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An elephan:l can be a locomo:live and

a :tiger some:limes s:lopped a :lrain.

R un n ing on T im e

I n a T im e l e s s L a n dby BOYD SINCLAIR

(Copyright 1950)

CREW JIE:~IBERS of "The GeneralPick" take time out for saud wlcheswhile waiting for northbound trainat Sahmaw, Burma.

AMERICANS swarmed up- and downrailways over India, Burma andChina, American military railway officersand enlisted men assisting the Armytraveler; they put jeepsinto service for locomo-tive power; and inNortheast India tackledthe big job of takingover and running mostof the Bengal and As-sam Railway.

The B&A runs upthrough Bengal fromCalcutta into Upper As-sam where Assam bor-ders on Burma. Acrossit runs the Brahmapu-tra River, which rough-ly parallels it most ofthe way. The railroadconsists of a broad-guage road north fromCalcutta 200 miles toSirajganj Ghat andSantahar and another40 miles to Parbatipur.Meter-guage lines runeast from Santahar andParbatipur to NorthernAssam; from East Ben-gal eastward from a Brahmaputra Riverferry connection with the Santaharbranch and northward from Chittagong toa junction with the main line at Lum-ding; barge lines on the Brahmaputra;combinations of rail and barge using var-

ious trans-shipment points along the river.The line runs to the north-east tip ofIndia, in the area of Chabua, Tinsukia,Dibrugarh and Ledo, towns destined for

fame in World War II,but before the war sim-ply sleepy little bazaarsamong the tea planta-tions in the jungle.These meter-guage lineswere the ones whichthe Army took over-trackage from Parbati-pur to Ledo, Dibrugarhand Siakhoa; Santaharto Kaunia; Golakgans

to Dhumri; and Bona-para to Tistamukh, atotal of 752 miles. TheArm~also operated tbeB&A -shops at Saidpur. "-

ININDIA the road wasgenerally thought ofas running from UpperAssam westward andsouthward because itsmain traffic was in thatdirection - the haulingof tea to market. Thewar threw this railroadinto reverse with the

movement of the goods of war to Chinaand Burma from Calcutta's port. The!lleter-guag.e liI?-eeast of Pa~batipur was

m the mam smgle track, fitted chieflywith rolling stock of the four-wheel typeand powered by an assortment of loco-

GI's AND INDIANS turning No. 68 by hand on the turntable. Ball bearings made the Job easier.

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XO. 859 PASSIXG through a jUllgle stretch Ilea.' l'allllu, Tllllia, enroute to Lell0. 'Vhlte C1U8are refrlgemtors, carrJ'lng" frozen Ileef.

heard of a tiger in the neighborhood theybooby-trapped it by tying a hand grenadeto the carcass of a goat.

But King Cobra and Shan the Tigerwere not always so easily defeated, asStaff Sgt. Edgar Laytha of Roundup foundout in a ride up the entire length of therails. He told of a GI stationmaster who

could not hold atiger. Instead atrain was heldup. It happened

at midnight. Be-cause of the ti-

~ gel', the traincould not go n-"'to a siding to letanother trainpass. The con-troller from bat-talion headquar-

ters telephoned to the jungle station,asked what the delay was. Sgt. G. A.Blake, from, New Hampshire, lamentedfrom the other end about a tiger that waseating a cow right on the rails. The mid-night repast of Shan lasted 32 minutes, asthe sergeant decided a pistol was notenough fire power with which to offerbattle, Traffic had to be suspended and

EXGI],\E SO. 419 of the Bell~al &; Assam railroadill Upper Assam.

motives made in Germany, England, Bel-gium, France and Czechoslovakia, TheIndian method of operation was friendlyand informal- though often protracted.There were schedules, of course, but theywere observed in the manner of a time-less land. Although a train might arriveat a station hours late, if the schedulecalled for a 15-minute stop, thefull stop was ob-s e r v e d, eventhough loadingand unloadingmight take onlytwo minutes. Op-erations frozewhile crises werereferred to high-er authority.American per-sonnel going up the road in the earlydays, before the Army took over, used togain priority and sudden departure bytreating stationmasters to cartons of cig-arettes. The classic story of Indian rail-road operation quotes a message sent bya stationmaster to his superior.

"Tiger on platform. What shall I do?"was his query. Later, when U.S. soldiers

GI REPAlHS shrallllel.ritidiell holler on alocomotlye alollg the Burma line.

