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Cargando... Trains to Victory: America's Railroads in WWIIpor Donald J. Heimburger
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This book tell the dramatic story of the years 1941-1945 when U.S. railroads, using fewer cars and locomotives than in WWI, moved more tonnage and more passengers than ever before. Divided into 13 chapters, plus a 32 page colour section, an introduction, bibliography and a complete index, the volume appeals to rail fans, historians, military historians, and many others. The book features 542 photographs, an additional 285 illustrations and a complete listing of U.S. military camps, posts and bases as of 1 August 1941. The book discusses the implications of the war on the railroads, embarkation of troops and materials, how the Military Railway Service joined the fight and what was happening on U.S railroads during the war. It also addresses new railroad cars and locomotives built for the war, military camp railroads, how Alaska's railroads played a part in the conflict, how women helped the war effort, and what was happening in foreign theatres. It describes how railroads aided in the return of wounded troops and equipment, and the atmosphere on the railroads immediately after the war. Scale drawings of war-emergency box cars are also included, as are troop train car plans. The book covers such topics as the huge Chicago & NorthWestern Proviso Yards during wartime, personal glimpses of the war from a number of railroaders and intriguing aspects of the war from the Army Engineers, Association of American Railroads and the War Department. Wartime products of locomotive and railroad car manufacturers such as Baldwin, Alco, Davenport, Lima, Whitcomb, Budd, Electro-Motive, H.K. Porter, Pullman, American Car & Foundry and the St. Louis Car Company are documented throughout the volume. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)385Social sciences Commerce, Communications, Transportation Trains and RailroadsClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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* the Office of Defense Transportation banned sleeping cars for routes under 450 miles.
* the ODT also ordered that all refrigerator cars be “made available” for ordinary freight (sounds like that strategy might have backfired since it would limit civilian nutrition; no comment by the authors).
* the War Production Board banned research, design and development of new steam locomotives during the war; the authors claim that contributed to the rapid takeover by Diesels. I find this a little dubious, since
* the WPB also banned development of new Diesels, which the authors say led to the post-war dominance of the General Motors FT class.
* the Army designed a few specialized freight cars, artillery ammunition cars for coast defense units, triple-deck bunk cars, troop kitchen cars, and military hospital cars.
* the Army took over the Alaska Railway and the White Pass and Yukon for the duration
* all “Mikado” class locomotives were renamed “MacArthur” class, to the extent of painting out the “MK” on engines and replacing it with “MAC”.
* 12.5% of freight traffic was military; I had expected it would be larger than this but it probably only counts direct military shipments.
* Military freight dropped dramatically in 1945 but military passenger increased tremendously as troops were redeployed.
* Baldwin manufactured a number of Lend-Lease locomotives for Russia; each of these took two flatcars (one for boiler, one for running gear) because Russian gauge was wider than US standard.
* The Army experimented with adjustable gauge Diesels; they were not a success.
* the Army operated a railroad training base at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, to allow troops to practice with foreign locomotives and rolling stock.
The pictures, while numerous, are strangely limited; most showing equipment and many showing troops are from very early periods in the war. Thus we see a lot of flatcar loads of M3 Grant and early M3 Stuart tanks, but no Shermans. I suspect censorship was rapidly imposed on freight train photographs. There are a great many photographs of locomotives, as is typical in railroad books. Not a bad coffee-table railroad book but not very useful for figuring out how the railroads were actually run in wartime. ( )