Era: II-III
Affiliation: SZD
Company manufacturer: R. Mishin, M. Maksimov
Production start year: 2008
Model Description
The model of the SVPS passenger car was first presented by Roman Mishin (Nakhabino, Moscow region) at the Lokotrans-Yug exhibition in June 2008 (Rostov-on-Don). Body material - teak veneer. Used parts of "Egorov" cars manufactured by "Peresvet" (bogies, frame, deflectors, transitional souffle, etc.). The model is under construction. It is planned to design the carriage in the style of the "Red Arrow" train of the 1930s and operate it with "Egorov" cars from "Peresvet" in the appropriate color.
A similar model, using parts of the "Peresvet" company and wood veneer for the manufacture of the body, was made in 2009 by the modeller Maxim Maximov.
Other models of SVPS cars with a lamppost roof:
- from "B.V.-Zh.D." (small series);
- from "Peresvet" (small series).
Description of the prototype
Cars of this type were built before the revolution by order of the International Sleeping Car Society, which operated similar cars throughout Europe. In such a carriage, it was possible to travel without a change through the whole of Europe, including Turkey and Russia. It was from such cars that the Trans-Siberian Express was assembled.
After the revolution, the nationalized cars were transferred to a specially created in the USSR at the railway. department of the Office of the SVPS. It also includes a small number of similar cars built during the Soviet era. The SVPS cars were the most comfortable passenger cars on the Soviet roads of those years (not counting the individual cars of special types). As a rule, in the composition of fast trains connecting big cities country (for example, "Krasnaya Arrow" - Moscow-Leningrad), included one such car. It was used primarily by the Soviet elite. In operation, SVPS cars lasted until the end of the 50s.
Initially, these carriages were varnished over the wood cladding; in recent years they have been simply dyed brown.
The station was shining in the blue darkness of the frosty night ... From under the finished train, illuminated from above by frosted electric balls, a hot hissing gray steam, smelling of rubber, was pouring down. The international carriage stood out for its yellowish wood paneling. Inside it, in a narrow corridor under a red carpet, in the variegated shine of the walls upholstered in embossed leather and thick, grainy door panes, there was already a foreign country. A Pole guide in a uniform brown jacket opened the door to a small compartment, very hot, with a tight, ready-made bed, softly lit by a table lamp under a red silk lampshade "(I. Bunin" Heinrich ").
Unprecedented measures to improve comfort are associated with the development of international passenger traffic in Russia and the appearance here of express trains of the International Society of Sleeping Carriages - SVPS and service saloon carriages of long body length (22-25 meters) on four or six axles. Member of the State Duma V. V. Shulgin, who left Russia after the revolution, wrote in his "Letters to the Russian Emigration": "Russia was far ahead of Western Europe in terms of the comfort of trains."
The embodiment of railway comfort in the eyes of the entire Russian society was the Siberian Express Petersburg - Irkutsk (later, under Soviet rule, until the annexation of Western Belarus - the Negoreloe - Vladivostok train). It was truly a miracle of its time. Express cars had proud overhead inscriptions: "Direct Siberian communication", "Siberian train number 1" (there were several sets of such trains, and each was numbered in its own way). This train had only class I and II carriages with water heating, with electric lighting from its own train power station, and since 1912 - individual power supply for each car with a generator drive from the carriage axle. Since 1896, for the first time in Russia, restaurant cars have appeared on trains of this class - an invention of the American George Pullman, the creator of long-distance comfortable passenger traffic.
The Siberian Express also had a library, a piano, a living room with luxurious candelabra curtains, tablecloths, a barometer and a clock, billiards; you could order a hot bath for a fee and even ... work out in the gym (yes, there was one here!). In the carriages (also for the first time in Russia), tea was served in the compartment and bed linen was changed every three days. There were table lamps on the tables in the compartment, but the shelves themselves were already illuminated by small "spotlights" (Vladimir Nabokov calls them "tulip-shaped"). The roof of the Siberian Express carriage was sheathed with copper sheets, and lighting lanterns were on top. The lower part of the international carriages, belonging to the so-called Polonso type, was metal, bullet-proof, up to 10 millimeters thick (hence the nickname “armored carriage”), the windows were large and wide. The interior decoration tones are noble - dark green and blue. Carriages from behind a large number metal in their construction was not only much stronger than other cars, especially with wooden frames, but also much heavier and longer, with a heavy load on the track, so they could not be used on all roads. Basically, such cars were used on border and resort lines, along which express trains of the International Society of Sleeping Carriages ply - Vladikavkaz, Sino-Eastern, Petersburg-Varshavskaya. It must be said that the Siberian express trains took upon themselves practically the entire diplomatic flow of passengers, currency and mail in the Europe - Far East traffic. It was an international train, known all over the world.
