Train travel from Bar-le-Duc to
Paris was a unique experience, starting with boarding a single car that I
believe was powered by an electric cable above.
Our car train was engine, passenger car and caboose. It had a narrow walkway running its full
length, windowed on the boarding side and walled on the other except for the
entrance doors to the different compartments.
As you entered a compartment there was a large window with a ledge for
sitting in front of it. That ledge continued
around the right angle corners to allow as much seating as possible.
From Bar-le-Duc it took 3 or 4
hours to get to Paris, one lone train car moseying through open fields,
stopping at small depots here and there to squeeze in more countrymen headed
for the big city. Especially vivid in my
memory are two of my trips for consulting with the Croix Rouge.
One evening after a pickup stop the
conductor opened our compartment door and half shoved into our completely full
compartment a tall American GI—dirty
uniform, unkempt, hardly able to walk, drawn face—in a state of total exhaustion. As the exhausted soldier staggered diagonally
from the entrance toward the far corner, the passengers seated both to the
right and left of it, huddled together as best they could to make room for him
in the right-angle corner area.
To everyone’s astonishment the
young man made a sort of elevated somersault on to the angled space, his boots
ending up near the ceiling, his legs and arms pressed against the walls, his
shoulders and head resting on the seat, with his face up. Immediately he closed his eyes and went to
sleep. Wedged into that tiny space,
completely upended, pressed against by his neighboring passengers, he never
made a sound as he slept the rest of the way to Paris.
Where had he come from? Must he have escaped from a battle? He looked like it. You can imagine the quizzical looks and
motions we observers made among ourselves in silence. We had complete respect for this soldier and
for his overpowering need for rest.
In the Alsace area that fall and
spring there were several occasions of flooding. A time or two we Red Cross gals had 12 or
more inches of flood water that we had to wade through to get out of or back
into our home quarters. Unfortunately
the junk-filled creek behind our building would overflow as the snow melted, to
the inconvenience of the rats as well as the Red Cross!
During one of those high water
times, I had my second adventure on the little train car to Paris on a business
trip. Just a short time after boarding
we approached a field covered with muddy water.
The train just carried on, to my astonishment, with the water
deepening. My recollection is that the
muddy water stretched as far as we could see in all directions out the
window. But we moseyed along as usual
never once seeing any track—and this went on for an hour or two. Sometimes the water appeared to me to be 10
or 12 inches deep. An electric powered
train!
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