Photo By Scott Sturkol | Soldiers with the Army Reserve’s 411th Engineer Company load railcars with military...... read more read more
Subscribe
Members of the Fort McCoy Logistics Readiness Center (LRC) Transportation Division team and Soldiers with the 411th Engineer Company, an Army Reserve unit based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, worked together in early November to load 52 railcars with equipment for deployment at Fort McCoy.
The railcars were loaded with 128 pieces of equipment the 411th is deploying eventually to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, said Dean. R. Muller, unit movement coordinator/traffic management specialist with Fort McCoy LRC.
“This rail movement included five LRC staff members supporting the 411th,” Muller said. “The 411th Soldiers did complete the Multimedia Rail Safety Course prior to completing their work on loading the railcars. Our staff members served as safety support staff for the movement.”
The 411th is the latest of many units over the last decade to hold rail movements at Fort McCoy. As a matter of fact, for the many decades of Fort McCoy’s existence, the capability to transport cargo and equipment to and from the installation by rail has always been there. And it’s a capability that will continue, said LRC officials said.
During World War II, for example, the railroad at Fort McCoy was one of the main forms of transportation for bringing troops in for training and home after the war as well as for moving cargo and equipment in and out of the installation.
In July 2020, former Technician Fifth Grade Donald Whitaker visited Fort McCoy and recalled when he boarded a train and left then-Camp McCoy in 1945 after serving two years, six months, and seven days in the Army during World War II. Whitaker also recalled what it felt like arriving by train to get ready to leave the Army.
“I just remember coming in by train (to McCoy) knowing you were getting out, and we were all saying the sooner the better,” Whitaker said.
Additionally, World War II veteran and retired Lt. Col. Harry Baker said in September 2022 that he recalls the rail area of Camp McCoy being a busy place.
“It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was always a busy area,” Baker said, recalling his time at Camp McCoy in 1944. “There was a lot going on there with people and cargo.”
Those earlier days of rail on post did involve transporting people more than today, but rail remains as important as ever to support the Army’s transportation needs, said the Installation Transportation Officer Douglas “Terry” Altman with the LRC Transportation Division.
Fort McCoy remains very active in the rail operations. Earlier in 2022, the LRC Transportation Division and Soldiers with the 107th Support Maintenance Company SMC, a Wisconsin National Guard unit based in Sparta, teamed together July 20-21 to unload 24 railcars at Fort McCoy. The railcars were loaded with 83 pieces of equipment the 107th was bringing back from a training location away from Fort McCoy, Muller said.
“The unit took about one and a half days to unload the railcars,” Muller said.
Conducting rail operations on post has also been done under improved conditions thanks to improvements to the post’s rail infrastructure in recent years, Altman said.
Rail infrastructure improvements really took off starting in 2016 when eight on-post rail crossings were removed and replaced with new precast concrete panels and 136-pound rails, said Construction Inspection Branch Chief Dan Hanson with the Directorate of Public Works.
Then further work began to take place with support from the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant (MCAAP) of McAlester, Okla. This work included replacing old rail lines with industry-standard 136-pound rails that improved the installation’s rail capability, Hanson said. The weight designation refers to the weight of each 3-foot section, or 1 yard, of rail.
Then from 2017 to 2019, MCAAP and Fort McCoy personnel worked together as thousands of railroad ties were replaced, thousands of feet of track were replaced, and other related work was completed.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.”
| Date Taken: | 11.08.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 11.08.2022 16:07 |
| Story ID: | 432921 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 53 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Fort McCoy supports rail movement for Army Reserve’s 411th Engineer Company, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
