Train of Thought COMPILATION – Frontline Railways

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A binge compilation of railways, trains and other interesting events that came about because of war

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27 thoughts on “Train of Thought COMPILATION – Frontline Railways”

  19. "War
    I despise
    It means destruction to innocent lives
    War means tears
    To thousands of mothers' eyes
    When their sons go out to fight
    And lose their lives" – Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield

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  21. 12:18 – I only recently learned that the troop carrier those two German planes were on the lookout for was the RMS Queen Mary! Glad the Mary didn't get bombed, but it is a shame it resulted in two engines ending up at the bottom of the sea.

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  22. Great article, well researched and illustrated. Your facts were well researched, just wanted to add a few addendums:

    The number of S-160s still surviving is greater than 30. One I believe is still stored at a depot, north of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Island, Russia. One or two are preserved in the Shanghai Railway Museum, Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, China, another was operational until recently at Tiefa Coal Mine System, Daqing, Liaoning Province, China. One is preserved and may still be operational as SNCB 28013 at Belgium National Railways Museum, Louvain, Belgium; three were still around as stationary boilers, though all may be scrapped, the latest in August of 2002. Two are preserved in Mexico. It is entirely possible there may still be some in North Korea; but we have no way of knowing that.

    There are about 29 of the S-100s preserved in one form or another around the world. Another type of locomotive built during World War II were the "MacArthur" 2-8-2s. They were mostly built to either 3ft or one more meter gauge, but there were exceptions, some were modified to broad gauge to work on Indian Railways. Like the S-100s and S-160, they were literally sent around the world; surviving examples can be found in Alaska, the Tweetsie Railroad in North Carolina, Dollywood, Greece, Portugal, Australia, India, Myammar (Burma), Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, and even one in Honduras. About 33 are thought to remain, though some are just boilers or frames only.

    Finally, we also built some 2-10-0s to export to Russia during WWI. When the Russian Revolution took place, a few remained at home. They were "Americanized" and purchased by a few railroads, notably the Frisco, and were known as "Russian Decapods." We then sent similar 2-10-0s to the Soviet Union during WWII; which Stalin tried to use to show how "little" American railroad had progressed. There may be about 117 of the Russian Decapods still in existence, in the US, in the former Soviet Union, China, and North Korea.

    The same diesels we sent to Iran and the rest of the Middle East were also sent to the Soviet Union, who went on to build copies and improve upon them.

    But you missed the largest group of war locomotives built, not by the United States or Great Britian, but by Germany. They were the "Kriegslokmotivs" ("war locomotives"), most of which were of the 52 class of 2-10-0 locomotives. By the end of the war, over 6,000 class 52a were built not just in Germany, but by slave labor in factories in Poland, France, and other occupied countries. Like the other war locomotives, they went on after the war to be used all over Europe and Asia to replace locomotives lost during the war. Nearly 700 survived all across Europe and Asia; Russia even shipped ten to Vietnam, but they were too large for Vietnam railways, and sat rotting until most were scrapped in the 1990s. So steam and diesel locomotives originally built for the war effort by the United States, Germany, and Great Britian literally ended up around the world after the war.

    The narrow-gauge trench railways were also a major asset in transporting the wounded back to field hospitals; regular hospital trains could then transport them to hospitals further behind the lines or back home when necessary. Along with the field hospitals, the development of trench railways and hospital trains greatly helped to reduce the number of fatalities on the front.

    Again, great video.

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