VRE Can Sell Rail Equipment To Army

The Virginia Railway Express Operations Board has given commuter-rail officials the green light to sell rail cars and locomotives to the Army, which is looking for new ways to move military personnel between bases.

VRE Chief Executive Officer Dale Zehner received the board’s permission Friday to sell 10 rail cars and three locomotives to the Army for $250,000. The equipment would be used to move 800 to 1,100 soldiers between Fort Lee in Virginia and Fort A.P. Hill for training.

Military personnel currently are transported between facilities by bus. Army officials say they think passenger rail is safer, Fort Lee spokesman Keith Desbois said.

...

The selling price VRE has proposed is on the low side, Roeber said, because of the age of the equipment and the fact that VRE bought the railcars for $1 each from Chicago’s commuter-rail system. The rail cars were 40-plus years old when bought, and it would cost VRE several hundred thousand to dispose of the cars.

Washington Post
August 24, 2010
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I once had to take the overnight US Army Duty Train to Berlin to be at the Teufelsberg site during a Warsaw Pact exercise (Waffenbrüderschafft) in East Germany.  The link below has the whole history of the train. 

There were a couple of other times I took a civilian train with tickets supplied by the Army.  The first, of course, when first going from Frankfurt to Nürnberg (for Herzo Base) and while a Herzo I accompanied a driver to Augsburg to deliver a deuce and a half.  We took a train back and the E-5 Sgt. I was with and who supposedly knew his way around decided it would be nice if we just sat in First Class but it wasn’t long before the conductor helped us find the correct car. 

As recruits we took trains from New London, CT, the short distance to New Haven, for pre-enlistment testing and induction but that was on a regular train. 

http://www.berlin-brigade.de/us-ins/us-ein8.html

Thanks, Bill, for your great reply.  My first troop train ride was from Bremerhaven to Frankfurt am Main the winter of 1960-61.  I had been shipped hold class on a MSTS ship from New Jersey to Bremerhaven, a trip that could be describer as a hell hole.  The trip to Frankfurt was over night and was in a train heated by coal stoves that we huddled around to keep warm.  In Frankfurt we waited a few days for further assignment and then when it was finally decided that I would be shipped to Berlin, I was placed on the duty train to Berlin.  The pictures of Lichterfelde West brink back many memories.  The reception by the unit at Berlin Lichterfelde was typical for the ASA.  All of us being assigned to units in Berlin were met by their new units except me.  I waited in vain for some one.  Finally, I went into the station and asked how to get in touch with my unit. They looked at my orders and the ASA, not willing to admit that there was an ASA unit in Berlin, had used my TOE unit designation on the orders.  Naturally enough, no one was able to figure that out so I was told to go out side in the January cold and wait.  Which I did.  Finally a German Taxi driver asked what I was waiting for.  I told him I had not idea where I was going.  He asked to see my orders.  He said um hm. get in the cab an drove me to the kaserne and to unmarked door and told me that is where I wanted to go.  Paid the driver and went in to begin my Berlin adventure.  While in Berlin, I took the duty train many times, as it was the only way ASA could get in and out of Berlin.  When I made E5 we had courier duty to the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt on a regular basis.