The museum Rail Pavilion is an outdoor exhibit space housing over 35 of our collection of Trains and Heavy Equipment Transporters. Highlights include the 2-8-0 Series locomotive (number 607), the last steam engine operated by the Army and the Berlin Duty Car. The pavilion is also home to the full family of Heavy Equipment Transporters, the trucks designed to haul the Army’s armored vehicles, like the Dragon Wagon of World War II fame.
A view of a few of the vehicles in the U.S. Army Transportation Museum Rail Pavilion.
Steam locomotive Number 607, the last Army Locomotive in active service on display at the U.S. Army Transportation Museum
The Deutsche Bahn passenger car from the Berlin Duty Train, which was donated to the U.S. Army Transportation Museum after the Cold War.
The famed “Dragon Wagon” Armored Vehicle recovery and transport vehicle for World War II on display at the U.S. Army Transportation Museum.
The Berlin Duty Train which ran from West Berlin 110 miles behind the Iron Curtain to Frankfurt am Main and to Bremerhaven, operated at night and required perfectly typed orders. There were no tickets for this train. The SK-5 hovercraft requires 20 hours of maintenance for each hour of operation. It carried .50 cal machine guns, side-mounted M60 remote controlled machine guns and grenade launchers. It was lightly armored and called Quai Vat (Monster) by the VC due to the noise it made. The Army had three of the ACVs and this one is the last. It could cruise at about 60 MPH which made up for the noise it made. The RS-1 was built by Alco-GE from 1943 - 1953 and by American Locomotive Company from 1963 - 1960 and was a diesel-electric engine. The 4 axle version was used by the US Army while the 6 axle version was used on the Trans Iranian Railroad to supply the Soviet Army in World War II.
The Rail Yard also has a couple of line haul trucks showing how to move a tank or other large vehicle(s) faster than the tracked vehicle could move itself (piggybacking).