This is where today's SV - "sleeping car" came from. It would seem that almost every Russian passenger carriage can be called sleeping. However, in the period from 1896 to the 1950s, such cars were not called SV, but SVPS - "sleeping car direct communication". This is a significant difference. The term "direct communication" meant a long-distance communication along one specific route without transfers along the way, which was a kind of luxury. After all, there was almost no direct communication at a distance of over 2 thousand versts: even when traveling from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok by trains of the International Society, it was necessary to change in Irkutsk to the same “Siberian train”. There were almost no long-distance direct train routes - there were only direct carriages on the trains. That is, if today they indicate, for example: “ Express train number 2 Moscow - Volgograd ", but earlier it sounded differently:" Direct direct communication Moscow - Tsaritsyn in the courier train number 2 ". There were no stencils on the carriages indicating the train route.
"Direct communication" - these fascinating words meant a long-distance railway track, which means, one way or another, a whole event in the fate of a passenger. "Sleeping car" - chic, luxury, dream, chosen world. The kingdom of expensive cigars, exquisite manners, short but hot romances, delicacy, inaccessibility ...
I must say that before the revolution on railways In Russia, a very high, almost modern level of corporate passenger service has been achieved. Of course, only rich private roads with a large passenger traffic (that is, the demand for transportation) were capable of its development. One of the best is Vladikavkazskaya. We drove along it, as they said then, "to mineral water" - that is, to mineral water and generally to the Caucasus. The “Illustrated Practical Guide” of this road in 1915 (by a certain Grigory Moskvich) with the image on the title page of the courier steam locomotive “Pacific” - the pride of those years - read:
“Between many major centers and regions of Russia and the Caucasus are arranged in summer time for the convenience of the traveling and medical public, direct trains, usually furnished with the best railway facilities. In addition to the absence of transplants that have bothered sick and nervous people for a long time, these trains have a number of significant amenities: usually there is a dining car, electric or gas lighting is introduced on most lines; at each carriage there are, for services to passengers, special attendants - the so-called conductors (a profession that just appeared then. - A. V.); These trains, being fast in their movement, do not stop for a long time at intermediate stations; all the seats in the carriages are numbered, and there are almost no cases that strangers, so to speak, “extra” people get into these trains ... In class I and I carriages, a set of bed linen is issued (1 rub.), and in class III on some lines (from Petrograd and others) for a small fee (40 kopecks) a mattress with sheets is issued for the night, the cleanliness of which is guaranteed by a seal on the bag containing them, which is opened in front of the passenger. During breakfast and lunch hours, waiters and boys of the restaurant car walk around the III class carriages, delivering tea, coffee, breakfast and lunch to those who wish, at a fairly inexpensive price. "
And such travels took place in the midst of the First World War! What tremendous power the country must have had in order to allow itself to be engaged in the development of comfortable railway and tourist communications in such a hard time! True, from the end of November 1914 a military tax was introduced on fares in I, II and III classes - 25% of the ticket price (the reserved seat was not taxed), but this is the only mention of the war in the entire guide of Mr. Moskvich.
Valentin Kataev wrote in his memoir story "My Diamond Crown":
“We’ll go in this carriage,” I said, and pointed at the carriage of the International Sleeping Carriage Society, preserved from pre-revolutionary times, with copper British lions on brown wooden paneling, waxed like parquet. The birder, of course, knew about the existence of such cars - "sliping cars", read about them in books, but did not imagine that he would ever be able to travel in such a car. He looked through the carriage window, saw a two-seater compartment, trimmed with red polished wood on copper screws, walls covered with green velvet, a copper lamp shade for a table electric lamp, a heavy ashtray, a thick crystal decanter, a mirror, and still looked at me with disbelief. I showed him the colored double-bed receipts of the International Society of Sleeping Cars, printed in two languages, after which, sadly kissing my wife and asking her to watch the birds and my son, awkwardly squeezed past the conductor in a brown uniform jacket into the carriage, where he was immediately seized by the pine scent special forest water, which regularly sprayed the glittering corridor of the sleeping car with a row of brightly polished copper locks and handles on the lacquered mahogany doors of the compartment. Feeling extremely embarrassed in the midst of this comfort in his home sewing sweatshirt, fearing in the depths of his soul that all this would not turn out to be a hoax and that we would not be disgraced from the train at the nearest station, somewhere on Razdelnaya or Birzula, the bird-catcher climbed onto the upper shelf with the bed already open, whitening with impeccable slippery cool sheets, was huddled in there and for the first hundred kilometers of nozzles, like a badger in its hole, resiliently tossed by international springs. "
SVPS was the highest, but, as it turned out, not the last stage of railway comfort. At the beginning of the XXI century, cars with even greater comfort, as they say now - increased, with class equipment, were introduced into the operation of the "Grand Express" trains international hotel: with a large double bed, armchair, refrigerator, TV and telephone in a compartment and with an individual bathroom. With a ticket to such a carriage, a passenger can take with him a travel companion (or travel companion) free of charge at his own discretion.
