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. 

 

 

Richard writes ... Richard writes ... This photo is the unofficial Baldwin Locomotive Works builders photo of US Army 2-8-0 S160 steam locomotive #1702 together with the US Army Corps of Engineers design engineers and project managers that were responsible for the design. 

The #1702 was one of the first series of US Army 2-8-0s that Baldwin built. These locomotives are well known overseas as the S160 Class, which was the specification number that American Locomotive Company (ALCO) assigned to them.

The photo was taken at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in either October or November 1942. I originally considered the Baldwin location for this photo to be a bit odd since ALCO was credited with the design work, but, since the design work was handled in combination with Baldwin, I can see the reason for the photo being taken there. It also may have been a matter of convenience when these three Army officers were available.   

The three US Army officers are (left to right) Colonel E.F. MacFadden, Major J.W. Marsh (he headed up the original design along with the American Locomotive Company and Baldwin Locomotive Works engineering departments), and Colonel W.G. Knight. All three officers served with the US Army Corps of Engineers.

I’ve been searching for this version of this photo for awhile. The Great Smokey Mountain Railway has their own version of it, but marked with their logo, while I wanted the original unmarked version. The locomotive #1702 still exists and is in operation with the Great Smokey Mountain Railway.

This photo was released to the US public and newspapers in early November 1942, but it did not receive much publication and I’ve never discovered it in any of the US railroad technical magazines during the war period.

One US newspaper that printed the photo was the Adrian, Michigan 'Daily Telegraph’ in their November 5, 1942 edition. The 557 Locomotive Restoration Company (which is overhauling the Alaskan Railroad’s Army 2-8-0 #557 in Alaska) located their photo and added it to their Facebook site.

If you can help Rob in his search for these locos get in touch with me.

Rob writes ... My WWII railway interests focus on motive power and rolling stock, particularly ambulance trains aka hospital trains. 

Gathering drawings and photos, I endeavour to produce compilations which are deposited in the Archives section of the Military Railway Study Group https://www.mrsg.org.uk/ 

At the moment, I am searching for photos of (British) WD 2-8-0s lent to the USATC bearing Transportation Corps USA on their tenders and RGD branding on the lower cabside. 

The image Pictorial Handbook of Military Transportation Operational Photog_00009.jpg LINK shows an RGD branding. This comes from a better copy of the book held by Bangor Public Library,

The library also holds some ROB histories. Ft Eustis was able to furnish a photo of WD 2-8-0s in USATC use in Belgium. I attach it together with a crop, enlargement, and colour inversion of the locomotive in the middle of the view showing USA on the tender side. (below)

Photo 50876 of the attached .pdf 50875 - 50889 SPARE PARTS LINK TRAIN being photos from Library and Archives Canada shows an ROB brading on the lower cabside. 

Note the apparent repainting of the tender side to obliterate any USA markings which simply wouldn't do for an official 1st Canadian Army photo! Attached is a compilation regarding these locomotives. 

Of particular interest is 79189 which was exchanged for S160 3257 which was acquired for training purposes on the (British) Longmoor Military Railway. LINK

Knowledge of this was scarce and only recently has a photograph of something else with 79189 came to light in a German article Eisenbahn Kurier 12_2020 seiten 48 - 52 - mit Übersetzung ins Englische, also attached. LINK

An old French steam locomotive is seen being operated by men of the 727th Railway Operating Battalion in Algeria on 17 February 1943

.Just a little less than a year before in March of 1942 the 727th ROB was the first railway battalion activated in World War II. Soldiers of the 727th were established at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, to train on the Southern Railroad between Meridian, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. 

In September 1942, a detachment of men from the 727th Railway Operating Battalion became the first military railroaders to deploy outside the contiguous United States when they assumed operations of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Alaska. Then the 727th was one of the first two battalions to deploy overseas, arriving in North Africa in December 1942. Railroading in North Africa proved to be challenging. Trains were operated by British, French, and American crews assisted by Arab civilians. 

With a variety of languages among the railroaders, the crew often used hand signals, although that was not always a solution. For example, the U.S. signal for “go” in railroad terms meant “stop!” in the French system used in North Africa. Another quirk was that French locomotives in North Africa did not have seats for engineers or firemen as American ones did, so crews had to stand for hours on end while they were underway. 

