Azerbaijan state railways, Azerbaycan Demir Yollan, sent a number of its old Russian TEM2 shunter locomotives
to Vilnius, Lithuania for a thorough modernisation. This picture is taken at the locomotive reparation works of Vilnius,
where several of the Azerbaijani locomotives were parked, both the already modernised ones (like this one) and the
old ones waiting for their refurbishment.
This locomotive type is originally based on the very old US type ALCO RSD-1. It was a road switcher type
rated at 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) and rode on three-axle bogies, that is, it had a six axle arrangement.
Seventy of the RSD-1s were shipped overseas to the Soviet Union in early 1945 during World War II, as part of the Allied
war effort. The Soviets subsequently kept the RSD-1s after the war, adopting the design to form the basis of their own
line of diesel locomotives TE1, TEM1 and TEM2. The Soviet-built TE1, initially designed TE1-20, was a reverse engineered
copy of the Alco product, adapted to metric system and Soviet norms.
TEM2 is probably the most common Eastern switcher locomotive. Thousands of machines are still in use despite rebuilding
and replacing programs being active. This is also a machine just about all startup operators in East can afford.
Its power rating is 882 kW and top speed is 100 km/h. One of the most commont nicknames for the type is Tamara.
These Tamaras have now gotten not only a new dress, but also a new heart. Picture in Vilnius 2.4.2017 by Ilkka Siissalo.
(A special thanks to 4rail.net chief editor Juha Riihimäki for some of the facts cited above.)