Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Soviet Hobbies. Dying For a Piece of Chewing Gum #ussr, #soviet" video.
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Soviet era electric trains were never sold in stores. They were used as gifts to the children of high ranking Party members, military men, a foreign notable visitors, and and as awards for high performing Young Pioneers. The train sets were almost always one diesel engine, two passenger cars along with three streetlights, three signal lights, station, bridge, and set of crossing gates.
Other than paint schemes, the "state" trains remained the same up until the end of production in 1969. The only major change was as DeStalinization got underway. All the trains produced before 1960 has Stalin's initials on the side along with a five pointed Soviet star. Khrushchev ordered the initials removed in 1960 as well as the star. The star was replaced with the state railroad logo. Sets were apparently produced until about 1969 since there's no evidence of sets made after that date. They were probably still used as giveaways for a few years after that, and it seem like the set given to the Polish ambassador in 1973 was one of the last. Trains sets were no longer all that special as one could buy much better sets from the DDR and Hungary after 1970.
The tracks and transformer were close copies of US O27 Lionel parts. There was no attempt to model a specific Soviet diesel engine. Indeed, there was no attempt to copy any engine except for the general outline of a double cab engine. It seems the most important things was to make them beautiful. They used an exact replica of American Flyer couplers, and oddly included buffer plates on both ends of the engine. Oddly because Soviet engines never used buffer plates or screw type couplers, just American style automatic couplers. The assumption is the train should have a vaguely European look to it. The engines were all hand built and hand painted, and some of the variations in paint schemes may come down to the individual doing the painting that day. The freight and passenger cars are also vaguely Soviet in design but they too include buffer plates. Some parts of the set were copied directly from other manufacturers. The crossing gates is an exact copy of a Marlin set. The operating crossing gateman is an exact copy of a Lionel #45 accessory. The Soviets copied other companies products at will with no worries about patent problems.
I have seen a few of the engines at train shows but just don't have enough money to get one since they start at about $800 for an average condition example all the way up to $5,000 for an as-new model in the original box. Cars range from $85 to $200 each, and the beautiful -station that came with each set generally goes for about $750 for a decent example. A set in the original wooden crate these were all packaged in is a near impossible thing to find. One sold at auction a few years ago for $28,000 and I'm sure one would bring even more today. There was no record kept of production, but estimates are about 4,500 sets were made from 1951 to 1969. The engines and cars I've seen have been of a high quality mechanically while the paint job quality varies by individual model painter and, I suppose, how rough a weekend he may have had. :-)
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