Saturday, December 24, 2022
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Rebuild blasted bridges in Italy - Railway Age
part 2
The attached article, which is the 1st Part of a 2-Part Series, describes some of the methods used by the US Army Engineer Battalions and Military Railroad Operating Battalions to rebuild wrecked railway bridges in Italian Theater during the 1943 and 1944 period. The Wehrmacht demolished numerous Italian Railway bridges during their retreats and these required extensive repairs by the Allies in order to return the railways to operation. The original article was printed in the December 16, 1944 edition of the USA railroad industry magazine 'Railway Age’. Thanks Richard
Monday, November 14, 2022
713th Railway Operating Battalion --photo New Mexico
March 1943. "Clovis, New Mexico. Private Clarence Stephens of Streator, Illinois, a member of the U.S. Army Railroad Battalion stationed at Clovis, with Sidney Mack, engine inspector at the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad shops. They are inspecting one of the 5000 Class freight engines." Acetate negative by Jack Delano, Office of War Information
Probably the 713th---The 713th Railway Operating Battalion was formed on March 12, 1942, and consisted entirely of men who worked for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. Their job was to clear, repair, and build military railways as well as operate the trains.
The 713th, known as the “Santa Fe Battalion”, formed at Camp Clovis, New Mexico, and after initial military training was sent to Camp Dix, New Jersey, on January 21, 1943. The unit was first sent to North Africa where in seven months they transported 500,000 tons of cargo in 47,255 rail cars. The 713th went from North Africa to Italy and then on to Southern France. They ended the war in 1945 serving in Western Germany.
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Saturday, November 5, 2022
Oxwich To Omaha: American GI's in South Wales -- book
Although not a railway history volume the book ‘Oxwich To Omaha, American GIs in South Wales’ by Phil Howells (self-published, no ISBN, revised edition 2021) has much to recommend it on a num-ber of counts. Firstly, it is more about South Wales and the Bristol Channel/Severn Estuary area as a whole with Avonmouth, Sharpness etc. so it is more a case of South Wales plus. Secondly, a lot of information concerning rail movements and US Army locomotives can be found although this requires searching through the text, nor are the maritime/shipping aspects neglected which is of major relevance as the major South Wales docks were owned by the Great Western Railway. Perhaps most important is that the book is based on extensive research in the US National Archives. Consequently, it is a who, what, where, when and how book rather than the more usual anecdotal accounts of the ‘Yanks’ derived from ‘oral history’ and ‘family tradition’ which are often recorded decades later, uncorroborated and of doubtful provenance. This book contains masses of detail based on documentary evidence and should interest anyone interested in Britain’s railways in WW2 and/or the US Army presence in Britain during the same period. Copies of the revised 2021 can be obtained through Amazon for £12.99 which is extremely good value given the sheer amount of data included. South-west England and South Wales were the main concentration areas for US ground forces under the BOLERO programme in the build-up to D-Day and they were critically dependent on the railways. Nothing comparable seems to be currently available elsewhere. MILITARY RAILWAY STUDY GROUP https://www.mrsg.org.uk/
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Monday, October 31, 2022
740th Railway Operating Battalion Grand Pa Karl's ID card 1945
U. writes...
Grandpa Karl worked as a locomotive fitter for the German State Railway until 1. April 1941 , then he had to move to the army.
Till end of war in 1945 , he worked at the " Atlantikwall " in Belgium and France and drove trains at different places in Europe .
Due to his profession, he got his certificate of discharge in June 1945 and than he started to work for/with the 740th railway op bat. at Bonn /Germany , where a railhead was build. The permit on the photo is from this time.
Thanks U glad to see Grabdpa Karl's IS card
Monday, September 12, 2022
757th Railway Operating Battalion photo
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Monday, May 30, 2022
Trains to the Trenches: The Men, Locomotives and Tracks That Took the Armies... by Andrew Roden
Trains to the Trenches: The Men, Locomotives and Tracks That Took the Armies...
by Andrew Roden
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Bridging the Rhine -- Military Engineer 1949
Again the Engineers and MRS units worked together on these rail bridges ...
