Railroad Conversion

[Sequoia]

Calling all grogs.

I know the Soviets used a bit wider rail guage than the rest of Europe. Does anyone have any data on the approximate rate of conversion in, say, KM/day the Germans and Soviets were able to perform?

Thanks

[Medex]

Here is an interesting read about the German Railway during WW2. It talks about conversion but I don't think it answers your question.

http://www.feldgrau.com/dreichsbahn.html

[Erwin]

Darn, I was hoping there was a way to convert CM into a railroad game!

[Joachim]

Calling all grogs.

I know the Soviets used a bit wider rail guage than the rest of Europe. Does anyone have any data on the approximate rate of conversion in, say, KM/day the Germans and Soviets were able to perform?

Thanks

Hmmm.... they might have just used different trains on them, re-loading where the rail gauge switched. That would save lots of time as for a larger railway system you need more trains, too. IMHO it would save lots of work to use captured, modified or new trains on the "Soviet" part.

[Cranky]

Several Strategic-level boardgames of The Great Patriotic War feature railroad conversion, most notably (for me, 'cause I played it for years) Panther Games' 'Trial Of Strength'.

It is actually an enormous problem to reload the freight, and is avoided whenever possible.

Containerisation changed many things: not just maritime transport : a brief reflection on the reality of what is involved in loading a 50+ car freight train will reveal why it made more sense to convert the rail lines.

Article discusses such efforts:

http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=9

Consider also (as Feldgrau article does) Armoured Trains and Railway Artillery - you are NOT going to rebuild 'Karl' and "Dora' on to new, different-gauge chassis....

[Michael Emrys]

There was another advantage to regauging rail lines, though probably not planned for. If you have to retreat, which the Germans were doing after 1942, the enemy then is forced to regauge them to his size. But the greatest advantage is, as was noted, once you regauge a line you don't have to go through the arduous process of unloading/reloading. You also don't have to operate two different sets of rail stock. Given the perennial shortage of the latter, that was an enormous advantage.

Michael

[sonar]

I read something interesting on this subject, apparently the rel problem wasn't the gauge of the rails, it was that Soviet engines were larger than German ones and therefore had a longer range, so things like water stations were at a greater distance apart than western european ones, the actual gauge change was a simple operation in itself. I'll have to dig out the book to refresh my memory but that was the jist of it.

[Bertram]

Regauging a plain railroad track is simple, regauging a switch, a crossing or other more complex stuff isn't.

Using wider track soviet stuff isnt a good solution either - they tended to take the engines with them when they retreated, and the ones they left behind were not in shape to be operated - not mentioning the need for seperate spare parts and other logistic nightmares.

Regarding conversion rate - in Russian Front it is one hex each turn .

[ArgusEye]

OKH expected a Russian standard rail line to be converted into international standard gauge at a pace of 20km per day, when served by a full railway batallion. This could be quicker if the track wasn't mined, sabotaged or within artillery range of the enemy.

On the other hand, some Russian rail lines turned out to have substandard ballasting, which meant that the track would either have to be completely replaced and built with new ballast, or would only support much lighter traffic.

Even then, building a serviceable line could be achieved at spectacular rates. Stavka was reportedly taken by complete surprise when the Germans drove a standard rail line up to Smolensk at 10 km/day.

This only held for the unfrozen months. Extension of the rail heads on frozen sleepers turned out to be almost impossible.

Compare these figures with the effort required to transfer the cargo of (on average for the Germans) 55 freight trains per day to other trains (55 trains x 450 ton per train )- without the use of forklifts! Then figure in the delay of the cargo, breakage, vulnerability to air attack of the transfer station, etc. No fun at all.

Switches, crossings etc. take more time, but you don't have so many of them. Plus, the Germans didn't like the Russian switches anyway and replaced them completely. Coaling stations also were no big effort to build in perspective with the rest of the effort.

Larger problems occurred with German locomotives seizing up due to dust or cold, with a whole new design (42 Ost) being needed for reliable service. Another big problem was that the German locomotives were hungry for high-grade coal, which was not locally available. The stopgap measure was to drench Ukrainian coal in fuel oil.

[Sequoia]

Great info, thanks!

[ArgusEye]

If you liked that, here's some more information:

On average, from '41 to '45, 55 supply trains would roll to the East each day. There would also be troop trains, PoW trains, evacuation/deportation trains, internal transport for redeployment, maintenance/coaling trains, armored train patrols, hospital trains, and regular commercial traffic! All of these trains would have to return as well, of course!

All this together could mount quickly, and in the winter of '42-'43 the average number of total trains leaving the Reich for the front was 265 per day.

A separate statistic: 84 partisan 'attacks' on the railways were recorded per day in '43, although a good number of these were placing mines or other stuff on the track. On some pieces of line, trains were not allowed to travel without escort. This would be an armored train, if it could be spared.