This month we are going to continue on our journey through train related games. This time we are going to talk about Game of Trains. This competitive card game by Brain Games was released in 2015. This family friendly card game is all about numbers and getting them in the right order. Game of Trains starts every player off with one locomotive card and seven train car cards. Each train car card has a number on it. At the beginning of the game the cards are put in order of largest to smallest starting at the locomotive. The object of the game is to rearrange, add to, and replace train cars until your car’s numbers are in order from smallest to largest staring at the locomotive. Players can draw cards from the draw deck, which allows the player to replace a card in his train with the card he drew, and then place that card in the center or he can use a card in the center abilities. These abilities can range from swapping cards in your own train, moving cards in your opponent’s train, locking your own train cards from being messed with, and making all players discard train car cards for new ones. The game ends when the first player gets all their train cars in the right order. This is a great game for kids, especially those who are learning their numbers. Game of Trains can be played with up to 4 players and takes around 20 minutes to play. It’s a great game to play at home or to take with you. It’s easy to learn and a great way to spend time with friends and family.
Game of Trains isn’t available to play digitally, but you can easily pick the game up on Amazon for $12.97 or from Brain Games for $12.95.
0 Comments
In parts of the world, the COVID-19 virus has revived the use of ambulance trains. But hospitals built & run by railroads remain a thing of the past. According to news reports:
In India, rail passenger cars are being repurposed into makeshift hospitals. Plans call for railway shops in the country’s ten railway zones to convert 10 cars a week. Regular passenger service remains suspended so the rail system can deliver emergency food & supplies across India. In France, high speed trains adapted as mobile hospitals are shuttling virus patients from hard hit regions to hospitals elsewhere with more capacity to ease the stress on resources. However, nothing special is being asked of American railroads. Amtrak has canceled its high speed Acela train and cut service elsewhere. Indeed, to stay afloat, Amtrak is to receive a federal stimulus bailout of $1 billion. US railroads are increasingly putting idled running stock in storage. Origins of Ambulance Trains Makeshift ambulance trains first appeared during the Civil War and were used by both sides. They were not needed again until WWI. Twenty years later, with WWII, the Army had to start from scratch. Ambulance trains next found use during the Korean war. By this war’s end, ambulance trains were made obsolete with wounded being evacuated by specially fitted helicopters & transport aircraft. Railroad Hospitals and Clinics In the late 19th & early 20th century many Class I railroads had their own hospitals, which were responsible for many advances in medical treatment. Railroad wrecks and work were hazardous, and medical facilities and care in scarce supply, especially in the western and southwestern reaches of the US where numerous railroad emergency clinics sprung up. The majority of major railroad hospitals appeared west of the Mississippi, with a handful in the east. At their peak, about 35 big railroad hospitals existed. Still standing ones, now repurposed for other use, include the Frisco & Missouri Pacific in St. Louis; the Southern Pacific in Houston and San Francisco; the Western Pacific in Portola, California and the Illinois Central in Chicago. Railroad hospitals developed trauma surgery and specialty care. They pioneered many methods of examination and treatment now common place in occupational and emergency medicine. Because of them, we have vision & hearing testing standards. And Johnson & Johnson came up with first aid kits that were first deployed on railroads. Chesapeake & Ohio Hospitals The C&O Railway had two major hospitals: Clifton Forge, Virginia (1897-1976) & Huntington, West Virginia (1900- 1971). They operated under the auspices of the C&O Employees Hospital Association (COEHA). C&O employees and retirees paid monthly dues and got free rail travel passes to their hospital. The system worked well for decades, but faced two problems by the 1960’s: the death of C&O passenger service and the increased availability of other health care—especially with the advent of Medicare in 1965. Today both hospitals have been repurposed. But the COEHA lives after 123 years. Today, it helps members navigate the Medicare system and oversees two Medicare supplement plans of its own. The Clifton Forge hospital merged in 1976 with a private hospital in near by Covington to become the Allegheny Regional Hospital System. The C&O hospital started out in 1897 with one doctor, five nurses, & 50 beds located in the Gladys Inn in Clifton Forge. Norfolk & Western Hospitals Sources claim N&W hospitals existed in Norfolk & Roanoke, but this story’s author found no information to flesh out these claims, which still may be true. However, he discovered a wealthy benefactor of the Roanoke Hospital who served as the superintendent of N&W’s Eastern Division from 1890- 1895. This was David Flickwir, a railroad construction engineer & contractor. After leaving N&W, he built the famous Tunkhannock Viaduct and other projects for the Delaware, Lackanna, & Western Railroad. In the 1920’s, he funded expansions of the Roanoke Hospital and its nursing residences. With everything around us changing it seems like a perfect time to try out new games that might not fit into what we would normally play. Over the Christmas holiday a friend of mine thought I should step out of my normal board game world and try something new. This new thing was a card game called Goat Lords. If you are feeling a little confused do not worry, I was at first too. Do not let the name foul you though. This is a great card game to play with family and friends. Goat Lords is a card game that can be played by 2-6 players and is great for children and adults. The silly illustrations on the cards make the game even more fun as each player compares the goats in their herds. There are several different goat cards, each with its own point value. There are also wild goat cards, as well as action cards that can be played which can help or hinder other players. Each player in the game is trying to match up goats in their hand or the trash and place them in their herd. If they do not have any to match but the player next them has a matching pair at that time in their herd, they can duel that player to gain their stack of goats. At the end, each player’s herd is tallied up to see who has the most points. Goat Lords is a quick card game that lasts about 30-45 minutes, but is a world of fun and laughter. I have played it many times with friends and we always end up laughing at the end and shaking fists at each other playfully because someone stole some else’s prize goat. Goat Lords is a physical card game and can be purchased at Walmart.com and Amazon.com for $19.99. It can be played online but it requires you have Tabletop Simulator, which we will be talking about in an article very soon, so keep an eye out for that!
