40 & 8 box cars.

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

I imagine that was one "excursion" trip that not even we hard-core railfans would have wanted to make!

Thanks for your story.  My father also served in WWII.  Thanks for your service!

Jeff Sanders
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 9:24 PM
  Subject: Re: 40 & 8 box cars.


  I made a journey coming home from the ETO in the WW II version of the 40&8. This was from Heidelberg Germany to Le Harve France in March 1946. Don't remember for sure how many was in each car but really crowded, if you were in the end of the car very tricky getting to the door in the dark to empty bladder, lots of groaning and bad language from prone bodies being steeped on. Talk about a ragged looking train this was in March and still chilly each car had a portable stove about the size of a metal beer keg with about four feet of stove pipe then an elbow and two feet out the door, They gave us a sack of some king of compressed peat and coal that was short on BTU's but big on smoke So picture this twenty car train rattling along at about 20 MPH with smoke poring out of these stove pipes. Miserable trip took four days and nights.    But   We Were Headed Home!!!
  R F Smith


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  ________________________________________
  NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
  To change your subscription go to
  http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20050922/2972b437/attachment.html