THAXS}'KltltlSG refrl/(eratell meat fromrailroad car to GI truck.

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RAILROAD YARDS of the i~8th By. Bn. atllibrugarh, India. Indian railroaders w.ere em-ploJ'ed along with Gl's to help maintain roilingstock.

the war had to wait better than half anhour until the tiger had filled his belly.

EFFORTS were made to step up theefficiency and capacity of the rail-road, but in May 1943 supplies over theroad totaled only 15,000 long tons, andin June not enough was moved to fill

the cargo planes flying The Hump toChina. The Army wanted at least a 50per cent increase in tonnage. The Vicer-oy's Council in November 1943 approvedU.S. operation of the road's meter-gaugetrack. In the same month Col. Paul Yountof the Army-operated Iraq railroad head-ed a survey for U.S. operation. On Decem-ber 23 Maj. Gen. W.E.R. Covell of SOSgave orders establishing the MilitaryRailway Service. Headquarters were or-dered at Gauhati, Assam. Units assigned

to operate the 752 miles .of railroad wereHeadquarters, Military Railway Service;705th Headquarters, Railway Grand Di-vision; the 721st, 725th, 726th, 745th and748th Railway Operating Battalions, andthe 758th Railway Shop Battalion. Thisgrand division, consisting of about 4,600men, arrived January 21, 1944, at theGauhati headquarters, midway betweenParbatipur and Tinsukia, from whichU.S. operations were to be directed. Thetin-roofed buildings of a weaving schoolfurnished quarters and offices. One

cupola-topped, mansard-roofed buildinglooked like a transplanted Wisconsin dairy

barn. Tents were erectfd, bash as built..On February 26 orders ...were given b' "Covell that the Military Railway Servicewould assume operations one minu~e after

REXGAL & ASSA~r BR shuJJs near l'arbat!pur,uperated by the i~8th BJ'. Shup Bn. llurlng thewar. lIfost of the American railroad equipmentshipped to CRI were Dut In operating conllltion

IIt these sho!,s.

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midnight on March 1. Bythat time agreement hadbeen made for the Ameri-cans to operate 804 miles ofmain and branch lines. Thisadditional trackage consist-ed of the D&S Railway, andincluded B&A track fromKatihar eastward, includinga branch line to Dubri, Mar-iani to Neamati, and Furka-ting to Jorhat. Just aftermidnight on March 1, a U.

S. soldier took over the con-trols of an engine. It wasthe Army's railroad. Brig.Gen. Thomas B. Wilson, ag-gressive, heavy-set formerchairman of the board ofTWA, supervised the set-ting up of the Military Rail-way Service. Wilson putCol. J. A. Appleton, formerPennsylvania Railway exec-utive, in charge of the newservice. Officers had comefrom various American railsystems - Southern Pacific,Florida East Coast, SantaFe, New York Central, NewHaven. GI's were railroadmen in civilian life, to-

gether with Army-trainedmen of no previous experi-ence. Tonnage of militarysupplies jumped"with Amer-ican operation. Only thesweat-sopped effort ofAmerican officers and menaccount for the record. CBIgot a commendation fromGeneral George C. Marshallfor its railroading.

When the U. S. railroad-ers took over, they foundthe Indians unfamiliar withrailroad operation in thewestern world and equip-

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JIEN OF THE 124th Cavalry Regt. loadIng on the traIn atPandu, In,I1a, enroute from Ramgarh to Dinjan where the)"boarded 10th All' Force C.47 lllanes for )l).ltkylna.

"JEEP TItAIN" from JI)"ltk)"ina arrives at the ::Uogaung riverand Is being 1lI110allellb)' members of the .iSth EngIneerPetroleum J)lstrlbution Co. The men are shown whee1lng oneof theIr trailers down a mud,I)" hili to the river bank whereIt will be ferried to :Uogaung.

UN A JUNGLE section of the Bengal & Assam 'rallrOlul, anelephant Is used to shunt three ll0X cars onto a siding. Thebeast Is owned by a tea plantation and tloes the "switching"for its owners' cars. e1lmlnating the necessity ror the railroadto operate a locomotive at the siding.

