https://vietnam-railway.com/train/SapaTourist/reunification-express-train
https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.280357/2015.280357.Indo-China#page/n0/mode/2up
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/vietnam.Html
Excerpt from US Army Use of Rail in Theaters of Operation http://www.transportation.army.mil/historian/documents/use%20of%20military%20rail%20by%20us%20army.pdf The US Army assumed a greater role in the ground war in South Vietnam during the summer of 1965. There were two more increments of troop build-ups over the next two years. South Vietnam had well engineered railroad that ran the length of the coastline from Saigon to Hue, 59 serviceable locomotives and over 500 serviceable freight cars, but had suffered from years of interdiction by the Viet Cong. Beginning in June 1966, the Saigon Government and US agencies combined to restore the railroad and rolling stock. The US Army was interested in the railroad for its potential of moving bulk cargo at low rates. The operation of the railroad was left in the hands of the Vietnamese, but the US Army assigned technical advisors to the railroad to keep it up to date. The 714th TBROS&DE trained up 11 rail detachments at Fort Eustis for the war. Only two deployed to Vietnam. 2LT Forrest Becht and Bob Stiltenpol were assigned as commanders of the 525th and 526th Rail Detachments of the 714th TBROS&DE respectively right out of Transportation Officers Basic Course in the fall of 1966. On 27 December, they deployed with their 12-man detachments by air with their M16s to Oakland where they boarded a troop ship bound for Vietnam. They arrived at Vung Tau on 20 January 1967 and were bused to Saigon. They fell under the Traffic Management Agency (TMA) and Becht’s 525th Rail Detachment was assigned to the rail yard at Saigon and Stiltenpol’s 526th Rail Detachment was assigned to the Port of Qui Nhon. Since the Vietnamese ran the railroad, the US Army rail detachments just processed Transportation Movement Dispatches (TMD) and conducted port clearance. The 525th pushed cargo primarily to the logistic base at Long Binh and the 526th pushed cargo to the Phu Cat Air Base. This work did not require the full 12 personnel so half of them were turned over to the TMA for reassignment. By September, the new commander of the 3rd Region, TMA felt that the work load did not require even an officer and five Soldiers so he reduced the detachment in Saigon to just two enlisted men who worked with two Vietnamese. This was the extent of rail operations during the Vietnam War.The normal line of communication to the front was deep draft vessel to the port then rail as far as feasible then truck to the front. Part of the reason the US Army did not maximize the use of rail was because it only ran the coast line and was too easily interdicted. Army and Navy watercraft could safely more deliver straight to a series of military ports or beach ramps along coast and then military tractors and trailers could haul cargo inland to the forward camps.
http://www.flbtrain.com/Railroads/IVE-BEEN-WORKING-ON-THE/U-S-Army/i-wpbHFTS
Interesting stuff. Last I heard was the Vietnamese are restoring an old French 2-8-2 for steam train excursions. Looks like steam's appeal is universal!
Wanswheel--- Is some of this material recently de-classified items?
A small operation that was likely vital but shrunk to insignificance.
I'm sure the rails are a real vibrant part of todays economy in Vietnams roaring economy. You could say free markets and capitalism won out in the end.
Miningman Wanswheel--- Is some of this material recently de-classified items?
Declassified in 1977 and 2004, posted to internet archive in 2016 and 2017.
https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA039317
https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP79T00826A001900010021-2
It seems the line(s) connecting Hanoi and the port of Haiphong to China was incidental to Pearl Harbor.
https://archive.org/stream/TheJointChiefsofStaffandtheWarinVietnamHistoryoftheIndochinaIncident19401954/The%20Joint%20Chiefs%20of%20Staff%20and%20the%20War%20in%20Vietnam%20History%20of%20the%20Indochina%20Incident%201940-1954#page/n0/mode/2up
Firelock76 Interesting stuff. Last I heard was the Vietnamese are restoring an old French 2-8-2 for steam train excursions. Looks like steam's appeal is universal!
Warm and fuzzy 141-202 in 1998, shrieking at whoever every minute.
http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=17419
I'm pretty darn sure that's Firelock and Penny Trains driving that locomotive.
It's a wonder they didn't run out of steam. First time I ever laughed at something like this...it was funny...going over that bridge was a real hoot.
Well you wouldn't find me on that thing with that annoying squeaky whistle! Much as I LOVE steam I do have certain standards. I'd make allowances for whistles like that on the "Orient Express," it is French after all, but that's it!
THIS is what a steam locomotive should sound like!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaX8rsq5QBY
I can't speak for Penny Trains, but maybe she's a bit more flexible than I am!
Wayne, I could not get to that whistle, but from what you wrote, it is just as well. To me, when I was in college in Bristol, hearing the engineer's response when the conductor told him it was time for N&W #42 to leave (about a mile and a half from the college) was a beautiful sound from whatever J was on the point. When I was in Decatur, Georgia (again, about a mile and a half from the railroad), the sound of the Georgia's horns was almost nerveshattering.
