Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
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.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag