Ukraine (Kiev) Local Railways

Go to Chernobyl while you're there. Absolutely extraordinary place, and the abandoned station/yard at Yaniv is a stop on most tours.

Iskra said:

By way of update; I have booked a day trip from Kiev-Lviv using IC+ day trains in 1st class. 12 hours of first class travel was £50 including 2 hot drinks and a meal. It only gives me 5 hours in Lviv but I feel that should be enough and the rail journey looks an interesting one. I looked at sleeper trains but they were slower and more expensive. Thank you to all who provided advice.

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I'm sure you have worked it out, but there are 2 daily IC+ services Kyiv-Lviv-Przemysl and return.
But they go via different routes, and the westerly route (via Vinnystya and Ternopil) is almost 2 hours longer then the easterly one (via Korosten).
As far as I can tell, the 2 physical units each go out one way and return the other.

PS While I was there, Lviv seemed to be a regular loco change point for long-distance trains, sometimes from electric to diesel and vv, and easy to see/photo close up.
Many of the diesels are huge double units.
It's also an electric boundary (3kV DC to the west (same as Poland), 25kV AC to the east.

Journeyman said:

Go to Chernobyl while you're there. Absolutely extraordinary place, and the abandoned station/yard at Yaniv is a stop on most tours.

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I've got a full day trip to Chernobyl booked in I remember my tour stops at a radar station, but can't remember if it mentioned the railway station. Hopefully it will as it looks cool.

LNW-GW Joint said:

I'm sure you have worked it out, but there are 2 daily IC+ services Kyiv-Lviv-Przemysl and return.
But they go via different routes, and the westerly route (via Vinnystya and Ternopil) is almost 2 hours longer then the easterly one (via Korosten).
As far as I can tell, the 2 physical units each go out one way and return the other.

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Yes, I have noticed this and I'm travelling a different route in each direction

LNW-GW Joint said:

The massive double-unit diesels had a CCCP plate saying they were built in 1988 at the October Revolution works in Voroshilovgrad (now Luhansk in eastern Ukraine).
This factory apparently had all the diesel loco construction in Soviet times (including exports to the eastern bloc).

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That factory has a rather interesting history. It was established in 1896 by Gustav Hartmann, a German national, who in his younger years had worked for Beyer-Peacock (like Charles Beyer, Hartmann was from Saxony). His father Richard had been the founder and director of the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz, which – with roughly 4,600 engines built during its existence – was one of the medium-sized producers of locomotives in Germany. Luhansk was operated as a subsidiary plant of that company. By 1906 the factory’s output was already comparable to that of the two main Russian competitors, the Bryansk works and the Putilov Company in St Petersburg. Hartmann died in 1910 and so didn’t live to see the nationalization of the factory after the October Revolution. Under Soviet control it was expanded and became the largest locomotive producer in Europe. After the German invasion, the works were first relocated further east, then returned to Luhansk in 1943 and started building locos again in 1945. Production of steam locomotives ended in 1956 with over 12,000 built – not only outnumbering but also outlasting its former parent company, which had folded in 1929. The factory then started building diesel engines, reaching record production levels of 100 to 200 units per month in the 1970s and 80s. Production during that time included more than 1,200 Class 120 and Class 130 built for East Germany. With the breakup of the Soviet Union it became property of the new Ukrainian state until it was privatized in 2006. In 2007 the Bryansk Machine-Building Plant – successor to the Bryansk works and today part of Transmashholding, Russia’s largest manufacturer of locomotives – became the main shareholder. With the outbreak of the War in Donbass in 2014, production virtually ceased as the factory is now located in the unrecognised Luhansk People’s Republic.

Iskra said:

A nice report and some fantastic pictures. Do any big soviet-style diesels come to Kiev so I could have a ride?

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I don’t think so, but the ChME3 knock around Kiev Pas on ECS so you’ll probably see them. Double unit big diesels certainly work to Lviv.

Iskra said:

I've got a full day trip to Chernobyl booked in I remember my tour stops at a radar station, but can't remember if it mentioned the railway station. Hopefully it will as it looks cool.

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Good! You're in for a pretty mind-blowing day - the zone has a profound effect on just about everyone who goes there. The radar station is a real highlight - it's enormous.