I am looking at a photo of the SVPS (it used to be covered with a lath made of valuable wood on the outside; this lath, in fact, received the nickname "lining"; the carriage was lacquered, the color was pale brown, according to V. Nabokov - "brown") and I think: what Does it remind me of something so very ancient? Why, he is very similar to the very first class I carriages of the Aleksandrovsky plant in the 1840s, from which it all began in a cast iron! The same imposingness, great length, the same high and frequent windows, the same monumentality of the structure. Except that vestibules appeared instead of open areas (canopy), and, of course, trolleys of a much more perfect design.
What, it would seem, can be found special in carriages? But there are no trifles on the railway - everything is significant in its history. In creating comfort for passengers, it is the carriage bogies that play a very important role, on which the softness of the ride depends. For example, one of the stages in the development of carriage bogies is associated with a whole period in the history of our state, and its main pages. We are talking about a three-axle bogie, which was equipped with "armored" cars.
Saloon cars "about six axles of the Vladikavkaz type" 25 meters long, carrying the tsar, members of the government, generalissimo, marshals, ministers, large diplomats, senior railway officials, had a partially armored body (weighed 20 tons more than the modern CMV), due to what the usual four axles in the bogies were not enough - six axles had to be used to place the heavy weight of the car on them. Instead of one of the vestibules, there was an observation hall-living room in the front of the carriage, furnished with luxurious furniture. Carpets, a bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room, two compartments for escorts and servants - and this very hall with luxurious clocks, chairs and tables, at which meetings, inspections of the line or military positions were held, where the fate of the country was decided, the turns of its history were twisted under the sound of wheels ... In case of danger, the windows could be closed tightly, and with bulletproof curtains. “The carriage with curtains has passed,” says one poem, which meant: to be some important state event ... The doors in the salon carriage were also bulletproof, very heavy. There were secret manholes on the floor for leaving the car in case of danger. The salon-carriage had all types of communication possible for its time, its own generator and electric lighting. It was a real symbol of sovereign power, worthy of a huge and mighty country.
In the 1950s, saloon cars of this type were given to major transport executives - chiefs of roads and NODs (chiefs of railway departments). They served until the 1980s and today they are an adornment of the museums of railway equipment.
So, along with the evolution of the carriage, the evolution of carriage bogies took place. In general, the development of the bogie proceeded according to the principle of increasing the smoothness of the ride in cars of all classes. Each new type of trolley became a new stage on the way of improvement. passenger transportation... From shaking one-spring chairlifts to the mighty three-axle bogies of the "Vladikavkaz residents" with triple suspension, which ensured an almost imperceptible move. The first bogie (1846) was the two-axle bogie of the American engineer Wynens, who stood at the forefront of laying all the foundations of domestic railway transport - from the ashtray in the carriage to the locomotive building. It is extremely important that at the beginning of the construction of Russian railways on the initiative of P.P. Melnikov, the orientation was taken precisely towards the American, and not towards the European canons. The American scale turned out to be much closer to the needs of Russia.
The first car with Wynens' bogies, as already mentioned, by the irony of historical fate turned out to be a much more promising passenger car design for Russia than the subsequent European "carriages". The bogie of this car, although extremely simple, contained all the classical foundations of the design of a two-axle carriage bogie even then. Then an improved design of this bogie of the Rekhnevsky system (1865) appeared, and these bogies were installed on many cars of the Petersburg-Moscow railway - but they did not get widespread, since, under the influence of Western European "friends", a massive transition to short two- and three-axle cars began.
