Airborne Corps (82nd Airborne) and Trains!!!
CSX Train leaves Fort Bragg, NC via Fayetteville-nam, NC with a train of equipment from the 82nd Airborne Division.
Surprising to see DODX cars painted in Trailer Train yellow, would have expected olive drab.
The ‘high speed’ run ending the video indicates the government needs to undertake a serious wheel replacement program account numerous flat spots hammering past the camera.
Yeah, even though it does not look like it, they have spent millions on track upgrades when I was stationed at Fort Campbell most of the railhead track had weeds between the rails. Now it looks like from Google Earth they have a new set of centralised circus loading style railheads and all freshly ballasted and a holding yard for empty flats.
The special duty reinforced (heavy load) flats used to be mostly Olive Drab in the 1980’s then they went to a lease fleet of TTX for containers to suppliment and now it looks like they went to yellow DODX. Some of the flat cars need to carry a heavy weight capacity and others just carry regular containers. I am surprised the Pentagon has not gone to well cars for all the containers they have now.
So quick question for you, in one of the shots in the video you can see like 6-7 CSX locomotives in the background but apart from the mainline tracks in kind of a locomotive service area and I suspect it is still Fayetteville, NC as the train is backing up onto mainline staging tracks off the Fort Bragg trackage (wye?). Are those locomotives waiting on the next train to pull out?
Even though the train in the video is long…it looks like a combo of BEB (Engineer Bn) and BSB (Support Logistics Bn), I don’t see any command vehicles so not HHC yet (HQ Brigade). No Combat regiments related vehicles either. So it could be the only train they need and they chose to fly the rest of the stuff in or they have another train after this one. Can’t tell myself but the locomotives in the pan shot appear to be for further trains.
So
Never worked the CSX Florence Division so I have no idea how the line of road facilities are situated and powered. Suspect Fayetteville might be a location that supports several local freight jobs that work in multiple directions from Fayettville on a concurrent bases with each local probably using two units for power.
Probably a moot question, but since the cars don’t leave the USA, why olive drab?
Because it’s the Army… I’m half surprised they aren’t camoflaged…
The marshalling area at Fort Drum, NY has undergone a similar upgrade. More vehicle staging space, and possibly several more vehicle loading tracks
I haven’t snooped around there in a while (I’m a retired civilian, but I can stiil get on the post), so I don’t know if they’ve done any improvements on the container loading area.
The co-gen plant used to get regular shipments of coal and coke, but that facility has gone bio-mass.
Soldiers are curious animals. They like to pull on levers to see what will happen.
Odds are there were brakes set in places the crew didn’t expect them. There should have been a Class 1, but there comes the question of whether the brake was set hard.
It’s thought that the Fort Drum/Watertown runaway some years back may have been caused by a cut lever being pulled, with the two flats at the top of the hump so the loader that was putting on containers put them in motion - the wrong way.
The comments for the video are laughable. There sure are a lot of paranoid, ignorant people around…
There’s a LOT of good stuff on the YouTube, but unfortunately the 'Tube does attract a lot of loons.
In some, maybe most, cases I belive they think they’re being funny. Some just like stirring up $#!&, know what I mean? Some just use the anonymity of the Internet to be nasty and insulting since they know they don’t have to worry about a “Fast five in the snot-box” if someone REALLY gets offended.
On those yellow, not olive drab, flats? Since they’re not leaving the country the DOD probably doesn’t care what color they are, just as long as they don’t rust! OD isn’t used as much as it used to be anyway, now it’s mostly flat-finish camoflage paints of varying pigments.
I could see that. Camouflaged so you can’t see the train, with reflectors so you can see the train.
Maybe they left the cars yellow for visability at crossings. Don’t they also have reflectors. Maybe they don’t use well cars, ie, double stack, so their cars would not be restricted for height clearance problems.
[:D]
how about the back up move with no one riding rear as far as I noticed. Maybe riding in the vehicle ?
Back when I could occasionally watch operations on a nearby military base, the local trainmaster would assist the crew by ferrying the conductor around in his truck. Saved time and walking when they were doubling out the trains. As long as someone is spotting the move, it really doesn’t matter where they are.
[quote user=“CMStPnP”]
Yeah, even though it does not look like it, they have spent millions on track upgrades when I was stationed at Fort Campbell most of the railhead track had weeds between the rails. Now it looks like from Google Earth they have a new set of centralised circus loading style railheads and all freshly ballasted and a holding yard for empty flats.
The special duty reinforced (heavy load) flats used to be mostly Olive Drab in the 1980’s then they went to a lease fleet of TTX for containers to suppliment and now it looks like they went to yellow DODX. Some of the flat cars need to carry a heavy weight capacity and others just carry regular containers. I am surprised the Pentagon has not gone to well cars for all the containers they have now.
So quick question for you, in one of the shots in the video you can see like 6-7 CSX locomotives in the background but apart from the mainline tracks in kind of a locomotive service area and I suspect it is still Fayetteville, NC as the train is backing up onto mainline staging tracks off the Fort Bragg trackage (wye?). Are those locomotives waiting on the next train to pull out?
Even though the train in the video is long…it looks like a combo of BEB (Engineer Bn) and BSB (Support Logistics Bn), I don’t see any command vehicles so not HHC yet (HQ Brigade). No Combat regiments related vehicles either. So it could be the only train they need and they chose to fly the rest of the stuff in or they have another train after this one. Can’t tell myself but the locomotives in the pan shot appear to be for further trains.
So that leaves the following behind…
-
FA or Field Artillery BN (they fly in normally, if they are taken at all).
-
Infantry Regiments (they fly in normally, extra truck transports are in the BSB).
-
Calvary Regiment (they fly in normally, extra truck