Hi,
I'm searching for photos and information about shipments of Landing Craft and other amphibious vehicles by rail during WWII. One picture in "Americas Fighting Railroads" (ISBN 1-57510-001-0) caught my attention. Its an LCM 3 loaded sideways into a ??52'6" drop end gondola. The motive power was an ERIE steam engine. I guess that most landing craft like the Higgins Boats were immediately loaded to transport ships from their construction site in New Orleans. This is certainly the case for all shipments to Europe, but how was it for the Pacific Coast. The land way was shorter than the sea way to get all these landing craft to LA, San Francisco or San Diego. Pictures of LCVP, LCM, DUKW or Buffalos if there exist any, would be of great use.
Thanks a lot
Alain Kap, Luxembourg
Don't assume all of them were built in new Orleans. There were plants all over the country. Some even in landlocked plants. The shipyards in Wilmington DE made all sorts of boats and ships during WW2, from landing craft to minesweepers.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
A couple days ago I saw a photo of WWII landing craft loaded on flat cars on a train in Truckee, CA. Here, I found it. It is on page 164 of John Signor's book Donner Pass. There was a single boat for each flat car, and secured by brasing at the ends and under the hull. Obviously, they were headed for the Pacific campaign, presumably via San Francisco Bay Area ports where, incidentally, a large number of mass-produced transport ships were built (remember Kaiser?). Railroad photos during WWII are relatively rare.
Mark
ndbprr wrote:In my opinion shipping by rail would have been a last aternative. They would have been oversize and have had to be shipped as high wide loads which would have had slow orders delaying other war goods from reaching ports. In addition ship travel to the Panama Canal was fairly safe and there was no real submarine presence off the west coast that I am aware of.
Actually, military equipment transport by train, at least on the Southern Pacific during WWII was relatively common, including landing craft. I can remember as a child in Truckee seeing many of these trains coming through westbound, including landing craft on flat-cars, as the Pacific Theater intensified.
Mark's right--there is a very good photo of the way they were loaded onto flatcars in Signor's book DONNER PASS. Though the craft were large loads, they were not 'oversized' enough to give clearance problems in the many tunnels and snowsheds of the Donner Pass route.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
the Mulberry docks used at Normandy where constructed specificly along the route of the original Erie mainline because it was originally constructed to 6' gauge and had extremely wide clearances...compared to say the Pennsy or NYC...there was actualy an advertising slogan used by the Erie...."Remember the man who built his boat in his basement...he is now using it from eruope to the pacific thanks to the Erie Railroad....."
the WPB (War Production Board) had other LCT's and LCP's built along the Erie for the same Reason
im sorry that i dont have info about the westcoast but i would venture that the WPB would find routes and locate war plants along these routse with the clearances needed
there were numerous Wolfpacks off the eastcoast until mid '44....the tanker S.S.Esso was torpedoed off the New York Coast in 1942...after that ALL oil coming from Tx\Ok went by rail...US Railroads moved an ungodly ammount of material during the war...it was pretty much THE only way to move things...i suggest finding the book by Don Ball Jr. titled The Decade of the Trains:the 1940's...most of the text in that book was writen by Rogers Whitaker who worked for the ODT (Office of Defense Transportation)in the Transportaion corps during the course of the War so i trust his numbers.....and realy they are staggering
Look on e-bay or in libraries for US Army or AAR loading diagrams. They give instructions for how to load and brace things on railcars. I know I have seen diagrams for various landing craft on cars (in addition to tanks, tractors, trucks, trailers, etc, etc).
One thing to consider about landing craft as flatcar loads. While they are large, they aren't particularly heavy, awkward to balance or difficult to brace and tie down. As long as clearances along the route were adequate, there would be no reason (other than lack of locomotive horsepower) that they couldn't be rolled at track speed.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Dave,
I found a link to a lot of TM's with loading diagrams at
http://www.tpub.com/content/railroad/TM-55-2200-001-12/css/TM-55-2200-001-12_120.htm
These show early diagrams until today's. The only one for loading boats is for LCVP's but not for bigger ones like the LCM's. Probably during WWII there were less loading restrictions for transporting military vehicles than there are today.
regards
Alain
I think I should buy this book also. Thanks for the info
I tried looking in the book to see how to tie down an M3 Stuart or M5 Stuart, but didn't see anything. Could one of you try and see what you come up with?
heres a pic for ya....hope it helps...