Don DeNevi

A more detailed book than the previously reviewed Trains to Victory. Although America’s Fighting Railroads is subtitled “…Pictorial History”, it has quite a bit of text explaining various aspects of WWII railroading, including many graphs and tables. The basic theme is “more with less”; American railroads managed to move more freight and carry more passengers than they had in the immediate prewar years, despite having fewer cars, locomotives, and workers available; by 1943 the average railroad employee was working 51 hours a week. The war proved an economic boom to the railroads; despite lowering freight and passenger rates and increasing employee salaries, both gross and net profits increased.

The United States nationalized railways in WWI; this proved disastrous and the railroads were allowed to run themselves, with some direction from Washington, in WWII. The exceptions were the Alaska Railway and the White Pass and Yukon Railway, which were taken over by the United States Army when they proved unable to handle increased demand (all civilian employees were retained; the Army provided troops, rolling stock, and rebuilt the docks at Skagway).

In addition to military cargoes, railroads near the coasts had to handle traffic diverted from ships due to the threat of German and Japanese submarines. Some of the coastal railroads mounted special shields on locomotive headlights to reduce visibility to submarines.

One thing America’s Fighting Railroads and Trains to Victory have in common is very few pictures of actual military equipment, and what pictures there are usually show things from very early in the war – i.e., M3 Stuart and M3 Grant tanks, rather than Shermans. I expect this was due to military censors interdicting photography along railroad lines.

Since it’s supposed to be “pictorial”, there are enough pictures to satisfy the railroad enthusiast. Picture captions (although not the text) assume familiarity with railroad jargon, with pictured locomotives described (for example) as “yard goats” or “heavy drag hogs”. There’s no index or notes, but all the pictures have credits.… (mehr)