Military Railroading?

Question

Your most memorable observation of peace time or war
regarding standard or narrow gauge railroad.

Answer 1

I did 15 years in the US Navy and NEVER saw railroad activity on the bases... tracks were ON the old carrier-pier at NAS North Island in San Diego, but I never saw a car or switcher.

My most memorable bit of military railroading viewing was back in 1979, I was visiting Switzerland with the family. We were about to take the train from Lauterbrunnen and saw a Company (175-200 troops) of Swiss reservists at the station in full fatigues with their gear and automatic weapons.

They boarded the train (taking three cars) and got off at Kleine Scheidegg as did we, and they marched away in formation. We saw them the next morning up at a defunct grand-hotel dating to the 19th century. They were dismantling the building brick by brick... the windows were pulled out, fixtures removed, and the bricks stacked to the side.

With my high school German, and their fluent English, we soon learned that they were going to cart the building materials about 10 miles away to a pair of villages and build 2 new schools.

Answer 2

WWII Troop train movements in and out of Fort Ord, Ca. This was an army basic training camp on the coast near middle California on the old SP Coast Division.

A bit before my time, but my father was railroading there during this time. The volume of traffic was stupendous.

By the time of the Viet Nam war I was railroading myself. Not a lot of military transport on SP's Sacramento Division, but we hauled a lot of ordnance, more specifically, bombs. LOTS of bombs.

One morning, on April 28, 1973, several carloads of them exploded in the rail yard at Roseville, California. Quite a story here. Too much to reprint. But, if you click on my smiling face and go to my Y!A profile page and access my 360, this event is covered in my blog post of January 16, 07, titled "Death of a Town."

On that morning, the town of Antelope, California, was erased. It has since been rebuilt, but the original town was leveled. Not only was I there, but it was my 20th birthday as well........

Answer 3

During Desert Storm saw a train pull lots of military equipment in N. Jersey. Was very impressive and humbling at the same time.

Answer 4

The American Freedom train, which operated in the late 1940s was quite a sight (although I never witnessed it myself). Bedecked in, naturally, red, white and blue with an eagle along its flanks the train was pulled by a venerable Alco PA (of note, this train has been featured in this year's Hallmark Lionel Keepsake collection).