The next stage - trolleys of double and triple suspension of the American Pullman system and a similar trolley of the Russian-Baltic plant in Riga (1880s), which was not inferior to Pullman's in perfection. They had different devices and configurations of balancers, spring and leaf springs. The International Sleeping Car Society used only triple spring suspension bogies with the softest running on their wagons. In general, the best type of Russian bogie was the classic Fette bogie that appeared in 1912, which served on passenger cars until the 1950s. It was replaced already in the 1930s by a bogie with so-called jawless axle boxes (what it is, it takes a long time to explain), which became the basis for the design of carriage bogies that are used to this day. I must say that in 1939 the first CMV was designed on such a cart, but the widespread introduction of this car into life was prevented by the war - the massive introduction of CMV began only in the late 1940s.
What was the life of a passenger in those days when the railway was not as convenient and comfortable as it is now?
People seeing off at the carriages on the platform of the Baltic Station in St. Petersburg. 1913 year
Prophecy of an Engineer Pavel Melnikov about the future great national fate of the "chugunka" and its universal relevance has completely come true: in such a huge country as Russia, the railway will remain very important for a long time to come. But the railway is not only tracks and engineering communications, it is also a special, unique way of life, or, more simply, everyday life ...
"The yellow and blue were silent ..."
In 1910, in the poem "On the Railway" Alexander Blok figuratively described the carriage row of the Russian "piece of iron":
The carriages followed the usual line
They shook and creaked;
The yellow and blue were silent;
They cried and sang in green ...
Indeed, since 1879, wagons on all public railways subject to the Ministry of Railways (MPS), regardless of whether they are private or state-owned, were painted strictly in accordance with their class: the first class - in blue, the second - in yellow , light brown or golden, the third - in green, the fourth - in gray.
A short, several-letter designation of the road to which the car belonged was also applied to the body of the carriages; sometimes its type (series), the number of seats and class (if passenger) and, of course, the brake system were indicated. The image of the coat of arms of the Russian Empire was mandatory, in most cases - the presence of the symbols of the Ministry of Railways. The inscriptions were most often made in large, beautiful volumetric type, often in several colors. In this way, passenger train tsarist times looked unusually colorful and attractive, or, according to the definition of the writer Ivana Bunin, "Amusing".
There were also the so-called "mixed cars", that is, mixed class cars: one half of the car, for example, was with first-class seats, and the other half of the second. They were used because the first class, due to the very expensive tickets often remained unclaimed and it was necessary to increase the occupancy rate of cars so as not to drive them practically in vain. "Mixed wagons" were painted on the outside in two different colors: for example, in half blue and yellow. Those carriages in which the third-class compartment and the luggage compartment were located together were painted in the same order in green and dark brown. The bottom (that is, the undercarriage or, in the old way, the lower carriage) was usually painted black, the top - red-brown. Multicolor!
After that, already in Soviet times, on the side of the entrance to the vestibule there appeared plates with the carriage number (black number on white), and under the windows in the middle of the body - stencils indicating the route of the carriage or the entire train (Moscow - Leningrad, etc.) ... Before the revolution, there were no carriage numbers, no stencils with the designation of the route. The passenger simply went to his class, which was indicated on the ticket. The seat in the carriage was provided by the conductor. In the third and fourth grades, there was no fixation of seats at all: they were allowed to enter the carriage on a ticket, and everything was just like on the train now.
Third class
Lev Tolstoy talked about the last trip in his life in a letter: “1910 October 28. Kozelsk.<…>I had to go from Gorbachev in 3rd grade, it was inconvenient, but very mentally pleasant and instructive. "
For Lev Nikolaevich it is instructive, but for some it is both inconvenient and unpleasant. Rumble, seeds, tightness, or even a quarrel with a fight. And all this in the shag and chimney smoke: the trip in the third class was unbearable for non-smoking passengers. As Bunin wrote, “the carriage is very stuffy from various tobacco smoke, in general, very caustic, although it gives a pleasant feeling of friendly human life ...” Special compartments for non-smokers appeared in the 19th century in first and second class carriages, in others it was allowed to smoke with the consent of others passengers. In the third class, sometimes they put earthenware ashtrays - very spacious so that there was no fire.
And, of course, the eternal Russian carriage conversation, everyday life and legend at the same time, endless, like the sound of wheels itself, like the very course of life and time ... In the third class, all the estates were mixed, there rode a “common people”: both peasants and factory workers, and the intelligentsia, and priests, and poor rural nobles. The third class is a clot of people's life, its true manifestation. It is not surprising that the action of almost half of the works of Russian classics is sometimes transferred to a third-class carriage: what scenes were played out there, how destinies were revealed!
