I'm reading an excellent history of WWII by Victor Davis Hanson, and he mentions a massive amount of US railroad equipment sent to Russia as part of the Lend Lease program. Over 1,900 locomotives and over 11,000 railcars. This was in about four years time. Very impressive.
Does this volume detail where these items were employed? I know some went to a route through the so-called "Middle East", modern day Iran, Iraq areas, into southern Russia.
Much of it went to the Trans-Iranian Railway. The German navy and air force was (together with Arctic weather) making it difficult to supply Russia through the Baltic Sea. So, they were running supplies up through the middle east. The government took all the early production Alco RSD-1 road switchers. Actually, they took possession each RS-1 and put them on three axle trucks. Some of those wound up on the Alaska Railroad.
Yes. Exactly what I understand of WWII history. Just wondering how many pieces were involved and what happened to them afterward?
There were no details in the book, it was more of an overview. From what I understand, other than a few cargo ships, very little was returned after Lend Lease. There was some debate, but consensus was that return was not expected.
I'm not sure how many ALCOs were requisitioned but I think it was in the dozens. Alaska wound up with several and the Soviet Railways got the rest. They reverse engineered them and built copies for years.
Some of those Alco wound up in Star City... or the reverse engineered/cloned ones did. (They even went as far as to make steel in imperial measurements to build the B29 clones). They still move the rockets today afaik.
I seem to remember reading that after the war there were a couple shipments of european equipment loaded with goods for the US. They were repayment(?) for lend lease. Gives a person reason to have a few pieces of european stuff spotted around. I don't know if there was ever any motive power involved or not.