The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1941-07-17
! COMMENT ON WORLD
EVENTS
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES.

Detailed information on the effects
of bombing of railroads in Great
Britain shows that apparently such
bombing has not been as disastrous
as railroad and military men feared
it would be. The facts are of inter-
est to The million or more railroad
workers in the United States, who
some day may experience air attacks
similar to those on Britain.
Despite the falling of thousands of
bombs on British railroad tracks in
the last year, trains continue to run
right through air raids and damage
to the tracks is usually repaired
within three or four hours, say book
lets issued by the British railways
and just received in Washington by
the Association of American Rail-
roads. Rarely does damage to a rail-
road line or station require more than
II hours to repair sufficiently to have
trains running again.
When intensive air attacks began,
the British railroads restricted the
speed Of trains to Is miles an hour
during air raid "alerts." When ex-
perience showed that this was un-
necessary as safety precaution,
speeds were raised to 25 miles an
hour during daylight raids and Is
miles an hour during night raids. Fur
ther experience has resulted in rails
ing the speed limits to SO miles an
hour in daylight and 80 miles an hour
during blackout "alerts."
x X X
How the railroads deal with air
raids, however, is but one of the in
teresting aspects of wartime rail
roading in Britain described in the
booklets. The necessity of complete
blackouts of yards and terminals at
night has concentrated the business of
loading and unloading freight into the
daylight hours. To get the utmost
service ou5 of their wagons wagon
being British for freight car-this
work goes on through all daylight
hours, with "no Sunday off for rail
way wagons now"
Black-out terminals add greatly to
the difficulty Of switching operations
or "shuntiug" as the British call it
but much experimental work has
been done 10 screen from air view the
electrical signal lights, the glare from
locomotive ire boxes and the ground
glares used in the yards by fog
men," Systems of reduced lighting
bi,l, ha off OF G
notice by one master switch have
been installed in many yards, as wei
as inside the nearly 1000 passenger
stations in Britain.
Emergency wartime lighting which
| does not show outside the carriage
windows has been installed in $4,000
passenger vehicles, also. All trains
run dark" during air raid alerts, ex.
cept that in the dining cars the lights
continue to burn dimly, under the
control of trained employe at {
master switch.
Signal lights along the way con
tinue to burn, also, but they are eff
fectively hooded so that they are
practically invisible to enemy air
craft at the heights they normally
fly.
X X X
Wrecking trains, stocked witt
track materials, steel girders, timb
ers, signal wires and other supple
are held in readiness, with steam up
Special fre-andbomb cars developed
by the British railroads to fight in
cendiary fires and deal with uneX
ploded bombs are spotted at strategi,
points, also. Such cars carry port
able fire pumps, which can be skid
ded from the car and moved to th'
fire, shovels to bury incendiary bombs
with sand and earth, snuffers t.
smother incipient fires and tongs TO
handling unexploded bombs.
In spite of these and other Difficult
tiles of operation, not the least o
which is the impossibility of plan
ming major transportation movement
i'm advance, the railroads continue t.