Trains...how did they survive?

McRis · Aug 26, 2006

They've taken control of them by putting out of action the remaining guards as everybody was trying to escape the approaching soviet armies.

bosworth gannaway · Mar 6, 2007

Ome_Joop said:

How did trains survive WWII?

These Dutch passenger trains were built before (and during) the war but how did they survive it?

Being locos powered by electricity or diesel I would speculate that they survived due to limited use as a result of the difficulties of supplying their fuel. In the case of diesel oil it is well known just how great were the efforts of the Germans to retain stocks for themselves. Electric trains needed a working electricity grid to keep up the supply and, of course, power stations** supplying electricity to the grid were and remained so, high profile targets for the Allied air force throughout the war. But coal is an entirely different matter and supplies could be mined and distributed locally very much easier. These doubtless meant that coal fired locomotives were much more in use and therefore destroyed in greater numbers.
**Power stations were so much of a high priority target that even my father, who served in Royal Navy motor gun and torpedo boats, told me that his flotilla was frequently ordered to attack gasometers and power stations along the French, Dutch and Belgian coastlines............surely not the best way to employ small, fast and heavily armed motor boats ?
BG
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Trains...how did they survive?

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