European Railroad Discussion > Estonia: C36-7ai Running Southern Style...

This is Vaivara in Estonia. It is the railway station of the once closed Soviet nuclear research and production city Sillamäe on the Finnish Gulf coast. Nuclear production is gone now, just nuclear waste remaining behind. Instead the city of Sillamäe is concentration on developing its export-import harbor facilities. Furthermore Vaivara is a junction for the burning rock area where this kind of rock is transported between power plants and mines and lot of oil extracted from it too. Yes, you heard right: Estonia exports oil these days. As a result lots of smaller scale operations selling this oil in country have mushroomed and are served by thousands of can cars, some of which are visible below in pictures awaiting loading/unloading.

EVR - Eesti Raudtee - still operates a pretty sizable fleet of C36-7ai locomotives, C30-7ai fleet being retired now. We enjoy these on our railfan safaris as they always seem to be busy running freights to and from East (Russia) and inside Estonia. The EVR engineers have so far been very careful about turning their locomotives around with always the short hood forward, but for once (exceptions make the rule ;) we found a locomotive "Running the Southern RR way". Having been on a cabride in one of those I can tell the visibility is almost nil to the longer hood so the engineer and the fireman must be extra careful when driving this way. Trailing is a long rake of Russian style coal gondolas, on their way probably to Muuga (Tallinn) or Paldiski harbor.

But let's enjoy the pics of powerful American diesel running past nearby...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/14 07:36 by McKey.

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2nd set...

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This train is resembling those in U.S. in length...if not motive power.

Cats eye acting as EOT device.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/14 07:36 by McKey.

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Great thanks The C36-7s were the last new engines lettered for the MOP.

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Wow, Missouri Pacific from my youth :) , thank you for posting the picture shay2977!

How different the paint makes the unit look. And you are almost expecting dark blue instead...

A dumb question, but since I don't know: is running long nose forward allowed and used today in U.S.?

shay2977 Wrote:
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> Great thanks The C36-7s were the last new engines
> lettered for the MOP.

Yes you can run any way but if no ditch lites its 20mph at public crossings. I got to see and photo the first MOP 9000s delivered. The RR put them on pig trains for the most part.

Thanks, did the units have ditch lights at both ends back then? Can you spot any other differences?

There is a lot more info here than is visible in my pictures:

http://www.4rail.net/reference_estonia_gallery2_locosdiesel.php#evr_c36-7i

And

http://www.4rail.net/reference_estonia_locos_diesel1.php#c36-7i


shay2977 Wrote:
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> Yes you can run any way but if no ditch lites its
> 20mph at public crossings. I got to see and photo
> the first MOP 9000s delivered. The RR put them on
> pig trains for the most part.

Interesting first photo.....the track in the foreground is spiked down as opposed to the Euorpean bolt fastners. Is this common in Estonia?

You have sharp eyes! I think this was because it is an old Soviet side line to burning rock processing plant and kind of backdoor to mining area. So sidelines might be spiked in general. But never the serious main lines. I can't remenber what you call this fastener used on the main line to the left but this is really the most common way to keep the tracks and ties fastened together.

ATSF3751 Wrote:
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> Interesting first photo.....the track in the
> foreground is spiked down as opposed to the
> Euorpean bolt fastners. Is this common in Estonia?


Here is a picture of the Sillamäe Sadam (Sillamäe Harbor) new Tem-Tmh number 13 in the same place (it can be seen waiting in the first picture too with the C36-tai running past first) and in the foreground can be seen the main line fasteners.

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That looks to be a very well maintained rail line. Any idea what the posted track speed is there?

Thanks for sharing an update on the status of the old C36-7's.

McKey Wrote:
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> Thanks, did the units have ditch lights at both
> ends back then? Can you spot any other
> differences?
>
> There is a lot more info here than is visible in
> my pictures:
>
> http://www.4rail.net/reference_estonia_gallery2_lo
> cosdiesel.php#evr_c36-7i
>
> And
>
> http://www.4rail.net/reference_estonia_locos_diese
> l1.php#c36-7i
>
>
> shay2977 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yes you can run any way but if no ditch lites
> its
> > 20mph at public crossings. I got to see and
> photo
> > the first MOP 9000s delivered. The RR put them
> on
> > pig trains for the most part.
When they were in the US no ditch lites on rear and I see a air conditioner up top

Talking with some of the local company management the design speed is / is going to be 160 km/h / 99 mph, once the Soviet period decay and some destroyed infra by C36-7ais (the machine is excessively heavy, so bad things happened when they first came to Estonia) is cleared. The European Union state of Estonia is responsible for track maintenance, giving work to lots of smaller private companies. Any operator can run on national lines freely, at the time in Vaivara there were three different operators, EVR, Sillamäe Sadam and Eesti Energia locomotives visible, along with the normal couple of dozen freight car operators.

European Union is also pushing forward the normal gauge track and normal operations for the Russian gauge, which means much higher speeds, but this will take some time. I hear Estonians would be more than happy to share the European normal gauge along with the Russian guage, but Russian minded Latvians are acting as brakemen on the issue. Latvia exports Russian oil so they have a wrench there where to pull and hit hard if Latvians make wrong choices by the Eastern view. Of course the Eastern views and bad manners just leads Latvia to take distance and integrate to EU ever faster.

Due to high line speed it is often cool to see the Estonian EVR C36-7ai's running freights with speed, as opposed to Ukrainian (manufactured in Luhansk, where the fighting is happening for the moment) 2Te116s which always seem to be crawling forward. 2 Te116 still is the most common Eastern diesel locomotive, for now. I see the lifespan of the C36-7ais something like 10 years as the immediate mothballing dangers are now over. EVR locomotive workshop in Tapa is more than capable of taking good care of all the units, if only spare parts exist. Now many parts from C30-7ais are being used, but at some points those are going to be all used and some new ones will be needed. Or of course EVR might buy some GE Evolution series locos, either directly from GE in Kazakhstanian Tem33 form.


Milwaukee Wrote:
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> That looks to be a very well maintained rail line.
> Any idea what the posted track speed is there?
>
>
> Thanks for sharing an update on the status of the
> old C36-7's.

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Thanks! The little white air conditioners above the cab roof only appeared about 5 years ago here. I suppose this means the units were not originally built with air conditioning at all.

In the pictures one of the C30-7ai before being stored for spare parts.

shay2977 Wrote:
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> When they were in the US no ditch lites on rear
> and I see a air conditioner up top

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