Did West Russia really have a rock shortage in WW2? And if so, what was the cause?
Upvote:1
"Rock shortage" is clearly not a question of geology. It is a problem of transportation of the appropriate rock from the point where it is available to the point where it is needed. It is difficult to transport substantial amount of rocks when your infrastructure is not sufficiently developed. This was always a problem in Russia.
Upvote:2
The Germans wouldn't know the conditions of Russia generally so the comment is limited to West Russia (which isn't mentioned in any source that I am familiar with.)
From The Soviet Economy and the Red Army, 1930-1945 it does looks like the main lines didn't have much gravel in their ballast. This cold war monograph mentions want of ballast as a factor but doesn't elaborate.
I don't know whether to blame this on a shortage or simply call it a relic of building things in the Soviet economy. Especially since there was massive expansion of the rail network in the first five year plan.
Upvote:5
There might be some truth behind this as I've managed to find a couple references to it now. It should be noted that Stone Ballast is the material of choice for laying tracks upon (not gravel or sand) and it's pretty resource intensive as you need a lot of this ballast.
First - it is very true that the Russian rails were built mostly on gravel, sand, and dirt. This cause a lot of issues as the ground would shift under the weight of trains, causing the tracks to move and trains to derail. The Russians were quite aware this was happening apparently...a few links to google books on that:
However the reasons for this are not well documented. I am able to find another source that repeats this 'rock was scarce' stance:
http://www.allworldwars.com/Comments-on-Russian-Roads-and-Higways-by-Max-Bork.html
Since rock is scarce in Russia, few railroads had beds of crushed rock ballast. In lieu of rook, sand and gravel was widely used.
Lack of Stone Ballast reference
West Russia might be accurate here too as the lack is on the Russian Steppes.
All that being said...I don't think there was a 'shortage' per se.
Here we see the reference that the stone was costly, so sand and gravel was used. I suspect this is more the reason...instead of there being a 'shortage', it was simply too expensive to harvest and use on rail lines. Does this qualify as a shortage, or simply an unwillingness to expend the money required to harvest it?
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