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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:10 am 

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It had to be valuable something to bury it and remove all traces.


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:57 am 

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Or, potentially embarrassing, or just to be difficult about it.

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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:20 am 

Anybody got Hiraldo Rivera's phone number?

Even just barring all the logistical problems of hiding an entire train for 70 years there's just one big fault that makes stories like these more or less impossible.

-Somebody had to put it there-

I don't know about you but if I was tasked with stowing a boxcar full of gold somewhere whatever of it didn't grow legs and "walk away" during the hiding process, I sure as heck would have went back for later assuming the Allies didn't find it first. Which I'm pretty sure was what happened to most of the supposed Nazi treasure stashes.

Sweden and Switzerland go on like you shouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting a crate of stolen Nazi gold somewhere but nobodies ever found any. Closest anyone's ever come was a crate full of watered down British bank notes out of some lake somewhere which turned out to be Nazi counterfeits even then.


  
 
 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:39 pm 

While I sense another urban legend as well (it's probably just as likely to find RAF Spitfires buried there as it is gold, IMHO) --- don't discount the potential for narrow gage mine equipment being the 'train' in question. One article said the 'train' was 150 feet long, which is only a couple boxcars in standard gage, but that length would allow for quite a few Chicago Tunnel (16'?) or similar cars.

Nick


  
 
 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:02 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:51 pm
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A variation on the misplaced valuables tale. My father worked with a man in a VA Hospital's adminstration when I was a teenager. His friend, Frances Bickham, told a story about a part of the U. S. Army's payroll at the beginning of the North African campaign going missing. Mr. Bickham was assigned to a staff position at the newly built Pentagon, arranging transport when a Brigadier General with two armed MP's showed up to ask if he had arranged transport for three wooden crates. The general had sufficient information that Mr. Bickham was able to pull a file and reply, "Yes, they were loaded into a deuce and a half that went to Africa as deck cargo. The general said, "Come with me and bring your file". The next stop was a court martial in progress. It seems that someone thought it was a good idea at the time to ship the Army's payroll by subterfuge, avoiding a lot of security manpower issues I suppose. Only two of the boxes arrived. Mr. Bickham testified and was dismissed. He never heard the outcome of the trial. I cheerfully admit this tale has absolutely nothing to do with railway preservation.


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2015 8:09 pm 

A quick addendum/correction to my earlier post: today I read an article that claims the train was 150 meters/yards long, not 150 feet. But I would still suspect a mine-gage train rather than 4' 8.5" or whatever that works out to in metrics. :-)


  
 
 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:47 pm 

Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:00 pm
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Well looky here... Turns out they really did find something http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/news/a17087/confirmed-nazi-loot-train-found/


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 7:50 am 

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Pictures or it didn't happen!


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 11:55 am 
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Pkwlsn wrote:
Well looky here... Turns out they really did find something http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/news/a17087/confirmed-nazi-loot-train-found/
Actually, if you read the article and the linked, "support" for it, it doesn't look like anyone really found anything yet.

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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 12:23 pm 

Joined: Wed Jun 26, 2013 7:20 pm
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Quote:
Arkadiusz Golebiewski, a press officer for the local government, confirmed that a military train had been discovered in Walbrzych, which is near Poland's border with the Czech Republic.


Sounds pretty positive to me.


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 12:55 pm 

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No matter what has been found, I'm sure officials will be keeping information pretty close to their chest until the site is well secured and they know exactly what they're dealing with. They don't want fortune hunters trying to plunder the site, take unwise risks, getting other people hurt, etc.

A "military train" could be anything from some boxcars full of munitions to a full armoured train... all they've said so far is that a train of military origin has been confirmed. That "seems" to indicate it's not just mine train equipment left from the tunneling work. I'm sure we won't know for some time whether anybody has managed to get close to it (a couple of articles indicate that, as suspected, the tunnel mouth was sealed by blasting.

Whatever has been found, it's pretty cool that something is down there.

It's a neat story, even if the actual find isn't that exciting.

Steve Hunter


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 1:55 pm 

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This has appeared on the BBC website recently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34072660

Looks like several people are looking for its actual location now!

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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 2:34 pm 
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I'll believe it when I see it. These vague descriptions, to me, smack of ignorance and assumptions. If you really found something, it would be so easy to say what you'd actually found.
Don't forget all the stories we keep seeing about "FDR's armored train" under Grand Central Station when we know full well it's nothing of the sort, and that's something that has had countless photos and videos taken of it!
sbhunterca wrote:
A "military train" could be anything from some boxcars full of munitions to a full armoured train... all they've said so far is that a train of military origin has been confirmed.
I wouldn't be shocked at all to find this is either some mining cars with some spent brass on the floors, or some low gondolas with a rotted, empty ammo box in the back.

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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 2:46 pm 

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They seem to have confirmed that it is a military train of some sort, but who knows. What are the odds that the engine is even in good shape after all these years? By good, I mean some possiblity of being repaired or at least displayed. I don't expect them to steam it out of the tunnel. Hopefully it's not rotted to death.


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 Post subject: Re: Potential Preservation: Nazi gold train 'found in Poland
PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 6:02 pm 
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6-18003 wrote:
They seem to have confirmed that it is a military train of some sort
Nope, they haven't. From CNN within the last hour:
Quote:
"At the moment, the train has not been located, but we believe the evidence presented to be strong enough to look into the matter seriously,"
-Arkadiusz Grudzien, assistant to the mayor of Walbrzych

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