World War II Locomotives in Europe- German Type 52 Kreigslok 2-10-0 Steam Locomotive With Condenser Tender
Thanks to Richard for this great post! He writes...a number of these locomotives were captured and operated by MRS units during the war and afterward. My last photo (Photo #6) shows one of these MRS operated locomotives.
In addition, several more of these locomotives were built shortly after the war under the supervision of the MRS 757th Railway Shop Battalion when they operated the Henschel Locomotive Building Plant at Kassel, Germany.
The attached article describes the German wartime built Type 52 'Kondenslokomotive' 2-10-0 steam locomotives that were equipped with the special condenser tender. These locomotives were a sub-group of the standard German Type 52 Kreigslok (also known as the Kreigslokomotive) wartime built 2-10-0 steam locomotives and were specially made to operate for long distances on the Eastern front railways without having to stop for the resupply of water.
The condenser tender enabled the locomotive to condense its exhaust steam back into water and then continue to use this water in the boiler to produce further steam. In a normal steam locomotive the exhaust steam is discharged to the atmosphere and lost.
The German operated railways on the Eastern front had difficulty supplying sufficient clean and treated boiler water to its steam locomotives. The Kondenslokomotives locomotives were designed to reduce this problem and to enable the locomotives to operate over longer distances. In addition, the water tanks were subject attacks by the Soviet partisans and air force and were easily damaged and put out of use.
This article is an in depth technical description of the locomotive and its special condenser tender. It was written for USA railway mechanical engineers, but it does contain some information related to the German methods used for Eastern Front wartime locomotive operation. The stated operating range of 1000 Km (660 miles) was reported by other railway sources to be lower and in the range of 640 Km (400 miles). For comparison, the typical operating range of a standard mid-size steam locomotive during wartime operation would be approximately 80 Km (50 miles) before it need to obtain water.
These condenser locomotives, and the standard German Type 52 Kreigslok 2-10-0 steam locomotives, were operated by both the Wehrmacht’s own railway operating units and the Deutsche Reichsbahn (the German State Railway) staff. All Type 52 locomotives were built using a much simplified method of construction to reduce construction time and materials and were designed to have a light axle load in order to operate on many of the lightly built Soviet railway lines.
Approximately 180 of the Type 52 condenser locomotives were built by Henschel at their Kassel Works during the war and a number of additional ones built afterward. For comparison, several thousand of the standard Type 52 Kreigslok 2-10-0 steam locomotives were built by both Henschel and by other locomotive builders, including companies in the occupied countries.
A number of the Type 52 Kreigslok condenser locomotives operated on the Western Front railways, including in Belgium and Italy and some remained in operation after the war. Several were captured and used by the US Army Railway Operating Battalions in Germany during and after the war. In addition, one of the captured locomotives was sent to the USA after the war for examination.
The standard Type 52 Kreigslok 2–10-0 steam locomotives remained in operation in Germany and on the state railways of many countries throughout Europe into the 1970s. Some continued in service in several Eastern European countries into the 1990s and a number remain in existence today.
The original article was printed in the December 29, 1945 edition of the USA magazine 'Railway Age’ which was the main USA railroad industry publication.
The attached photos #1, #2 & #6 were copied from the Italian model railway website Märklinfan Club Italia’. The remaining photos were copied from the internet.
Friday, May 27, 2022
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Sunday, May 15, 2022
US Army captured German StuG Assault Gun coverted to switching locomotive
"The attached photo from the 6 April 1945 issue of 'The Railway Gazette’ shows a US Army captured German StuG Assault Gun that an MRS unit converted to serve as a shunting (switching) locomotive to move railway cars over covered tracks laid on city and dockyard streets and within warehouses or other covered storage areas. The reason the conversion was made either because the warehouses, dockyard or storage areas were subject to a fire hazard if a steam locomotive was used or because the track curvature was too sharp or too light to enable use of a standard Army steam shunting (switch) locomotives or one of the available French or Belgium locomotives. The backdrop of the photo shows what appear to be a merchant ship crane boom so this photo may have been taken at a harbor dock.
