I was recently reading some Trains magazines from early 1943. Two issues contained references to the same sad story - the Southern Railway's historic collection of signals and other non-rolling stock items, which had been on display at their depot in Lexington, KY. This collection was considered so significant that the Smithsonian had once offered to purchase it from the SR.

WW2 came along and the whole thing went into the blast furnace to help the war effort. Was any of this documented before it was scrapped? I would love to see what they had!

tmanz@afo.net

While this is a shame I wonder abou the other side. There is probably some equipment that made it to today because it was not cut up due to having to be used due to WWII. I don't know of any specific examples but have not ever looked into that angle. It seems logical. Does anyone know of any examples?

Tom Gears

> I was recently reading some Trains magazines
> from early 1943. Two issues contained
> references to the same sad story - the
> Southern Railway's historic collection of
> signals and other non-rolling stock items,
> which had been on display at their depot in
> Lexington, KY. This collection was
> considered so significant that the
> Smithsonian had once offered to purchase it
> from the SR.

> WW2 came along and the whole thing went into
> the blast furnace to help the war effort.
> Was any of this documented before it was
> scrapped? I would love to see what they had!


tom@forgottendelaware.com

> While this is a shame I wonder abou the
> other side. There is probably some equipment
> that made it to today because it was not cut
> up due to having to be used due to WWII. I
> don't know of any specific examples but have
> not ever looked into that angle. It seems
> logical. Does anyone know of any examples?

> Tom Gears

I don't have any specific RR examples, but some locomotives, ships, aircraft, cars etc. continued working through WWII because wartime shortages of new equipment made replacement impossible.

It could be argued that the steam locomotive itself was retained due to the WWII; diesels were making inroads by then, and probably would have taken over sooner were it not for restrictions on wartime diesel production. Once they acquired new steam locomotives during the war, many railroads let them lead reasonably long lives before being scrapped.

There may then be specific examples that were then preserved because of their war record. I am fairly sure there are examples of this in the maritime field, I can't think of any in the railroad arena.

Most of what did hang on through the war was scrapped soon afterwards. The war itself produced the equipment that replaced it. The old "flying boats" are one example; I think some of the Pan Am flying boats made it into WWII, but the development of long range bombers and the additional airports built during the war rendered them obsolete. The "Spruce Goose" and the few other flying boats that followed were doomed from the start; ocean liners hung on for a little while longer.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steamships
james1@pernet.net

> I don't have any specific RR examples, but
> some locomotives, ships, aircraft, cars etc.
> continued working through WWII because
> wartime shortages of new equipment made
> replacement impossible.

One of the Trains magazines I mentioned, also had an article titled "They Were NOT Scrapped" about a wartime steam rebuilding program on the New Haven.

tmanz@afo.net

How about the San Francisco cable car system? Wasn't it on the verge of conversion when the war started?

> How about the San Francisco cable car
> system? Wasn't it on the verge of conversion
> when the war started?

According to "The White Front Cars of San Francisco" by Charles Smallwood, Market Street Railway would have liked to convert its surviving cable car lines to trolley coach but could not raise the money. Market Street Railway was bought by San Francisco Municipal Railway in 1944. California Cable also had no money for conversion.

A lot of trolley systems had plans to convert to bus operation that were prevented by WW II. A lot of trolleys were available for preservation after the war when most trolley museums started. (The Seashore Museum started before the war.)

You can probably make a valid argument that very few trolleys would have been preserved if the operating companies had been able to convert to buses when planned originally.


fkrock@pacbell.net

> I was recently reading some Trains magazines
> from early 1943. Two issues contained
> references to the same sad story - the
> Southern Railway's historic collection of
> signals and other non-rolling stock items,
> which had been on display at their depot in
> Lexington, KY.

Someone with Kentucky or Southern Railway roots must know something...

tmanz@afo.net

Also here in the Bay Area the Sacramento Northern and the SP Red Cars quit passenger service at the beginning of the war. They sure wished that they
had waited when gas rationing got going.

The Key System bought a group of SN comnines and ran them through to 1949. Then the Bay Area Electric Railroaders Association bought the 1005, the only survior of her class. She is being restored by Glen Gurrea at the Western Railway Museum today.


ted_miles@nps.gov

Speaking of the Bay Area, we also have those NY el cars that went West to haul shipyard workers.

At Electric City, our Hog Island car PST 26/ PRT 4024 was built in 1918 to haul shipyard workers in WWI, and was in dead storage in the 1930's. It was resurrected and sold to Red Arrow to haul WWII workers.

NB - it was badly damaged in an arson fire in Philadelphia but is on the list to be restored.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

> A lot of trolley systems had plans to
> convert to bus operation that were prevented
> by WW II. A lot of trolleys were available
> for preservation after the war when most
> trolley museums started. (The Seashore
> Museum started before the war.)

> You can probably make a valid argument that
> very few trolleys would have been preserved
> if the operating companies had been able to
> convert to buses when planned originally.

I am told that the Los Angeles Railway was planning to do major rail to bus conversions in 1942 or 43. But the war intervened, and at the end of it the company was sold to National City Lines which did the dirty work.

Also the Pacific Electric was deep into a conversion program and scraping of wooden cars when the war came along. Some of the wooden cars then lasted until about 1950.

Certainly, OERM would not a number of its LARy cars if the war had not intervened. But the preservation movement did not start early enough to save complete examples of PE wood and steel cars that the "blimps" from the Bay Area replaced.

Brian Norden

bnorden49@earthlink.net

San Diego bought cars to help carry its wartime loads from New York and from Salt Lake City. One of the New York cars (ex-Third Avenue) survives as a complete car (but suffering from age, etc.) at Western Railway Museum. The body of one of the ex-SLC cars is at the Orange Empire.

Brian Norden

bnorden49@earthlink.net