During the Afghanistan and Iraq Invasions solid trains of DDOX Flats combined with any other similar flat were screaming down the MP Main several times a week at what must be over track speed empty. I counted over one hundred flats including hefty ones strong enough for Battle Tanks.
I remember Aberdeen Proving Grounds and the Ordinance Museum. That facility had rail tracks ALL over running here and there but nary anything going on whenever we were on base at the Comissary shopping or visiting the museum about the time the Vietnam war was going on. The track was in such robust good condition I just knew they do things when we civilians are not around in the night. =)
I have been on many installations in trucking and recall tracks were everywhere.
Sadly I think the NLR AFB in Jacksonville was actually pulling up rails to make new construction. They did keep the old pathways open as trails for exercise or training in the woods.
I recall stories of world war one railroads that did good service.
Civil War railroads endured much destruction and in some cases invented new ways to fight a war with troop movements and other ways of fighting.
I have had learned about how they would move a Corps from Texas to the ports in a few books using rail. Interesting stuff.
Finally I know of several passenger cars used by SAC as Missile Bases and some very special Cars. I think the USSR relies heavily on ultra-secret military trains for thier nuclear war efforts, heck I think the whole USSR rail was there for the use of the State not the people.
Last month I was video taping trains on the Union Pacific Sunset Route at Mescal, Arizona, when an east-bound train of nearly 100 empty DODX 6-axle and TTX heavy-duty flat cars went by.
This location is between Fort Hood, Texas and the National Training Center in California, so military trains are not uncommon.
The locomotives were Union Pacific power.
Happy new year!!!
Late last year on Fort Lewis near Tacoma Washington I had to wait for a train of DODX flats loaded with Hummers and various pieces of military light to medium equipment. Some of them looked pretty banged up. The BNSF train that usually makes that run has one BN green Geep and a Caboose. You know those things that belong on the end of a train. They drop the cars in the Fort Lewis interchange yard and the Fort Lewis GP-7 (or is it a 9) (engine now has four exhaust stacks where previously there were two, so I am assuming it is repowered) switches them. Their interchange yard probably holds over 100 cars. The US Army civillian personnel switch the cars for loading or unloading. They are transloaded both circuis style or with a stradle crane. I also saw an Industrial brownhoist crane(just like the Tichy Kit) with a line through the DODX number on a Tacoma Rail siding, Mountain division, just south of Tacoma. The crane was a diesel conversion crane and it was on its wheels as opposed to being loaded on a depressed flat.
Loring AFB in Maine received hundreds of hoppers of coal via the Bangor and Aroostook every year up until the base closed about ten years ago. Interestingly enough the AF also had a Russel Wedge plow with USAF markings painted in silver. I think they had an Alco of some sort, but I don't recollect which model it was.
Wright Patterson AFB Ohio near Dayton had several GE 44 tonners in Air Force Blue with USAF markings. They also had at least one Alco S-1 or 2 just like the engine Atlas just released. They have several steam plants around the base and the AF switches the coal loads in hoppers, and unloads them through the bottem dumps.
I could mention the trains on Osan AFB Korea,but that would be out in left field. They were also depressed flats with what looked like Buckeye six wheel truck, but the wheels were spoked!
The three stateside facilities have/had Civil Service railroad operations crews. Loring is probably not used any more. I have not been in Dayton in many years, but I sure enjoy getting held up by the trains on Fort Lewis! And it is really cool seeing a caboose!
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
HUDSONG1 wrote:I can remember US Army TRAINMASTERS [black with yellow lettering] laying over at Kingston PA (NEPA) at the DL&W roundhouse in the early 60's. *never did get to see them when they left. Berwick PA (manufactured tanks, etc.) was about 25 miles south. Military trainings would pass northbound going to Scranton and wherever. This was the Bloom (Bloomsburg) Branch that connected the DL&W with the Pennsy at Northumberland PA, *along the Susquehanna River. Also, a town or 2 away (and again I didn't get any photos) about 4+ years ago, LAG (equipment etc.) in Duryea PA had 2 or more US AIR FORCE coal hoppers [ blue with white lettering]. In Ashley PA, +/- post Agnes Flood (June 1972) here in the Wyoming Valley there were (2) US Army Hospital Cars in the ol Jersey Central yard at the Glen Alden Breaker and yard. Before I got out of the Air Force in '71 I was at Sumter South Carolina and I believe an Air Force Center Cab used to interchange tank cars.