EX-CBI ROUNDUP

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O:FFICERS of the 721st R)-. Bn. withan Indian "drh'er" (engineer), lookoyer the old B&A locomotive renamed"G)'psy Rose Lee" at the Saldpurshops.

ment in _a bad state of repair. Roll-ing stock was coupled at times withwire! Indians secured vehicles on flatcars at times with twine of a strengththat would make American binder twineappear strong as a log chain! Communi-cations, dispatching and phone circuitswere poor. Most of theline was single-trackedwith short sidings.There were bottlenecks,the Amingaon-Panduferry near Gauhati be-ing an example. Carsheaded one way could

not be spotted untilthose coming across theferry had gone on theirway. There were notenough ferries and tugsto move them. Indianlabor was replaced bysoldiers, then reem-ployed immediately toserve alongside the menand learn American op-erating techniques fromthem. The Army or-dered 10,000 War Department cars, doublecapacity of the Indian four-wheel"wagons," which eventually tripled roll-ing stock capacity. The B&A had 713

locomotives, 401 being meter-gauge, 154of them U. S. lend-lease engines. ByMarch 1945 there were 442 meter-gaugelocomotives, or which 262 were War De-partment types. Ancient equipment hadto be discarded and locomotives borrowedearlier had to be returned to other Indian

roads.

THE SIGNAL Corpsstrung a heavy dou-bled wire across B'?n-gal and Assam, whichenabled the railroadersto expedite the dispatch

and control of trains. Arailroader faced with apro blem in Gauha ti,needing facts from Tin-sukia or Ledo, or wish-ing to talk as far asCalcutta, simply pickedup a phone and wasconnected as readily asif calling the cornerstore back home. Thiswas something new onthe line.

The lack of sidings placed a limit onthe speed of two-way traffic. Short sid-ings limited the length of trains. In thefirst year of operation, 30 sidings east of

CHINESE IN],'AXTRY~[Jo;:Nbeing transported on a "llassellger" train from KUIlllling to Chllll)'I.:lIost Chinese troops were transported In this lIIanner, Occull)'lng almost eyery square Inch ofllYllllable space Oil II train.

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AT PANDU, India, lack of a railroad bridge makes necessary the ferrying of rail-road cars to the opposite bank where the cars are unloaded from narrow to standardgauge equipment.

WAR DEPARTMENT engine leaving the railroad yards at Tinsukia with loadedfreight cars for an advanced U.S. base.

THESE INDIANS are filling the tender of an engine by carrying small ba~kets ofcoal on their heads up a ramp. Only a disgusted crew member of the 748th Ry.Op. Bn. can tell you the length of time required for these "gold bricks" to loadhe tender. Photo taken at Tinsukia.

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THIS JlI~IATUnE engine pulls a train ofsmail cars into the Himalaya mountains onthe fiye-hour journe)" to the Army rest('amp at Darjeellng, India.

Al' JIA "'J,U, mile 606, wrecked railroad carsline the right of way. 'Vreckage was('a,,, d b)' U.S. Air Corps bombs .

controls on the other side when to starthammering. Indian wood workers wouldsit in typical cross-legged fashion onbenches, holding down the wood withtheir toes while cutting precision patternsfor castings. When the Americans gotthe railroad, B&A could only repair andoverhaul seven locomotives-their record.In the Americans' record month, 34 loco-motives were put through. Americanrailroaders brought refrigerator cars toIndia. They were unknown on India'srails before then.

Roundup correspondent Edgar Laythaaptly described the big marshalling yards

at Paro1ltipur. "The yar~s ""-are smoky and grey," hewrote. "They smell of oiland sweat, yet, believe itor not, many of the GI en-gineers prefer to work inkhaki. Through the smokeand haze the locomotiveschug, shining and glitter-ing. The boys can wearkhaki in them safelyenough, they are so cleanand polished. These boysat Parbatipur don't knowthe meaning of stop, lookand listen. When their

camp at Parbat burned tothe bottom and their be-

longings went up in the flames, the menwent out into the yards in shorts andsandals. Result: not a single delay."

LAYTHA. who traveled up the rails fromCalcutta to Ledo, said that despiteAmerican magic the trains still rode prettyslowly at times. Low priority trains hadto wait on sidings until the fast trainsrolled by. Laytha rode the engine of alow-priority train from the Brahmaputrato a jungle yard-and the 100-mile stretchtook 16 hours. The 65-car long train wasin charge of two GI's, assisted by twoIndian firemen. The engineer, Cpl. G. P.

