Chapter 9: Railload

As usual it was snowing, cold drafts blew through the buildings surrounding the rail yard, swirling around the vehicles and personnel there. The temperature was hanging in the low twenties, and threatening to go lower. Gloved hands fumbled with cables and chains, clumsy and awkward, trying to avoid any skin touching the frigid metal. To touch was to bond, getting free would mean leaving an offering of flesh to the cold gods, and cuts healed slowly in the cold and dirt of the field. No one wants to start a field problem with a pre existing disadvantage. Though to be truthful, just being a Scout was a disadvantage most times.

Shivering in our parkas, our hands and feet numb, ears burning as if on fire, we waited our turn to load, and it usually proved to be a long wait. It takes a lot of time to load out a battalion of armored vehicles, what with five line companies and the headquarters company which was larger than two line companies. It is a long process that cannot be safely hurried; driving a thirteen-ton vehicle onto and down a long line of railcars is a delicate process fraught with danger. The width of the rail cars exceeded the width of the vehicles by only scant inches, and each turn had to be made with surgical precision, or disaster would strike. Due to the weight of the vehicles, only one at a time could be moving on any given rail car at the time. Our rail loading facility left much to be desired anyway, we had to drive the full length of the train and slowly fill it up from the rear. Often there would be twenty cars in each train, and it would take almost a half hour to move one vehicle to the front of the train.

Once you reached your designated spot on the car, you would begin the long and aggravating process of tying it down. Chock blocks made from good solid German oak had to be spiked down to the deck, and then you rolled up on them and sat holding the brakes while your crew nailed down more of the same in the back. Then you rolled back into them and wedged your vehicle between them. At this point if you were lucky, you had chain binders, and could quickly cross them on the front and back and hook up to the car. Chains were both highly desired, and often stolen from company to company and battalion to battalion. Many a fistfight took place in the dark motor pools of the kaserne and in the field areas over chains. I almost believe there were more fights over chains than women, especially prior to a rail load.

If you were not among the fortunate few who possessed chains, you had to deal with large, stiff, and unwieldy cables and turnbuckles. These had to be unclamped and adjusted to fit every time you rail loaded, never in countless rail loads, did I see anyone using cables that didn't have to adjust them to fit. To make this even worse, the bolt ends of the clamps were always damaged by the banging and beating around, and would have to be filed down to allow you to remove the nuts. Swearing and cussing, you would get them loose; connect them to the rail car and your vehicle, and finally tightened. At which point you sought out your platoon sergeant and informed him you were ready for inspection. Nine times out of ten, this would result in you being assigned to assist another crew with their vehicle, but it wasn't really any worse than having to stand around waiting for your vehicle to be inspected, at least you kept moving and didn't freeze quite as fast.