Żurawica Rozrządowa Marshalling Yard

[Morgan_Hardwood]

In the south-east corner of Poland right next to Ukraine, Żurawica Rozrządowa is a marshalling yard built in 1860 as part of the Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis of Austria. Initially a minor station, it was vastly expanded by the Nazis in 1940-1 as part of Operation Otto (later renamed to Operation Barbarossa) in order to facilitate an attack on the Soviet Union. It was further expanded after the war to facilitate the looting of goods, grains and livestock from occupied Poland into the Soviet Union. As a station linking the East to the West, it contains cranes and infrastructure needed to move cargo from the 5 foot (1524mm) track gauge used by the Soviets to the more narrow 4 foot 8.5 inch (1435mm) “standard gauge” used elsewhere.

Station diagram (hello OpenTTD fans):
http://semaforek.kolej.org.pl/wiki/index.php?title=Żurawica

Sony α7 II, Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AI-s, RawTherapee.

[Andrius]

Great work! I can even picture Nazis loading/unloading train cars. Creepy.

[paperdigits (Mica)]

The glow of the tracks is really amazing!

[ggbutcher (Glenn Butcher)]

There are few industrial artifacts that endure in their effectiveness and still present rich history like railways. Just about anytime you regard two ribbons of rail somewhere, there’s sure to be engaging story behind it’s origination and evolution.

Thanks for sharing a particularly poignant specimen of such. Morning light really favors it. You’re just feeding my desire to get to my favorite such venue before it stops operating for the year, autumn being the best time IMHO to photograph it - cold, crisp morning air, laden with bellowing steam from the locomotives…