Johnny
Well in this instance it's not the actual tone of the whistle ( tone is in the ear of the listener!...for further clarification see David Klepper),,it is the fact that whoever was in that cab could not keep their hands off the whistle ...and much of it had no rhyme or reason or sequential structure to it. It's like a couple of kids were having some fun....hence the obvious conclusion.
https://www.gettyimages.ae/license/515261626
https://archive.org/details/The-Presidents-Daily-Brief-30-January-1968
https://archive.org/details/The-Presidents-Daily-Brief-31-January-1968
https://archive.org/details/The-Presidents-Daily-Brief-1-February-1968
While it seems that some whistling was for the Japanese tourists that chartered the passenger train there were children or teenagers on the track in four of the scenes.
Also, was there anything to suggest that 141-202 was the loco on the passenger train? Even at full screen, I could never read the numbers on the pilot beam, but read "165" on the cab side, suggesting that the loco on the passenger train was 141-165.
There was nothing to suggest that 141-202 seen in a separate scene at the end on a freight train was also on the passenger train.
The track was dual standard and metre gauge, which suggests that the track is north of Hanoi. The coastal line to the Chinese border was converted to dual gauge during the Vietnam War. There was also a former French line to Kunming (the Yunnan Railway mentioned in Wanswheel's military extract) which remained metre gauge. This line had 4-8-2+2-8-4 Beyer Garratts purchased second hand from the East African Railways.
Peter
M636C While it seems that some whistling was for the Japanese tourists that chartered the passenger train there were children or teenagers on the track in four of the scenes. Also, was there anything to suggest that 141-202 was the loco on the passenger train? Even at full screen, I could never read the numbers on the pilot beam, but read "165" on the cab side, suggesting that the loco on the passenger train was 141-165.
The firebox scene is insufficiently fuzzy. Suspect artistic splicense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5m3ByvZPlw&t=10m32s
Since we are discussing stuff that is technically outside the 'accepted' time window for Classic Trains, let me provide an example of whistling, and some other things, that might calm us down after all that lady-sees-a-mouse action.
This is the Canadian 'moral equivalent' of the Rural Retreat recording with the chimes, close to the end of steam. Pay careful attention to what happens at 2:00 and around 4:07. Otherwise just close your eyes, and you'll be there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQNQbuXjF2M
Just as with the N&W recording ... you won't be quite the same afterwards.
Very nice Overmod---thank you for this.
Speaking of N & W and whistles, am I the only one who thinks that the whistle on N & W 2-6-6-4 1218 sounds a bit wimpy? It's kind of like a big, heavy, 6' 6" man and then you find out he has a countertenor voice!
Fr.AlSpeaking of N & W and whistles, am I the only one who thinks that the whistle on N & W 2-6-6-4 1218 sounds a bit wimpy? It's kind of like a big, heavy, 6' 6" man and then you find out he has a countertenor voice!
No, it's more like watching Topkapi with Shirley MacLaine up to the point she opens her mouth...
Ed King had a discussion of this, with the N&W rejoinder being that it was what was under the whistle, not the whistle, that was important. But as with the to-me-execrable banshee whistles on 'parent' PRR's freight power ... yeesh, what a sad excuse. At least that awful sound on Cotton Belt 819 was the result of butchery, not design!
PRR made a practice of transferring chimes to freight power as passenger steam was retired, and in my decidedly unhumble opinion should have augmented this by sending some 'southward'. THAT was a voice fit for a Class A.
(And to forestall a likely source of discord, or perhaps in this context dischord, it's not as if PRR designed its chimes for non-comparable service in non-comparable mountain regions...)
No discord or discord, just one man's biased opinion. I don't know if anyone here has seen the Marx Brother's film "Go West"(1940). In the zany locomotive scene, there is a classic American type with a whistle virtually the same as 1218. Somehow, on that locomotive it makes sense.
Naturally, the three nutty brothers raised havoc on the train. In order to beat the bad guys to railroad headquarters, they threw every possible thing into the firebox. When they threw in popcorn and the white stuff exploded all over the cab, Groucho gave one of his one-liners "Pop goes the diesel."
Fr.AlNo discord or discord, just one man's biased opinion.
To be clearer: one stated 'reason' for the high frequency and somewhat discordant timbre was that it would be easy for rear brakemen sent a mile or more back of an already long train to hear the 'recall' signal from the head end, even in the depths of the mountains. I would feel safe in at least commenting that PRR had a similar rationale for their banshees on freight... and of course the whistles were cheaper. That apparently didn't stop extensive application of chimes to PRR freight once 'cost was little object', not did PRR stint later on in replacing the 'backward' single-note air horn with three-chime with all bells facing front. Sometimes, even in railroading, beauty triumphs over someone's definition of expediency.
Next week, Jan. 30 and Feb 1, are the 50th anniversaries of the Tet Offensive and the demise of the New York Central System. (Yes, Pennsy won and consumed its rival is the way I see it.) Vietnam and Penn Central are practically mutual metaphors. Not to trivialize. Obviously one is tragic and the other merely lousy.
https://archive.org/stream/VietnamWarAlmanac/Vietnam%20War%20Almanac#page/n0/mode/2up
https://newspaperdays.com/category/suntimes/
Fr.Al Speaking of N & W and whistles, am I the only one who thinks that the whistle on N & W 2-6-6-4 1218 sounds a bit wimpy? It's kind of like a big, heavy, 6' 6" man and then you find out he has a countertenor voice!
