The WW2 titles Arsenal of Democracy and Aerodrome of Democracy have often been used to describe extraordinary wartime efforts.
Selecting railway content to go with this post, Roundhouse of Democracy seems like a fitting title to describe the quantity of railroading equipment and operating expertise exported by the USA during World War 2.
A whole book was written by General Electric after the war to document all the electrical wonders produced by GE and its employees during the war: Men and Volts At War; John Anderson Miller; 1947; McGraw-Hill.
In brief, Erie produced: gun mounts, 75mm howitzers, motors, portable power plants, remote control turrets, ship-propulsion turbines ... and 'transportation equipment' ...
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| from: Trains; August 1949; Kalmbach. |
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| from: United States Army Transportation Corps Locomotives; R Tourret; 1977; Tourret Publishing. |
Treforest is in southern Wales, not far from Cardiff, where these locomotives might have been unloaded from ships. This may look like a lot of motive power ...
However, last night, I was watching an SNCF documentary on YouTube which was made shortly after the war. It documented the efforts made by French railway workers to rebuild the country's railways - repairing tracks, yards, shop buildings and machine tools, bridges, locomotives and other rolling stock, water towers, coaling facilities - everything had been destroyed.
Only a small proportion of the SNCF's steam locomotives remained in usable condition at the end of the war. The Wehrmacht (as often happens during wartime in Europe) ran off with the best locomotives as they retreated ... and they disabled many of the remaining viable engines. A few engines had been destroyed in sabotage efforts by the French Resistance. However, the greatest proportion of engines lost by the SNCF were destroyed by the Allied bombing campaign.
Railways were the most effective way of quickly moving supplies, troops and armaments - so a great deal of Allied effort was spent destroying them. A key feature of rail transportation was that it didn't burn up Germany's limited refined petroleum supplies - with slave labour, plenty of coal was available for locomotives. However, refined petroleum was essential to propel military vehicles - particularly diesel for use in tanks.
Around the time of the D-Day Invasion, disrupting effective transportation would have been critically important ... so that the nascent Allied ground forces in Europe could build their strength and begin to recapture the continent ... without being overwhelmed by a rush of Wehrmacht assets to the Normandy area.
In the photo above, I was able to count perhaps 60 locomotives on that single track - so you might imagine twice as many of them massed at Treforest - to truly picture what the caption suggests.
These engines were one of the standard designs of the US Army - intended for worldwide service. There were 2120 of this single class built by Alco, Baldwin and Lima between 1942 and 1945.
... So you can imagine the total production of this particular class was perhaps 30 times what you see above.
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A brief, cryptic aside on 28 February 2025 which will make me feel better about everything that is happening in the news ...
One can be justifiably laudatory about the collective sacrifices and heroic efforts of FDR's USA during the time I am describing in this piece.
However, I was once cautioned by an astute museum visitor: 'You can't bring back the past.'
Ross Robinson, a highly-skilled volunteer (and very patient mentor) at the railway museum at Smiths Falls, got me interested in these engines. He said there was one of these units at his winter domicile at the San Diego Railroad Museum. It was designed to be convertible to other gauges ... to match the gauge of the foreign railroad system to which it would ultimately be assigned.
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| from: United States Army Transportation Corps Locomotives; R Tourret; 1977; Tourret Publishing. |
Here is a better overview of this power than I could provide ...
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| from: The Second Diesel Spotter's Guide; Jerry A Pinkepank; 1980; Kalmbach. |
If you have ever watched the locomotives switching the massive first-stage booster rockets at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan ... you'll notice that those TEM2 units have a very 'American character' to them. Indeed, they are descended from the Lend-Lease power.
... I remember reading that some Americans had had a close look at some of this family of units elsewhere in the USSR, and they had clearly been reverse-engineered from the units originally sent there. In fact, the original molded Alco part lettering could be seen on the engine block castings of these entirely Russian-built locomotives!
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| from: I Saw Palestine; Robert W Richardson; Trains; February 1949; Kalmbach. |
This article and this railway line have always intrigued me. I had never thought about the railways here before, but it was immediately obvious that the line would not have survived as it is depicted in the article.
The author, in the US Army at the time of his rides in 1945, arrived at Tel Aviv in a truck convoy from Iran. He rode a Palestine Railways mixed train from Tel Aviv to Lydda (today known as Lod) and return. Lydda was the location of the main shops. Later, he took a passenger train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and return.
A US serviceman was a rarity on the mixed train. Like all mixed trains everywhere, it ran late, returning at night. This train reversed, tender first and without a headlight, Lydda to Tel Aviv.
The US military offered truck trips so servicemen could visit Jerusalem on leave and most preferred this method of transport to the local trains. The European riders on the passenger train were primarily British military personnel, including sailors - as the area had been a British 'mandate' from shortly after the First World War.
The line was originally built from Jaffa to Jerusalem to carry tourists, opening in 1892. The Palestine Railways are really well documented on Wiki - if you are interested.
The author said he experienced these trips in a seemingly peaceful area while the rest of the world was at war. In 1949, he wrote:
'Today, I suppose, the mixed train runs later than it did before, if it runs at all, for Palestine is no longer peaceful.'
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| from: United States Army Transportation Corps Locomotives; R Tourret; 1977; Tourret Publishing. |
According to the interesting book from which the above image is taken, it was decided that American personnel would take over operation of the Trans-Iranian Railway in 1943 - as far north as Tehran. This system ran north from the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Shahpur, via Tehran, to another port on the Caspian Sea ... across which cargoes could be transported to the USSR.
Up to that point, American 2-8-2s had been powering the line. However, the extreme heat and scarcity of good water along the entire line impaired train operation by steam.
The 'Aid to Russia' materiel was being routed this way. This had required double-headed steam in the mountainous sections ... as there were many sections with 1.5% gradients. To add to the fun, there were 144 tunnels in this stretch of 165 miles. The accumulation of smoke in the tunnels was particularly hard on the crews operating the second steam locomotive in the consist.
The first non-MU diesel units arrived in March 1943. As the rail was 67-75 pounds per yard, the A-1-A trucks were desirable to distribute the units' weight. During the following month, MU-capable units were operated in pairs on the heavy northbound traffic as it traversed the mountainous sections of the line. Returning southbound, often five units would run together with some units deadheading within the locomotive consist. By May 1944, the MU units were operating through to Tehran.