The StuG would have been operated by one of the unit’s locomotive engineers who would be guided by hand signals given by an Army brakeman or switch crew. The conversion was likely made by one of the US Army Railway Operating Battalions or one of the attached US Railway Shop Battalions. The StuG apparently is equipped with a rigid welded steel bracket at each end to enable it to couple to the railway car but it is not equipped with any type of freight car buffers. It cannot operate the railway cars brakes and would depend on its weight and tracks to slow and stop the cars.
The Railway Gazette was a British magazine that discussed the British railway industry and railways world wide.
Thanks Richard
Ling to Journal page HERE
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Buzz bombs on the rails by Ives -- Army Transportation Journal Vol 1 No 8 September 1945 pp. 68
Army Transportation Journal Vol 1 No 8 September 1945 pp. 68
Impact history of Germany's V-weapons by Benjamin King
Impact : the history of Germany's V-weapons in World War II / Benjamin King & Timothy J. Kutta
Author King, Benjamin Kutta, Timothy J
"Published in the UK by Spellmount Ltd, Staplehurst, Kent"--Verso, t.p.
Summary"An in-depth account of Hitler's V-weapons, the devastation they caused, and the massive allied countermeasures taken to destroy them"--Cover, P. [4].
Physical description 358 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 24 cm Place Europe
Topic V-1 bomb V-2 rocket Guided missile bases, German World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, German Surface-to-surface missiles
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Monday, May 9, 2022
Friday, May 6, 2022
Red Ball express--The Influence of Transportation on Operations Army
Red Ball express--The Influence of Transportation on Operations Army Transportation Journal, Vol. 4, No. 5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1948), pp. 11-14, 69
The Military Railway Service -Noyes
Army Transportation Journal, Vol. 3, No. 5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1947), p. 22,24
The Military Railway Service by General Gray Parts 1 and 2
PART 1: The Military Railway Service
PART 2: The Military Railway Service
Army Transportation Journal, Vol. 4, No. 4 (JULY/AUGUST, 1948), pp. 16-18, 44-45
Fighting alligators and mud : the Army's Clairborn -Polk
Railroad History , Fall-Winter 2004, No. 191 (Fall-Winter 2004), pp. 100-106
Thursday, May 5, 2022
A New Concept of Military Railroad Service 1951
National Defense Transportation Journal , MAY-JUNE, 1951, Vol. 7, No. 3 (MAYJUNE, 1951), pp. 31-34
743rd Railway Operating Battlion - The Antwerp Story
Army Transportation Journal , July, 1945, Vol. 1, No. 6 (July, 1945), pp. 8-11
753rd Railway Shop Battalion - Ralph Bailey
short historyof 753rd
Mr Bailey older
and his various amazing photos
Monday, May 2, 2022
Thursday, April 28, 2022
Saturday, April 23, 2022
Railroading in Eighteen Countries: The Story of American Railroad Men Serving in the Military Railway Service, 1862 to 1953 by Maj.-Gen. Carl R. Gray
Railroading in Eighteen Countries: The Story of American Railroad Men Serving in the Military Railway Service, 1862 to 1953 Kindle Edition by Maj.-Gen. Carl R. Gray (Author) Part I
Part II
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Monday, April 18, 2022
Friday, April 8, 2022
FM 55-55
Field Manual 55-55
Description
Describes "the organization and operation of the railway-operating battalion upon a railway operated by the Military Railway Service. Its purpose is to assist military railway officers in the training and operation of their units and to guide command and staff officers charged with their employment."
57 p. : ill. ; 19 cm.
United States. War Department. February 4, 1944.
715th Railway Operating Battalion - Charles Wesley Lewis
His granddaughter, Melissa writes ....
Charles Wesley Lewis was morn Jan 24, 1919 and passed Dec 6, 1986 Once home to West Virginia he began work in the coal mines eventually getting his Mine Foreman's Certificate in 1953. Was a member of the local Lions Club and an avid gardener.
He had bright blue eyes and a warm toothy smile, a wicked sense of humor and a great story teller, and he never met a stranger. Sadly he passed at only 67 from complications of emphysema and Black Lung Disease.
*Thanks Melissa for sharing these with us !
