Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1917-04-20
RAILROADS IN WAR
Those of Present Time Construct
ed for Peaceful Traffic.
PRIMITIVE METHODS IN USE
No Organization Ever Developed Bet
ter Plan of Efficient and Rapid
Movement by Rail Than Have
American Circuses.

Railroads geared to war are a ma
tional need. Those of the present
were constructed only for the ways Of
peaceful commerce, with no thought of
strategy. Should the call be made up
on our transportation facilities to hurl
force of hundreds of thousands Of
men from the center of the country to
the Pacific slope or to the Mexican
border to meet invaders from beyond
the seas the unmilitary nature of these
''bouevards of steel" would be at once
apparent writes John Walker Harring-
ton in New York Sun.
The very genius of railrOading is
American and great traffic problems
here and abroad have been solved by
American brains, and yet the methods
used in this country for the transpOr-
tatiOn of troops are primitive COM
pared with those which are employed
in the European war.
This is a railroad war;" says Cen
eral Won Hindenburg and he is right
The wonderful fluidity of the German
forces has been due to the foresight
displayed in solving the problems of
speedy transit for years in advance of
military operations. Troops are made
to vertically flow from the western to
the eastern fronts and back. Although
now after nearly three years of inces-
SAINT strain even the TeutOnic rail-
roads are lapsing into chaos, the fact
remains that they have astonished the
world by their precise and deadly eff
ticiency of operation.
There had appeared on the box
freight cars on the German lines for
years before the coming of August,
1914, that legend:
Thirty thousand pounds.
Twelve horses.
Twenty-eight men.
1t meant that the capacity Of the
car was known long in advance. In
the cars, driven securely into the walls,
were staples holding rings of steel,
from which hammocks or cots could
be suspended. The place of every car
in the event of hostilities was assigned,
and train crews had been duly in
structcd what to do.
When the Barnum & Bailey circus
was beginning the tour of the father
land years ago there appeared on
board it's trains at the border three of
flcers from the general staff of the
German army.
1--WE have come" they said to
brusque Bill Hyatt, master of trans
portation, ito study your methods"
Probably no organization ever de-
veloped a better plan of efficient and
rapid movement than have the Ameri-
can circuses which travel by rail.
There was no detail which escaped the
ferretlike eyes of the German military
observers. They made drawings of
appliances which impressed them,
watched the slowing and the unpack-
ing of the mass of special appliances
which the Greatest Show on Earth was
carrying and timed the operations with
the seriousness of men to whom no
detail was unimportant.
AS far as Germany is concerned the
prime object for which railroad is
built is warfare. In the United States
railroads connect populous centers I;
they are the arteries through which
commerce flows from factory to mar
ket; they are the channels between the
wheat fields and the granaries on the
Atlantic seaboard. According to the