Friday, March 13, 2020

Leopold to Aberdeen



Catching up on reading the Passenger train list today, the Troop Train discussion from last month stimulated me to look for some of the MAIN train advise messages that I had copied from the National Archives a few years ago.  I’m still looking for the folder where I filed the images, but in so doing I ran across this nugget for the freight car aficionado.
By Superx308 Jeffrey Jung email:superx308 at gmail.com - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4303820


The US Army exploited a lot of captured material during and after WWII.  Most of the armor and artillery were shipped to Aberdeen Proving Grounds In Maryland for testing.  One such piece of foreign gear was the German 280 mm railway gun, nicknamed Leopold.  The Germans abandoned the gun in Italy during their withdrawal northward from Anzio in 1944.  This gun was shipped from New York to Aberdeen via the Pennsylvania RR on 28 July 1945 in MTX 60567 from Greenville Yards, NJ to Aberdeen, MD. 

NARA RG 336 DeClassified



The train consist follows:
PRR 435341         F22         Flat & Gun, Steel Underframe
PRR 435390        F22         Flat & Gun, Steel Underframe
ATSF      91520    Ft-V       53’6 War Emergency Flat
PRR 363320         G30        Steel underframe, wood side drop end Gondola
PRr 275221          Gr           Steel underframe, wood side drop end Gondola
PRR 356135         Gra         Steel underframe, wood side drop end Gondola
Cabin Car

They evidently loaded Leopold onto the three flats and three gons to avoid compatibility issues with the German equipment.  

John Barry
Lovettsville, VA
2020/3/13

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