A Remarkable Armored Train Fought Its Way Across Eurasia

By James Simpson,War Is Boring

The war train Zaamurets was the behemoth of the 1910s and 1920s.

Heavily armored. Bristling with guns. Everywhere it went, Zaamurets was the biggest, baddest thing around. Not many foes could touch it. If you possessed this train, you ruled the rails of early 20th-century Eurasia.

Even more stunning, this awesome, self-propelled war machine went on a journey across the world. The years-long voyage carried the train through Ukraine, Russia and China — illustrating the chaos and uncertainty of the era. The leviathan served in Tsarist, Bolshevik, Czech, White Russian and several Chinese armies.

Which is why everyone wanted it.

Zaamurets’ story is tangled up with the Russian Revolution of 1917. The revolution ended the reign of the Tsars, forced Russia to withdraw from World War I and launched a civil war that began a new era of ideological conflict.

As Bolshevik Reds, Tsarist Whites, anarchists and peasant Greens fought for control of the vast Russian Empire, they coveted the most devastating land-based super-weapon of the time — heavily armed and armored trains.

The best machines were carriages of thick steel armor bristling with gun-ports and turrets. Around 300 armored trains fought during the civil war. Only 75 of those were standardized platforms from Russia’s rail yards. Soldiers and sailors improvised the rest from whatever resources were available — industrial flat cars, sandbags, concrete, scrap and old naval deck guns.