Figure 2.12.
Ice-Cooled Refrigerator Car.
2.20.
PASSENGER EQUIPMENT
Ambulance train cars are the only passenger equipment included
in the foreign service fleet. Because of the experience of the Army
Medical Service during the Korean and Vietnam wars, the rapid
development of air transportation, and the quick evacuation of
wounded from combat, the requirement for rail hospital cars in a
theater is not as great as years ago.
However, ambulance trains
provide temporary facilities to care for sick and wounded patients
while transporting them to central points where they can be evacuated
by air to base hospitals.
After World War II, the Surgeon General requested that an
ambulance train consisting of three types of cars, a ward, a medical
personnel, and a kitchen-dining-storage car, be designed and
developed for use on foreign railroads with standard to broad gages.
The cars were to have a common underframe and superstructure design
with interior arrangements and fixtures appropriate to each type.
The 3-car prototype train was designed and constructed and has been
placed in storage.
The cars of the ambulance train are constructed of steel
and have interchangeable underframe and superstructure components;
they are built to resist great impact forces and provide maximum
safety and comfort.
They have multigage four-wheel, passenger-type
trucks, and the coupler arrangement is designed to permit rapid
conversion to another coupling arrangement of the standard to
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