Saratovskiy Ledokol

Saratovskiy Ledokol, meaning the Saratov icebreaker, was a Russian steam powered twin screw icebreaker built in 1896 at Sir W G Armstrong Mitchell and Company in Newcastle upon Tyne for the Ryazan Ural Railway Company. She mainly escorted a railway ferry across the Volga in winter, but could also carry cargo and passengers on her own. To pass the Mariinsk Canal System, whose locks were 28 feet wide, she could be split into two halves along the centreline, each half having its own oil fired boilers, compound steam engine and funnel. She sank by the railway bridge in 1968, and a lifting operation to restore her as a monument by the river began in June 2020.