I’ve got several!!!
…Rode steam train from Inchon, Korea to points north sleeping on the dirty floor and had corned beef hash [cold], out of my C-ration can for breakfast…Oh, that was really fun…Through a tunnel too with windows open.
Rixflix-
You talking about military service or RR service, or both?
LC
BOTH lc.
I guess if you were train crew you’ve got some stories about us scruffy bastards!!!
I’m talk[ng about:
Military Tranportation Corps, USO, tdy’s, r&r’s, Fort Eustis. troop trains, Merchant Marine. The works.Have fun!!!
Captain Video aka rixflix
…If your talking about r & r’s too…Have one with riding a C-47, I believe it was at 13,000’ elev. between Japan and Korea on Thanksgiving and had a turkey sandwich to celebrate it…It was pretty cold in that thing too…So was the sandwich but it was pretty good.[8D]
Billeted @ Albrook Air Station in Panama but worked @ Howard Air Force Base on the other side of the Canal. Convinced the Sergeant to stop at the Panama Railroad depot on the way to Howard. We stopped and I got out to take pictures of an Alco RSC3. I was met by a security guard (with shotgun!!) who didn’t have much of a sense of humor or any desire to let me photograph the engine. I got in the back of the truck and got a couple of shots as we headed towards HAFB.
I was drafted in 1966.Had gone to architecture school at Catholic University in Washingyon DC, but flunked out due to neglecting english. history. calculus.etc. in favor of architectural design, which I aced. I was sucked into the biggest draft of the war, it was in January 1966, it was 125000 I think). Well I wasn’t too eager to get dead so early in life, so I volunteered for three years to get construction surveying and Germany. I got artillery surveying and Germany and THEN Viet Nam, but that’s another story. Then it was off to New Cumberland PA to get inspected.detected, rejected (thanks Arlo!!!). Remember *bend over and spread 'em" and “cough”? There I learned that not all men are created equal!!!
After that they packed us into a bus for Harrisburg’s Pennsylvania station for the trip south to Fort jackson SC. We rode behind Pennsy E’s through York {street running) and Baltimore and into Washington DC, my college town. There was to be a three hour layover there before being attached to a southbound train, so I led my group over to the “Mail and Rail”, a beer joint on North Capitol s Street. It was there that I learned the first lesson of soldiering… SKATE. When we were boardimg our Silver Something , with a few choice friends (funny how you make them in times of short necessity in the service), i watched everyone else board and then went to a roomette while the masses got fold-down in the aisles.From previous experience, i knew what to do next… With shade drawn I undressed and with light off and shade up, I mooned the platform when we pulled out!!!
Next… palmetto’s and the trip south
yer skate buddy, rixflix
over and out
Next… the trip south.
Rick-Spent the better part of two years on the Beach at Ft Story. In a month TDY at Eustis, never saw any action at the rail bat. It was '65.
Best train ride was on the point of the Panama Limited between Champaign and Chicago. Leaving about 45 minutes late, we hit up to 97 MPH for a stretch. (About 18 over the limit). I was working for the IC on the Suburban Line, but it was still not authorized. The Fireman was a friend. The Engineer was an old head that didn’t mind but had me duck out of sight when southbound Uof Illinois football specials went past. He didn’t want any questions from bosses that might have been on the specials. That was back so far that if that engine crew is still around they’re way to old to give a rat’s… Ooops, sorry, you said while in service. OK, I was in TRAIN service.
In another service, my ride to Nam was three weeks on the sunny Pacific, courtesy of the US Navy and the SS Breckinridge. One reason I never complain about a late train.
In '63 the normal spot for basic for Wisconsin guys was Leonard Wood, MO. That would be a bus from Milwaukee and IC-St Louis -Frisco on a through Pullman.So Leonard Wood is full and they decide to send us to Ft Jackson on regular commercial air service. If the hop from Milwaukee to O’Hare (my first airplane ride ever) had been something beside a DC3, I would have never forgiven the Army. Jackson was also full, so they rode us down the road to Ft Gordon. There I learned that December and January in Georgia is a lot better than same in Missouri.
