LTC Bob Pellitier on Iraq RR.

[DPD1]

It's a shame things have gotten worse again... But at least people appreciated it when it was running well. By watching the news, you would not think we have done a single good thing over there.

Dave
-DPD Productions - Featuring the NEW TrainTenna LP Directional RR Radio Monitoring Antenna-
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[dldance]

The ability to move freight and passengers by rail is one of the strongest signs of stability and is well worth the effort on the IRR.

A brief history lesson -- when the Russians blockaded Berlin - the first line they cut was the railroad links into Berlin. After the airlift successfully overcame the blockade, the rail link was among the first corridors to be reopened.

Thanks Bob and Mark

dd

[Mookie]

LC - I am glad you posted this. I read it, along with pictures, but never know how to get it onto the forum.

Mook

[jeaton]

It seems to me that moving US military supplies on the IRR might not be a very good idea at this time. Would that not make the railroad more attractive as a target for insurgents? Tear out some track and the train is stopped and a sitting duck. Nice thing about trucks, especially military trucks, given reasonably flat terrain they can go in any direction.

Jay Eaton

[Anonymous]

Omahan helped fire up Iraqi Republic Railways
(The following story by Stacie Hamel appeared on the Omaha World-Herald website on June 1.)

OMAHA, Neb. -- Rail service is slowly picking up in Iraq months after violence again halted trains. The hard-won rail shipments of U.S. military supplies, though, have not resumed.

That's disappointing news for an Omahan who won accolades for helping to get Iraqi Republic Railways back into service and persuading the military to ship supplies by rail.

Army Reserve Lt. Col. Bob Pelletier spent most of his one-year deployment working with Iraq's rail system, drawing from his experience with Union Pacific Railroad - now as a corridor manager at the Harriman Dispatch Center in Omaha - and from 10 years of active duty with the Army working in logistics and as a helicopter pilot.

As a member of the Reserves, he also served in Iraq during the first war.

"A lot of credit goes to Bob because he really was a one-man band," said Gordon Mott, a retired CSX Railroad executive who arrived in Iraq as principal railway adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority six months after Pelletier began work there.

"When the dust settled, as far as I've been able to determine, he was just about the only person (with the military) aware there was a railway there," Mott said by phone from his home in Jacksonville, Fla.
Pelletier's work prompted letters of praise from Ambassador Darrell M. Trent of the Coalition Provisional Authority and Allan Rutter, then-administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.

From July 2003 until just before Pelletier left in February 2004, the Iraqi Republic Railways carried 3.71 million truck miles of military goods, more than 11,000 shipping containers, and 3 million litters of oil per week to power generation plants and refineries.

The railroad was the first Iraq-owned company to go back to work after the war and to begin generating revenue. Commercial shippers were sending freight by rail, and passenger trains were running again.

That success made it all the more disappointing to see violence halt rail service from last November until March. Pelletier regularly communicates through e-mail with his latest replacement in Iraq, and the news has been frustrating.

"It's fallen apart again. There's no military supplies running at this time," he said. "They're looking at reinventing the wheel."

That's something Pelletier knows how to do.

After he was activated in January 2003, he convinced higher-ups during briefings in Germany that rail service could move military supplies in larger quantities and more quickly than trucks.

One train could move as much equipment as two or three truck companies, he figured. Instead of a five-day trip from Kuwait to Mosul, the trip would take just three by rail.

"I just happened to ask, 'Has anybody thought about the railroads?' And, boom, I was it," he said. "It was a common-sense thing."

He was sent to Kuwait in February 2003, then in March, he was dropped off on his own to begin planning rail transport.

"I was dropped off with my ruck on my back, and that's how I lived for nine months," he said. "I didn't see my unit until we came home."

Only 14 of Iraq's 169 locomotives were operating when Pelletier arrived in Iraq. By the time his duty was over in February 2004, 38 locomotives were operating, even though a dozen had been damaged in terrorist attacks.

Mott, who arrived in August 2003, took over the administrative work, freeing Pelletier to focus on operations.

Iraq's nearly 1,500-mile rail system, mostly single track, had more than 10,000 employees. Rail workers were eager to get the railroad operating again.

"These are very competent railway operating people," Mott said. "Given the basic nature of the operation they were trying to perform, there wasn't a whole lot they needed to be told. They know how to run a railroad."

The system, parts of which dated to 1916, had not been adequately funded for 15 years, which limited maintenance.

Pelletier brought funding, which enabled the railway to also overcome what Mott termed "incredible looting and vandalism" and to repair aging equipment.

Rail service was important to Iraqi citizens, both as basic transportation and as a symbol that things were getting better.

Pelletier rode along May 7, 2003, on the first passenger train since the war began. Crowds of Iraqis gathered along the route.

"People would come out and start praising Allah."

Now rail service must build up again as track repairs are made and security improves, Mott said.

"Unfortunately, the security system has substantially deteriorated in the last year or so," he said. "So many of the things Bob and I were able to accomplish simply are not able to be done now."

Pelletier said he stays involved in reconstruction efforts from a distance by working with the Army to restructure rail battalions and consulting with transportation companies working in Iraq.

He is tempted to return, he said, but hopes it will be in a far different capacity.

"I hope someday it settles down so I can go back as a tourist," he said. "I made a lot of friends there."