P38

By the 1950s the mass of trains on Soviet railways increased significantly, which often required the use of double traction . Locomotives were required much more powerful than steam locomotives of the type 1-5-1 FD series operated at that time. Therefore, in 1951, Kolomensky Zavod and VNIIZHT developed draft designs for freight articulated steam locomotives of types 1-4-0 + 0-4-1 and 1-4-0 + 0-4-2. The necessity of building an articulated type was explained by the fact that the power and traction of a steam locomotive in a rigid frame is limited by the load from the driving axles on the rails, which is limited by the design of the railway track , and the number of these axes, the number of which is limited by the conditions for inscribing the locomotive into the curves (just remember the experimental steam locomotive AA with seven moving axles in one frame, which was created on the basis of erroneous ideas about the prospects for the development of Soviet powerful steam locomotives and, as a result, was recognized as a technical ibkoy). At the same time, in the mid-1930s in North America, thanks to the development of a superheat system, steam locomotives of the Mallet system type were used, with steam engines of single expansion of steam, which ensured their development in the direction of increasing speed. From the category of low-speed “pushers”, they moved into the category of powerful high-speed linear locomotives. At the end of the 1930s, North American type 2-3 + 3-2 Challenger steam locomotives successfully replaced type 2-6-1 steam locomotives in accelerated freight trains. In 1930, during a long trip abroad, as part of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, at that time an ordinary designer, L. S. Lebedyansky, had the opportunity to familiarize himself with the production of powerful articulated steam locomotives at the ALCO plant. However, the opportunity to begin the development of articulated steam locomotives for the USSR road network was given to the chief designer L. S. Lebedyansky only in the post-war period. Taking into account the accumulated experience of designing an experimental steam locomotive of type 1-3 + 3-1, the project "P34", the chief designer L. S. Lebedyansky had high hopes for the new project ...
The “P38” project, without exaggeration, is the beloved “brainchild” of the designer L. S. Lebedyansky, who until the last opportunity remained a convinced “steam engine”.

For the development of a working draft, type 1-4-0 + 0-4-2 was chosen. VNIIZHT recommended that the axle load on the rails be taken equal to 23 tons, but the engineers of the Kolomensky Zavod took it to 20 tons (the coupling weight was 160 tons at the same time), as this provided a wider distribution of the engine on the road network. With an axial load of 20 tons, the steam locomotive could work on all highways where steam locomotives of the FD series were operated, and with an axial load of 23 tons, only in sections with rails of the I-a or R-50 type. The working project was completed by the design bureau of the Kolomensky Zavod under the leadership of the chief designer L. S. Lebedyansky and engineer I. Sulimtsev, and in December 1954 the Kolomensky Zavod produced two experimental steam locomotives P38-0001 [1] and P38-0002 [2] . Outwardly, these steam locomotives differed in the design of the chimney devices located on the smoke chamber of the boiler.

Design

P38 steam locomotives are an articulated steam engine of the Mallet system . Its uniaxial runner trolley was similar in design to the trolleys of the PD , CO , L steam locomotives, and the spring suspension was three-point, similar to the suspension of the P34 steam locomotive. The steam locomotive was equipped with tapered roller axle box bearings, grip weights , mechanical carbon sensors , as well as smoke exhaust shields (exclude smoke from entering the driver’s booth). To reduce steam losses, ball joints of steam lines were eliminated, and the steam lines themselves were made flexible. The steam locomotive was also equipped with an L40 type superheater .

At the end of January 1955 , one of the locomotives was sent to the Krasnoyarsk Railway , for experimental trips with trains on a section that was difficult in profile in the conditions of severe Siberian frosts. In the same year, the Kolomna plant produced two more steam locomotives - P38-0003 and P38-0004.

In February 1956 , at the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , it was decided to stop the further construction of steam locomotives and the widespread introduction of diesel and electric locomotives ^[1] . In this regard, all tests of steam locomotives were discontinued, and in 1959 all four P38 locomotives were transferred to enterprises of the Belgorod Sovnarkhoz , where they were used as boiler rooms. To date, not a single machine in this series has been preserved.

In the Metro Exodus video game, this engine was used as a prototype for a locomotive called Aurora.

• Steam locomotive P34
• Big Boy Steam Engine

• V.A. Rakov . Articulated locomotives of type 1-4-0 + 0-4-2 // Locomotives of domestic railways 1845-1955. - 2nd, revised and supplemented. - Moscow: "Transport", 1995. - S. 317-318. - ISBN 5-277-00821-7 .