Rail Travel In Russia

[pitdiver]

I don't know if anybody can help me. My Father In Law is beginning to suffer from dementia. We are therefore trying to keep his thought processes active.
In the early to mid seventies he and my mother in law travelled a few times to Soviet Russia. (he was and still is a staunch trade unionist).
Does anybody have any information about train services between St Petersburg (Leningrad as was) and Moscow during the time span mentioned above.
Also any information regarding ferry services between Helsinki & Leningrad back than.

We are hoping to talk to him about His and Mother In Law's travel adventures in Soviet Russia

Thanking you in anticipation

Rob H

 

[rf_ioliver]

If you're looking for pictures you can try the Finnish site vaunut.org. Here's a search for "leningrad": http://vaunut.org/kuvat/?t=leningrad which turns up a number of pictures of trains between Helsinki and Leningrad in the 1970s

http://vaunut.org/kuva/80206 Leningrad-Moscow Express at Kouvola 1969
http://vaunut.org/kuva/71393 '79 - Helsinki-Leningrad train in Finland
http://vaunut.org/kuva/63773 '78- Helsinki-Leningrad train in Finland
http://vaunut.org/kuva/11699 '76- trams in Leningrad
http://vaunut.org/kuva/11698 '76- trams in Leningrad
http://vaunut.org/kuva/115624 1970 - Leningradskaja Express in Helsinki
http://vaunut.org/kuva/108236 1976 - Finlandskij Station, Leningrad

As for ferries between Helsinki and Leningrad - not sure about these at all ... will ask around

Hope this helps

t.

Ian

 

[30907]

My 1981 Cooks has the Leningrad-Moscow times if that would be useful (someone here may have a slightly older one?) but the only reference to a ferry from L is to Kotka and a couple of other Finnish destinations not including Helsinki.

 

[SHD]

Please find below the complete 1984 SZD timetable, including international trains: http://drehscheibe.ist-im-web.de/tcb/rzd1984.pdf

If you cannot read Russian, I will gladly help you find information about specific trains.
Moscow-Leningrad trains appear pp. 8-9. There was an impressive bunch of 8 departures after 20:00 with trains sometimes minutes apart.

 

[itfcfan]

Please find below the complete 1984 SZD timetable, including international trains: http://drehscheibe.ist-im-web.de/tcb/rzd1984.pdf

If you cannot read Russian, I will gladly help you find information about specific trains.
Moscow-Leningrad trains appear pp. 8-9. There was an impressive bunch of 8 departures after 20:00 with trains sometimes minutes apart.

What a wonderful historical document! Thanks for sharing SHD!!

 

[jimm]

This thread on the rail-club.ru website has random old pictures of Russian stations from various periods, including these from St Patersburg/Leningrad's Moscow station* - Моско́вский вокза́л - in the 70s, the fashion is a dead giveaway. There are probably more and others from Moscow if you scroll through what is a pretty long thread.

https://rail-club.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10955&start=420

This site with old pictures of Moscow has quite a few of the city's Leningrad station* - Ленинградский вокзал - NB they don't always load/load fast, so you may need to click a couple of times. This station is also sometimes referred to as Москва Главная Пассажирская.

http://oldmos.ru/old/photo/tag/Ленинградский+вокзал

*Russian convention for station naming in Moscow and St Petersburg/Leningrad was to call them after the place or region that you could catch a train to, hence Moscow has a Leningrad station (the name has stuck, even after St Petersburg reverted to its Tsarist name), Kiev station, Belorusski Station (for Belarus), etc. Subsequent developments mean that this rule doesn't always hold true, e.g. Moscow's Kursk station provides trains south towards Kursk and also services heading east and south east these days.

St Petersburg has a Moscow station, Finland station, Baltic station, etc.

Bit of Russian railway trivia: The word for mainline station - вокза́л - comes from Vauxhall in London. There are a couple of theories as to how this happened but no one seems sure which is the right one http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question140787.html

Metro stations are, however, know as станция

 

[Taunton]

The services on Moscow-Leningrad in 1975 were surprisingly similar to nowadays. The bulk of passengers travelled overnight (still do) on a convoy of trains which departed both ends in the late evening, and took about the same time. The interiors were not dissimilar, with large compartments with 4 sleeping berths, 2 over 2. Although the rolling stock has been renewed, it is basically the same fundamental design. Trains all had a restaurant car, which was open all night. The end stations are pretty much as they were, apart from all the retail kisks nowadays which were few and far between then. The dead straight and level route, known as the "October Railway" more then than now (this was a Soviet expression to commemorate the October revolution of 1917) has always been the premier rail route between the two major Soviet/Russian cities.

High speed daytime trains, the Siemens-built "Sapsan", have only come to the route in recent years. The line was electrified at 3,000v dc some time in the late 1950s. The locomotives would have been type Ch2 (attached picture), built by Skoda in Czechoslovakia (as all Soviet passenger electric locomotives were) in 1960-75, as ilustrated on the front cover of the linked old timetable, likely running double headed. They have since been replaced, but only by more modern Skoda locos built, like many of the current overnight coaches, at the end of the socialist era. There are still quite a few Ch2 around if you know where to look.

In 1975 such Westerners would invariably have travelled in a group with an Intourist guide/translator, and the agency would have made all bookings etc. You would be told which train you were going on, no buying at the booking office (which anyway would be tied up with all the Soviet Internal Passport detail which they would not have). Westerners would be given priority, it would not be unknown for Soviet families to be just dumped at the departure point because Intourist needed additional spaces.

 

[Taunton]

Here's the timetables (from Cooks Continental Timetables) for September 1974, for Moscow-Leningrad, and Leningrad-Helsinki. Latter by train, I'm not aware of any regular ship between the ports, people would have gone by train. There was a once weekly run at the time by one of the interior Lake Ladoga cruise ships up the Baltic to Vyborg and then by canal just over the border to Lappeenranta in Finland.