Routings During WW2

[overall]

My father was a USMC airplane mechanic during World War 2. His home was just outside of Jasper, Alabama. He stated that he made five cross country rail trips between Jasper, Alabama and the Marine base at San Diego, California.  I have tried to figure out the routing he might have had to make those trips. He did not remember much about the routing because he didn’t really pay that much attention. It was war time after all. Of course, San Diego was served by the Santa Fe. Jasper, Alabama was served by Southern Railway and the Frisco. He did say that he crossed the desert and the Rocky Mountains. The railroad in the Rockies used to double and triple head engines to cross them.  I suspect he took the Southern to New Orleans and then the Southern Pacific across to some point where he would transfer to AT&SF. Can some of you venture other scenarios for routings he might have had?

Thanks,

George

[KCSfan]

He probably rode the Frisco's Kansas City-Florida Special to KC where he could transfer to one of the Santa Fe's mainline trains to Los Angeles and then on to San Diego on one of the Santa Fe's San Diegans. Because the SP's Sunset Route crossed the Continental Divide at a low altitude double heading was not normal. On the other hand double and often triple heading of Santa Fe trains over Raton Pass was necessary. 

Mark

[wanswheel]

In 1942, San Diego had a train arrive from Yuma at 8:45 a.m.  Might that be a shortcut, skipping Los Angeles?  Rock Island Californian from Memphis to Tucumcari, then SP Golden State Limited to Yuma.

http://www.chicagorailfan.com/stbcsan.html  San Diego

http://www.chicagorailfan.com/stbcmem.html Memphis

http://www.chicagorailfan.com/stbeyond.html 

[overall]

I did not know that SP went all the way to San Diego. My Dad could have boarded the SP at New Orleans and stayed on it all the way there. Oh well. Thanks for the replies.

George

[overall]

Mark, that would make sense also. Thanks for the information. My great grand father was a section foreman on the Frisco at Carbon Hill, Alabama. That may have influenced my Dad to go that way.

Thanks,

George

[K4sPRR]

If your father was assigned to a troop train versus a regularly scheduled train the routing may have changed hour by hour as troop trains traveled to desitinations more on the demand of troop movement than by sticking to a dedicated route and schedule.  My father, also a WWII vet, traveled on troop trains, one of which he swore hit all 48 states.  He was being somewhat coy in his allegation but he did recall being on the train for quite some time, changing directions and at one point he said traveled back from an area they just passed through.  To say the least, troop trains were somewhat frustrating forms of travel.  Hope your fathers trips were good ones!

[erikem]

overall

I did not know that SP went all the way to San Diego. My Dad could have boarded the SP at New Orleans and stayed on it all the way there. Oh well. Thanks for the replies.

The was a couple of routes for an SP train to get from Yuma to San Diego. One was taking the Sunset Route to Niland, then south to El Centro and finally taking the SD&AE from El Centro to San Diego. The other was going through Mexico between Yuma and El Centro, then taking the SD&AE.

 - Erik

[model-railroad]

My Mother told me about a difficult trip she took from St. Louis to New Orleans in 1943.  I was born November 1942 and my Dad was drifted in 1943 leaving my Mom with a baby to care for.  During that summer of '43 she took a train to New Orleans to see my Father before he shipped out for the Far East. 

She said she was on a Pullman during the heat of summer, no air conditioning with a screening baby.  Does anyone have an idea what train we might have taken?

[Deggesty]

model-railroad

My Mother told me about a difficult trip she took from St. Louis to New Orleans in 1943.  I was born November 1942 and my Dad was drifted in 1943 leaving my Mom with a baby to care for.  During that summer of '43 she took a train to New Orleans to see my Father before he shipped out for the Far East. 

She said she was on a Pullman during the heat of summer, no air conditioning with a screening baby.  Does anyone have an idea what train we might have taken?

 

I would say that she took the IC, with an overnight sleeper. I'm away from home right now, so I cannot give any more information except that you and she may have ridden the Panama Limited, which did have a through St. Louis-New Orleans car. There was at least one other possible schedule on the IC which, I believe, would have had you leave St. Louis in the morning, change in Carbondale, and have a sleeper down to New Orleans.