C. E. BOOKER, a member ofthe i48th Rn., Doses beside fa-mlliar station sign, annonncingth station name In four lan-guages.

the Brahmaputra River crossing - theAmnigaon-Pandu ferry-were lengthened,and 37 more were in process, so thatinstead of taking an average of 50 cars,they could handle more than 100. Westof the river the work was completed-26 lengthened to 4,000 feet each to ac-commodate 158 cars on the four-wheel carbasis, Siding improvement work allowedreduction of block secticns from 10 tofour miles, speeding train movement.Meanwhile, 165 miles of double trackinghad been installed. Two ferry terminals

were added to the one original. Sevenbarges were increased to 12, one tug tothree. Tugs were kept on the moveinstead of being allowedto stand by a ferry bargeduring loa


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Moffett, 21, from North Car-olina, took orders from Pvt.Orville C. Vick, 23, of Con-necticut, thE' conductor. Vickwas responsible for the safe-ty of all the cars; had tosee that all the markprswere up, give the signal fordepartures, write delay re-ports, and seal the train.

The locomotive on thistypical trip chuggedthrough a world lush and green. Unex-plainably thin cattle grazed on rich pas-

tures. Water buffaloes swam in sleepy,stagnant ponds, looking gaunt and starved.The GI stationmasters at the lOIfely places,where the train had to wait ror the fastones, served hot coffee and spoke of theirsolitary lives. Some traded beer to thenatives for one egg-laying hen per bottle.They told Laytha stories of tigers and

JIULES OJ,' THE 124th Cal'alry Regt. helnlfloaded on car for transport to the front linesIn Burma.

JIEJIBEUS of the 748th cleaulug-out an enginethat has just com!,leted Its run at Tillsukla.

were in the middle of their second trip.The first took 30 days and 30,000 dough-nuts.

The train rolled into the GI terminalof Tinsukia, less than 50 miles from Ledo.Here Laytha found the most fascinatingbeast of the journey's collection: the freelance elephant that lives independentlyand usually undisturbed in the jungle,subject only to occasional calls for duty.The railroaders used them as livingswitch engines, for they were capable ofpushing five to eight cars onto a siding.Most people do not believe it until theyhave seen the performance. Laytha de-scribed how an Indian boy who workedfor the railroaders called his elephant bygiving the Moslem version of the Tarzanyell and shouting the elephant's name,

"Bilbo!"Laytha waited a few minutes, then the

foliage parted, and in ;ill his towering.immensity, Bilbo, one of the strongest 01" .. .the living switch engines, walked intothe yard. A sergeant told him to clearthe yard of a dozen empty cars, supportedhis words with motions. Bilbo did it,then stretched his trunk and walked backinto the thicket.

ALITTLE later Laytha met Virginia and

Maxine, the two-car Red Cross trainmo-bile and lived in by Virginia Keadle, Williams-burg, West Virginia, and Maxine Robertson,Portland, Oregon, Red Cross girls. The girls

C AME LEDO and the end of Laytha'srail travels, but with Ledo the activ-ities of the GI railroaders did not end.They worked in Burma and China. Oneof their units operated the railway be-tween Myitkyina and Mogaung. ThatMyitkyina-to-Mogaung railroad was along rough one, even though the stretchwas' only 31 miles. The GI's, Chinese,

wild, jungle-roaming, basha-piercing, na-tive-chasing elephants.

On a sunny siding Laytha ran intoThe Pilgrim, Chaplain Ervin H. Hartman'srolling church, office and home. The Pil.grim was switched on and off trains atplaces where it was most desired. At

intermediate stations services were heldin the car for as few as three men. Awhite cross on blue background waspainted on both sides of the former salon carand it was equipped with an altar, an Armyfield organ and a kitchen where CpI. ThomasG. House, the chaplain's assistant, cooked hisand the chaplain's meals. House, who studiedfor the ministry while he was a yard switch-man in Missouri, had an Army job that suitedhim.

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:UEDIUM 'l'AXK being loaded on flatcar.hound for Burma. The tank was un.loaded from the shl!, at the Calcuttadocks.

