Interesting PRR article

[Trainman203]

http://www.tehistory.org/hqda/html/v42/v42n2p035.html

[Len]

Very interesting. That shot of the hoppers waiting to be unloaded was unreal.

In the early days of the Korean war a bunch of those "Troop Sleeper" and "Troop Kitchen" cars were pulled out of storage to move recalled troops to the west coast.

Len

[Trainman203]

Did you notice the kerosene wall lamps inside the converted boxcar troop sleeper?

[Len]

Did you notice the kerosene wall lamps inside the converted boxcar troop sleeper?

Yeah. One more thing to suck the air out of a box jammed with 26 people.

Len

[Trainman203]

Also don't forget that they were all smoking and probably hadn't had a bath in days.

It's unbelievable what the PRR did during the war in particular but all of the other roads  too.  The cooperation was stellar.  They were not going to let another USRA happen.

The railroads won the war for us big time, but it is sad how quickly everyone forgot and basically dumped the railroads by the late  50's.  I saw it.  When I was little, trains were everything and steam locomotive engineers were heroes.  Kids including me were taken to the depot to see the steam engines.    By 1960 it was over, every kid  wanted to have a toy truck instead of a train and wanted to be a pilot, and trains were the height of uncool.

[Jhanecker2]

Thanks trainman  : Good article  .    Makes you wonder though how we could fight a long on going  multi- front war today ?  Our most powerful  weapons are too
powerful  and destructive  to use , hopefully, and do we have the resolve and political will plus the manufacturing capacity  to field large armies. The physical caliber of persons necessary for military service is also questionable . John2.

[Len]

I remember a VHS tape some time back on the New Haven and their DL109's during the war. They ran them 24 hours a day, hauling passengers during the day and freight at night. Only stopping for fuel, water, sand, and crew changes. Literally wearing the wheels out.

NH had a system set up for maintenance that let them turn the 109's around in 24 hours or less. They'd come in the shop, get lifted up, the old trucks were disconnected and pulled out. Then new one were put underneath, hooked up, and the loco would be lowered again. The prime mover would be yanked, and a new one slapped in. All the removed pieces would be overhauled for reuse after the loco was back on the rails moving tonnage again.

The fast turn around and 24 hour operation promise by New Haven was the main reason they were allowed to purchase the 109's at the time.

Len

[Woody Elmore]

A magazine article in the a Railroad magazine from 1944 featured the Pennsy during WW II. The author wrote that the troop trains often had more than one locomotive - sometimes a long train would have a K4 in front, one in the middle and one pushing. They communicated with whistles.

An interesting fact is that the Pennsy had a great on time record. If a train was fast the company orders were to slow down and arrive on time. Late trains were expected to make up time. They had a great on time record because they "annulled" or canceled trains that may have broken down, derailed or had no locomotive available  - these canceled trains weren't used in determining statistics.

Pennsy train crews were expected to show up for work wearing a suit and tie. They would change into bib front denims that were a very, very light grey - almost white. The crewmen carried an extra set of train clothes because the railroad frowned upon dirty looking crewmen. It wasn't called "the standard railway of the world" for nothing!

[RAM]

I remember reading an article in Trains Mag. many years ago about a PRR mail trains that was running late.  They had a T1 replacing the normal f units.  The fireman said to the engineer "I wonder how fast these will run"  The engineer said "well we will never have another chance to find out".  He opened it up, and the poor conductor in the old rider car thought the thing was going to fall apart.  At the end of their run they had picked up most of the time.  The road master told them "next time not to run so fast" It didn't say how fast they ran, it just gave time from station stop to station stop.  How ever with the 80 inch drivers I would say 100+.

[ebtnut]

I recently got a copy of the N&W Society's magazine, which includes some details of the time the PRR borrowed a couple of J's for tests.  They recorded a couple of instances of 100mph+ running, and they were very impressed with the loco's performance.  But, the Pennsy built T-1's instead of 4-8-4's.  So it goes.