It’s been a resting place for “G.I. Consolidation” #607 from WWII Army rail operations as well as “The Eve of Destruction”, a gun truck used to protect supply convoys in Vietnam. Along with a bunch of other stuff.
But..
The US Army has decided to close most of its museums. It’s a case of “If we can’t do it well, we won’t do it.” They don’t have the funds needed to properly operate all their museums so they’re downsizing. They have more important things to do.
Anyway, I hope #607 and “The Eve” find good homes.
Well, it’s the US Army’s 250th “Birthday.” So, as a proud former member of that service, I think a celebration in the form of a parade is in order.
This parade is a one-time thing. The museums are an ongoing expense. I just hope the exhibits, such as the military steam locomotive and the gun truck, get relocated and preserved.
They closed the Patton Armor Museum at Ft Knox years ago and moved it to Ft Benning, where it is closed to the public. I’m glad I got to see it while it was at Knox.
For a large chunk of the GWOT I was a voluntary Army Forums Moderator on Military dot com (Monster.com). I think you referring to the transportation museum at Ft. Eustis? I had social media conversations with a few of the Army Reserve Railway folks during my time as Moderator. One of them posted pictures of Ft. Eustis and the museum there. So much rich verbal and oral history of Veterans on Military dot com in those discussion forums. It was incredible and I hope it was preserved but my guess is it wasn’t.
When I was Moderator the Army had four railway battallions still active but they were in the Army Reserve. One of them was in Milwaukee and had a long relationship with the Milwaukee Road and they did their weekend drills at the Milwaukee Shops they kept going with the Soo Line but not sure if they are still there and I am too lazy to Google.
Anyways, they mobilized each railway battallion one by one and sent them off to Iraq to help secure and rebuild the Iraq railways and get the trains running again during the second Iraq War. I think TRAINS even did an article on one of the soldiers tours. Very interesting and one of them posted on Military dot com about his work in Iraq and how they got the contrainer port running again (I think it was Basra, Iraq). I think they had a dockside rail to ship transfer there. The frustration was they were only able to keep a short segement of the line open from Basra to another city North of there. Lots of interesting stories there.
There are privately run Army museums and I hope the collections get shifted there. One of the newest is the Infantry Museum at Columbus, GA bordering Fort Benning, GA. That museum used to be run by the Army on post but thankfully it went private and I believe it is privately run now with the relatively new facility. Lots of history in that museum. Also, I hope Fort Campbell keeps it’s 101st Airborne Division Museum in tact somehow.
Manuever Center of Excellence. I think they called it. They combined training of Armor and Infantry at one post because they are more integrated on the battlefield and that is why they did the relocation. I used to work at Fort Knox as a civilian contractor, the post is has a lot of rail on it off the former IC line between Paducah and Louisville. So that was probably an easy move because Fort Benning has I think the former Central of Georgia line right through the post and right past the Infantry training barracks at Sand Hill. I rememeber when I was in training there hearing the Freight Trains going through at night…awesome. The windows on the Barracks were too narrow and facing the wrong way to view the action though (sad). Can’t believe with how exhausted I was they still woke me up.
Loaded a DB full length baggage car end to end in about 4-5 min. The next hour though was spent inside the moving baggage car arrangeing the duffle bags so that the car was orderly in appearence and the load was more balanced. That was two teams of Army people though using the fire water bucket approach to loading through both open baggage doors. Even still it is demonstrative I think of what can be done with prepositioned cargo, uniformly packaged cargo…with a little mechanization probably.
The National Park Service runs some National Historical Parks like Gettysburg National Military Park. If the Army Transport Museum would not make a stand-alone park, maybe the rail equipment would make a section at Steamtown Nat’l Historic Site.
I don’t see a real issue with this closing. There are hundreds of military museums in our country either privately owned or operated by non-profits. I’m in an isolated part of the country and there are three such military museums within 50 miles.
I’m sure any of these would be happy to take the equipment.
With the U.S. government heading to the debt cliff, the military budget is going to have focus on their mission.
One of my past IT clients was the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, KY. Working for them was like an extended family. That was back when Army Recruiting sponsored NASCAR, and other social events. Nice group of people. Also, two Active Army bases that routinely hold open houses of sorts once a year if you want to see and talk to the troops and get hands on with the weapons systems your paying for. Even Special Forces is there. Those are in part recruiting events because primarily recruits come from Veterans and Active Duty families and the Recruiting Command knows it. Recruiting Command at Fort Knox…is comparable to any Fortune 100 Marketing Analysis Staff. Demographers, GIS people, fully trained marketing folks all in Army uniform. A lot of people think the extent of Army Recruiting is just a Recruiter visiting their high school but I can tell you from experience. 100% compareable to General Motors Market Analysis Staff at HQ…very intelligent and proficient.
Having said all that. Agree the closing of a few locations when they are all over the place is kind of like the reduction of DoD Military Bands which I think needs to happen as well. Every single Army Division has a military band in addition to those in Washington DC…a little ridiculous.
True, only part is on the Federal dole, a lot of their income is from Soldier and Soldier family donations on the base, family visits, visiting Veterans, private contributions. Even so there is a proliferation of them.
Most private military museums are underfunded and their displays are deteriotating. Look at the problems that the USS Texas and USS The Sullivans have had. Some things should be government funded.
Really? I been to some pretty impressive ones which seemed to be doing pretty well at fund-raising. Before you jump, I didn’t claim they all are doing well.
