There are few things that are more impressive to a railfan than seeing steam working in non-tourist revenue service.
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 such little work to do, so somebody got the great idea to assign a steam crew to the station instead. Since December (and at least until March), Rizhskiy passenger station's terminal switcher has been one of Moscow's many restored steam locomotives. This morning that happened to be SO17-3241, a 2-10-0 built in 1948.
This might just be the only place in the world where one can find steam working as a passenger terminal switcher.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)