The Shymkent Children's Railway (

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Чимкентская детская железная дорога им. Героя Советского Союза Гани Муратбаева, ''Tschimkentskaja detskaja schelesnaja doroga im. Geroja Sowetskowo Sojusa Gani Muratbajewa'') is a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

children's railway A children's railway or pioneer railway is an extracurricular educational institution, where children interested in rail transport can learn railway professions. This phenomenon originated in the USSR and was greatly developed in Soviet times. T ...

Shymkent Shymkent (; Шымкент, Şymkent), known until 1993 as Chimkent ( uz, Çımkent, چىمكېنت; Yañalif: Çimkent ()); russian: Чимкент, translit=Chimkent (), is a city in Kazakhstan. It is near the border with Uzbekistan. It is one ...

in Kazachstan. The track with a gauge of has a length of . It has two railway stations. The railway was inaugurated in 1980 as one of the many

pioneer railway A children's railway or pioneer railway is an extracurricular educational institution, where children interested in rail transport can learn railway professions. This phenomenon originated in the USSR and was greatly developed in Soviet times. T ...

s in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

.Дмитрий Сутягин (Dmitry Sutyagin)
Детские железные дороги СССР – История и современность: Караганда.
2000–2015. Retrieved 12 November 2017.С. Болашенко

Retrieved 12 November 2017.

History

The children's railway was designed and built by

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

s starting in autumn 1979, the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

proclaimed

International Year of the Child UNESCO proclaimed 1979 as the International Year of the Child.

. The railway station was designed by Juschgorsel Project Institute (Южгорсельпроект) and the tunnel and the bridge by the Giprofosfor Institute (Гипрофосфор). The architecture of the railway station was nominated for the Lenin Prize. Tulpar railway stations resembles a funny camel, which has the snout of a lions cub for some reason, although Tulpar is actually a winged stallion in Kazach

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

. The first train ran in February 1980, and in May of the same year the railway was regularly used.

Track

The children's railway connects the northern part of the city with a recreation ground with an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

, an artificial lake and a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological g ...

. The train runs from the railway station named ''Sportiwnaja'' (Спортивная) near the

sports stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

via ''Chadschi Mukan'' (Хаджи Мукан) to the station named ''Tulpar'' (Тулпар) near the entrance of the zoo. Initially, the children's railway was nearly the only way to get to this recreation ground, and thus it was used by 176,000 passengers in the months from May to September of year of its inauguration. The track has a complex height profile: Immediately after passing the bridge behind ''Sportivnaya'' is a nearly long incline with two sharp radii. There is also an approximately long tunnel, a

cable-stayed bridge A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern o ...

and another bridge.

Rolling stock

One

TU2 diesel locomotive TU2 (ТУ2) is a Soviet narrow gauge diesel locomotive for the track gauge of History The decision to replace steam locomotives by diesel ones on the narrow gauge railways was taken after the Second World War. The first diesel locomotive bu ...

stems from the

Alma-Ata Children's Railway The Alma-Ata Children's Railway (russian: Алма-Атинская детская железная дорога, Alma-Atinskaya detskaya zheleznaya doroga) is a narrow-gauge children's railway in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which was called Alma-Ata from ...

, the other from the mine and smelter Atschpolimetall (Ачполиметалл) in

Kentau Kentau ( kz, Kentau, كەنتاۋ; cyrl, Кентау) is a town in Turkistan Region of Kazakhstan. It is located at the foot of the Karatau mountains 30 km north-east of the city of Turkistan (city), Turkestan. Kentau was formed in August ...

. Two PW51 carriages of the Demichovsk factory are used for passenger transport. Some of the older

Pafawag Pafawag (Państwowa Fabryka Wagonów) (English: National Rail Carriage Factory) is a Polish locomotive manufacturer based in Wrocław. The company became part of Adtranz in 1997 as Adtranz Pafawag, and in 2001 part of Bombardier Transportation. I ...

carriages are mothballed in ''Sportiwnaja'' railway station, some of them are used occasionally as back-up. The TU2-269 locomotive was decommissioned for spares. Even so, there is a significant lack of spare part. In summer 2003 the railway had to be closed temporarily twice due to maintenance issues of the locomotive. 2010 it was in use, and even longer than in previous years, because it started operating in April.

References

{{GeoGroup Children's railways Railway lines in Kazakhstan 750 mm gauge railways in Kazakhstan Railway lines opened in 1980 Shymkent Transport in Shymkent 1980 establishments in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic