Who drives the Army locomotives? Does Army personnel or civilians?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=200242&nseq=6
chefjavier wrote:Who drives the Army locomotives? Does Army personnel or civilians?http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=200242&nseq=6
It depends on the base. In most cases it is civilian employees of the Defense Logistics Agency. But there are two Railway Operating Battalions in the Army Reserve, and a few smaller units. One of the ROB's is based in New England, and the other in Milwaukee area. The US Army Transportation Corps is Headquartered at Fort Eustis, VA. At Fort McCoy in Wisconsin there are three DLA employees who handle the day to day chores. The Milwaukee based ROB field trains at Fort McCoy and does heavy maintenance there. The Maintenance Co. of the ROBs will do heavy maintenance at various bases in support of the local DLA employees. Some detachments of Railway personnel have been to Iraq to help get Iraqi Railways back in operation. The Defense Dept. has their main railroad shops at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
beaulieu wrote: chefjavier wrote: Who drives the Army locomotives? Does Army personnel or civilians?http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=200242&nseq=6 It depends on the base. In most cases it is civilian employees of the Defense Logistics Agency. But there are two Railway Operating Battalions in the Army Reserve, and a few smaller units. One of the ROB's is based in New England, and the other in Milwaukee area. The US Army Transportation Corps is Headquartered at Fort Eustis, VA. At Fort McCoy in Wisconsin there are three DLA employees who handle the day to day chores. The Milwaukee based ROB field trains at Fort McCoy and does heavy maintenance there. The Maintenance Co. of the ROBs will do heavy maintenance at various bases in support of the local DLA employees. Some detachments of Railway personnel have been to Iraq to help get Iraqi Railways back in operation. The Defense Dept. has their main railroad shops at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
chefjavier wrote: Who drives the Army locomotives? Does Army personnel or civilians?http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=200242&nseq=6
I will enlist just to ride trains. Now that's job! You can't beat that...
Are you sure there is a reserve ROB in Milwaukee?
The last I knew, there was only one reserve ROB in New England. The Milwaukee units are independant company size units that are to maintain rail equipment - they have no railway operating capabilities.
BTW, a long time ago I was stationed at Ft. Eustis. We were the last active duty railway soldiers in the US Army. Latter I served in the reserves with the 1156th Transportation Company (IIRC) which maintained locomotives. We were located in rented space in the Milwaukee Road shops in Milwaukee.
If they've added another operating batallion it would be news to me. But then, they could have.
As near as I can tell, the US Army at Fort Benning has the Norfolk Southern make up their transport trains for units going to the National Training Center.
Under the Base Realignment program, the Armor School is supposed to move from Fort Knox, KY, to Fort Benning, and I haven't heard of any planning to change or improve the rail infrastructure of the post. They have a branch of NS that goes into post and terminates with ramps to drive their armored vehicles up onto flat cars.
I believe that Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, has a much more extensive series of sidings to move materiel by rail, but as far as I know, it's civilian run.
I was aware of a Reserve Railroad Operating Battalion in Connecticut- the last time I was up there, about five years ago, the folks at the steam line up along the Connecticut river said that the units did their drills by working on maintaining the line. I wonder if they got mobilized for Iraqi Freedom? Seems like Mark Hemphill had his hands full with rebuilding the Iraqi rail system when he was there a couple of years ago.
A lot of the switcher diesels I have seen in some of the museums here in the South have US Army pedigrees. But I believe the Army got out of the railroad business a long time ago... and have civilians doing what switching there is to be done on posts.
I do remember a special train coming through Fort Monmouth (now closed) at Eatontown, NJ, en route for Earle Naval Weapons Depot about five miles away on the New Jersey coast. I don't remember whose locomotive was on the lead end, except that it was not a DOD locomotive. This particular train was rumored to be carrying WMD's aboard and had several protesters doing silly things like blocking the tracks with their bodies. The Military Police were called in and removed them off post. Ammo shipments into Earle were done by civilians, and if Earle still exists, a lot of that stuff is probably transported by truck.
I also believe the Air Force toyed briefly with the idea of running Minuteman missiles out of box cars with a SAC control car not far behind them. These trains were supposed to run on specially built "racetracks" to throw off Soviet sattelite targetting. I don't know if the Air Force intended to use military people as trainmen, but I doubt it. In any event, my understanding is that the idea was a good one, but no legislator wanted freight trains with nuclear tipped missiles running through their hometown, so it was dropped.
erikthered wrote: I also believe the Air Force toyed briefly with the idea of running Minuteman missiles out of box cars with a SAC control car not far behind them. These trains were supposed to run on specially built "racetracks" to throw off Soviet sattelite targetting. I don't know if the Air Force intended to use military people as trainmen, but I doubt it. In any event, my understanding is that the idea was a good one, but no legislator wanted freight trains with nuclear tipped missiles running through their hometown, so it was dropped.
I believe that the missile in question was the Peacemaker (at the time referred to as the "MX missile"). I think there was also interest in "railbasing" the follow on "Midgetman" (specifically designed to be deployed from mobile launchers, both rail and truck/crawler).
There is a prototype MX launcher train at one of the military museams.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
carnej1 wrote: erikthered wrote: I also believe the Air Force toyed briefly with the idea of running Minuteman missiles out of box cars with a SAC control car not far behind them. These trains were supposed to run on specially built "racetracks" to throw off Soviet sattelite targetting. I don't know if the Air Force intended to use military people as trainmen, but I doubt it. In any event, my understanding is that the idea was a good one, but no legislator wanted freight trains with nuclear tipped missiles running through their hometown, so it was dropped. I believe that the missile in question was the Peacemaker (at the time referred to as the "MX missile"). I think there was also interest in "railbasing" the follow on "Midgetman" (specifically designed to be deployed from mobile launchers, both rail and truck/crawler). There is a prototype MX launcher train at one of the military museams.
Try Googling "rail garrison concept". There is a bit of info out there.
BLinny7 wrote:When I was still in I looked into it as a ( MOS ) Military occupational specility and was told it was strickly for reservist and I was also told they just did some limited maintenance and the Civillian drove the trains. here the Civillians move all equipment from post with Army Locomoitves to the CSX Main line if I am not mistaken
Do you know how many engines and types they were?
http://www.usarc.army.mil/1205thtrans
http://www.usarc.army.mil/1205thtrans/history.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/1205trans.htm
Interested information about the Army operations. I hope you enjoy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Eustis_Military_Railroad
How about USN AND USMC locomotives.
http://www.nhvry.org/equipment.htm
sovablunt wrote: How about USN AND USMC locomotives. http://www.nhvry.org/equipment.htm
I was told that Camp Lejune {USMC}cease the operations. Now, local RR took the responsibility.
There has not been an active rail operation at Redstone Arsenal, AL, for many years. The tracks were torn out long ago.
The Army Reserve rail unit in Middletown, CT, the 1205th Transportation Railway Operating Battalion, was inactivated by September 2006 as part of a force reorganization focusing on deployable units. The 1205th had no deployment capability and was organized solely to augment existing civilian rail employees at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point (MOTSU), NC, about 25 miles south of Wilmington, NC. By the time of its inactivation it only had about 50 authorized slots, having lost about 100 when a subordinate unit at MOTSU split off to become the separate 1355th Transportation Railway Operating Company. Many years ago the 1205th's small number of track maintainers did some weekend work on the Valley Railroad in CT but those days are long gone. The unit also had rail operations personnel but very few, if any, equipment repairmen. Interestingly enough, the Army Reserve has never modified or updated the webpage advertising enlistment opportunities in the now-inactive 1205th. The 1205th's officer who originally set up the website, before it was taken over by the Reserve, noted that the Reserve webmasters were very unresponsive in posting changes, updates, etc., as the casual observer can now see.
The 1205th TROB did not get mobilized for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There was no need to send it to MOTSU and, as noted above, it was not configured for overseas deployments. Some of its personnel, however, had training or experience in other career fields and were transferred to deploying non-rail units to fill manpower gaps.
The 226th Transportation Company (Railway), based at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, MA, was attached to the 1205th for admin purposes but has a completely different configuration and is organized for overseas deployment. It still exists today as a separate company. It was not mobilized, although during the early part of the invasion of Iraq, all of its vehicle drivers were transferred to deploying non-rail units.
The US Army does not have as many railway operations as it once did, but it has not "gotten out of the railway business." See http://military.railfan.net/roster/ for the most recent roster of locomotives and locations. In addition to post railways, it has a large fleet of boxcars, flatcars and container cars used in interchange service.
NWS Earle and Fort Monmouth (still indeed open now, but not for too much longer) are several miles apart but there was never a rail line directly connecting them. NWS Earle handles Navy munitions and Fort Monmouth has historically been an Army communications base, so there was never any need for a rail link between the two. An east-west commercial railway track through Fort Monmouth was pulled up decades ago, possibly in the 1930s. A north-south NJT line borders the east side of the post and a roughly north-south freight line borders the east side of NWS Earle. NWS Earle continues to have its own roster of Navy locomotives painted yellow.
The Air Force's Rail MX Garrison program was still in development when it was cancelled at the end of the Cold War. It was indeed going to use Air Force personnel but it was never deployed. It was dropped, not because of local state political disfavor, but because there was simply no more justification for spending many millions of dollars on it.
The Defense Logistics Agency no longer has any bases with rail operations. Prior to the Gulf War (90-91) its base railways had seen little use and were only retained in case of a major mobilization. That day came in 1990 but commercial carrier cooperation was so abysmal that DLA decided to scrap its remaining base railway systems. The locomotives were sold off and the cars (mainly WW II and Korean War era vintage) were scrapped in place.
Rail operations at Fort Eustis are handled by a contractor. Rail training classes for reserve railroaders and Army employees are overseen by a civilian employee and assisted by reserve instructors.
The last battalion-sized railway unit is the 757th Transportation Battalion (Railway), an overseas-deployable unit. Its headquarters some subordinate elements are in Milwaukee, WI. Other elements are based at Fort McCoy, WI; Fort Sheridan, IL; and possibly Granite City, IL (Melvin Price Support Center). The 1355th Transportation Railway Operating Company at MOTSU (mentioned above) was reorganized and reflagged as the separate 1151st Transportation Company (Railway), a deployable unit. Formerly the colors of the 1151st had been assigned to Granite City. When mobilized, the 1151st would be assigned to the 757th, as would the 226th at Westover ARB, MA, joining the 1150th and 1152nd Trans Companies already directly assigned to the 757th.
The subordinate companies of the 757th were A through D during WW II and redesignated in the late 1960s as the 1150th, 1151st, 1152nd and 1153rd. The 1153rd is no longer active. There was never a rail unit designated the 1156th.
The last active Army railway battalion was the 714th Transportation Battalion (Railway), inactivated at Fort Eustis, VA, on June 26, 1972. In the wake of its inactivation, the tiny 1st Railway Detachment was organized to provide training for Reserve units doing their annual two-week tours at the post as well as to operate the post railway. Railway Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) were eliminated from the active Army in May 1976 and the 1st Rail Det was inactivated on September 30, 1978. Since then, rail MOSs have only been found in the Reserve.
When the USMC's line at Camp Lejeune, NC, was abandoned in early 2001, there was little traffic on the line and no intention to continue operating it via commercial carrier. Its abandonment was effective March 4, 2001. At the time it was noted that the City of Jacksonville (NC) and NCDOT intended to use the right-of-way for trail use, commercial development, and accommodation of street improvements.
The Army has Army Reserve Garrison Support Units organized to support posts with deployabling forces assigned. GSUs have a variety of support MOSs (i.e., finance, personnel, transportation, etc.) and two have a handful of railway personnel assigned. These are the 2174th (Fort Eustis) and the 4003rd (Fort Hood).
