As you can probably guess by my username and the topic of this thread, I am an avid fan of the USSR/Russian State Railway, paticularly its steam locomotives, and I would like to build a layout on this topic; thus do you have any plans or blueprints of their steam locomotives?
Pleas contribute with following posts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_locomotive_class_P36#/media/File:Parovoz_P36_razmeri.jpg
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
There are numerous railroad and transportations museums in Russia. They may have a web site that would give contact information. The Hermitage art museum in St Petersburg does. I would think that even despite their political differences with us, they would still be eager to share their historical 'treasures' with us and the rest of the world. Might be worth a try.
Mark H
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
There have been numerous books on Russian railroads published mostly in the UK. You can find them pretty cheaply on Amazon used books, for instance http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Steam-Locomotives-Murton-Fleming/dp/0715354957
At various times, there have been Russian prototype models in HO, offered either by German or Russian makers. Some Chinese equipment from Bachmann China is also similar.
Our well informed and hard working New Zealander has it right.
The diagram on English Wikipedia is that which appears in most references, including the standard book "Russian and Soviet Locomotives" by V.A. Rakov (who has produced a number of such books, some relatively recently)
The standard types are described on English Wikipedia, which can be reached from Ja Bear's link above. If you have a browser with translation capabilities, there is also a link to Russian Wikipedia which has much more detailed (and very interesting) articles on every Russian steam locomotive type imaginable.
Although I've lost the link, there is on Russian Wikipedia a complete official steam locomotive diagram book from the early 1930s, which includes certain foreign designs considered important by the Soviet authorities, including the UP 4-12-2 and SP 4-10-2 and the Austrian type 214 2-8-4 among others.
There is definitely no shortage of information on the web on Russian steam locomotives.
I know of no models of Russian steam locomotives currently available in any gauge. There was an HO model of a type Ov 0-8-0 available in late Soviet days I believe.
The best starting point to get an HO layout under way would be to buy a Chinese Bachmann type QJ 2-10-2. This uses the basic chassis of the last Soviet freight locomotive the type LV 2-10-2, but it was stretched in length to take the larger boiler of the type P34 2-6-6-2 (which was a one off prototype).
If you take the QJ and remove the smoke deflectors, you would have a locomotive that looked a lot like an LV.
If you can find a 4-8-4 chassis that is close to the dimensions of the P36 shown in the diagram linked above (the driving wheels are only 1850mm, about six feet, while most US 4-8-4s had bigger wheels. The N&W J has 70" wheels, but these are spoked rather than boxpok.), the QJ boiler is very close to the P36 in dimensions, and the QJ shell would form the basis of a very accurate P36. The Tenders are nearly identical.
The Soviets took over a large number of German locomotives and altered them to 1520mm gauge. The classes of war locomotives type 52 (Russian TE) and type 42 (Russian TL) were used in large numbers and would make a good start to a layout.
M636C
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For the underframe I think you could get away with using a modified Bachman GS4 assembly, though the QJ does seem a bit expensive for a model to cut up on (I myself would recomed scratchbuilding of the shell.
I've seen that drawing before, but thanks anyway because I couldn't find it at its source.
P.S. What are the measurements on that diagram? It looks like milimeteres, but is hard to tell...
All the Russian locomotive diagrams are dimensioned in millimetres.
The QJ is a very nice model and runs well if a little slowly. It does make a good stand in for the LV as it is, just renumbered.
Check out the respective drawings at:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%92
and
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QJ_drawingside.jpg?uselang=ru
The GS-4 has 80 inch wheels and although I think the Bachmann version has slightly undersize wheels they might be a bit big for 72 inches on the P36.
If you could remove the skyline casing from a plastic GS-4 and substitute the taller and narrower casing on the P36 and alter the valences to suit you'd have an oversize but good looking P36. You might still want to use the QJ tender or scratchbuild one a bit bigger to match the locomotive.