European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 22, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Hydraulic cylinders Are used to tilt tank car Back onto rails As technicians dressed for work with toxic chemicals stand by workers right demonstrate for v corps officers rapid repair of a Section of 111 i i in Tunt Foft removing excess Metal from still glowing welding repair Between two Crane right hoists prefabricated Section into position to illustrate How quickly damaged railway can be Back in operation railway official briefs v corps officers viewed through plastic map at underground Center that would direct Bun Desbah operations in by Chris Estes staff writer the balloon is Warsaw pact tanks Roll through the Fulda fighters and bombers scream through the winning is now a matter of advantages who has the Best Supply line who has the most readily Avail Able equipment whose troops Are in place one nato advantage the trains of West Germany Are still despite bombed despite blown despite Cut overhead despite derailed despite sabotaged Power How they will be kept running was demonstrated recently by the Deutsche when officials of the German Federal Railroad showed How track can quickly be repaired in a crisis they had models of emergency which can be put up in a matter of they replaced overhead Cable for electric they derailed train the demonstrations were for v corps commander Sam Wetzel and his afterwards the group went by bus to the Bunde Bahns protected command which becomes the Center of operations during we wanted to acquaint the the operations officers and the combat portion of v corps with the capabilities of the said Dennis de rail officer for v and particularly to show How Well organized it How Well prepared it to continue operations under Adverse throughout Usa eur in the past there has been some question on just How much dependence we should put on the Host nation rail he will it be there if we need it can it be easily knocked out Edwards said the Bun Desbah demonstration showed How the Power grids Are if Power goes out in one they just flip a switch and it gets Power from another the interesting thing in world War in spite of our Best efforts we never wiped out the Railroad com he the first part of the demonstration was an explanation of emergency rail which can Span a Gap of up to 120 Saa Bruecken military traffic director Hans Kratz said a Gap of 60 meters could be bridged in about five Days under Good but that in a crisis it might take Kratz a 45ton Crane is needed to install the equipment needed to repair Bridges and track is stored in various Sites throughout another demonstration showed How track is Kratz said there Are 600 Small track repair units in West the Frankfurt Region military traffic Guenter said that instead of hiring More repair Crews during a military units would help fix Crews can use either heavy equipment that can Lay meters of track in one work or simple if he said that in a crisis the Small equipment would probably be used because it can be evacuated from the area with air hand Cranks to Lay the welding equipment and Small a Crew can replace 40 meters of track in three Kratz fifty meters of track is expected to be damaged in an he two derailed tank cars were available to show retail ing one car was still on its the other Lay on its a Crew wearing protective clothing for poisonous Gas derailed both cars in a matter of the cars were lifted by Hydraulic jacks operated from a special self propelled Rescue the protected command Post is an underground Shel Ter dating Back from the Days of world War when the former Reichs Bahn operated from since then the Post has been and the communications capabilities the Post has All the equipment necessary to operate the plus air conditioning and filters for Gas and radiation water filters and two sources of water the City and a Well and emergency Power Gener also in the Post is All the communications equipment needed to maintain Contact with the German the bund Estehr and the probably the most important thing about the demonstrations was that they showed the repairs being made in a worst Case Edwards they could have brought in big cranes and sophisticated motorized but what they were Stres sing was that they have these Small repair Crews that can do everything by hand with air jacks and things like that just to show that this int some big computerized monster that you can pull the plug on and it shuts photos by l emm5tt Lewis Page 14 the stars and stripes May the stars and stripes Page 15