This tale highlights the key role railroads played in the civil war based on records of the short 21 year life of the author’s distant relative, a volunteer in New York State’s 144th Infantry Regiment. It’s written at Phil Wirdzek’s request after the author recounted it to Phil upon reading his description in the July PCRC Newsletter of Lincoln’s 1900 mile rail trip to the White House. Luckily for the Union, it had a superior railroad network at the civil war’s onset and quickly learned to use it effectively after the debacle of the First Manassas--won by the Confederates after rushing in reinforcements from the Shenandoah Valley via the Manassas Gap Railroad. In the first years of the war, Washington, DC was quite vulnerable, with Lincoln calling for 75,000 volunteers in 1861 and 300,000 more a year later. Farm boy Addison Griffin heeded Lincoln’s call; he and 851 others from Delaware County in the Catskill Mountains formed the 144th NYS Volunteer Infantry Regiment and were mustered into federal service on September 27, 1962. Within 6 days after leaving home on October 8, 1862— thanks to railroad transportation, the 144th was in defensive positions in and around the nation’s capital. After April 1863, the 144th saw action in South Carolina and Florida. The unit suffered 218 deaths, including 174 from disease. 500 Miles or so by 4-4-0 steam: After starting a 39 mile march on October 8, 1862 from Camp Delaware to the Erie railhead at Hancock, NY, the 144th was transported westward by the Erie Railroad to Elmira, NY, a rail and military training center. Departing Elmira on October 11, the Northern Central Railroad of Pennsylvania brought the 144th to Baltimore and the B&O delivered the unit to Washington, DC on October 13. Later in 1863, the Northern Central brought Lincoln to Gettysburg, where he delivered his famous address.
In 1864, Elmira opened a notorious prison camp for Confederates, dubbed “Hellmira” and the “Andersonville of the North.” Before the war’s end in 1865, 2,944 prisoners died; the death rate was 25%. Most of the dead are buried in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery, where Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) also rests. His wife was an Elmira native and he wrote many of his stories there. At the war’s end, prison survivors reportedly were given rail passes and some money to go home. Family legend has Addison Griffin, a son of the author’s great-grandfather, dying in a train wreck on July 30, 1863. However, military records state it was due to “chronic diarrhea” or dysentery—the leading cause of death during the civil war. He is buried in one the first national cemeteries--created in 1861 near DC’s Rock Creek Park and whose modern name is the US Soldiers and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery. Unlike with today’s Covid-19 epidemic, railroads 100 years ago were unwitting culprits in spreading the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920 since they were the principal mode of transportation. The unhappy convergence of the US entry into WWI with the flu’s outbreak during war mobilization allowed this to happen. Military training camps were among the first to be infected, with draftees brought in by rail & troops sent out by train to embarkation ports to be shipped to France and arriving with the flu. The disease disrupted war mobilization, such as coal mining resulting in off and on shortages of coal for railway steam power, home heating, generation of electricity, and industry. Still, railroads, once put under US Government control, delivered heroic levels of service moving men & equipment for the war which forced them to adopt new methods of operations & to modernize rolling stock. TIME LINE 1917 April 1917: US declares war on April 6; officially entering WW! May 1917: Selective Service (draft) law enacted; of 4.8 million US servicemen in WWI, 2.8 million were draftees June 1917: First US troops arrive in France; they see first combat in October December 1917: US railroads nationalized under US Railroad Administration (USRA) 1918 Spring 1918: Flu starts sweeping US; first recorded case (March) in Kansas, spreads to Ft. Riley; then to other training camps with troops carrying the flu overseas March-June 1918: Flu’s first wave wanes by end of summer June 1918: Crash production begins of USRA designed locomotives & rail cars for the war effort August-early winter 1918: Second more deadly wave of flu strikes US & worldwide September-November 1918: Height of US combat in WWI November 1918: WWI ends November 11; US troops start return home by ship & rail, with the flu; 1919-1920 Spring 1919: Flu’s third wave underway, lasting into 1920—start of a decade of growing automobile travel competition for passenger trains March 1920: American railroads finally return to private control with end of USRA program. Flu Hits WWI Training Camps, Then Spreads by Rail: As US draftees & volunteers were mobilized and transported by rail, Army doctors in the Spring of 1918 began to see an influenza-like disease among soldiers. In January, a civilian doctor in Haskell County, Kansas reported strange respiratory activity there; by March, it spread to nearby Fort Riley, where within weeks 522 soldiers were in the Seattle: 39th Regiment headed to France wearing flu masks, 1918 TRACS & WHISTLES Page 5 camp infirmary. The flu spread from training camp to camp across the country and it came with troops being sent to France. In the US, 32 large camps each housed 25-50,000 troops. At the height of US overseas involvement the flu sickened 20 to 40% of all deployed Army & Navy personnel between September-November 1918. Flu Passes Through Army Ports of Embarkation to Sail Abroad: Ports of Embarkation were under Army command responsible for moving troops & equipment overseas. Railroads under USRA command brought men & material to POE’s. The two largest East Coast POE’s were New York followed by Virginia’s Hampton Roads. New Jersey’s Hoboken POE supplemented New York. Other East Coast POEs were Boston, Charleston, & New Orleans. San Francisco was the largest West Coast POE followed by Los Angles & Seattle. By the war’s end, Hampton Roads POE had undergone massive expansion, served by Virginia’s two major railroads, the Norfolk & Western and the Chesapeake & Ohio, both of which already had before the war huge coal piers and rail yards respectively at Norfolk and Newport News. Camp Stewart near Hampton Roads was the largest single embarkation camp of the war, with some 115,000 troops passing through. US Railroad Administration’s Role in WWI: In late December 1917, American railroads were nationalized & put under control of the US Railroad Administration (USRA) to impose coordination & efficiency to avoid “wasteful competition & duplication of effort” in mobilizing for war. All railroad stock was inventoried. Duplicate passenger train service was reduced by eliminating 250 trains from service that cleared the rails for vastly increased freight traffic for the war effort. Using new USRA standard designs, over 100,000 rail cars and 1,930 steam locomotives were produced to replace obsolete or rundown rolling stock that railroads were forced to replace. The USRA designed 12 new standard types of locomotives that were produced. The design team was drawn from the three leading rail manufacturers: Baldwin, Alco, and Lima. They designed 2-10- 2s, 2-8-2s, 4-8-2s & 4-6-2s, each in heavy & light configurations— plus 2-6-6-2 and 2-8-8-2 Mallets. Switchers came in 0-6-0 and 0-8- 0 wheel arrangements. The light “Mikado” 2-8-2 proved the most popular of USRA designs; 624 were built and allocated to 17 railroads. After the war ended, 641 more USRA Mikado’s were made. The very first USRA Mikado is preserved at the B&O museum in Baltimore. USRA designs represented high standards of construction that lasted until the end of steam. 40 Hommes et 8 Cheveux: Narrow Gauge Railroading for the Army: WWI forced the US Army to cope with unfamiliar narrow gauge railroads of France and the European war theater. Soon after arriving in France, American troops were put on small French cattle & box cars for the front lines; “40 hommes et 8 cheveux” was usually stenciled inside these cars, referring to their capacity to hold 40 soldiers or 8 horses. The small size of French rolling stock was an endless source of jokes. The US Army tried to prepare ahead for narrow gauge life at Virginia’s Camp A.A. Humphrey (today’s Ft. Belvoir) as well as at Camps Benning, Sill, Harrison, & Dix. Each one had a few miles of two foot wide narrow gauge “practice” railway on which to train combat engineers to lay track, build trestles, defuse booby traps and run steam locomotives to move troops & supplies. After the war, this rolling stock & track was scrapped or ended up aboard in mining & plantation operations. Canadian Rail Spread WWI Flu Too: Some examples include that of a Canadian National Railway troop train pulling into Calgary in October 1918, with the result that most of the Province of Alberta was soon infected with the flu. A more bizarre story involved Canadian rail transport from Vancouver to the Atlantic port of Halifax of 3,000 flu-infected Chinese laborers the British recruited for their “Chinese Labor Corps.” They were intended to free able bodied men on the British home front for military service. Then in 1918, with Russia out of WWI and in civil war after the Bolshevik’s overthrow the Tsar, Canada sent its 4,000-man, flu-infected “Siberian Expeditionary Force” by rail and ship to Murmansk & Arkhangelsk in Russia’s far east to bolster the ill-fated antiBolshevik forces there.
|
Details
PCRCThe Page County Railroad Club has a wealth of railroad information shared between it's members. In this blog we will do our best to share that knowledge. Archives
September 2020
Categories |