The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1918-10-11
.YANK SOLDIER WRITES
ABOUT FRENCH Trains
SMALL AFFAIRS AS COMPARED
WITH U. S. COACHES
Methods of Transportation Alto
gether Different Than In
This Country

Mrs. A. r. Sutton received the fol-
lowing letter from her brother, Frank
Christensen.
Saumur, France, September 6, 1918.
Dear Sister and All: Received your
letter of July and was sure glad to
hear from you Also received the
papers you sent O. K. Note in your
letter that the postoffice turned down
another bunch but can't see no rea-
son why they should as none OF. the
boys here have had to get a single
request to get theirs. If you try
again just wrap an envelope around
them and l don't think they will be
turned down. Certainly would like
to get them as l don't see any pap
ers from that part of the country
About all the papers we get that are
not over a month old are The Stars
and Stripes. New York Harold and
The Daily Mail, a London paper. We
are sure having some fine weather.
The days are warn and sunny, but not
too warm. We have had couple of
light frosts so you can imagine the
nights are cool enough. We have to
use all our blankets for covering now
SO expect they will issue us some
more this winter.
| Have been to Tours, Nantes and
Anglers but did not have time to do
any exploring. Noticed large cathed-
raj at Anglers that certainly would
like to go through l may have a
chance later on. Don't know whether
you have an idea just what the roll
ing stock of the roads in this country
look like so will try to explain. Their
passenger coaches. (carriages) have
entrance doors at the sides instead of
at the end like ours. Each carriage
ments holding about ten or twelve
persons. Each compartment is num-
bered first, second or third class.
Some of the cars have passage way
connecting the compartments but the
most have not You don't see many
of them with four wheeltrucks as the
most of them have just a pair of
wheels at each end of the car. That
also applies to their freight cars
which are very small with loaded
limit Of about thirty tons. Forty
hommeS or eight chevauX. suppose
you have read that phrase in some of
the boys letters or in some publica-
ton. That means forty men or eight
horses and about all the box cars are
equipped with that sign but forty men
sure crowd them up. None of the
cars are equipped with the automatic
coupler but have two springs bump
ers at each end and are coupled to-
gether by three chains one of them is
SO constructed that it can be screwed
up to take the slack up between the
cars. They are not equipped with air
brakes so are stopped by the brakes
on the engine and hand brakes. All
the duties of a brakeman are to set
breaks and do the necessary tagging.
| The rest of the work is done by
switchmen at the different towns.
Their motive power is very good.
Have been working in the kitchen
! for the past week have not had much
| time to myself, but we have it arrang-
ed now SO we will work every other
day. We are building new Y. M. C.
A., and expect to get a little amuse-
ment out of that when it is finished.
! Mary Ella Wilcox was here the other
/ day and gave us rice talk. Well as
I intend to write a couple more let
tiers this afternoon will close for this
time. With love to all, Frank.