As to screaming babies, my first trip by train came when I was two years old. In later years, my mother told me that I screamed from Plant City, Fla., (where we boarded) to Lakeland, which at the time was scheduled to be a fifteen minute trip. I did get over my terror, and since have traveled several thousand miles by train.

[Firelock76]

The more things change the more they stay the same...

During the Civil War a Confederate officer home on leave wrote to a friend in the field:

"Hell on Earth is being trapped in a railway carriage for ten hours with a screaming infant!  My God, it was worse than Gettysburg!"

[FlyingCrow]

Most airline flights are just like that today!  

[MidlandMike]

Would a troop train have used the SD&EA route, since it would have to travel thru Mexico twice?

[DSchmitt]

MidlandMike

Would a troop train have used the SD&EA route, since it would have to travel thru Mexico twice?

Don't know.  However Mexico was an Ally, declaring war on Germany and Japan in May 1942.   A fighter squadrion of the Mexican Air Force fought in the South Pacific.

[garyla]

DSchmitt

 

MidlandMike

Would a troop train have used the SD&EA route, since it would have to travel thru Mexico twice?

 

 

Don't know.  However Mexico was an Ally, declaring war on Germany and Japan in May 1942.   A fighter squadrion of the Mexican Air Force fought in the South Pacific.

 

During peacetime at least, U.S. troop trains en route to San Diego definitely used at least one of SP's two SD&AE routes through Mexico.  That's how my father arrived at Navy boot camp in 1935. 

This practice may have continued after the U.S. got into World War II, but it might have been more complicated.  (I can picture armed guards being posted at vulnerable points along the route in Mexico, but whose?)

Anybody know what transpired during that wartime  era?

[Deggesty]

garyla

 

DSchmitt

 

MidlandMike

Would a troop train have used the SD&EA route, since it would have to travel thru Mexico twice?

 

 

Don't know.  However Mexico was an Ally, declaring war on Germany and Japan in May 1942.   A fighter squadrion of the Mexican Air Force fought in the South Pacific.

 

 

 

 

During peacetime at least, U.S. troop trains en route to San Diego definitely used at least one of SP's two SD&AE routes through Mexico.  That's how my father arrived at Navy boot camp in 1935. 

This practice may have continued after the U.S. got into World War II, but it might have been more complicated.  (I can picture armed guards being posted at vulnerable points along the route in Mexico, but whose?)

Anybody know what transpired during that wartime  era?

 

Found on page 39 of the October 1972 issue of Trains: "I added 25 new roads to my diary: from the Boston and Maine in the Northeast to the San Diego & Arizona Eastern in the Southwest; from the Spokane, Portland & Seattle in the Northwest to the Mississippi Central in the deep south." These words were written by Pullman Conductor William Moedinger, who was in charge of many troop train movements--a delightful life for a confirmed railfan.

My search engine was a little different from most--I looked through the pages that I had copied of his account of his travels back and forth in his employment as a Pullman conductor--most of which was spent on one or another MAIN (the Military's acronym for troop trains).

[wanswheel]

Johnny, I can’t find anything about M.A.I.N. as an acronym.

Excerpt from The Rock Island Line by Bill Marvel

In 1943, Rock Island carried more than 15 million passengers, a threefold increase over 1939. Fortunately, the road had 15 new sets of streamlined equipment to help shoulder the load. Still, many of its passenger cars had been diverted to service on troop specials, called “main trains” because they held the main line while everything else took sidings. Baggage cars were converted into sleepers and troop kitchens. Every six minutes, American railroads dispatched a troop train. With dozens of military bases and flying fields along its southwestern lines, Rock Island was one busy railroad. The road assigned a passenger department representative to escort each main train. Heaven help the escort whose train ran out of ice or drinking water in the Texas Panhandle.

[FUSE-]

ic only ran one that would require no change  that was THE PANAMA LIMITED 

wich was a 1st class operation and would have been air cooled over ice at the least 

FUSE- (ex employee mid 40s)