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New Reader I was just handed the _CBI CarioonistSept. issue by Dr. Ben Sen-. Jack Nolan did someturia. I enjoyed it very fine cartoon work on themuch and was extremely S. S. Brazil and later forglad to know that such an the original Roundup. Ifeffort is being made to re- you could print some of hiscall all acquaintances and work, I'm sure many wouldallow us to reminisce. My appreciate it.sincere congratulations. JOS. N. MACKRELL,

Col. KENNETH COFIELD, Pittsburgh, Pa.Chicago, Ill. Where is he?-ED.

To The Editor

Exciting Memories Your publicationhelps me keep excitingmemories alive, and alsogives me an opportunity asan amateur historian to fol-low the reactions of CBIveterans to the historicallyimportant happenings inAsia.

PAUL HOCHMAN,Washington, D.C.

Not Enough China Am of the same opinionof several subscribers thatyou have too much aboutIndia-Burma and not enoughof China. Served with the11th Bomb. Sq. under Capt.(Major) Mick and "Chuck"Willis. Later transferred tothe 27th T.C. Sq., Yangkai,Luichow, Kweilin, Chick-yang and all points north.

JOE M. DAUGHERTY.

Big Lake, Tex.

No Rosters I have every issue anddon't ever want to miss any,no matter how much itcosts. I notice in the Sept.issue that you didn't list the21st QM Group. Couldn'tyou get this roster fromWashington?

Dr. DAVID LAKIND.Newark, N.J. .

We've tried this, learnedthat so many people want

rosters that they can honor.none.-ED.

Paging Parker Please help me locate aformer S/Sgt. who workedin the carpenter shop atKunmin~ about May of1945. Hls name is HaroldParker.

KEN W. JOHNSON,Box 512,Ft. Walton, Fla.

war correspondents, anybody who wantedto ride, negotiated those 31 miles in trueCasey Jones fashion via the jeep-powered

Lightning Express. The narrow-gaugeline, captured bit by bit from the Japs,ran from Mogaung almost to the Myit-kyina airfield. On the front end of thetrain was a jeep with GI-built wheelswhich would hold the rails. On the rearend, facing backward, was another jeep.In between were three flat cars. On theflat cars might be men, mice, or militarysupplies. On the up trip to Myitkyina,the front-end jeep did the digging. Onthe down trip to Mogaung, the front-endlocomotive became the caboose. A GIgave a Roundup reporter a good reason."There ain't no place to turn the trainaround," he said.

The first run of this train, sometimescalled the Baling Wire Cannonball wasmadf' by Capt. James H. Kaminer of

Lexington, South Carolina, Engineer offi-cer, accompanied by two American GI's,a British brigadier and a major. Pvt.Wilbur E. Childers, who was the jeepdriver in the late summer of 1944, hadthis to say about his Army odd job:"Sort of a thrill. Used to drive a cab.These jeeps do everything but fly." Cpl.Johr R. Thomason, who had the title oftrainmaster served with a former neigh-bor and civilian buddy, Cpl. Angele Le-Greca, neither of whom expected to windup on a GI railroad in Burma. Later,when bomb craters were filled in. bridgesrepaired and the track and roadbed putin better condition, heavier equipment anddiesel locomotives were put on the line.

NOVEMBER, 1950

Jeeps may seem to be an odd enoughpowerhouse on rails, but the oddest loco-motive the Army used in China, Burmaor India was an engine that was anengine only by courtesy. It belonged tothe Quartermaster warehouse of the BaseGeneral Depot in Calc tta. It was madl'!in Germany, belonged~to a jute mill 'n "-Calcutta, and was loaned to the depot'sQuartermaster group, which used the fir3tfloor of the mill for storage space. Therewas no firebox on the four-wheeled job.The steam was pumped into the boilerfrom the powerhouse of the jute mill. Theengine ran on this steam until the gaugeshowed the pressure was getting so lowit might not get back for a refill. If thesteam did run out before the engine couldmake it back to the boiler, the inevitableand long-suffering Indian coolies wouldwould have to push it back to the sourceof supply. The little engine boasted anIndian switchman named Pepsodent bythe GI's because of his happy grin. Pep-sodent would think nothing of riding theengine, then jumping off and runningahead to throw the switch before it wasreached by the locomotive. The enginehad a top speed of 10 miles an hour.Nobody was ever run over because Pepso-dent was bellcord happy. The engine wasknown as Old 971. It also was known byother names when it happened to runout of steam quite a distance from homebase, especially by the Indian coolies whohad to push it back to the boiler for arefill.-THE END.

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