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
WWII Research Resources for Veterans Day
- WWII veterans or their next-of-kin can request the veteran's military service records from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.
- Ancestry.com’s 1942 “Old Man’s” draft cards, Navy cruise books, missing in action reports and other WWII records. I was glad to be able mention Ancestry.com's Free Access Weekend for its military records in honor of Veterans Day.
- Footnote’s WWII missing air crew reports, submarine patrol reports, Pearl Harbor muster rolls and other WWII records.
- The National Archives' WWII enlistment records in its Access to Archival Databases, where you can search for an Army enlistee by name and get basic information about his service. These records also are part of Ancestry.com’s military collection, and they’re in Footnote’s free WWII Hero Pages.
- The Library of Congress Veterans Oral History Project, which has a database of veterans who’ve participated. (Our local Cincinnati Public Library takes part in the project and has its own database of local participants.)
- The Veterans Administration searchable Nationwide Gravesite Locator has burial information on veterans and, in some cases, their descendants, in VA cemeteries and state and local veterans cemeteries.
- The WWII National Memorial Registry, which combines four other databases: those buried in American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) overseas military cemeteries, those memorialized on ABMC Tablets of the Missing, those listed on official War and Navy Department Killed in Service rosters , and those who’ve been enrolled in the memorial’s Registry of Remembrances. (You also can search ABMC WWII databases here.)
727th ROB 509 Italian Civilians Killed by Fumes When Freight Train Stalls in Tunnel 1944
727th Italian civilians
[The Yankee Boomer - Londra, 9 marzo 1944, pagine 1-2]
[
509 ITALIAN CIVILIANS KILLED BY FUMES WHEN FREIGHT TRAIN STALLS IN TUNNEL
More than 500 Italians lost their lives last Friday in what was probably the most unusual and the most ghastly catastrophe in the history of world railroading. They died, 509 of them, peacefully and without ever knowing what was happening to them, as the freight train on which all but the crew were unbidden guests stalled in the depths of a tunnel, and the locomotive poured lethal fumes into the damp darkness.
Searching parties who struggled into the approximately two-mile-long bore through a lonely mountain stretch of southern Italy to see what was delaying the train found the victims lying and sitting about as if asleep. There had been no panic, no struggle for life. They had simply grown drowsy, drifted into unconsciousness and died while they wondered what was causing the train to halt. News Slow in Arriving Because the mammoth tragedy occurred in a desolate and isolated stretch of countryside, it was a ful day before reports reached the outside, and even last night many details were lacking. It was known, however, that the train was all-Italian as to crew and passengers. Barring the off chance that the body of a straggler would be found as the macabre task of clearing the tunnel progressed, no Allied military personnel perished. First reports of headquarters of the Miliatry Railway Service, which supervises all schedules on the Italian State Railways in Allied hands but had no actual hand in the operation of this particular train, indicated that only one crew member had escaped from beneath the mountain. This was a fireman on the locomotive.Reuter's news service said some fifty persons were hospitalized. Reuter's put the death toll at 502.
Gray orders investigation Brig. Gen. Carl R. Gray, Jr., Director General of MRS, immediately appointed an investigating board headed by Lt. Col. Fred W. Okie, commanding officer of the 727th Railway Operating Battalion, to report on the accident. The board contained both American and Italian railway personnel. General Gray, in a formal statement, characterized the tragedy as one of “the most regrettable and the most unusual” in his experience of railroading. Pending the report from his board, he declined to discuss possible causes. Railroad officials pointed out that a large preponderance of empties in the freight car string brought the death rate to such a huge figure. There were thirty-three empties in the train.
Kind-hearted Italian train crews, not burdered with responsibility for valuable military freight as are the MRS crews who haul Allied supplies, may have looked the other way as the hordes of refugees and ex-Italian soldier filled the empties at stops before the tunnel was reached. Or they may have been unable to cope with the rush. The train's schedule called for a stop in a yards not far before the tunnel point of entry, and it was dark when that stop was made. Since only the fireman appears to have survived out of the entire train crew, the crew's responsibility for the ticketless passengers may never be definitely fixed. What caused the train to stall in the tunnel was not immediately apparent. Railroad men said, however, that the train was on a upgrade. The fireman may have been down on the “deck” to avoid the worst of the exhaust gases and hence not kept up sufficient steam, or else the wheels may have commenced slipping and the engineer may have been too overcome to correct the situation before it was too late.