Do you have any pictures of the engines and are you sure they were trainmasters? Thanks.
QUOTE: Originally posted by jimrice4449 There's a little known aspect tp RR/Military history.
QUOTE: Durring WWI the US and the Brits both had narrow guage operations to feed supplies to the front lines. I don't have any references to hand but I believe they were about 2' guage and used panel track sections.
QUOTE: Originally posted by orsonroy The government didn't own any USRA engines (and the USRA never designed a 2-8-0). The steam used was all Baldwin, from the 2' gauge stuff right up to the lend-lease 2-8-0s used during WWI and WWII
QUOTE: Originally posted by docpalmberg Two points of interest. First, living about 150 yds from the spur off of the mainline through Colorado Springs onto Ft. Carson, I can tell you that the primary purpose of military railroads these days is to transport ALL of the vehicles long distances. Practically any mainline leading from a post holding a major COMBAT unit (i.e. Ft. Riley & 1st Infantry, Ft. Carson, 4th ID & 3d ACR, Ft. Hood, 1st Cav & III Corps) is going to see substantial traffic. Up until the beginning of OIF, the main destination was Ft. Irwin, and NTC. These trains were dropped at Yermo, an extension of the Marine Logistics Base in Barstow California. Now days, they are enroute to and from Beaumont, TX, and the port there, where tanks, brads, Humvees, trucks, and containers, etc., are loaded on to the RIRO ships that dock there for transport to the Kuwaiti Naval Base. The consists are almost exclusively DODX marked versions of the TTX series flat cars. Secondly, although I absolutely SUCK at locomotive power nomenclature, there are two engines which sit on post, painted primarily crimson with yellow highlighting and lettering. There design is quite similar to the ones that hauled hoppers through the UP branchlines of western Kansas in the 70s. I'd guess they're either GP30s or something equivalent. OK, so it's three things. The US Army Reserve still maintains a few (read 2-3) Transportation Companies which are Rail based. Since I signed up in 1991, and probably prior to that, there have not been any active duty SOLDIERS on the rails. Instead, the local mainline provides a locomotive to drop the 100+ cars, and the US Army engines shuffle them through the download process at the railhead. Just last week, a BN remarked engine was pulling a load of empties out of Carson back to the main yard in the Springs.
Remember: In South Carolina, North is southeast of Due West... HIOAg /Bill
QUOTE: Originally posted by jimrice4449 There's a little known aspect tp RR/Military history. Durring WWI the US and the Brits both had narrow guage operations to feed supplies to the front lines. I don't have any references to hand but I believe they were about 2' guage and used panel track sections. They were temporary structures, designed to be taken down and set up as and where needed. Woulsn't it have been neat to ba able to pick up some of that war surplus for the back yard (assuming you have a REALLY BIG back yard)
QUOTE: Originally posted by PNCROSE QUOTE: Originally posted by citylimits I was wondering if anybody was modeling or has experience of the USN RR car and Locomotives. Part of my layout will include a maritime theme as well as a Navy wharf used in WW2 for loading or unloading supplies. I am pretty sure how the wharf and surrounding area will look, but I am a bit stuck regarding Loco's and freight cars. Any ideas anybody? From aerial photos I've seen of the Naval Station at Norfolk, VA, the primary motive power would have been 0-6-0's and 2-8-0's. I am assuming that they were of USRA design and I don't have any detail for markings. Freight cars would have been typical freight cars of the period both government and private railroads. The majority of the ones in the photo were regular railroad cars and most were 40' box cars.
QUOTE: Originally posted by citylimits I was wondering if anybody was modeling or has experience of the USN RR car and Locomotives. Part of my layout will include a maritime theme as well as a Navy wharf used in WW2 for loading or unloading supplies. I am pretty sure how the wharf and surrounding area will look, but I am a bit stuck regarding Loco's and freight cars. Any ideas anybody?
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
QUOTE: Originally posted by eamarko Thanks for the info , but here's another question, who operates them the base personel or hired railroad workers and do they connect with any other railroads??