In spite of the difficulties, the Military Railway Service (MRS) moved about 90,000 tons of freight a week by June 1943. At its peak the MRS operated 1,905 miles of railway in North Africa. After freeing North Africa from German occupation the Allies’ next move was to Sicily, and MRS personnel went with them. Three days after the initial landings on 10 July 1943 the 727th Railway Operating Battalion went ashore at Licata, Sicily, and immediately began work on the Sicilian railway. Thanks Military Railroad Society https://www.facebook.com/usatc5002

Jeroen van der Schaaf of Rotterdam, The Netherlands is trying to find out about these locomotives. If you have any information or photos of these locos please contact me, Nancy : militaryrailwayservice@gmail.com

His web page can be found here https://army-whitcombs.info/s/aw/page/about

Thanks to Jeroen for this great photos of  two of these 65-DE-19A Whitcombs in Rome 1944. 

Joroen writes ... this photo shows two of these locos on the 4^th of July 1944, pulling the first train into Rome. It carried a load of coal, which was sorely needed to help boost the output of electricity and gas for the city.

At the end of the war in Europe, about 118 of these locomotives were sent back to the United States during the summer of 1945. They were intended to be refurbished and sent westwards to aid in the war against Japan, but this plan was abandoned because of the rapid conclusion of the war in the Far East. With the war over, the locomotives were disposed of via the War Assets Administration (WAA) at the beginning of 1947. Most of the USATC Whitcombs were sold through dealers to industrial operators and short lines in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba.

 

Bart writes about his cousin Ralph W. Engram, Jr. 

He was commissioned on October 20, 1943, at the Transportation Corps Officer Candidate School at the New Orleans Staging Area in New Orleans, LA. 

He knows that he served in France, close to Paris as he sent home several pictures of him on Christmas Day in Paris and others in the French rail yards, on locomotives, and in front of rail cars. 

Ralph is wearing LT insignia in all these pictures. He died in the 1950s so Bart never met him. His tombstone lists his unit as 1964th S.C.U.T.C. (these were ad hoc Service Command Units) which is a unit he served in after service in Europe. 

We would love to know what MRS units he was in, if anyone knows about Engram contact me militaryrailwayservice@gmail.com

 

Here are the captions from the back of the pictures: 

1. Picture with 3 figures: Capt Boyer, Capt Redding, Lt Engram 

10. Picture with 7 figures: Capt Haase, Lt Hellman, Lt Engram, Lt Lindsey, Lt Howell 

2. Picture of chateau: Chateau where Lt Engram lived January 1945 

9. Picture of soldiers in mess line: Chowhounds 

7. Picture of locomotive 1791: Lt Engram France January 1945 

5. Picture of front of locomotive: Lt Engram France January 1945 

Picture of person on rail car: Lt Engram France January 1945 

3. Picture of milkman: Lt Engram Paris Christmas Day 1944 

6. Picture of person standing in beside a rail car: Lt Engram France January 1945 

8. Picture of person leaning on pile post obstacle: Sgt Ralph Engram Camp Claiborne September 1942

  

 http://www.robertsarmory.com/whitcomb.htm

 

http://military.railfan.net/locos/

 Presented to Brigadier General George C. Stewart 708th Railway Grand Division June 1945

Captured April 1945 Germany

Book Of Interest – John Bushby 

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/ 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oxwich To Omaha: American GI's in South Wales Paperback – May 29, 2020 by Phil Howells Early on the sixth of June 1944, as the Normandy Beaches were under assault and Force ‘L’ and Force ‘B’ were converging in the English Channel, another US armada with Royal Navy escort was ploughing its way around Lands End. Yet despite the passage of 76 years, very little has been written about the Bristol Channel Pre-Loaded Build-Up Force and the 42,000 troops transported to Omaha and Utah - until now. Included in the overall 5,000 ship tally of vessels taking part in the biggest amphibious operation of all time, the fleet carrying among others the 2nd and 90th Infantry Divisions and major parts of the PESBG and the 5th and 6th ESB’s plus seaborne elements of 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions has never featured highly in the extensive narratives that have gone before. But now having drawn on the detailed NARA archives in Maryland plus many original unit histories, Phil Howells has been able to detail this much overlooked part of the D-Day story. Moreover, through researching this element of ‘Operation Neptune’, the author has been able to lay before the reader the extensive Concentration, Marshalling and Embarkation plans in South Wales and the twelve months of ‘Operation Bolero’ that preceded the sailing, including the construction of camps, depots and hospitals in the six counties; the formation and training of the 5th Engineer Special Brigade on Gower and the Provisional ESB Group – plus recording the huge amount of troops and cargo that poured into the ports of the Bristol Channel. Utilising aerial photographs and US Corps of Engineers plans, 'Oxwich to Omaha' is a valuable addition to any library devoted to D-Day specifically and the Second World War in general. https://www.amazon.com/Oxwich-Omaha-American-South-Wales/dp/B089CSNFSL

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. 

"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

Part 1

  

Part 2  

Part 3

Missing page 184