VilePig wrote:There has not been an active rail operation at Redstone Arsenal, AL, for many years. The tracks were torn out long ago.The Army Reserve rail unit in Middletown, CT, the 1205th Transportation Railway Operating Battalion, was inactivated by September 2006 as part of a force reorganization focusing on deployable units. The 1205th had no deployment capability and was organized solely to augment existing civilian rail employees at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point (MOTSU), NC, about 25 miles south of Wilmington, NC. By the time of its inactivation it only had about 50 authorized slots, having lost about 100 when a subordinate unit at MOTSU split off to become the separate 1355th Transportation Railway Operating Company. Many years ago the 1205th's small number of track maintainers did some weekend work on the Valley Railroad in CT but those days are long gone. The unit also had rail operations personnel but very few, if any, equipment repairmen. Interestingly enough, the Army Reserve has never modified or updated the webpage advertising enlistment opportunities in the now-inactive 1205th. The 1205th's officer who originally set up the website, before it was taken over by the Reserve, noted that the Reserve webmasters were very unresponsive in posting changes, updates, etc., as the casual observer can now see. The 1205th TROB did not get mobilized for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There was no need to send it to MOTSU and, as noted above, it was not configured for overseas deployments. Some of its personnel, however, had training or experience in other career fields and were transferred to deploying non-rail units to fill manpower gaps. The 226th Transportation Company (Railway), based at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, MA, was attached to the 1205th for admin purposes but has a completely different configuration and is organized for overseas deployment. It still exists today as a separate company. It was not mobilized, although during the early part of the invasion of Iraq, all of its vehicle drivers were transferred to deploying non-rail units.The US Army does not have as many railway operations as it once did, but it has not "gotten out of the railway business." See http://military.railfan.net/roster/ for the most recent roster of locomotives and locations. In addition to post railways, it has a large fleet of boxcars, flatcars and container cars used in interchange service. NWS Earle and Fort Monmouth (still indeed open now, but not for too much longer) are several miles apart but there was never a rail line directly connecting them. NWS Earle handles Navy munitions and Fort Monmouth has historically been an Army communications base, so there was never any need for a rail link between the two. An east-west commercial railway track through Fort Monmouth was pulled up decades ago, possibly in the 1930s. A north-south NJT line borders the east side of the post and a roughly north-south freight line borders the east side of NWS Earle. NWS Earle continues to have its own roster of Navy locomotives painted yellow.The Air Force's Rail MX Garrison program was still in development when it was cancelled at the end of the Cold War. It was indeed going to use Air Force personnel but it was never deployed. It was dropped, not because of local state political disfavor, but because there was simply no more justification for spending many millions of dollars on it. The Defense Logistics Agency no longer has any bases with rail operations. Prior to the Gulf War (90-91) its base railways had seen little use and were only retained in case of a major mobilization. That day came in 1990 but commercial carrier cooperation was so abysmal that DLA decided to scrap its remaining base railway systems. The locomotives were sold off and the cars (mainly WW II and Korean War era vintage) were scrapped in place.Rail operations at Fort Eustis are handled by a contractor. Rail training classes for reserve railroaders and Army employees are overseen by a civilian employee and assisted by reserve instructors.The last battalion-sized railway unit is the 757th Transportation Battalion (Railway), an overseas-deployable unit. Its headquarters some subordinate elements are in Milwaukee, WI. Other elements are based at Fort McCoy, WI; Fort Sheridan, IL; and possibly Granite City, IL (Melvin Price Support Center). The 1355th Transportation Railway Operating Company at MOTSU (mentioned above) was reorganized and reflagged as the separate 1151st Transportation Company (Railway), a deployable unit. Formerly the colors of the 1151st had been assigned to Granite City. When mobilized, the 1151st would be assigned to the 757th, as would the 226th at Westover ARB, MA, joining the 1150th and 1152nd Trans Companies already directly assigned to the 757th.The subordinate companies of the 757th were A through D during WW II and redesignated in the late 1960s as the 1150th, 1151st, 1152nd and 1153rd. The 1153rd is no longer active. There was never a rail unit designated the 1156th. The last active Army railway battalion was the 714th Transportation Battalion (Railway), inactivated at Fort Eustis, VA, on June 26, 1972. In the wake of its inactivation, the tiny 1st Railway Detachment was organized to provide training for Reserve units doing their annual two-week tours at the post as well as to operate the post railway. Railway Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) were eliminated from the active Army in May 1976 and the 1st Rail Det was inactivated on September 30, 1978. Since then, rail MOSs have only been found in the Reserve. When the USMC's line at Camp Lejeune, NC, was abandoned in early 2001, there was little traffic on the line and no intention to continue operating it via commercial carrier. Its abandonment was effective March 4, 2001. At the time it was noted that the City of Jacksonville (NC) and NCDOT intended to use the right-of-way for trail use, commercial development, and accommodation of street improvements.The Army has Army Reserve Garrison Support Units organized to support posts with deployabling forces assigned. GSUs have a variety of support MOSs (i.e., finance, personnel, transportation, etc.) and two have a handful of railway personnel assigned. These are the 2174th (Fort Eustis) and the 4003rd (Fort Hood).
