I'm almost sure the reason there's no spare parts is the licenses and not the manifacturing capabilities. Also it doesn't make much business sense to recreate manufacturing for such old tec. I'm quite sure it doesn't make sense in ukraine either but more likely they just use the spares to keep the current fleet going as the life expectancy of the locomotives doesn't necessarily need to be that long and they can't worry about pollution right now either. Mac gyvering some old parts to life for a year or so probably makes more sense there than in Finland.

Those are in use.

They are, but once the remaining Dr19 locomotives have been delivered, many will no longer be in use. A Dr19 easily replaces a double traction of Dv12 locomotives, probably a triple traction as well. So, the upcoming 30 new Dr19 locomotives will free something like 50 or 60 Dv12 locomotives. That's a sizeable number! In Ukraine they also have much better facilities for building spare parts and repairing pre-existing parts than we have in Finland. Even if some locomotives have to be used as spare part donors for the rest of the fleet, there will be many Dv12 locomotives that will be completely fit for the service in Ukraine.

But, of course nothing to this effect has been uttered for now. It would be logical for VR to donate more to UZ, especially since that way the locomotives will not end up in the competitors' fleets, but only time will tell what really happens.

Those are in use. If there's no replacement then there's not that many to give. The broken ones would also require parts that are not manifactured anymore so those would mainly suffice as spare parts.

As far as I know there might be more available as transports are going to be done with trucks instead of trains but even then those locomotives break in a speed that there might not be any available.

Every train is built with steel love!

They still have the original engines and original transmission. Spare parts have been changed again and again, but for example the engine blocks have not.

I'd say they are the same locomotives. And I hope that when the remaining 30 new Dr19 locomotives arrive, about 30 or 40 more Dv12 locos will be transferred to UZ. Yeah, they are are old amd need a LOT of maintenance all the time, but in Ukraine maintenance costs peanuts. You can see it there in everything: they have their bags and shoes repaired much more than we here in Finland. And they have local shops in the villages. And they play non-electric pianos because tuning them every now and then costs so much less than buying an electric piano. Those locomotives will have several more decades of life in them if they get to live it in Ukraine.

Many are actually rebuilt and modernized so if you count those as the same locomotive or as old then yes.

Here are recent pictures of Dv12 locomotives in use: https://vaunut.org/kuvat/?tag0=1%7CDv12%7C

Check especially the tags to see what the numbers of the locomotives are.

They built almost 200 of those. Most of them are still in everyday use, I think.

I'm surprised there's even 10 left: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dv12

Different countries in Europe have vastly different electrification systems. Most use either 25 000 V AC or 3 000 V DC, but then there's the 15 000 V AC used by German-speaking countries, Sweden, and Norway. And the French-Dutch 1500 V DC.

And France uses 25 000 V on all of its new lines as well.

Electricity can jump about 1 cm per 1 000 V, so Finnish 25 kV overhead wires can shock you at a distance of 25 cm, south-French 1.5 kV overhead wires need you to be under 1.5 cm away from the line.

Converting to inches and feet: 1.5 kV needs you to be closer than an inch to the overhead wire in order to get electrocuted, while 25 kV can jump almost a foot.

It happens regularly that young people die when they climb atop freight wagons and get too close to the sstructures holding the overhead line. They only know to avoid the line itself, but don't understand how.far electricity can jump nor that it's not only the wire that is "hot", but also all structures up to the isolator.

yesterday, as i was leaving for the amsterdam international airport from the center on a train (or was it sprinter they were called), the train stopped for several minutes on some random spot between the airport and main station.Before the stop, i think i heard the train staff or someone yell something while being somewhat annoyed. no idea what it was as i dont know the language. I wonder if it could be related. It barely made the train few minutes late though.

A friend and I used to do this years ago. We didn't ride for very long usually but we did it initially with the intent to access abandoned buildings/areas we couldn't normally access or would take too long to walk to or have security at the obvious entry points. These trains would go very close by a lot of these areas and it made super simple to just hop off and head to the building. Getting back from the places could be more difficult if we couldn't catch a train back but we always had plans.

yes

no.

The narrative of cars as the embodiment and only alternative for personal freedom has been so pervasive, I just don't think the United States will ever be free of it.

It sucks too, because the country has great geography for railway projects.