Prerequisites of formation and development of mainline electric locomotives engineering at the Luhansk diesel locomotives engineering plant (1957–2014)

Abstract

In the article an attempt to investigate in a chronological order the historical circumstances of the formation and development of the mainline electric locomotives engineering at the Luhansk diesel locomotives engeneering plant (1957–2014) has been made. The circumstances of the activity of the electric locomotives workshop of the Luhansk plant (1957–1967), within which the production of crew parts and units of the legendary locomotives VL8 and VL10 for Novocherkask and Tbilisi factories have been analyzed. In the late 1980s, due to the absence of a solid convertible currency for the import of traction rolling stock from Czechoslovakia in the wake of the economic crisis of the USSR, the Luhansk plant received orders for the development and production of self-propelled electric locomotives. However, with the proclamation of the Independence of Ukraine, due to the lobbying of the new government, promising projects of Luhansk electric locomotives were rejected, and the Dnipro electric locomotives engineering plant was defined the basic enterprise for the creation of mainline electric locomotives for the Ukrainian railways. Due to the unstable economic situation in the country and the lack of targeted financing, the Dnipro plant was unable to start mass production of a number of types of locomotives, HC «Luhanskteplovoz» together with the Novocherkask plant began production of freight electric locomotives on the technological basis of Russian locomotives. Further development and prospects of serial electric locomotives engineering at the Luhansk plant were interrupted by the aggravation of the military-political situation in the region. However, it is clear that the historical experience of becoming a domestic scientific-production base of the mainline electrical production needs its proper understanding in the context of current tendencies of import of traction rolling stock with an attempt to localize its production in Ukraine.