The accident recalls a similar one recently in which an Italian locomotive fireman died. In that particular accident, the engineer, the rest of the crew, and several passengers owed their lives to the coolness and efficiency of an American MRS train crew. As in Friday's catastrophe, the Italian Crew of a locomotive were overcome by tunnel gases, but the Americans in the cab with the ferrovieri brought the engine out. The they managed to revive all but the firemen. Among the passengers they saved were two Italians nuns Balvano train disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balvano_train_disaster
'Titanic of train disasters' by Nancy Cunningham on Scribd
730th Railway Operating Battalion- Ralph L. Ott
Obituary for Ralph L. Ott
Ralph L. Ott, 93, of Chambersburg passed away on Sunday, October 27, 2013 at Menno Haven Nursing and Rehab Center He was born on Thursday, December 25, 1919 in Scotland, PA the son of the late G. Harold and Rhoda (Jones) Ott.
He spent his early years in Chambersburg, attending schools in the borough, graduating from Chambersburg High school in 1937. He attended Tampa University in Florida on a Football Scholarship. Ralph worked at the Pennsylvania Railroad in Chambersburg before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941. He spent four years in the Army, 2 ½ years of which were in Iran with the 730th Railway Operation Battalion. Upon his return home, he married Helen Wise on November 8, 1947. He returned to the Pennsylvania Railroad shops in Chambersburg until 1972; then took employment at Letterkenny and retired from there in 1981. Ralph was a member of the First United Methodist Church and the following organizations: The Chambersburg Club, V.F.W. Post # 1599, American Legion Post #46, Amvets and the Marine Corp League.
He is survived by his wife, Mary Wise Ott, who he married on November 25, 1977, two sisters: Evelyn O. Franklin and Shirley O. Barkdoll, nieces and a nephew. He is also survived by a step-son, David Shetter, wife Angela and two step grandsons: Vincent and Mitchell.
The Funeral Service will be held at the convenience of the family. Burial will be at Lincoln Cemetery. Online condolences may be expressed at www.sellersfuneralhome.com
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
757th Railway Operating Battalion - Henry Brill
Henry Brill was born in Yorkville, Manhattan, New York 24 January 1913. Yorkville was known then as a German neighborhood and --according to the 1920 Census, it has 8 year old Henry's language at home as German. His German speaking ability, I believe, came in handy in the army as the 757th advanced through Germany and then set up headquarters in Kasel, Germany. At the same time, my Dad was Jewish and he was given two different sets of dog tags: his official with "H" for "Hebrew" indicating he was Jewish; and an alternative set with "P," Protestant, for when the battalion landed in Europe and confronted the Jew-hating German forces (in case of capture) . Dad didn't talk much about the war except to mention that there was German resistance when his unit landed on the Normandy beach (even if it might have been a day or two after D-Day) and he hid behind a rock, which, he said, was "his best friend" that day. He also mentioned that when advancing on towns, that artillery would bomb certain factories and leave others untouched, which seemed strange to him. Only just now after viewing a conspiratorial-type documentary in which they maintained that Auschwitz and other concentration/extermination camp were actually more factories of "robber barons" which were big profit makers since they used slave labor. (and maybe --this is my own "thinking out loud"-- that's why Auschwitz
Taking the photo of my wall with Henry's grandson's (named for him, "Henny,") caricature along with photos of Dad and Mom with the trophy fish, brings my attention to another Henry-Brill-WWII item: that knife hanging on the wall. My dad made that knife himself in Kasel from an airplane propeller! I forgot to mention his rank: He was a buck private going into the army AND COMING OUT. I don't understand that. It SEEMS like it was a conscious decision not to take any rank ...not even Pfc, which, I thought came automatically after a few months of service. Am I mistaken? When I was in the army in the early 70s, I got E-4 in about a year. Dad was in for 3 full years.
Thanks to Bruce for sharing these amazing photos ...