The statistics of 1896 are indicative: the first class carried 0.7 million passengers, the second class - 5.1 million, and the third class - 42.4 million.
"The lady checked in luggage ..."
The level of comfort in pre-revolutionary trains, depending on the class of carriages, varied markedly - much more than today. The fare is the same. At the beginning of the 20th century, fares were set as follows: a trip in the second class cost one and a half times more than in the third; and in the first - one and a half times more expensive than in the second. In turn, the fourth grade was also one and a half times cheaper than the third.
It is worth noting another curious difference that exposed social contrasts, although, admittedly, at first glance it was of a constructive nature: in the third grade there were luggage racks, and in the first and second there were nets, since the audience there (recall the famous lady from the poem Samuil Marshak) put large items in luggage. For these purposes, there were standard four-axle baggage cars, although there were also three-axle ones. The baggage car, which always followed immediately behind the locomotive, was certainly included in every long-distance train.
There were special baggage receipts that Marshak did not fail to note:
"They gave the lady at the station four green receipts."
V late XIX centuries for the transportation of luggage, they took three kopecks per item. Receipts could be obtained either in the luggage compartment at the station, or, in the absence of such, directly from the employees of the carriage ("luggage racks"). Nowadays, the luggage car, which is more and more often referred to as a mobile locker, is a relative rarity on trains: people mostly carry their luggage with them - these days it seems that this is more reliable.
The baggage car was usually followed by a postal car. Moreover, the first standard three-axle postal cars (1870-1880s) were perhaps the most picturesque of all those that existed at that time: they had a very attractive shape and a booth with a characteristic triangular signboard "Postal car". Such cars, painted in dark green, were common on the roads of Russia and then the USSR until the early 1990s.
Types of messages
Before the revolution, there was a direct (long-distance) and local passenger rail service. It was clearly regulated. So, § 28 of the Rules of 1875 read: "So that passengers can be transferred from one railway to another without renewing passenger and baggage tickets for further travel to their destination, trains thus agreed are called direct trains."
A postal car of a new design on the Nikolaev railway. 1901-1902 years
The development of direct passenger traffic led to the appearance of cars with places for lying, but most importantly, it marked a significant social phenomenon throughout Russian history, namely, the significantly increased migration of the population of all classes due to the abolition of serfdom and the emergence of capitalist relations in the country. It was really about the massive movement of people. Then the very style of Russian life changed; in fact, a new understanding of the world was formed. Time and space shrank sharply, which was truly unheard of in those days. Something similar in Russia will then happen again only after 100 years - when a long-range jet passenger aviation, which will also turn the public consciousness and the idea of the unshakable geographic and astronomical absolutes - space and time.
The widespread development of long-distance communication began in the 1880s. Then, on the one hand, the railway network was advancing to the east, and on the other, the need to change from a train belonging to one private road to another train at key points was practically reduced to naught, as was the case in the era of distribution of concessions and ruling the kings of the railroad business up to the 1870s.
Restaurant for passengers of the first and second classes of the Kharkov railway station. Around 1900
The concept of "commuter train" took root already under Soviet rule due to the growth of large cities. And before the revolution commuter trains were called local or dacha. “In the summer there were only 4–5 pairs on each road, and even less in winter. Then there was still no regular passenger - a worker or office worker who lived in the suburbs and rushed to the city to work every day, "said a modern researcher. Galina Afonina who studied pre-revolutionary timetables.
Several of these local trains served wealthy citizens who went to summer cottages in the Moscow region in the summer. The schedule of their movement was named "Schedule of the movement of suburban trains of the Moscow junction", and the words "suburban trains" appeared in the name of the schedule only in 1935.
Past service
Attempts to improve the level of service for passengers have a long history: they were celebrated back in the 1860s. At first, the first-class cars were “couch” cars (no shelves were known at that time). And this is how their kind appeared as a special service - carriages, where with the help of partitions so-called "family" compartments were arranged, in which each passenger received the entire sofa at his disposal (and not a seat on the sofa, as in the usual first class). A ticket to the "family" section was, of course, more expensive than to the first class, where the passenger, although he could stretch out on the sofa, but only when his neighbor did not apply for this bed (the sofas were two-seater).
Before the appearance of sleeping shelves, passengers of the first and second classes rode sitting or reclining on sofas or in armchairs, covering themselves with blankets or scarves and often putting clothes under their heads instead of a pillow or carry-on luggage... There was no such inconvenience in the "family" offices, but such cars did not have a through passage and were soon banned by the Ministry of Railways.
