Bob Wright
Hawkeye
There is a railroad yard in Memphis called the Forrest Yards. This is near the old Fairgrounds in Memphis, and track runs east out of the yards into Mississippi, and that bed has been there since the Civil War. Think it was probably the cause for Southern and yankee forces meeting at Shiloh.
During WW II the Second Army HQ was located at the Fairgrounds, and truck convoys brought soldiers up from Camp Shely, Mississippi to Memphis. Here they processed through the facilities at the Fairgrounds and boarded troop trains for their final destinations, either to Europe or the Pacific. I remember coming home from church on Sunday and seeing soldiers waving from the train windows as we drove by.
Sometimes we'd see train loads of flat cars loaded with trucks, tanks, howitizers or what not. There'd be one or two passenger cars for the guards, and two guards were stationed on each flat car.
Sometime after the War Southern RR went to all Deisel locomotives. There was a big concrete coal hopper that could load coal into maybe four tenders at one time. Obsolete, the decision was made to dynamite it. My Dad found out when it was to be done, early on a Sunday morning. So he took me down to watch that. I was a little disappointed ~ I had thought they were really going to blow it up, into "smithereens". Instead they simply used small charges to cut the columns and let it topple over. Still fun for a kid to watch, though.
Bob Wright
During WW II the Second Army HQ was located at the Fairgrounds, and truck convoys brought soldiers up from Camp Shely, Mississippi to Memphis. Here they processed through the facilities at the Fairgrounds and boarded troop trains for their final destinations, either to Europe or the Pacific. I remember coming home from church on Sunday and seeing soldiers waving from the train windows as we drove by.
Sometimes we'd see train loads of flat cars loaded with trucks, tanks, howitizers or what not. There'd be one or two passenger cars for the guards, and two guards were stationed on each flat car.
Sometime after the War Southern RR went to all Deisel locomotives. There was a big concrete coal hopper that could load coal into maybe four tenders at one time. Obsolete, the decision was made to dynamite it. My Dad found out when it was to be done, early on a Sunday morning. So he took me down to watch that. I was a little disappointed ~ I had thought they were really going to blow it up, into "smithereens". Instead they simply used small charges to cut the columns and let it topple over. Still fun for a kid to watch, though.
Bob Wright
