Questions about U.S. military trains (Vietnam era)

Hi all,

Did the U.S. military use the railroads during the Vietnam War like they did in World War 2 ? Is there any good resources on this topic ?

Thanks Alex

 

I don't have any exact figures, but vietnam was after the airlines had largely killed off passenger traffic on the railroads. The amount of men and materials moved for vietnam was much smaller than for ww2 as well. I'm sure vehicles were moved by rail, much like they have been for the gulf war, but the military have always moved armor and such by rail, even in peacetime.

 

Quite a few shipments of bombs, 250, 500, and 1000 pound, and other ordinance were shipped in boxcars to various ports of departure. During that period the military had about 3400 flats and boxcars in thier fleet, plus other car types like tank cars, in addition to using regular cars from the railroads. All the non goverment owned cars had to be in top condition for that service. Usually the non government owned cars would not give much clue to what they held other than the fact that it was a solid consist of boxes all in top shape like they had just come out of the factory.

 

The Concord Naval Weapons Station, right down the street from my LHS, was one of the major rail-to-ship transfer points from 1942 through the 1990s, and sent most of the bombs and munitions West during WWII and the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts.
[This was the site of the horrible Port Chicago explosion in 1944, in which hundreds of Black soldiers died due to unsafe handling procedures]

Lots of great modeling potential, too:



[video]http://binged.it/QvDoBP[/video]

Might be hard to model the looping loading dock, but the yard, maintenance facilities on the left, and all the bunkers are very doable with come selective compression.

Here's the connection to the (now) UP mainline:



The wye at the top heads to the ship loading yard & docks.
The tracks running off the bottom head towards the the major weapons storage area, with bunkers that housed nuclear weapons as well:

[video]http://binged.it/LHvCq0[/video]

Hope this helps.

 

One of the Army's remaining munitions plant is located in McAlester, Oklahoma and switched onto the Rock Island Memphis-Tucumcari main during WWII, Korea and Vietnam. The Army had their own switcher then, but sold it to the AOK railroad who switches the plant now. I assume that munitions were then shipped over through the Rock Island-Southern Pacific connection in Tucumcari. Also assumed is that the train orders from both railroads out of Tucumcari during the war would confirm the loads transported through.

 

I hope I'm not treading on thin ice with this link, but it's the only one I could find of this car.

It's an Athearn N scale PS-1 Single door boxcar in The Rock Scheme.
If you look at the little white tags just to the left of the door, the big one says:
"Ammunition LDG only" and the smaller one says "When empty return to The Rock at El Reno, Oklahoma"
The only thing that might be a foob is the prototype did not have roofwalks.

This scheme came into existence in 1975, Just after the end of the Vietnam Era, and confirms that Munitions was indeed shipped via The Rock as Ghengis states and at least by rail.

http://tiny.cc/s5angw

Allen...

 

Yes those were the words/papers I was trying to think of! Silly I couldn't think of that when I have stacks of ATSF and MKT switch lists from Cushing, Oklahoma in my back bedroom right now!

 

At the end of Vietnam I was stationed at Ft. Monmouth NJ. Nearby was the Naval Ammunition Depot Earle, which had a road and rail line connecting the inland storage areas to the dock area. Here's a thread:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=36828&start=0

 

Thanks for the replies .

Alex

 

Joined the Navy in 1966 (after getting a draft notice for the high school graduation gift). Rode a bus from Lubbock Texas to Albq NM. Took the induction physical, and boarded a ATSF passenger train (in the Navy inductee chair car, branches of the service were kept apart in different cars). At San Diego each car of military had its on "greeter" at the station to offer gentle reminders to stay in line and remain quiet. Most of the reminders were delivered at scream pitch with the required purple-red faced greeter.

 

This is not entirely a true statement, personal automobiles and buses are what stripped passengers away from trains in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It was not until the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, and subsequent deregulation of the airline industry in the late 70s and 80s, did airline travel became cheap enough for the masses.

 

Rail was used during the Vietnam era, a bit more than most people realize.

Details on the 94th Field artillery deploying via train to the sea port to meet a ship for
Vietnam, can be found here:

http://www.2ndbattalion94thartillery.com/Chas/Reactivation.htm



This website briefly references a move 15,000 from Kansas to Oakland in 1965. Of interesting note is the National Guard that whose job it was to secure the route from protestors.
http://www.landscaper.net/vietnam.htm

Then there was the well known 1973 munitions explosion at Roseville, Ca
http://auburnjournal.com/detail/176573.html
http://rosevillept.com/detail/174725.html

 

Here's a bit ot info regarding the railroads in Vietnam. I went to Vietnam for my "senior trip" and was there from 1966-68 in Phu-Bai, in the northern part of South Vietnam. A narrow guage steam railroad ran directly in front of our camp. It was operated by the South Vietnamese and I was told that the line had been built by the French during their adventures in the country to serve their rubber plantations. I don't know how accurate that info was but I do know that the line actually ran all the way from Saigon to Hanoi and that there was a pretty extensive servicing facility in Saigon, although I never got that far south to see it. I used to be fascinated by the little steamers with whistles sounding like tea kettles that trundled past several times a week carrying Vietnamese, chickens, ducks, goats and produce and everything else imaginable. They had to contend with blown bridges, flooding etc. but they kept the little railroad running. They have since dieselized, as I understand it, and are still running.
Thought you might be interested.

Bob