The oldest operational diesel locomotive that can be seen in the Kharkiv region is the TU2, number 054, on the Mala Yuzhna Railway—or, as it is more commonly known, the Children’s Railway.

It was made in December 1956 and was designed specifically for narrow-gauge railways. Although the diesel locomotive is small, it is fully functional in terms of its overall design, and children can use it to learn the design of larger locomotives. It is powered by a 300-horsepower 1D12 engine from the Kharkiv B2 tank diesel family, which was used in T-34 tanks. By the end of 1959, approximately 300 of these locomotives had been produced. And although most of the surviving units are used on children’s railways, it was originally designed for use in logging and peat extraction operations, where narrow gauge (750 mm) was often used.