Yes, when NWS Concord closed, the Army took over the waterfront and built some new huge container cranes and have dumped a lot more money into the railroad there. They wanted to use the old enginehouse on the land side, and after I explained the requirements for using the Navy trackage, they apparently decided to build a new engine house on the waterfront. We refer the the current Army facility as Port Chicago. Not sure what the Army calls it.

Barstow can be real hell depending on what time of year you go there. July and August is not fit for man or beast. April and May or Sept and Oct can be quite nice. I just walked their railroad this past December and it was unusually cold.

But if you're from the east or mid-west and aren't ready for the desert, it can be a real shock. Personally I'll take the dry heat of the desert over the muggy mid-west most anytime.

Rather than Port Chicago, the term I saw used by the Army for its portion of the former NWS Concord was Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO), similar to Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point (MOTSU) south of Wilmington, NC, and the now-closed Military Ocean Terminal Bayonne (MOTBY), NJ. In fact, at one point a decade or more ago, MOTCO was listed as a detachment of the unit operating MOTSU, although appears to have changed as Army operations at MOTCO were set up. It now appears that the 834th Transportation Battalion is in charge of Army operations at MOTCO. See:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... ransbn.htm

Remnants of the old city of Port Chicago were still visible a decade or so ago. There were streets, sidewalks, driveways, etc., and even walkways to houses, but no homes or any other buildings anymore.

I went inside the old enginehouse on the land side in 1999 and saw that it was indeed a nice shop to have. It's a rare military base that has a rail shop like that one. I haven't been there in a long time, but Google Earth photos show brush now growing on the tracks by the shop.

An Army Reserve friend served as an engineer on a trip to Barstow years ago when the entire 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) came out to the National Training Center for maneuvers. Typically he worked 16-hour days during each day he was there. (Hours of service rules on a federal installation? What are those?) He was shorthanded, having only one other person instead of the two requested, and that guy was not only a poor brakeman, but a raving lunatic who had no business being in the unit or on the rails. That only made things much worse, and the story he told when he returned would make anyone's jaw drop.

A question about S-160s with Walschaerts valve gear (posted here to keep the 611 poppet-valve thread on topic for poppet valves); all the photos and videos I've seen of them have the valve motion set up where forward gear is the upper half of the link block. This is the opposite of what you normally see, which is with forward gear being "down" in the link. What would be the reason for preferring this relatively untypical arrangement?

My concern, strictly as an amateur, would revolve around the stories of reversing gear drifting to the point where the the engine could go into full forward gear (this is with the "normal" set up). The British even had a term for it--"nose diving." I'm assuming forces and the weight of the gear were what would cause this. In the "reversed" set up, though, such a dropping of the block would put the engine into reverse--not good at speed!

Anyway, can someone share comments on this?

And how many WW2 Jeeps are operational today? Those things were built only to survive 90 days in combat!
I drove my 1944 Willys MB Jeep this afternoon, on it's original engine, almost 70 years after it was built and it's never been fully restored!

Those were actually M-151 Jeeps from the early 60s, but I get your point. The funny thing is those Jeeps are far more rare than the WW2 ones are today, almost all of them were scrapped.

OT; but I know Lee Bishop and perhaps others would enjoy this perservation piece:

Car Collector’s Corner: This WWII Willy’s Jeep Is a Documented D-Day Survivor

Found this short educational film (shot in the 1960's?) about locomotives and Army railroaders at Fort Eustis. Some shots of both steam and diesel. It's a short film with sound, just 2-1/2 minutes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf-aAzZHL8U

[edited to change link to a higher quality version of the same film.]

A few screen-shots:

Thanks for posting that. Yeah, it's the 60s, as the uniforms they're wearing were out of date by the time 'Nam got really going strong in the late 60s. I'd say that was between, say, 64 and 66...

FLO -

Middle photo shows what appears to be a 2-8-0 with a lowered headlight and front mounted bell. Any idea as to which locomotives it is?

Les

.................

If I recall correctly, there were only three 2-8-0s at Fort Eustis at that time. These would be the 610 (now at Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum), the poppet valved 611 (now near Frostburg, Md., and an object of considerable discussion in other threads), and the 612, which is the prominent one in the clips and that still.

As that other locomotive doesn't have poppet valves, that would suggest it was the 610, seen here in an earlier time. Both the headlight location and bell suggest it is this locomotive--and the cylinder block looks different, too, without the curve in the outer surface between the valve and the cylinder that was common to the WW II era S-160 as a concession to high British platforms.

Other details on closer inspection (at least as close as you can get with the grainy picture) that tell me this is the 610 include the pilot beam and step configuration, and what looks like a covered turret ahead of the cab that's not on the other locomotives.

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/usa610.jpg

That headlight location suggests what an S-160 would look like on the Reading!

On Walschaert gear, a look at the combination lever will tell you if the valves are inside or outside admission. The forward position of the block in the link is more indicative of whether forward is direct or indirect motion.

dave

Not to be overly pedantic here, but the 610 isn't technically a S-160. She was built after WWII by BLH and while "close" in many dimensions, isn't a S-160. I forgot what the Army classification for her was, but she was a one-off locomotive. I want to say she was the last steam locomotive build by BLH for a domestic customer. There's a photo of her in the "Diesel Builders" looking rather lonely in the BLH yard during testing. I think the wheels were coming off of BLH's diesel business by then as well.

I got to see steamer USA 607 on display @ Ft. Eustis last summer during the 2012 LCCA Convention. All their railroad equipment is shelter from the elements and is next to their transit history museum.

United States Army 607 (Museum Tour), 07-24-2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHeP5KmLFmY

Also found this video which shows the rest of the US Army Trans Corps collection.

Army Transportation Museum by jeffcon1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPaK-cOdXA

Enjoy! ^_^

At about 2 minutes in to the you-tube video above (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPaK-cOdXA) are some shots of MRS-1 #1811. EMD built 13 of these in the early 1950's. They were sort of a military version of an SD-7. PSRM in Campo, CA has two of these, 1809 and 1820.

About 10 or 12 years ago, a visitor to Campo asked me if our 1820 really was the 1820 that was at Ft. Eustis during the Korean war. I assured him that is was. He told me that he was an engineer for either GN or NP (I don't remember), and was drafted into the Army. They sent him to Eustis to train the Army's engineers. He spent many, many hours in the cab of that engine.

He asked if I could open up the cab for him, which I did. He got up there, and sat in the engineer's seat for about an hour, I assume, reminiscing.

Not too often that a museum has someone come by who was an engineer on one of their engines 50 years earlier.