Direct Current Electric Locomotive VL22^M 1729

Shortly after the end of the Great Patriotic War, in anticipation of the planned conversion of many of the railway lines to electric traction, the USSR began to restore electric locomotive construction as an industry. Production was established at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant, at the site of the steam locomotive construction plant destroyed in the war. In the late 1940s, serial production of the VL22^M direct current mainline electric locomotive began here.

VL22 locomotives were developed before the war and were a further development of the design of the first Soviet electric locomotives, S ^S and VL19. In 1938–1941, the Kolomna Locomotive Works and the Dynamo Plant together produced 37 VL22 electric locomotives; production was then stopped due to the outbreak of war. In the post-war period, when organising the production of electric locomotives at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant, the VL22 was selected as the starting point for the creation of a new locomotive. A number of improvements were made to its design (more powerful DPE-400 electric traction engines installed, new types of some of the electrical apparatus and machines used), resulting in the modernised VL22^M.

In April 1947, the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant built its first electric locomotive, VL22^M 185 (numbering continued from the 184 VL19 and VL22 locomotives built before the war). The plant then began series production of the electric locomotives up until 1958. In total, over the course of a decade, 1,541 VL22^M units were built (no.  185, 186, 188, 200–580, 681–700, 801–830, 931–2037).

This class of electric locomotive was produced in three main variants, which were not distinguished by index.

Firstly, most of the locomotives produced (716 units) were intended for use with freight traffic, had a design speed of 75 km/h (axial gear ratio of 4.45 or 4.56) and were equipped with electric (regenerative) braking.

Next, less than half of the remaining number of VL22^Ms built (581 units) differed from the above-mentioned only in that they did not have regenerative braking. These machines were intended for use with freight trains mains running on sections with a flat track profile, where there was no particular need for regenerative brakes.

VL22^M-class electric locomotives were widely used on Soviet railways. In the late 1950s, they were in operation on the East Siberian, South Caucasus, Kalinin, Kuybyshev, Lviv, Moscow-Kursk-Donbas, Moscow-Ryazan, Oktyabrskaya, Omsk, Sverdlovsk, Northern, North Caucasus, Stalin, Tomsk, Ufa, Southern and South Ural railways.

Until the mid-1960s, VL22^Ms were the most common direct current electric locomotives on the network. Later, after the arrival of the newer VL8, VL23 and ChS2 electric locomotives on Soviet railways, most VL22^M electric locomotives were concentrated on the Sverdlovsk, Prydnipro and South Caucasus Railways. These locomotives were especially widespread on the Sverdlovsk Railway, where they were used in large numbers for all types of traffic until the mid-1990s. The last of these vehicles were decommissioned in the early 21st century. On most other railways, VL22^Ms were removed from service and decommissioned earlier, in the 1970s–80s.

As well as on the railways of the USSR’s Ministry of Railways, class VL22^M electric locomotives were also used in industry, on in-house electrified lines at some large enterprises — for example, Apatit (Murmansk Oblast), Azovstal (Mariupol), the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, and so on.

The electric locomotive VL22^M 1729 displayed in the museum was built in 1957 and operated on the Ufa and Kuybyshev railways.