For now, I'm wrapping up the EN57/EN71 series, which has been ubiquitous for many years. I'll show you a few heavy six-axle diesel locomotives that are just as common.
ST44—that is the designation for this locomotive in the Polish State Railways; among private carriers, it is known by the manufacturer’s name: M62. It was manufactured by the Luhansk Thermal Locomotive Plant, formerly located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (part of the USSR), later in Ukraine, and now under Russian occupation. The history of this locomotive’s development is available on Wikipedia, but the story of how it ended up in Poland (and other Eastern Bloc countries) is less well known. As a reminder, there was once an organization known in Polish as the RWPG (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, Rada Wzajemnej Pomocy Gospodarczej).
In Poland, this acronym was often expanded to mean “Everything for Russia, Shit for Poland” (in polish-
Rosji Wszystko Polsce Gówno).
Under this system, the Russians determined what each country could produce domestically and what it had to purchase from them. We were tasked with purchasing a total of 1,190 of these locomotives. The much larger Soviet Union purchased only 877, 154 of which were for military use. In exchange for this offer we couldn't refuse, we were prohibited from manufacturing the SP/SU147 locomotives developed in Poland.
Some of these locomotives are still in service today. I think they’ve all been modernized and fitted with modern engines, because the original two-stroke diesel engine was a gas guzzler—and, well, as is typical of two-stroke engines, it had little to do with environmen
First up is the M62M-008. Year of manufacture: 1976; painted by Rail Polska Sp. z o.o.; location: Katowice (Main) Station. Photo taken on March 11, 2014. Note that this diesel locomotive, designed to haul freight trains, is in a spot reserved for passenger trains.
Next is ST44-1083. This photo was taken on April 9, 2014, at the Siedlce station, which was undergoing modernization. The locomotive was manufactured in 1984 and underwent modernization, after which its designation was changed to ST44-1265.
ST44-089 is an old-timer from 1969. In the photo (also from 2014), the locomotive is pulling a train of empty cars north from Łuków Station—maybe to Białystok, maybe to Belarus? I don’t know.
Following its modernization in May 2025, the locomotive bears the designation ST44-1276
ST44-700 from 1977 (photo from 2015). The locomotive is pulling another ST48-011 locomotive toward Siedlce/Łuków (unfortunately, all I know about this locomotive is that it is a modernized version of the SM48. SM stands for diesel shunting locomotive, and ST stands for diesel freight locomotive). Following its modernization in 2021, the locomotive bears the designation ST44-1272
And the last photo: a locomotive built in 1971, pulling a train traveling from Siedlce toward Łuków, leaves the Dziewule station.
In 2021, following its modernization, the vehicle was assigned the designation ST44-1275
Translated automatically by DeepL
