How's this for a tall tale? I figure this goes right along with the hidden warehouse full of stored GG-1's, Big Foot and Elvis sightings. An "Area 51" of hidden steam locomotives in England?

http://www.willys-mb.co.uk/strategic-reserve.htm

Just in the past few months, I saw a posting that there was a similar site in, IMSM, Scotland. Those locos were offered to museums first and the balance were scrapped. But they were just on a wooded siding. I remember that that article said they had to lay tracks and install a switch to get them out onto the mainline between regular commuter runs.

Later!
Mr. Ed

I believe this was supposed to have been posted on April 1st? Oh, wait, are these blokes actually flippin' serious?

Seriously, this is nothing short of a massive fabrication or urban legend. Just like you really couldn't maintain such a stash of any locomotives in complete secrecy in the United States, you couldn't do so in the UK either.

More pointed analysis:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread217309/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread354428/pg1

http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/forum/ ... 95333/s-0/ (complete with photos of the inside of Box Tunnel on the second page)

http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/87923.aspx (from 2007)

Please remember that we're dealing with conspiracy theorists here, who by and large ignore "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

There are some current "conspiracy buffs" gossiping on the Internet about American railroads. The theory seems to be that the Federal FEMA agency is setting up "death camps" and is accumulating a large number of "prison cars" on the American rail system. The "prison cars" are described as multideck completely closed in with louvered sides and shackles welded to the floor to restrain the prisoners. Here's a link to a "conspiracy video" showing some of these cars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7zR7NEzopw
Other videos or Internet chatter can be found by entering "FEMA Death Trains" as a search term into Google.

A mainstream train enthusiast would recognize these cars as Automobile carriers, with louvered sides to protect the automobiles from vandalism and shackles to secure them during transport. I suppose this mentality perhaps says something about how little the general public actually knows or understands about railroads.

Dan Rohrback

I would say that this just shows how little the American public knows about ANYTHING! So easily led by propaganda, misinformation and downright lies.

Next thing you know they will think our "black" steam locomotives are really rolling death chambers.

I think we should gather up a bunch of people one day, put them inside an autorack and make a video of it to post on Youtube. I'll bet these conspiracy nuts would go off the deep end!!!

Regarding the British item: My reading tells me that even if the steamers were tucked away for a catastrophic day, they've been history for over 25 years. I noted the steps that the people in charge took to remove identifying marks from the chosen choo-choo's. If you think American "foamers" keep a close eye on the railroad scene, British "trainspotters" have them beat. I've heard that they even have books in which they can note observed engines or even electric multiple-unit cars, rather like "birders" with their "life lists". Trying to sneak anything past such a watchful group is "like trying to smuggle dawn past a rooster".
Regarding lack of knowledge of railroading among the general public: Over the years, I, like many other railfans, have been an unofficial representative of the railroad and rail transit industries, trying to provide enlightenment for friends and co-workers. We inform people such as a neighbor who drove trucks for a living. He wondered "how do you shift gears in a locomotive?" I explained that a diesel locomotive is like a streetcar that carries the power house on its back, and what sounds like shifting gears is probably the electric system going from series to parallel (this would be on older locomotives--the question was asked back in the mid-1970's). Although there are some of us who keep our hobbies quiet, there are plenty whose office cubicles have train or streetcar calendars, who keep a supply of Amtrak, commuter train and light rail timetables handy, and who encourage visits to the local railway museum.

You don't have to do that, just find some video of the Gettysburg when they were running that converted auto rack car as an open-air double-decker!

Seriously, I've seen video shot in an abandoned area of Amtrak's Beech Grove shops taken about 2006, showing an area that could very well be a staging point for some kind of mass people movement military operation - complete with the large orange balls on the power lines you have around a helicopter landing zone, areas that had coded numbers for staging and new secure enclosures with those high-gated turnstyles you see at some prisons and factories. It was being shown as a probable Bush internment camp for dissident Americans.

Actually, there have been a few gasoline-mechanical drive locomotives, passenger rail cars, and especially
Maintenance of Way vehicles with clutches to disengage the gears while you shift them with a lever.

This seems plausible enough...didn't Sweden have a reserve steam fleet?

Yes, as did the former Soviet Union and South Africa. Most of all three reserves have either been moved to museums, stuffed and mounted on plinthes, or scrapped; but I think there are still a few from the South African reserve waiting to be scrapped at Millsite; and some still scattered about the former Soviet Union.

The main problem with a steam reserve fleet is how would you maintain them when that emergency comes. While it is true the water tanks and coaling facilities are also long gone, they could be replaced in an emergency the same way we do on excursions -- with front end loaders and pumper trucks.

The "response" video has already been done, with much sarcasm:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRwjTm1 ... re=related

Of course, those of the conspiracy mindset will simply dismiss this as all government propaganda and "disinformation"............

I thought all this paranoia would disappear with the election of Obama.......... silly me.

Here is a thought to chew on: A airborne nuclear blast would destory all electrical systems including vehicles, diesel trains, power systems, etc. and its designed not to destory the buildings. In the military, key assets, Air Force One, key buildings, are shielded from this. So if this blast was to happen all the diesel electric engines within a specific area would be nothing but big boat anchors. But a steam engine would still go!!!!! Hmmmmmmmm.........................the military could still move equipment on rails from other key areas into the area with a steam locomotive! Just a thought!

Unfortunately, for those who "believe" that FEMA is going to use "auto racks" to transport people, no amount of information about what railroads actually do can satisfy them. These people don not live in "our world" and as such, even absence of evidence of a conspiracy is evidence of the conspiracy. Most of these reports come third, fourth and fifth hand from unrelable sources. Even people who point these out as auto racks are denounced as those who are too "dumb" to see their version of the "truth."

That being said, to bring this topic back to preservation, some railroad museums are using their extra track to make money storing cars in thse economic times. I'm sure the conspiracy theorists are seeing this as "proof" of the FEMA prisoner trains.

This discussion reminds me of Graham County Shay 1925 at the Sacramento 1999 Railfair. It had a banner on the rear tank reading something like: "This Engine is Y2K Ready".

Please do a quick calculation and figure out approximately what percentage of the North American diesel-electric locomotive is actively staged within the EMP radius of the top probable nuclear-blast targets at any given moment. Please remember that said list is (or at least was in the Soviet Union days), outside of Washington, DC, most heavily tilted towards remote missile silos and military bases, and not civilian targets such as downtown Chicago/L.A. etc.

Then take a drive from New York City to Los Angeles, preferably along such routes as US 30 in Nebraska (UP three-track main) and I-40/US 66 across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (Santa Fe transcon). Note how widely scattered the locomotives are at any given moment.

Extrapolate the number of locomotives, and the percentage of the North American fleet, likely to be wiped out by the first 50 or so nuclear missiles.

I await your report. >;-)