Two Thousand Tonnes of Railway History

One of the logistics operations within the works carried out by Trakcja PRKiI S.A. to restore train traffic at Warszawa Główna station was the relocation of historic rolling stock from the holdings of the former Railway Museum, now Stacja Muzeum. The task involved moving rolling stock consisting of 40 historic railway vehicles – steam locomotives, locomotives and carriages – to a new location. A particular challenge was the proper preparation of the historic vehicles, some of which – the steam locomotives Oi-29 and TKi119 – had stood in the same place for almost 40 years.

A commission made up of representatives of, among others, Stacja Muzeum, PKP PLK, Trakcja PRKiI and a heritage conservator supervised the final preparatory work for nearly 2 weeks. The safe movement of the steam locomotives, carriages and other units was preceded by diagnostics and maintenance of many mechanisms. Among other things, the lubrication channels of the wheelsets and coupling rods were cleared with a penetrating agent, and the bolts securing the counter-cranks, crank bearings and coupling-rod bearings were cleaned and derusted or loosened using heat. About 300 litres of paraffin, greases and oils were used for this purpose. Preparing the infrastructure required securing some of the old ramps and reinforcing the tracks with special clamps.

The most valuable exhibits at Stacja Muzeum include, among others:

• Pu 29-3 – the largest express steam locomotive built in Poland before the Second World War – only 3 such units were produced, of which only one returned to Poland after the war,
• Tkb3 – the oldest steam locomotive in Stacja Muzeum’s collection – built in 1880, and at the same time the oldest physically surviving steam locomotive produced by the Hohenzollern company,
• OKa1-1 – the only surviving example of a steam locomotive of this type in Europe.

Thanks to the excellently prepared operation, the relocation of the historic vehicles was completed in just 8 hours. The total length of the rolling stock was more than 0.5 km, and its weight exceeded 2,000 tonnes.

See the photo report from the relocation of the historic vehicles.