The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1919-08-01
LETTER FROM FRANCE.

and Mrs. ElwOOd Balderston oil
Colora, who has charge of the Trans
portation Department of the Amer
lean Friends Service Committee
with headquarters at Grange la
Comte, France, where they have fit
ted up "a large cheese factory as a
garage and repair shop, writes inter-
estingly to home folks of his work.
The numbers of demountable. houses
they are handling; the tons upon
tons of seed they are distributing,
indicate the work the Unit is doing
in putting up the villages and in
sowing the seed. This is told of in
the following letter, the concluding
installment of which will be publish
ed next week.
Grange la Comte, France.
5-31-1919.
Dear Mother:-
Mother, I hope thee does not
worry unduly about me and the high
explosives. There is just one rule
of safety and that is don't touch
them" ! believe in this rule anu
all other precautions, especially SC
since I am so far from home. 1t
seems strange that / am in France.
am SO accustomed to it that it
doesn't seem at all different from
our own country. Just like being
away at school or something. We
have such big job on hand that l
can't be homesick, but in 1t all there
is nothing so good as letter from
home.
Did I write of the new phase OF
our transport work. We are now
operating over thirty miles of Amer
lean r. r. track. For some time we
have tried to get the French to run
the cars from their tracks over these
military, roads to Varennes and
Grand-pre from Aubrevilie. Being
unable to arrange with the "1'Este'
r. r. and unable to get an American
locomotive we practically had given
up the idea of using the r. r. at all
until the Est" pushed over 60 cars
onto the Aubreville siding for us, al.
loaded with houses. Most of these
houses incidentally were made by
the French or Swiss, rather than
being our own make. OF course
when the cars were there something
mad to be done, so persuaded the
transport heads to let us try to put a
Liberty truck on the tracks. Since
nothing else could be done we took
the truck and bunch of men over
to Aubreville and started work. We
removed the inside half of the rub
Der from the rear wheels and added
an iron rod ring for a flange. This
we bolted in place. The outer half
OF the rubber was left in place SO
That the machine could be used on
land at any time. This was neces-
sary at the end of each run so as to
turn on grade crossing. The front
wheels we lacked up and placed on
q small four-wheeled hand car
They were simply chucked in place
At first we started to pull the train
but it ran up on the truck and Jerk.
cd 1t about a good DEAL When we
started and backed in for the frs,
load they told me that one or two
cars would be enough. But for fur
cut the train at eleven cars and
everybody expected to see one OF
TWO move when she walked right out
with the eleven. We had to stop fol
a switch on a bad curve and grade
and then We had trouble gettine
traction with an empty truck SO we
cut on half of them and made the
nrst trip pretty well. Crossings
made some trouble on account of the
rubber on the rear wheels. On the
way back from Varennes we soo1
put in guard rails which made the
rear wheels hit the tracks after
crossing these roads. We soon found
that it was better to push the cars
out without their being attached al
all. In this way the truck could &c
''4490'~A OesO PAdCCS anu Lu6u IuI
and catch up to the train. A,
Varennes they can shift them in witt
flying start onto any one of fiy,
sidings. Altho we did demount tn,
. trucks in one minute once we decid
ed 1t would be easier to use a turn
table If we could make one. One Of
the boys said he had scheme, so We
gave him half dozen of men ant
you should see our turn-table tn,
boys made in one day. At the enc
OF a blind switch they layed a circle
OF 40 G. m. track. In the center
they made a pinion and used two r
r. ties on top like wagon boulster
Then placing two long rails acros,
the circle on the center tie with /;
small truck at each end of the rail,
they had turn table made. Tn.
track was easily raised to the Ieye
SO that the truck can run on ant
turn. The outfit works so easil,
that two men can nucI, - o~o,.l