While at Ft. Monmouth in summer of 1951, I had to go to Princeton U. Little Silver Station was at the back gate of Fort Monmouth, and I expected a doodlebug (former PRR gas electric converterd to diesel electric) to get me to Princeton Jc. after coming off guard duty a 6AM. What showed up was an E-6 Altantic, P-54 coach (shorty, no diaphragms) and matching combine. Then the Princeton Junction and back 2-car MP-54 mu to Princeton, and a buddy Fulton Clarke Douglass picked me up in the afternoon for a visit to New York by auto, although I’d planned to go by train. Doug Riddell wrote up my experiences at Fort Bragg 1954-1956, mostly Florida trains to and from New York, with dinner in the diner with my favorite Maitre-d’ John Masters (ACL), with Fayetteville the depot for Fort Bragg. Used the Seabord when I wanted a get away at 1AM, leave time starting at midnight, from Southern Pines, since I could board one of the Silver trains at that time. Then there was the case of the parachute droppable loudspeaker under test landing on the SCL main line, and I hope someday TRAINS prints the story. Dave Klepper
My first ride on an airplane was to Basic Training too. And the Air Force considered sending me to Ft. Lost In The Woods for some additional training for my AFSC but I ended up @ Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, TX instead.
I wonder if I was on the same train as rixflix out of Washington DC. I started off in 1966 in a roomette out of Pittsburgh on the B&O to DC. This was my first ride over the line I would eventually work on. After the layover in DC we left on the RF&P riding extra coaches on the back of a regular SAL train. At the first stop some of the Army people mooned the station as we pulled out. At the next stop several MPs boarded the train. I’m not sure how they identified the guilty bodies. At a later stop I got to walk to the head end and found some of the SAL light green slant nose E units. After a few days at Fort Jackson I got a bus ride to Fort Gordan. I remember taking picture of the Georgia RR steamer on display in Augusta. I spent three years in the Army and rode trains whenever I could, for a total of about 30,000 miles in the US and Australia. Probably the most unusual was riding in a circle around Ft. Eustis on the military training railroad. Driving an armored personel carrier down the tracks in Vietnam was different too.
Back to Washington DC for a moment. I guess it was probably not a good idea to have an 18 for beer and wine policy in a town with 6 universities back in '65… I know it contributed to my (one semester and out) academic demise.
Well back to the Silver Whatever. I slept through Richmond, Petersbug etc. and awoke a few times as we tore over trestles over tidal inlets. Black land and silver water under a large moon. And the loopy palmetto’s and long straightaways started to appear.This was all exotic to your faithful Pennsylvanian
What amused the Pennsylvania bumpkin 'cruits however, was the porter bell. “Watch what happens!”, they would say as they pressed the porter button. A black person showed up twice in my cubicle before the porters decided to ignore us. There was a crew or engine change in Hamlet or Hamden? The stations had a green and white motif. Was it ACL or SAL? Anyway we were besieged by the local beer vendors who transacted business over the dutch doors, saying “Get your ice cold beer 52cents a can”. That phrase could still be heard two weeks into basic training.
From Columbia SC we hooked left to Fort jackson and (it was only June) 90 degree heat. Heat was wanted in the barracks however, for shower water, and it was soon discovered that I was the only fireman in the immediate area. We had anthracite heat back home and they had concrete anthracite bins here for every company area. Apparently a lot of these guys didn"t believe rocks could burnI Wound up firing 4 barrack buildings and the NCO quarters and got to skip some of the more onerous training sessions Once at the NCO barracks an old sergeant was watching me start 'er up and said “Nah, kid here"s how you start a fire”. He went to an adjacent gas pump and returned with a #10 butt can of gas. Just as I had backed WAY up, he tossed the gas in the general direction of the coal. Knocked him on his *** and all his hair was now white ash and shorter. It was rumored that those wood buidings (they were more paint than wood) could bur
Rixflix,one of Jean Shepards books has a story about a troop train he traveled on back in WWII.Very funny story but I can’t remember the title. Joe G.
Joseph2:, it was “The Marathon Run of Lonesome Ernie, the Arkansas Traveler”, from
the “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” anthology.
Let’s see::
IN GOD WE TRUST all others pay cash
WANDA HICKEY’S NIGHT OF GOLDEN MEMORIES and other disasters
A FISTFUL OF FIG NEWTONS
THE FERRARI IN THE BEDROOM
Anything else in print???
Sometimes I close my eyes, turn off the noise, and tune in to WOR radio circa 1959… Remember Long John Nebel, John Doremus et al.? Later it was Larry Glick on WBZ Boston.
