 


The Leader in Contemporary Train DVDs


    how operations have changed in recent years.


“The Transcon in Northeast Missouri”


This program shows 24 hours of awesome action on the Transcon in northeast Missouri in April of 2012. And UP trains between Los Angeles and Chicago use this line 





-          between Chicago and Ogden, this for-             


Belle Plaine is 111 miles west of Clinton and 86 miles east 





This program shows 4 days and 1 night of action in November of 2011         and down the grades on both sides of       - vier and including the famed “loops”.           





          -          shows over 24 hours of awesome ac-  the Cumberland Plateau, just north of 


           





This program shows over 24 hours of action in November       pushers to assist heavy trains.


    - ville


and Birmingham is


This part


  


This program shows over 24 hours of trains in No-                - vide between the Cumberland and      Duff Mountain utilize manned push-





                   


 This video shows over 24 hours of action on both of


 in north-central Florida in October 2011. These lines are   Atlantic Coast Line ancestry respec-     


 


“The FEC North End in 2011”


shows how this dynamic and once controversial little railroad is faring in the great recession in the fall of 2011 on the north end of its system. As you will see, the FEC has fought back with fewer but longer


 Big “E” Productions


P.O. Box 75, Greenland, NH 03840 800-832-1228 or 603-430-3055, 24 hours a day.


Check out our webpage at www.trainvideos.com


Visa, MC, Amex, Disc. Card, check, or Money order. Add $5 per order for shipping and handling. All orders shipped  have menus and chapters.  the option of being watched with or without narration.


50 NOVEMBER 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


               counters rough terrain that neces-       bridges.


Five Minutes For Refreshments


AS LATE AS FALL 1939, two years before America’s entry into World War II, the na- tion’s military was on a peacetime footing. The U.S. Army, for example, was made up of only 200,000 enlisted soldiers. However, be- ginning in 1940 as war raged in Asia and Europe and a draft was initiated to begin building up the Army and the Navy, that number began to grow. Once the nation be- came directly involved in hostilities, after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, military ranks swelled dramatically. The U.S. Army alone grew to total approxi- mately 8.2 million personnel by March 1945. In all, more than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during the war (note: An equivalent military today would total 37.9 million personnel).


Among the many stresses this rapid mobi- lization created was the continuous need to transport large numbers of troops through- out a continent, to train and eventually de- ploy them to battle on two sides of the world. In this effort, America’s railroads are widely recognized for their heroic role. Pressing all manner of equipment into use, including equipment already consigned to scrap or sit- ting idle in storage, the railroads were even- tually said to initiate a troop train every six minutes, hauling upwards of 100,000 mili- tary personnel somewhere daily. That volume of passengers was beyond the capacity of the railroads and the mili- tary to feed. As a result, a nationwide grass- roots effort emerged,the railroad canteens. These


spontaneous, grass-roots efforts,


staffed by civilian volunteers working with, and occasionally without, the permission and cooperation of the railroads (or the gov- ernment), arose in towns large and small all over the nation. Eventually a total of 125 canteens were created nationally, with 45 of them known as platform canteens. The lat- ter operations were, as the name implies, set up on a station platform. Arriving soldiers would detrain briefly while the train was be- ing serviced, and pass, buffet-style, in front of a “crash wagon” loaded with sandwiches, fruit, snacks and beverages, then hurry back onto the train.


There were 12 platform canteens in Ohio alone, including at Alliance, Lima, Belle- fountaine, Galion, Bucyrus, Marion, Crest- line, Troy, Athens, Mansfield and Spring- field. One of them, in Dennison, still stands, designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. Midway be- tween Pittsburgh, Penn., and Columbus, Ohio, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, Denni- son was second only to Altoona as the Pennsy’s largest service facility. It was also a water stop for through trains, allowing five minutes to feed the troops on board. At first, volunteers would board stopped trains, but they were so in-demand that they had difficulty getting off the train before it departed. So, carts were positioned along the platform so troops could file past and pick up what they needed. When trains did not stop long enough to allow passengers to detrain, food was handed up through the windows.


The numbers in Dennison alone are im- pressive. The effort began in March 1942 and lasted until April 1946. In that period, the canteen served 1,319,439 members of the armed forces, putting it third behind North Platte, Neb., and New York’s Stage Door Canteen for the number of troops served. Volunteers totaled 3987, came from eight surrounding counties, and consisted of townspeople, school and church groups, and others. They worked 601,520 hours. The val- ue of supplies and cash donated to the effort totaled $201,683 (in Lima, a local madam re- portedly added a “tax” to each customer’s tab, collecting the men’s rationed sugar coupons so volunteers could bake cookies). In all, 6,324,966 “detailed services” were ren- dered in Dennison, which includes placing telephone calls and other non-food services. Why is the Dennison Railroad Depot Mu- seum considered the only surviving canteen depot to reflect its World War II heritage? Director Wendy Zucal explains: “We have restored the station to its appearance during World War II,” she says. “That includes black paint around the edges of our windows for wartime blackouts. There are pho- tographs and platform memorabilia on ex- hibit. And we have a World War II hospital car in our collection.” She adds that on at least two occasions, a romance developed be- tween a soldier passing through and a local girl that led to marriage.


The Dennison Railroad Depot Museum is located at 400 Center Street in Dennison, Ohio. Visit http://dennisondepot.org or call 877/278-8020 for more information. See a 27- minute documentary, “Saving a National Landmark: The Dennison Railroad Depot,” at www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_v60vSIljo. Meanwhile, author Scott D. Trostel has written a number of books devoted to World War II canteens, including Angels at the Sta- tion, which describes 25 community-based canteens, from Reno, Nev., to Connellsville, Penn., and other titles that describe specific canteen stops, including Next Stop — Denni- son! All are published by CamTech Publish- ing. Scott shared this recipe for “the famous Lima (Ohio) Canteen bologna salad sand- wich,” pared down for use at home: 1 lb. bologna, ground


4 hard boiled eggs, chopped or ground 1 good sized onion, chopped or ground 2 or 3 stalks of celery, chopped or sliced thin 1 or 2 carrots, chopped or sliced thin 4 Tbsp. sweet relish 1 Tbsp. mustard


6 heaping Tbsp. mayonnaise


Combine ingredients in a medium bowl and stir until well mixed. Serve between two slices of bread with a leaf of lettuce. Trostel notes that when the canteen had potato chips, some soldiers would top the sand- wich with a few of them for the added crunch. You can learn more about Trostel’s can- teen books, as well as find his original oil painting of the canteen at Crestline, Ohio, plus some of the letters soldiers wrote to canteen operators during the war, at www.canteenbooks.com/index.htm.


www.railfan.com/onthemenu


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70