PRR Troop Train Information requested

1/ Yes   2/ Materiel and personnel  3/ Yes or no, dependent on operational needs. 4/ Dependent on operational need and equipment availability.    

While these answers are correct, members of the Forum who specialize in PRR operations will be able to provide you with specifics at which time I'll delete this. John in Lansing, ILL

Greg 

I read a couple lengthy articles on the PRR during the war and am sure they did with what ever they had to do  plus more. The volumes of trains that ran through Enola for starters. Busiest yard during the war?

Another one I read about was how they assembled the Army divisions in Elmira, then regrouped them for shipping out for Europe. I believe the yard in Elmira was called "Division".  

Sorry I cant point you to the books on these articles but they are very good. Most likely the PRR motive power books.

Thanks guys - appreciate the info.

-Greg

Greg Houser posted:

I have a few questions regarding the PRR and troop trains during WWII and am hoping someone is able to answer or knows a good resource about the topic.

1) Did the PRR pull troop trains during WWII?

2) Did this include equipment (ie: tanks/guns) or only manpower?

3) Were troops and equipment moved together in a consist?

4) What type of locomotive pulled these troop trains?

My thanks in advance for your assistance.

-Greg

Greg

1. A most emphatic YES!

2. Troops are people, therefore passengers.  Troop trains are, by definition passenger trains. Equipment is freight.  A solid train of military equipment is, by definition a freight train.

3.  Not usually.  In most circumstances it was more efficient to move passengers and freight separately due to the location of railroad passenger and freight facilities, locomotive capabilities, differing track speeds, equipment utilization, etc, etc.

4.  On the PRR?  K4s, M1s, L1s, P5as, GG1s..........

It is hard to overstate the scope of the transportation challenges faced by the US government and America's railroads during WWII.  The US Army deployed more than 60 divisions to Europe and North Africa in just over 36 months.  Each division consisted of approximately 15,000 men.  Only heavy bomber crews flew across the Atlantic.  All Army Air Force ground crews and most airmen crossed the Atlantic by ship.  That means that well over a million us troops traveled to eastern ports to board ships to Europe.  And those troops traveled to the ports by train. 

The main US east coast ports were Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Norfolk.  Most US Army training facilities were in the south or west.  The PRR offered connections to western and southern railroads at Chicago, St. Louis and Washington D.C. with direct service to the ports of Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.

In peacetime New York was the busiest US port by tonnage of freight and numbers of passengers. It remained the busiest US port in wartime.  While every Canadian and US liner available supported the war effort the stars of Atlantic troop transports were the British liners Queen Mary and Queen Elisabeth.  Refitted for troop service they could transport all the personnel of a division in a single voyage.  As in peacetime, the big liners typically called on New York.

Yesterday I spoke with a veteran of the 80th infantry division.  On June 6th, 1944, he was in New York City on leave from Fort Dix when he and his buddies heard word on the Normandy Invasion.  Soon they were headed to Britain on the Queen Mary.  In August he sailed to Normandy on a Canadian Pacific liner.  Keeping up the finest traditions of the CP the purser handed each man coming aboard a card with their berthing assignment.  His read "Your Stateroom is:  Cargo Hold B."

All the American and Canadian railroads handled tremendous levels of personnel and material headed from training centers, farms and factories to the ports.  The eastern railroads, the New York Central, Erie, B&O, C&O, B&M, B&A, New Haven, N&W, NKP, Lackawanna and especially the Pennsylvania connected troops and material with the ports that were most important to the most violent theaters in the Second World War.

The PRR was proud of its critical roll in the war effort.  Their advertising can tell us much about what the Pennsylvania was doing for Victory.

I came after WW II,but I do have a very good memory of tanks and other motorized equipment moving west on the Pennsy Mainline when I was a young boy during the Korean War.  These trains always drew our attention.  I remember them as being led by double headed steam.  

Norm

Ted and Norm: thank-you both for the information.  It's very much appreciated.

- Greg

This book is loaded with photos, some from the PRR. Highly recommended if you want to know more.

America's Fighting Railroads

In Don Balls book " the Pennsylvania Railroad from the 1940's-1950's shows a pair of Tuscan E8's pulling a passenger troop train to Camp Kilmer in Nj. (By Rutgers on the other side of the Raritan River)

if you're also looking for what the troops were transported IN, the PRR used coaches and some of the Pullman-built troop cars. there were also some converted X31 boxcars, which are rather rare to find photos of. I think 'billspennsyphotos' might have one or two on their website. they are distinguished by a row of porthole windows.

If you're looking for historical authenticity, one big thing would help you out:

Don't have military-marked cars.

The War Department had next to no passenger cars stateside for simply moving troops. They paid the railroads to do that. Also, while the military did have a few freight cars (mostly flats, tanks and a few boxcars), those very rarely ever took to the mainlines.

Also, if you're modeling loads of vehicles, it looks best to have several vehicles of the same type in a line, because no military unit travelled with one of everything. And yes, you can find photos of trop trains with their vehicles on flats coupled into the train but really it wasn't nearly as common as just passenger equipment or Troop Sleepers. If you're using vehicles on your flats, too, please remove all the crew-served weapons, such as machine guns. No military vehicles ever travelled with that stuff in place because they're easily removed (a .50 caliber machine gun, for example, can be removed form it's mount by pulling two long pins that are roughly the size and shape of a sharpie marker) and someone signed for those things.

Another idea for a troop train that nobody ever thinks of would certainly be original; how about Germans? How do you think all those POWs got to the camps in the US during WW2? Yep, they usually travelled by train. A large gaggle of Germans in their tan/faded green African campaign cotton twill fatigue uniforms* would be quite correct for the US during WW2. Just don't forget a few MP's standing by with Tommy guns or shotguns!

*The POWs in the Southern states usually kept their uniforms, but those in the Northern or Western tier apparently were given older US wool uniforms with giant "PW" letters on their backs and front pants legs in white stencil.