The most impressive and handsome of steam locomotives in the now-vanquished Soviet Empire was the 1950-design P36 4-8-4 in elegant green, red, and black livery, with a cream "lightning stripe" along its flanks. Rarely photographed because the paranoid Soviets considered railroads a military necessity, these magnificent engines ended their careers pulling Trains 1 and 2, the "Russia", on the easternmost 2500 miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The longest passenger train route in the world (6000 miles), the "Russia" required many engine changes, including Skovorodino, Siberia, where P36 No. 0250 took over the job on Train No. 1 on November 16, 1970.
