Railway campaign

[unkated]

Sitting available in Warsaw (unless the Polish government pulled it out of the museum and put it back in the field somewhere in 1996/7)...

Panzertriebwagen 16 (PzTrW 16)

Uncle Ted

[LT. Ox]

this week. fifty plus locos stored here in Grand Junction Colorado.
Hump yard in operation and a check on goggle for "rail trucks" will show just a small percentage of vehicles that are both road and rail cap.
laugh also a lot of the rail stuff is adaptable to military equipment. Not that it would be used but it could be used.
Seems like a fun idea to work up for any of the time lines.
say you are a small group and in need of employment? perhaps someone wants a line cleared between a and b.
guard the workers etc.
I am a railnut and modler so I like the idea a lot.
Had a lot of fun doing the goggle earth of my Grandfathers section of track From Arkansas to Ruston La. It is shut down now but still owned and somewhat intact.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by unkated

Sitting available in Warsaw (unless the Polish government pulled it out of the museum and put it back in the field somewhere in 1996/7)Ted

Here what the train looks like IRL couldn't see how much track is around the site, which of course would love limited its movement

[Legbreaker]

For some reason this made me think of this thread.
https://media.giphy.com/media/xTka04...ivDO/giphy.gif

[unkated]

Originally Posted by rcaf_777

Here what the train looks like IRL couldn't see how much track is around the site, which of course would love limited its movement

Hmmm. Looking at the Warsaw railway Museum, it's some 800 m east of Warszawa Zachodnia (Warsaw West) station, which is described as one of the major rail stations in Warsaw. Tracks for the commuter rail run alongside the museum (heading east), as well as a number of spur tracks leading to it (the museum dates to 1931).

Update after looking at Synopsis of Ruins of Warsaw: It is also about as far west of the Palace of Culture and Sciences - Baron Czarny's HQ. If that building is intact enough, there is some hope for the train...

Warszawa Zachodnia station seems a fairly major junction, but 2400 m west of it is what looks like a large marshalling yard.

This should show the Museum; the blue box near the center of the screen (west of the museum) is Warszawa Zachodnia station (click on it). Reduce the scale and look further west to see the marshalling yard.

Now, I wish I was home and could dig out one of the Warsaw modules to see how this relates to those maps.

I would guess that ...

The marshalling yard would have been, either by a small nuke or by a conventional strike. Odds are good that there would have been a strike at the rail junction west of the station, too (unless the marshalling yard had been hit by a small nuke, which would have probably done for the junction.

Update after looking at Synopsis of Ruins of Warsaw: Warsaw was nuked and pretty hard according to canon. I'd need to look out the modules to see if they mention where the strikes were, but I'd say the marshalling yard is a good target.

Possibility 1: The armored train was put back in service shortly after hostilities in Poland started, and was not in Warsaw by the time airstrikes started. (Players could find it in a rail yard in some secondary city in Poland, abandoned without fuel; or it could be in active use, and stealing or hijacking it could be its own adventure).

Possibility 2: The armored train is ignored in the museum. The players could come across it in the aftermath of one of the Warsaw adventures. If the strike against the rails were conventional, it is possible that...

a. Locals fixed enough track to get one line through the tangle of rail at the junction and/or the marshalling yard (a fun problem could be handing them a map of the rail lines and figure out how to get where they need to go; just don't mark broken sections of track.....)

This could be done at the order of Baron Czarny, and not be a particular choice of the locals... "The faster you work, the faster you get out of the hot zone..."

b. The PCs get/force a crew of locals to make enough repairs to get the train out.

c. Despite the strikes, it is possible to find a rail path through to take the train out. It would take an amount of time surveying the tracks close to some of the (nuke) strikes...

of course, there is the issue of time and effort required to turn the train from museum piece back to working, armed Panzertriebwagen.

If you add stealing the train just as Baron Czarny gets it operational to Ruins of Warsaw...

But if you gt it running and out of the station, you can use Last Train to Clarksville played by tuba and trombone with bass drum and tympanies as a soundtrack...

But the train may glow a bit at night....

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

To my understanding the US rail system is in a pretty poor state already isn't it? The war would wreak absolute havoc upon it making it probably worse than the European network even though tanks, artillery, etc have caused untold damage to the lines, yard, etc.
How many lines are in North America (including Canada and Mexico) as well? Is there the same density as in Europe which allows for alternate route to be used without going hundreds, or even thousands of kilometres out of the way?
Even with the several years of warfare, I think the European network is more suitable for roleplaying. The US network would probably need a fairly large group of workers to repair sections (especially bridges, tunnels, and yards in and around nuked cities) instead of the train being able to find a way around. The resources required in the US (especially in rails, sleepers, and bridge materials) is likely to be far beyond the capability of PCs.

Don't forget, here in the U.S., we ripped up some of our railways for "rails to trails" that converted them into bike and hiker trails. When I was a teen in the late 1970's and early 1980's, one local track, the Montour railroad track was in use but 20 years later, it became a bike/hike path. My fahter worked at a coke plant and when he had to manage loading railroad cars with the coke, he often seen cars listing as much as 20 degrees to one side or the other and he questioned the safety on that but he had to load them anyways.

[Silent Hunter UK]

Originally Posted by Nowhere Man 1966

Don't forget, here in the U.S., we ripped up some of our railways for "rails to trails" that converted them into bike and hiker trails.

We did the same with some of our lines closed due to the Beeching Axe.

[Legbreaker]

So really it's just the main lines that are likely to have received upgrades prior to the war and the rest either ripped up of continued to be neglected?
I can't imagine too many privately owned lines receiving expensive upgrades without the companies being forced to do so either by government or economic necessity.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So really it's just the main lines that are likely to have received upgrades prior to the war and the rest either ripped up of continued to be neglected?
I can't imagine too many privately owned lines receiving expensive upgrades without the companies being forced to do so either by government or economic necessity.

No on the "neglect" part, the '90s saw the start of the revival of short lines. The major corporations sold off branches that were unprofitable to them, but small companies could make a go of them. Lines that were redundant, or went to no-longer-extant industries, were the ones that were closed permanently. Deregulation in the '80s allowed the Class I roads to have the cash to reinvest in their infrastructure, and business began expanding. Around 2010, the heads of the big roads were heard to say that they'd had the best two decades in their careers.

[Ancestor]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I wouldn't be so quick there. We only know of the larger warhead - the smaller ones (less than 0.5KT from memory) are no listed in the books except for a very few exceptions.
Just how big a blast would it take to nuke a train yard or distribution centre? I rather doubt it'd need or even justify 0.5kt and up.

I am so late to this party but I have to give my .02. With respect to Kansas City, the big rail yards are on the Kansas side in KCK. In fact, I can remember being a "Cold War Kid" riding with my family up to KCI on I-635 through the rail yards and thinking "I'll bet the Russians have at least 10 megatons targeted at this rail yard." I can tell you that the "oil refining and storage facilities" in KCK, as described in canon in Howling Wilderness (Kansas City, KS: Oil refining and storage facilities (.5 Mt)), may have been Ground Zero, but these facilities are either physically located in that rail yard or no more than 1/2 mile to the east.