The Moscow Underground - An Outward Glance
All in all the Moscow underground has 15 depots. “Izmailovo” was opened in January, 14th, 1950. Initially it was a subdivision of “Sokol” depot and later it became independent.


More than 200 carriages are being serviced in the depot. “EM”, “EZH” type carriages are being substituted by new “Rusich” ones. Besides, in the depot a workshop is functioning where wheel pairs from all the underground are repaired.

Local attraction - historic carriage of A series under number 1. The first carriage of the 1st series of carriages in the Moscow underground.


It seems that the interiors of the depot have remained untouched since the day of its opening.






In one of the electric depot workshops in 1954 there was opened “Pervomayskaya” terminal that had been functioning till 1961. On the walls of this workshop there can be still seen the remains of the architectural details of the station design. “Rusiches”, despite the fact that they had already appeared about 20 years ago, still look like aliens in this entourage.


The Soviet “Empire style” - the star should be set off only by cornucopia.

Silence of the near-empty depot (all trains are on the lines) is disturbed by “Rusich” arrival. It is sent to be washed.


And this is how the temperature at the wheel pairs axis is measured in case of none of them is getting warmer during a trip.

“Rusich” current collector. It’s the very thing that applies a voltage in 825V from a collector rail to a train’s engines. A copper pin on the right is needed for the train moving to the depot where there is no collector rail.

A so-called “rod” is put on the pin, it is a long electric cord with power supply hung to a metal guide above.

The machine for turning cut of carriages wheels. Here they are literally peeled off.



And here as well, in the former entrance hall of Pervomayskaya station, there is an exercise carriage where future assistant operators are trained.

A cabin of an exercise carriage.

A classroom in the exercise carriage.

Some kind of a remarkable site too - a blackboard with notes of trains arrangement.

In the roadblock there is a control panel showing body tracks, points, traffic lights and rakes.

From the roadblock balcony there opens a wonderful view at the route section near Izmaylovskaya.

On the approach lines of the electric depot “Izmaylovo”.



Foot-plate staff attendance schedule.

And something like a wall newspaper in verse.


“Ploschad’ Revolutsii” station.

“Rusich” has two cameras showing an operator passengers boarding and detraining.

New trains are equipped with new automatic speed control. However where there is no such system, next to an operator in “Rusich” there going an assistant who controls traffic lights signals.

Max. train speed in the Moscow underground is 80km/h.




“Mitino” - the 180th station of the Moscow underground. It has recently opened - in the end of December of the last year.

| Tags: moscow, subway, trains, underground |













Cool stuff! I like it!
Also first
Fuckin ole stuff !!!all is so shitty and rusty 2
its time to change it all or buy rollerblades ???????????????
An interesting perspective on Moscow’s underground system. In the West, the Moscow underground was always known for the beauty of it’s stations-even during Communist times. It is interesting to see a view of the more functional aspects of the system.
thanks so much for these pics
I’ve been to St Petersburg’s underground, that was a wild experience back in the day
Seems they’ve got a bit newer tech in moscow.
wawawoowa, is very niiiiiiiice!!!
Sometimes the forum works and sometimes it has a critical error!
Ya Right !!!!!!!!!!!!
Say what you will about anything else in Russia, one thing they did (and do) extremely well is build ways to move people and plenty of them. The stations, especially the older ones are works of art, the system is clean (although a bit noisy) and it’s dirt cheap to use.
If it’s not the best underground public transit system in the world, what is?
I have only been in the Ekaterinburg subway in Russia.There are 6 stations and they all look different.They are very clean and have statues and murals on the walls and 2 of them have marble floors and walls.There is a joke that so much marble was used for 1 station the city could only afford 6 stations.
11th. btw there are the same type of underground trains in budapest.
The SDI system(nicknamed Star Wars)came about in 1983.Battlestar Galactica aired on tv in the late 70s.The USA and the Soviet Union became close friends in 1989.The Soviet Union fell in 1991.Interesting post but not acurate!
Forget it! I’m not gonna make comment in this post Finnish. You always delete it as spam. And I am NOT spam!