What about other Gov't angencies? I though the remaining equipment was given to FRA at Pueblo, Colorado.
Excellent answers and great sources, Vile. I am surprised Fort Monmouth is still functioning... it was dysfunctional when I was stationed there...(I might have been the cause of some of that)
I lived in government quarters about a mile north of main post, across from the golf course. The rail line ran north south about a quarter mile away from my back door- it did not actually go on the post itself, but, as you said, bordered it. I was under the impression that it ran out to Earle- there was not much else around that required rail traffic in scenic Eatontown.
I was also stationed at Fort Bliss and don't remember a railhead there- but I was not looking very hard. I do recall seeing a line that ran from El Paso to Alamagordo, which was incredibly straight. There was a NASA train that used the line once to set up an alternative landing site in White Sands for the Space Shuttle, which I got to see. I suppose there must have been a siding somewhere that led into WSMR.
Fort Monmouth was on the 2005 BRAC list to close. I was up there a few months ago and it was looking as dormant as ever. I'm not sure how much longer the doors will stay open.
If you find a pre-WW II map of Fort Monmouth, you'll see an east-west commercial line that ran through the post. It went past the commissary warehouse, the post gym, and the present-day car wash facility before going out the west side of the post. I found ties still embedded in the ground near the car wash as well as the near the commissary.
The track was later cut back to just a spur on the east side of post that led to the commissary. During the post-VN war years, Soldiers magazine carried an article about a Fort Monmouth post commander who converted several passenger cars (I think they were surplus after the formation of Amtrak) into NCO billets. These were described as an alternative to old wooden WW II buildings that were in poor shape. Apparently the idea didn't catch on and someone I know who trained there in the mid-1970s said he didn't recall seeing the cars.
The NJT line running past the east border of the post continued south down the coast and did not run to NWS Earle, which unfortunately has no passenger rail service nearby. You may recall driving out the west side of the post toward Tipton Falls and, if you continued on that road, you'd pass over the Conrail line that bordered the west side of NWS Earle. If you find a local map of the area, you'll see exactly what I've described.
The Fort Bliss railhead was actually several spurs on the post. The railway had been laid to serve warehouses and Biggs AFB (later Biggs Army Airfield) and that's where vehicles were on- and off-loaded. The old wooden enginehouse (as of 2001) was only about a block from the PX complex. A few years ago the post tore out the on-post tracks and constructed a new railhead just east of the UP interchange. I haven't seen it myself, but in 2001 the area was just an open field across the road bordering the north side of the post. This site offers many advantages over the old layout, which crossed numerous streets on post and ran past the elementary school.
VilePig wrote:Individual Army posts do not purchase their own motive power. This is done by a higher-level command that serves Army-wide motive power needs. In any case, one source said two of this type of locomotive would go to Fort Hood, TX, while another said Fort Bliss, TX.
Railroads Illustrated January 2008 said, " U.S. Army enter into enviro-friendly with two unit order for National Railway Equipment 3GS21B Genset Locomotive. Road Number 6500 would be assigned to Fort Hood, Texas". Your source was right!
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