Meanwhile, the first-class "armchair-bed" cars, which appeared a little later (they were first built in 1871 by the Kovrov workshops), in some places served until the 1930s. It was already a serious convenience! At night, the chair was moved apart with the help special device and turned into a horizontal "bed, quite suitable for sleeping." True, in the carriages with such chairs there was no linen yet and there was no division into compartments.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, not only coupes existed, but also such a now forgotten service as the transformation of two compartments into one. Imagine: in first-class carriages it was possible to slide open a door arranged in a partition between adjacent compartments to make them communicate. By the way, such a car is a distant ancestor of SV cars. superior comfort the beginning of the XXI century, perhaps without a refrigerator. The compartment had a huge soft sofa with a raised back (it could be transformed into a shelf for a second passenger), opposite there was an armchair, a mirror hung, and in the middle there was a table with a tablecloth on which a lamp with a lampshade was placed. There was also a built-in ladder for climbing the upper shelf. And also such compartments had a washbasin (later a shower) and a toilet, albeit for two compartments at once. The interior decoration of the carriage was distinguished by its sophistication: this is a real apartment - with bronze, inlay, polished mahogany and embroidered curtains. The compartment was illuminated with a gas horn, and it was possible to "separate the inside of the lantern from the inside of the car" (to put it simply, turn off the light). Since 1912, wagons of this class have been illuminated with electricity.
It is worth paying attention to the following little known fact(a touch to the story about the service): back in 1902, on the Central Asian Railway, designed by engineer G.P. Boychevsky, for the first time, a device for air cooling was tested - the ancestor of the modern air conditioner.
Siberian express
Unprecedented measures to improve the level of service are associated with the development of international passenger traffic in Russia and the emergence of express trains of the International Society of Sleeping Carriages - with direct sleeping carriages (SVPS) and service saloon cars. Member of the State Duma Vasily Shulgin, who left Russia after the revolution, in "Letters to Russian emigrants", in particular, noted: "Russia in terms of the comfort of trains went far ahead of Western Europe."
The Siberian Express Petersburg - Irkutsk became the ideal embodiment of railway comfort in the eyes of the entire Russian society. It was truly a miracle of its time. On the express cars there were proud overhead inscriptions: "Direct Siberian communication", "Siberian train No. 1". This train had only first and second class carriages with water heating and electric lighting from its own train power station. Since 1912, each car has an individual power supply with a generator drive from the car axle. Finally, it was on trains of this class that restaurant cars appeared for the first time in Russia in 1896 - an invention of the American George Pullman, the creator of the famous company that builds comfortable cars.
The Siberian Express also had a library, a piano, a living room with luxurious candelabra, curtains, tablecloths, a barometer and a clock; you could order a hot bath for a fee and even ... work out in the gym (yes, there was such a thing here!). The passengers (also for the first time in Russia) were served tea and bed linen was changed every three days. There were table lamps on the tables in the compartment, but the shelves were already illuminated by small "spotlights". The interior tones are noble: dark green and blue. This is where today's SV came from.
Church-car, built at the Putilovsky plant for the Siberian railway
The roof of the Siberian express carriage was sheathed with copper sheets, and lighting lanterns were on top. The lower part of the carriage was metal, bulletproof, up to 10 mm thick (hence the name - the nickname "armored carriage"). Cars of this type, due to the large amount of metal in their structure, turned out to be not only much stronger than others, but also much heavier, with greater load on the track, therefore they could not be used on all roads. They were mainly used on border and resort lines, along which express trains of the International Society of Sleeping Carriages ply - Vladikavkaz, Chinese-Eastern, Petersburg-Varshavskaya. It should be noted that the Siberian express took over practically the entire "diplomatic flow" - passengers, currency, and mail - in the communication between Europe and The Far East... It was an international train, known all over the world.
From 1896 to the 1950s, wagons of this class were called not SV, but SVPS. This is a significant difference. Let us remind you that the term "direct communication" meant long-distance travel along a certain route without changes on the way, which was a kind of luxury. Direct message - these fascinating words indicated a long journey, which means a whole event in the fate of the passenger. A sleeping car is chic, luxury, a dream, a chosen world. The kingdom of expensive cigars, exquisite manners, short but hot romances, delicacy, inaccessibility ...