Well, there's some old-timers down here in Virginia that'll tell you there was an indescribable magic to the Class A's "hooter" whistle, especially if you heard it rolling through snow-covered hills on a bright moonlit night.
Haunting, weird, mystical and magical and mysterious. Oh well, beauty's in the ear of the beholder I suppose.
I don't know, you tell me...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOXRy13NNe8
Beats the hell out of that "Screaming Mimi" whistle on that Asian rig!
On the left side top column on the front page from the Globe and Mail newspaper (Toronto) is the headline "OMA leader says Canada is Communist".....sheesh, I thought something was wrong up here!
Also...notice the by-line on the article on Penn Central on passenger cut backs from the Chicago Sun Times....Fred Frailey!
New things and progress were exciting to me as a young man during these years but that never happened for me with Penn Central. It was something I just could not warmup to although I tried my best.
Never could get my head around the New York Central being gone for good and the Pennsylvannia Railroad becoming something else.
Interesting that Wanswheel brings up the interwoven timelines and events of Vietnam and Penn Central. They do go hand in hand in quite stunning parallel from origins to the end game.
I think you can do a doctorate thesis on this. Wonder if there is more to it than meets the eye. Things sure were screwed up and there was a lot of stress. Mess.
They were both extremely transformative events for society that occurred simultaneously and, although in the past now, the consequences and legacies have formed what we have today really.
Fr.Al No discord or discord, just one man's biased opinion. I don't know if anyone here has seen the Marx Brother's film "Go West"(1940). In the zany locomotive scene, there is a classic American type with a whistle virtually the same as 1218. Somehow, on that locomotive it makes sense. Naturally, the three nutty brothers raised havoc on the train. In order to beat the bad guys to railroad headquarters, they threw every possible thing into the firebox. When they threw in popcorn and the white stuff exploded all over the cab, Groucho gave one of his one-liners "Pop goes the diesel."
In the train chase scene in "Go West" the main locomotive used was a 2-8-0, quite a small one. I just checked in a clip on you tube, which because of the heavy editing had only a music backing.
One part of the chase, where the train "derailed" into a farmyard the 2-8-0 was replaced by a geared locomotive painted to resemble the 2-8-0, running on a very tight circle of track hidden by the ground level being raised to rail level.
Later in the movie, a golden spike ceremony was held and a 4-4-0 appeared carrying the road number of the 2-8-0.
Thanks for the correction! I may have the film, but if so, it got misplaced in my last move. Thus, I haven't seen the film in a while, and was quoting from memory.
Miningmanthe headline "... OMA leader says Canada is Communist" ..... sheesh, I thought something was wrong up here!
I suspect that's not your OMA but the Ontario doctors, who I think are beginning to see valid signs of 'Communism' in how the Canadian government is dealing with them. However, watch now as the selective quoting begins in the battle to further commoditize medical care "because they can".
Personally, I think the doctors should indeed unionize, disclose their net salary per hour after all expenses, and then organize effectively (including collective bargaining with teeth) for better working conditions. I'd be tempted to have the ophthalmologists in particular arrange for special consideration.
Overmod--- Yes, the OMA is the Ontario Medical Association but the article is from 1968. This was on the eve of socialized medicine and there was quite a lot of backlash and resistance.
As I recall a great many of our doctors headed your way permanently once it became the law. Our family doctor was one of them, gone to Colorado.
50 years later it is still in place and while health care is universal and. 'free' there is no provision or allowances for private practice's except cosmetic vanity plastic surgery.
...and of course the elephant in the room....the USA border, where cash is accepted! Wait times too long? ...just go to the nearby other place, so an under the table 2 tier system after all for those that can afford it.
Canada touts the HealthCare System as a shining example to the world, but stop and think...we are situated in the 2nd largest country in the world, bordering on 3 oceans, with 30% of the worlds natural resource wealth and a scant 35 million across an entire continent. In other words it's a bit disingenuous to be puffing up ones chest and feeling all superior, which of course our politicians do constantly while a great many of them avail themselves going to the USA, by passing , ( pun intended) the long wait lines for critical surgery.
Here in Northern Saskatchewan the docs sign on for a length of time, are provided swell housing and expenses and they rotate flying to all the remote native communities. We do not have any medical specialists at all, no cardiologists or anything along that line, the dentist flies up here once every 2 weeks, as does an eye doctor.
Its 3.5 hours drive to Prince Albert where all those things exist.
The local clinic is packed daily, and we do have a hospital that does a wide range of testing and other services, but no surgery. Air ambulance is busy busy.
All Doctors across Canada have pretty powerful organizations and lobby groups, nurses are unionized.
I used to moan and groan, argue against socialized medicine, but I have relented and caved in and have no problems with it, probably because I really don't remember what private practice was like.
Cash Box, Feb. 3, 1968. AFVN played many of these songs, but not Al Green.
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