Stacja Muzeum

On our second full day in Poland, I went off to see a few locomotive museums while the other two saw other stuff in the city. I first went to the narrow-gauge branch in Sochaczew and then I went to the main museum in Warsaw just a few blocks from our apartment. In both places inside there were a few artifacts (telephones, uniforms, tools, and the like) and some models, and outside there were the locomotives. These were laid out on parallel roads at the main museum, but at the narrow gauge one there were several independent tracks. The extent of the restoration the locomotives had received in most cases was a repainting, and most of them had had parts stripped off them at some point or another (though less so at Sochaczew), making the outside portions of the museums look more like photos of Barry Scrapyard in the '70s than anything else. Overall, the museums had a nice tranquil atmosphere like that of a cemetery. Well worth a visit! I'm afraid that I don't have very many pictures due to the fact that my camera batteries are old and have an extremely short lifespan, but anyway here they are:

The local railway station

various tools

Triumphator -a mechanical calculator

tickets- 1x2"

annual railway pass

a ticket cabinet

hand for scale

This kind of  coupling was very common on the narrow-gauge vehicles. Note that the side chains are on a pivoting arm.

The buffers were of varying shapes.

This carriage has tapered ends

There were several examples of the kind of light, suitable for bi-directional running of the locomotive.

The couplings weren't standardized, so this locomotive has two heights of chains.

The cab of this locomotive had a partition between the backhead and the tender. Many Polish steam locomotives had a fully enclosed cab due to the very cold climate there a century ago.

A variation of the Walschaerts valve gear.

Mechanical lubricator

This Diesel has very few controls.

This one once had a windshield

as you can see at the bottom centre, the floor (no footplate on this locomotive) was completely gone.

Stripped backhead.

small bogie

an example of the height differences in the couplings

Individual bogies for transporting lumber. The row of spikes was on a pivot.

I suspect this was used for banking, judging by the 0-10-0 (0-5-0
or 0E0) wheel arrangement and the small diameter of the wheels.

This firebox door handle design allows locking in three positions.

This tiny locomotive gives an idea of the weight distribution of small shunters and construction locomotives.

Stevenson valve gear.

Now here was something that I didn't expect to find: link and pin coupling

This little guy was built to a 625 mm gauge (that's roughly 2' 1/2"). You can see how everything just sort of hangs off of the extremely narrow frames, and some things are attached to sideways extensions.

The smallest example of the Stevenson valve gear I have ever seen.

The cab protrudes a good deal on both sides

An interesting tower I saw back at the station

The brickwork above the windows in the station house. These were covered in pigeon spikes.

I have yet to see one instance of those ugly metal
spikes actually working. More than half of the archways
around the building had pigeons nesting on them.

Inside the station house

At the Warsaw branch of the museum, the inside had lots of models with varying precision.

This was an early design of railway. The idea was that the double-flanged front wheel of each carriage was guided along the single rail, while the other two acted as normal wagon wheels. In the case of the locomotive, they were also the drive wheels.

In this design, the locomotive was pushed along by little "feet" behind it.

This was actually a successful monorail design used in the US. The carriages are held vertical by the bar above the track.

They had some gorgeous watches.

I really liked this telephone.

Inside a carriage.

WWII armoured locomotive.

The only problem, of course, is that if there's a problem with the track, it's hard to see.

WWII artillery wagon.

In Europe, it's common to curve the right buffer slightly, while
the left is flat. On this locomotive, this is taken to the extreme. 

This backhead still has most of its fittings

Many of the locomotives had fully-enclosed cabs.

This one survived until after electrification.

Fireless locomotive

Jeremy