About tea and boiling water
The author of these lines tried for a long time to find out when the tea appeared on the trains. Alas, the exact date could not be established. True, there was a mention of one curious pre-revolutionary document - "On the prohibition of tea trade to conductors of passenger cars" (unfortunately, today we only know its number and name). One thing is clear: if the conductors were forbidden to sell tea, then they had tea. It is not clear just why. After all, titans with boiling water on trains, with the exception of the most fashionable, were absent until the appearance of modern all-metal cars (CMV), that is, until 1946. There was also no special stove or boiler to brew tea on the spot. The famous cup holders with the symbols of the Ministry of Railways and various twisted patterns made of silver wire or bronze (they were produced by the Kostroma jewelers from the village of Krasnoe-on-Volga) were only in the compartment of the International Society's express trains and restaurant cars.
The audience at the station in the waiting room. Announcement at the door: “Exit to the platform until the bell rings. No one is allowed without a train ticket. " 1910s
Previously, most passengers had to wait for a stop to run for boiling water. By the way, the opportunity to get boiling water at the stations is one of the most important manifestations of humanity at the "pig iron". The author in his lifetime found only the only preserved booth with the inscription "Boiling water" - at the secluded station Bologoye-2 with a beautiful old red-brick station building. And once there were such booths at every large station. They were called "still for boiling water".
All in pairs, hooking up with buffers, with the lingering hiss of Westinghouse brakes, another passenger or mail train stopped at the platform. While they were changing the locomotive or refueling it with water, passengers rushed for boiling water. A queue was lined up in the cubicle. We approached two high tanks with taps. One was written "Cold water", on the other - "Hot water" (tanks with drinking water in the carriages, too, was not yet). The hot water tap had a wooden handle, like in a bath, so as not to burn your hand.
From the tap vigorously, life-affirming steam escaped, bubbling water poured with pressure. Everyone came here with their own kettle or kettle, or even two, if an elderly passenger neighbor or some pretty girl asked for boiling water (an excellent excuse to meet!). In winter, passengers were in a hurry to get back to the car as soon as possible so that the boiling water would not cool down: God forbid, frosts were not the current couple.
Most likely, the document mentioned above was referring to the infusion, and not the finished drink. Apparently, the conductors were supposed to provide the infusion to the passengers, and they were forbidden to sell it to the side. And so the people - both tea and food - were taking with them. Remember in "The Twelve Chairs" by Ilf and Petrov? “When the train cuts through the switch, numerous teapots clatter on the shelves and chickens wrapped in newspaper bags jump up and down” ...
Tariffs and "cartons"
To what extent was comfortable train travel available before the revolution? Let's try to answer this question by referring to the documents of those years. Let us give the "verified tariffs" for 1914 at the distances that are most demanded, according to statistics.
Obviously, then few people could afford to travel in first and second class carriages. It was not for nothing that trains, as a rule, had from one to three blue and yellow carriages, while green ones - from four to six. In this, too, one can see a manifestation of humanity: the common people under such circumstances were not deprived of transportation.
Free ticket for travel on the railroad of the stoker of the Moscow depot N. Kasatkin. 1910 year
The ticket was considered valid if it had a punch mark (hence the expression "punch"). The punch punched the departure date and train number on the ticket. Therefore, hand-sold tickets were checked for light. On the ticket itself, the station of departure and destination (in a typographic way), the train number and the class of the carriage were indicated. Since the mid-1920s, the location (if it was supposed to) and the number of the carriage were also indicated - by hand, with a station stamp or pen, and subsequently with a ballpoint pen.
Few remember that until the 1950s, the entrance to the platform (but not to the station building) was paid: at the box office you had to take a “platform” ticket. It cost a penny (at the beginning of the 20th century - within 10 kopecks, and in the 1950s - 1 ruble in the money of that time), but without it, those seeing off and meeting people could not go to the train. This was the legacy of the Kleinmichel times with their exactingness towards all individuals who were at the station.
The classic ticket box is a special symbol of the railway world. They were of a very different color, shade, pattern - mostly red-brown or brownish (tickets for long-distance trains) and green, with a special background texture (for suburban), and sometimes with some zigzags, prints, stripes and strokes, understandable only to cashiers. For the conductors, the ticket bag had pockets strictly the size of the "cardboard" - everything on the railroad was always regulated.
