How often do you see these? I saw a train a few minutes ago and the front half was flat cars with M1A1 Abrams tanks on their, their was easly over 100 on their.
Never, and glad I dont.
David B
You probably saw an Armor unit being moved to the National Training Center in California for training maneuvers or returning from the NTC, depending on which way it was going.
It was heading north but, that track curves north.
BNSF runs in a general East-West direction between Chicago and the West Coast, though they no doubt have lines that run North-South just like the Union Pacific does. The fact that the armor train was running in a northerly direction when you saw it does not necessarily mean anything.
I’ve only seen it on Youtub, but railroads have been vital to moving the militry since forever. Like the intermodal, railroads are an easy way to haul long heavy things.
Keep your eyes peeled though, because in addition to the tank trains, the railroads have hauled other trains toting armored cabeece with guns sticking out. Kathi Kube got one in a recent Trackside w/ TRains photo consist
That has to be a doctored up photo. The U.S. military has never had such cabeece. The U.S. military would never be allowed to have such an item traveling on a U.S. railroad.
I’ve seen shipments of nuclear weapons with no extra security measures in place at all – just a plain jane freight train with no armed escorts.
Well, no security that you saw. Trust me, that train was well gaurded. My bro in law “escorted” one of those trains and he told me the security was tighter than for the president. There were snipers all along the path the train took, the train was monitored from the air, and those MT boxcars were not empty; they had high tech detection and armed security. If anyone even thought about getting too close or looked suspicious, they would have securtiy all over them.
I see them quite a bit out here by Ft Polk. There are long train loads of heavy military equipment going in and out all the time.
Also while were on the subject I saw a train with two Sherman’s on it before.One was painted for the desert and the other one looked blue…sorta.
Probably on their way to a rebuilder or the scrap yard. There’s a place out west (from my location) that rebuilds olds old tanks for collectors. Not to long ago they used parts from two wrecked Sherman’s to build one good one. After it was built they ran it through it’s paces on their test course.
The crew must have been relieved that no person with a bow and arrow was going to get them!
No, believe me it’s not doctored, and here’s a roster of their equipment. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=DODX
There are also several videos on Youtube of such trains. The cabeece are used as sleeper coaches with a vantage point nand have FREDs or what have you on the end of them just the same as a freighter. The recent trains article talks about the nuclear waste line they want to build, and doen’t mention a caboose either. But they do exist
A few years back I watched a long freight loaded with strange looking tanks and odd support vehicles, about 90 cars with 2 cabooses in the middle and 2 at the end, in them were British troops and they were armed, this was a train of 3 sections on it’s way to Suffield, Alberta for an excersize, very impressive, but the troops weren’t very happy when I got too close for photos, until I reminded them we were allies.
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