Military Railway Operating Battalions operating several British Army WD 2-8-0 steam locomotives France 1944

Richard writes (thanks Richard!) ...

I’ve attached two photos of one of the US Military Railway Operating Battalions operating several of the British Army WD 2-8-0 steam locomotives. I expect the time period for these photos is September through December 1944 and the location is somewhere in France. The photos were taken by a member of the US Military Railway Operating Battalion that handled them. 

The British WD 2-8-0 locomotives were the British Army Railway Battalion version of the US Army S160 2-8-0s. The main mechanical differences were the British locomotives used oil lubricated driving axles, had a smaller grate area and (the biggest one) were not equipped with rocking firebox grates. 

The photos show a rare event since these particular WD locomotives have been re-lettered to the USA Transportation Corp but were in use by the US MRS Railway Operating Battalions for only a short period of time. These locomotives were assigned to US Army Railway Operating Battalions in the September & October 1944 time period and then transferred back to the British Army around December 1944. 

The reason for their short operating life is the British WD locomotives were not well received by the US Railway locomotive crews because the lack of rocking grates, combined with the problems obtaining high quality locomotive coal in the combat zones, made it difficult for the US crews to fire these locomotives and handle fire cleaning when the coal created clinker during the trip and when performing the normal fire cleaning at the end of each trip. 

I copied these photos from the Facebook site ‘Armored, Army Trains and Railway Guns’. It is an open group but I'm not a member of it. I believe the photos appeared on it in the September 2024 time period, but this time period may not be accurate.