"Passenger" train
“To hit the road by rail” used to sound like this - “go on the iron pot” or “go by car” or simply “by car”. Leo Tolstoy in the story "The Girl and the Mushrooms" (about how the girl got hit by a locomotive, but survived) calls the train a "machine" in the folk manner. Later they began to say - "by train", "on a piece of iron" or (half-jokingly) "on a steam locomotive", "by a steam locomotive." Although steam locomotives have not been on the lines for a long time, this expression has remained forever, as well as the designation of a steam locomotive on all kinds of logos with railway symbols, in particular, even on road signs at crossings. In its expressive power, this machine is immortal.
Passenger trains were initially called "passenger" trains. In Bunin's scary accusatory tale about Emelya the Fool we read: "The stove immediately ... parted out with him and flew like an arrow, and he collapsed on it, just like on a passenger train on a steam locomotive." There was even such an offensive teaser for children:
"Fat, fat, passenger train!" Perhaps, because of this phonetic association with the word "bold", the term "passenger" was sounded with a lighter and more flying version - "passenger". It must be said that railway workers still call the workers of the passenger service "passengers" among themselves.
Even having a cursory glance at the history of passenger railroad communications in Russia, it is not difficult to imagine how attractive and exciting the journey along the "iron pot" was before, especially for people who were romantically inclined.
The history of railway communications is not only a fascinating engineering and technical epic, but also a lyrical story about an endless number of events and impressions, meetings and partings, dates and partings, about the mystical infinity of a harsh horizon pierced by rails, about spaces rapidly moving under the sound of wheels, about the hum the directional wind and the voice of the whistle ...
It is difficult to name anything similar in the foreseeable history that would so quickly coincide with the everyday life of people, with such a force would influence the life of the people, the idea of time and space, and at the same time would so easily become familiar and vital, immediately becoming a tradition. covered with legends and songs. Therefore, the romance and originality of the railway track, even under the influence of technical progress and the growing comfort of movement along with it, will never go away - as long as the sound of wheels, station wires and the distance running outside the window remain ...
Alexey Vulfov
VULFOV A.B. Everyday life of Russian railways. M., 2007
R. V. Molochnikov, I. L. Indra, V. V. Bochenko, and E. V. Bychkova Kolomensky plant. Wagons. Ryazan, 2016
DIRECT SLEEPING CAR. A criminal journey with a happy ending
The cars were pretty worn out, something creaked, knocked, blew somewhere, something did not close, but something opened with great difficulty. It was stuffy, dirty, in compartments and reserved rooms it was also boorish, as in the old days, but the passengers were already "from another country."
In the sleeping cars of direct communication, famous for their cozy two-seater compartments, lack of people and unobtrusive friendliness of the conductors, the audience has noticeably rejuvenated.
In the old days, important people used to ride in these cars, for the most part on important matters. The bosses, their middle-aged wives, popular artists, these, however, are still skating, in general, people respectable and respected, with solidity, gray hair, and some who have earned the respect of guides and convenience along the way with their successes in their field. And without fear of falling into a historical mistake, we can say that it was the passengers of the ground plane that constituted, as it were, a special class in a society that was declared classless.
Nowadays, in these sparsely populated carriages, mostly young people are striking, who, with an innate tendency to power and other martial arts, managed to find the use of their own, some mental, some physical, forces in fights without rules, which have become so popular and beloved by the public in modern times and serving as a visual complement to new thinking.
And this is natural.
Life does not stand still.
The impatient organizers of a new life hastened to give a start to the life-and-death competition, in the fullest sense, deciding that the rules of a new life are formed somehow by themselves, or, at worst, these rules will be composed later by the winners, as it is no longer once happened.
The caring and philanthropic Ministry of Health warns day and night from billboards and every pack of cigarettes about the danger threatening our health. You might think that apart from smoking, we are not particularly threatened by anything. And the air we breathe in our cities? And the water in our rivers and reservoirs? And don't the food on the trays and alcohol in the tents take away the health of citizens? ..
Presumably, the Ministry of Health will eventually warn about the many dangers that lie in wait for us. But someday it will still be! So I hasten to contribute to a good deed and warn those who use by rail that even traveling in a direct message (CB) sleeping car can also be dangerous to our health.
The train went from old times to new.
Much has changed in life, only now "sleeping cars of direct communication" have retained their name rather as an honorary title, rather than a designation of a particular route, and as before, as a special value, they are placed in the middle of the train, least of all exposed, as long-term practice has shown, destruction during railway accidents and everyday cataclysms.
The train had already picked up speed and was rushing endlessly, dragging in its metal belly the confusion of two lives, in time moving as if in one direction, in all other respects scattering in different directions.
It happens.
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