Conversion of American RS1 into Soviet TE1 locomotive

  • TE1 Locomotive

    RS1 locomotive was manufactured in the USA by ALCO between 1941 and 1953. In 1943, the Ministry of Railways of the USSR ordered a batch of locomotives from US, but with a request to enhance axles scheme and made 3-axle instead of 2-axle bogies. Number of engines has increased from 4 to 6. In the USSR there was a need for more powerful 6-axis machines. This modification has already been developed by ALCO to be used in Turkey and some other countries where it was called RSD1.

  • Collection released Nov 2015

    Since 1945, this locomotive became available in the Soviet Union and got its name – DA1 (Diesel ALCO). In 1945, DA1 led the train with the government delegation of the USSR to the Potsdam (Germany) to the Conference between Three Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and UK. It was more reliable than a steam locomotive.

    Since 1947, this diesel locomotive DA1 was renamed in TE1 and began to be built in the Soviet Union until 1953. TE1 locomotives operated in USSR for about 40 years till 1980s.

  • Thanks to model railroad company ATLAS, we have a model locomotive RS1. Attic de Papa decided to make a Soviet version of it, locomotive TE1. We replaced its axles to 3-axle trucks and repainted it to its Soviet colours. We fabricated decals with reference numbers and blazons of the USSR.

  • We offered this model in three liveries: dark blue, blue and green.  In terms of a deeper conversion of the locomotive, we plan to add buffer lights, plates under the front and rear couplers and slightly modify the fuel tank.