Historical Evidence of Formation of Electric Locomotive Engineering in Ukraine: Development and Production of Industrial Locomotives at Dnipropetrovsk Plant (1959–1968)

Abstract

The article attempts to investigate the historical circumstances of the first decade of the formation and development of the industrial electric locomotive industry in Ukraine. In the course of writing the proposed study, the materials of the multi-volume publication “Elektrovozobudivnyk” and orders for the Dnipropetrovsk plant from the funds of the State Archives of the Dnipropetrovsk region were used.

The article aims to reproduce a holistic picture of the development and serial construction of industrial electric locomotives at the Dnipropetrovsk electric locomotive plant in 1961—1968.

It was found out that during1959—1968 the engineering and design team of the Dnipropetrovsk plant, having powerful research and production potential, during the operation and initial electrification of access roads with alternating current, for the purpose of import substitution, developed and built innovative samples of industrial electric locomotives of the D100, D100M and D94 series to meet the needs of the access tracks of Soviet mining companies with modern high-tech electric transport — electric locomotives for operation under a 10 kV overhead contact network.

It was determined that in 1963, on the basis of the first serial industrial locomotives, the specialists of the design bureau of the Dnipropetrovsk plant developed the first shunting electric locomotives of the D92 series (later — VL41) in the USSR, intended for operation on public tracks, which, over time, as a result of structural deficiencies, were transferred from the inventory of the USSR railways for operation on the access tracks of a number of enterprises and power plants. After the production of the last industrial electric locomotives of the D94 series in 1968, the design team of the enterprise focused on the development of traction units for industrial use to the order of the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy. Further study of the history of Dnipropetrovsk electric locomotive plant requires clarification of the historical circumstances of institutionalization of the Special Design and Technology Bureau of the enterprise from the creation of industrial electric locomotives and traction units to the development and re-equipment of main traction rolling stock, as well as specialized railway repair equipment within the state enterprise “Ukrainian Research Design Institute of Electric Locomotive Engineering”.