Development and industrial activity of the Lugansk railway workshops in the composition of "Donetsk Railways" (1920–1930)

Abstract

In the first half of the 1920s Ukrainian railways were in a catastrophic state. There were numerous problems with the provision of workers, technical condition of infrastructure and rolling stock. During the Civil War, Luhansk region became a scene of brutal military confrontation. After the establishment of Soviet power in the territory of the neglected Luhansk workshops, a «steam cemetery» was formed – a dump site for locomotives and armored trains damaged in the battles, the vast majority of which were not recoverable and expected to be dismantled and disposed of unsuitable elements. In the spring of 1920, a gradual restoration of the destroyed economy of Lugansk railway workshops began.

At the end of 1920, in order to provide operational management for the restoration of infrastructure and transport process, the Donetsk branches of the Catherine Railway, including the Debaltseve branch Luhansk – Millierovo, were transferred to the nationalized North-Donetsk railway, which in December 1920 became known as «Donetsk Railways». In the middle of the 1920s, organizational measures were taken at the enterprise to upgrade the outdated infrastructure and technical equipment of the Luhansk railway workshops, as well as to create a specialized railway-carriagerepair plant based on them. During the 1920s, the enterprise team fought for increasing production figures, constantly experiencing a severe lack of material-technical support both from the side of the board of Donetsk railways and the management of repair factories of the People's Commissariat of Railways.

During April – October 1929, employees of the Luhansk car repair factory together with a team of steam locomotive plant and local miners took part in the action «Red Echelon». Activists of the steam locomotive plant initiated the construction of an additional 41th over-scheduled locomotive, the Luhansk railwaymen embarked upon releasing 40 double-walled over-the-rail wagons for the formation of the echelon of abovequotachar coal as a present for workers in Moscow.

 In the spring of 1930, in the wake of the growth of the coal mining industry in the region and the needs for construction of new mines with high-value equipment, the Luhansk wagon repair plant was removed from the subordination of the People's Commissariat of Railways and transferred to the trust of mining equipment of the All- Union Union of Heavy Machinery of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. In April 1930 the Luhansk Mechanical Plant of Coal Machine Building was created on the company’s basis.

The study does not deplete the raised problem in the field of the Luрansk railway workshops (later – railway-carriagerepair plant) activities, but only provides a general analysis and factual basis for further, more detailed review of the last period of the activity of the Donetsk railways’ old railway enterprise, leaving a considerable space for further scientific research.