https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/notes of a train dispatcher: stations, lines, locomotives, timetables Kündölük 3.4.2enhttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/10/what-changes-on-1-november.html Sun, 18 Oct 2026 19:30:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/10/what-changes-on-1-november.html From 1 November the evening suburban pair, 6005 and 6006, will leave forty minutes earlier. The dispatchers have known since August. The departure yard at Nurzhan will be under track renewal from the 3rd to the 14th, so for those days a lot of shunting will be moved to the siding. The Sary-Bulak…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/07/the-line-to-the-outside.html Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:30:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/07/the-line-to-the-outside.html Since the end of June my blog is open again from outside the country. For almost three years nobody abroad could read it. I do not know who else was reading. Dima, from Siberia, wrote that he read a whole year of notes in one night. A railway is also a line to the outside. The north line to the…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/04/repair-day.html Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:00:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/04/repair-day.html Tuesday: the 2TE10 in the depot had its turbocharger replaced by two mechanics and a cousin with a chain hoist. It took four hours. They drank tea on the engine's roof while it cooled. The foreman signed the form without reading it. I think that's what trust looks like. See Fewer than twenty.https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/02/lugovoy.html Sun, 08 Feb 2026 19:40:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2026/02/lugovoy.html Lugovoy is a small station on the Chu line with a stationmaster, a kiosk, a bench, two switches and a well. In spring the stationmaster plants tulips on the embankment, a hundred and some, in rows, and the drivers of the passing trains slow down in May to see them. This is not in any instruction,…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/11/a-good-dispatcher-is-boring.html Sun, 02 Nov 2025 22:30:00 +0600evergreenhttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/11/a-good-dispatcher-is-boring.html The job is done well when nothing happens. No delays, no stones in the river, no phone calls at four in the morning. Passengers do not know your name. If they do, something went wrong. My father is a plumber and says it is the same trade. If you hear of him, the house has flooded. See What a…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/09/talas-north-terminal.html Sun, 07 Sep 2025 21:20:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/09/talas-north-terminal.html West of Aulie-Ata the Kara-Buura line runs 145 kilometres to Talas North Terminal on the Kazakh frontier. The exchange of freight is from 08:00 to 20:00, no night work. The terminal is quiet, with a customs shed, a low yard and a long fence, and one old locomotive painted green that the border…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/07/lines-of-the-north.html Sun, 13 Jul 2025 20:00:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/07/lines-of-the-north.html The north line runs from Nurzhan across the eastern Chu plain to the frontier. It is the old Turksib: the line to Almaty and Siberia. At the border station the Iradi crew uncouples and a Kazakh crew couples, with a short ceremony of paper: the wagon list, the seals, the stamps. Around the clock.…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/05/lines-of-irad-a-map-in-words.html Sun, 04 May 2025 18:30:00 +0600evergreenhttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/05/lines-of-irad-a-map-in-words.html Chu line, 229 km. Kara-Buura line, 145. Talas branch, 100. North line (Tündük linyasy), 129, to the Nurzhan rail border station where the trains are handed over to Kazakhstan and the road to Otar and Almaty. East line, 43, to Boz-Korgon. Sary-Bulak spur, 39. Chatkal siding, 6. All together nearly…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/03/reading-a-timetable.html Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:00:00 +0600evergreenhttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/03/reading-a-timetable.html The printed timetable of Irad Temir Jolu has two numbers for each station: arrival and departure. Where they are the same, the train does not stop. Where there is a gap, the gap is the stop. At Aulie-Ata Junction the gap is 22 minutes. At Kyzyl-Adyr it is five. At the loop No. 17 it is "as…https://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/01/cold-start.html Sun, 26 Jan 2025 19:50:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/temirjol/2025/01/cold-start.html At minus 25 a diesel is never switched off. In the depot a locomotive will idle all night, to keep the oil and the coolant from freezing, and the fuel bill for those nights is higher than a month of summer. The depot foreman says it is like keeping a horse in the stable: you pay for it even when…