Baku Children's Railway

The idea of ​​building a children's railway in the city of Baku arose in 1945 , and already in the same year, by the decision of the Council of Ministers of Azerbaijan dated June 15, 1946, a date was set for the beginning and end of construction of the road. For the construction of the road, one of the largest parks in Baku, the Park named after Dzerzhinsky (now named after Shakhriyar). Construction began on March 14, 1947 and was completed on May 1, 1947. Students and schoolchildren of Baku took an active part in the construction of the railway.

120 young railway workers were trained and involved in permanent work on the road. The BDZD grand opening took place on August 10, 1947, on the day of the railwayman. The first chief of the BDZHD was appointed M. Akhundov.

The initial construction plan provided for the construction of the road in two stages, the first - a line from the park to them. Dzerzhinsky to the Republican stadium (now existing), later it was planned to extend this line to the Montino residential area. Thus, the total length of the railway was to be about 4 kilometers. However, the second phase of construction was never started, since the territory along which the planned construction of the tracks was transferred to residential construction.

At the present stage, the total length of the BDZHD is 1505 meters.

In the 1980s , there were projects to extend the road, the most likely was a plan to extend the road throughout the park. Shakhriyar, but in reality this could not be done, since the park is located on very rough terrain, because of which the locomotives simply did not have the capacity to climb.

The difficulties of the early 90s were not spared by the BDZh. An erroneous decision on the withdrawal of the BDZD from the composition of the Azerbaijan State Railways (AGHD) and the transfer of the road to full cost accounting makes the BDZD in a crisis state. The gradual decline of the BDZD begins, associated mainly with a lack of material resources. During these years, a decline in the prestige of the profession of a railway worker, a general decline in interest in the railway business, including from children. Since 1995, there has been a sharp outflow of young enthusiasts from the BDZHD, which as a result leads to the fact that in 1998 only the name remains from the children's railway, since all work was carried out by adults, in the person of the BDZD chief, train driver, trainer, a watchman, and two or three volunteer enthusiasts.

However, since January 2002 , realizing the fallacy of the decision of the 90s, the Baku City Hall together with the Azerbaijan State Railways allocated significant funds for the complete repair of the road. Thanks to the financing received on the road, large-scale restoration work was carried out. Station and depot buildings were repaired, the railway track was restored and modernized (in some places the rails and sleepers were changed, the lower track structure was replaced), the signaling and communications were completely restored; locomotive radio communication has been introduced, linking the driver with the station attendants. The rolling stock was completely restored. In June 2002, the grand opening of the road took place after major repairs.

Under the BDZD, a railway model circle was also created, the models of which repeatedly became the winners of the competition. The last victory was won in the mid-80s. in the city of Gorky ( Nizhny Novgorod ), where the models of young railway workers from Baku took first places in the classes: the most powerful and fastest locomotive.

In July 2009, the Baku Children's Railway was completely dismantled, and the rolling stock was taken to storage at the Balajara depot. Initially, the closure was temporary. It was also reported that the children's railway will be moved to Ganja ^[2] .

As of 2012, the restoration of the children's railway is no longer remembered.

The first locomotive on the Baku Railroad was the steam locomotive of the K series, produced by the Kolomensky Zavod, which entered the road at the time of its opening in 1947. It was operated in one single copy, until its decommissioning in 1958 .

In the mid -1950s , a new steam locomotive of the series 159–141 of the Podolsky plant entered the road; it replaced the old steam locomotive and was operated on the road until the first half of the 1960s when it was replaced, this time by diesel locomotives. In the first half of the 60s, the BDZhD was reconstructed as a result of which the steam thrust was replaced by diesel, at that time two diesel locomotives of the TU2 series arrived at the road (No. 019, previously operated in Estonia and No. 099 received from the Railway Volgograd), in 1978 TU2-099 was transferred to the newly-launched railway in Nakhichevan , in exchange for the Baku railway from Nakhichevan the locomotive TU2-206, which worked there, came along with TU2-019 and became the main locomotive of the Baku railway. Diesel locomotives of the TU2 series under numbers 019 and 206 continue their service on the BDZD to this day. The latest new arrival at the BDZhD was a new diesel locomotive TU7-0204 ( 1987 ), which in the same year was transferred to the Nakhichevan Railways .

Data on the first passenger cars operating on the road are not available. It is only known that they were home-made, the date and place of their manufacture is unknown. In the late 60s, eight Polish- made Pafawag cars entered the road, two of them were transferred to the Nakhichevan Railways in 1978, the remaining six continue to be used on the road this day.

The complete lack of funding during the period of the BDZD decline ( 1996-2002 ) made the rolling stock of the road almost unusable. All signaling and communications failed, due to the lack of repair, TU2-019 got up, one by one the wagons became unusable, the tracks were in terrible condition. Locomotives lacked batteries, there were problems with the purchase of fuel.

In 2002, all the BDZD rolling stock was completely repaired and modernized.

The Baku Children's Railway had two stations:

• Dede Gorgud (formerly Pionerskaya) - three-way with a reversal triangle (dismantled due to uselessness). There was a locomotive depot.
• Bagar (former Spring) - with a reversal triangle.

At Dede Gorgud station there was a train depot and a hydrocolumn . After the transfer of the road to diesel traction, an equipment station for diesel locomotives was built on the site of the hydrocolumn, and the engine depot was converted into a training building. The road was equipped with auto-lock, semaphores and a wand alarm system.

• Unofficial site of Baku Railway
• Baku Children's Railway on Sergey Bolashenko’s “Railway Website”