Nobody does radio like that today
It required that you interact with the narrator and let him paint the pictures in your head, full of inflection and nuance. It was just grand, n’est pas?
Rixflix
Stationed in Gaeta, Italy (60 miles north of Naples) on the Sixth Fleet Flagship (USS Albany CG10). Rode trains from Formia station to Naples and back. Round trip ticket was something like 5,000 lire or roughly $4.00. Going through tunnels in the mountains, sometimes the cars would lose power to the lights, so you’re speeding along about 60 or so in almost total darkness. If you were lucky in 2nd class seating, you got a roomette (like you see in the movies), or, you might get to sit on church pews. If you got on an espresso, you usually made the trip to Piazza Garibaldi (downtown Naples) in about 45 minutes. If you were dumb enough to get on a locale, you would make the same trip in about 3 hours.
Actually, I thought the train service there was excellent. I met quite a few people on the trains, carried on conversations with them in my stumbling Italian and their rather excellent English. (Italian students must have a written understanding of English in order to graduate.) All in all, though, I had a great time there. Miss the food, miss the fun, and miss the carefree life I had then, even while in the Navy.
Rixflix is back and now in Europe, fall of 1966. but.no one there seemed to notice .Landed in Frankfurt (Rhein -Main) early in the morning. An army bus picked us up and paralleled a streetcar line for a while near the zoo. I was beginning to like this!!!It was cold and raining when we rode into a grim chunk of brown masonry called (if memory serves) the 21st Replacement Company.we were processed there and forwarded that night to the haupt bahnhof where we boarded the all stops Ulm local. High speed and short station stops behind STEAM!!! With whistle shrieking we hurtled pell-mell through the night. Our sergeant didn’t have to wake me when we alighted at Wertheim am Main. Peden Barracks was high up on a hill, had a small airfield, and turned out to be a former Stuka base with an underground (but sealed) takeoff strip.The Wertheim bahnhof had an enginehouse, a turntable and a small stud of large 2-6-2 or 2-8-2 tank engines. Very compact and fairly busy.
In July 1967 a friend and I went on r&r. destination Dubrovnik via Paris and Rome. Paris on Bastille Day was a thrill and so was the Metro. Especially the huge elevator that took us from deep below the Seine at Ile de la Cite’ up io Notre Dame cathedral. At Gare de Lyon we boarded a train for Marseilles. where my war-bride mother grew up. As we looked for an empty compartment, we went too far back in the train and wound up getting switched off at Lyon in the middle of the night. In the morning the scenery looked awfully like the Alpine foothills and sure enough the end of the line was Besancon. We then backtracked on an almost all glass auto-railer through terrific scenery and down through Veynes and a backdoor entrance to Aix and Marseilles.
It was night when we arrived at le Gare St. Charles and the son et lumiere’ fountain display in front of the station was dazzling. We quickly found a fleabag hotel on Rue d’Angeline where the ladies of the evening seemed to be doing a brisk business.The Melina Mercouri look was in fashion… Marseilles was so muc
…Having just debarked from 17 days crossing the Pacific on a MSTS boat in Seattle…and an 8hr processing turnaround at Ft. Lewis, Wa. [1954],…we were informed those going east of the Mississippi would fly and I was one going to Ft. Meade, Md. to be separated from the service…so typical of the Army, we were herded to a troop train…and that didn’t bother me as I was going to enjoy crossing the country via train so I made sure I pitched my duffle bag onto a lower bunk [one with windows], in the older Pullman car we were going to make the trip in…The ladies restroom was later filled with duffle bags which left one rest room on the car for about 28 men…During the middle of the night we all got the G I’s from food we were not used to and 28 men had only one rest room available…! In a short time the car ran out of water…!!! And one can use your imagination to figure out what kind of problems that caused. I won’t go into details but it should be obvious the situation was not a very nice one…But later the next day the situation did get remedied and after we got well…things did get better. From that point on I really enjoyed the 4 day journey across the country to Ft. Meade, Md for separation from the service and that I enjoyed even more after 16 mos. in the Pacific rim…
I made that ride once, only SIXTH Fleet was on the Belknap then, and she tried to kill me. And once up to Rome and the Alitalia shuttle over to the airport. I used to live down the Domitz from you in Lago Patria, albeit a few years later.