horribly off on this one, the red being orange and stuff. Thanks to lots of help from Colin and CJ, I was finally able to make it red, after what must've been almost ten edits. Yes, my colour vision is best described as not very good.


In Soviet Russia, you don't shoot locomotive. Locomotive shoots you. At least that's the feeling you get when one of these brutes comes rumbling towards you.

Built by the locomotive factory in Luhansk from 1970 onwards, the former DR class 130 soon pulled everything that was fast and/or heavy on the Reichsbahn network of the former GDR. Despite some troubles with the crankshaft, these locomotives proved very reliable, powered by a 3000hp V16 four stroke engine. After the German reunification, some were upgraded to produce 4000hp, probably the most powerful diesel engines we have around here.

As you can guess from nicknames such as "howling wolf" or "vacuum cleaner", they have a quite distinct sound, thanks to screaming cooling fans and turbochargers. Untamed, it sounds a little bit like this, but with respect to people living near railroads, measures have been taken to reduce the noise output. Still, when sitting in the nearby buildings of my university, you can still easily decide whether it's a Ludmilla or not.


Photo from my latest tour.