Rizhsky Terminal Switcher

This isn't a tourist operation.

Due to the borders still being closed, one of Moscow's smaller terminal stations is only seeing a handful of passenger trains per week. Russian Railways doesn't think it's worth keeping their regular diesel crews stationed there with so little work to do, so somebody got the great idea to assign a steam crew to the station instead. After all, they're not pulling many excursions these days anyways. Until at least March, Rizhskiy passenger station's switcher will be one of Moscow's many restored steam locomotives.

I was up before the sun to make sure I didn't miss any of the action. This 0-10-0 was first assigned to take apart the day's lone passenger train and store it in the coach yard. Later it did some switching of MoW equipment. With not much else going on, the railway museum next to the station asked the dispatcher if they could move some of their equipment around, to which they kindly obliged - all before lunch.

This might just be the only place in the world where one can find steam working as a passenger terminal switcher.

Done