MTH Hospital Ward Car

Mortuary Cars at Brooklyn Army Terminal.  John in Lansing, ILL

The photographs above show standard Pullmans that were converted at the beginning of the war. Although some thought had been given to building hospital trains before WW-2, when the war began we had only a few test prototypes. As an expedient, Pullman converted 200 standard cars such as these pictured into hospital cars, but they were not entirely satisfactory due to the restrooms at the ends of those cars which, combined with a 90 degree turn at the vestibule, made loading stretcher cases very difficult. The European hospital cars we cadged from the Brits had useful side cargo doors and these were adopted in the final US Army  cars ordered later in the war.

There was a string of these cars at Brooke Army Medical Center when I was in college at Trinity '67-'71 but at some point they were disposed of and only one kept for the army medical museum.

For your viewing pleasure.  John

Nice. Is this the one at the old BAMC museum in San Antonio? When I was a college kid Fort Sam was a totally open post and everyone cut through it - now there are armed guards and barricades and it takes a bit of an effort to see the museum. It is the only military museum I have ever been in that does not have a single gun in it. But if you like medical stuff it's worth seeing.

i have one of the "casualty" cases from the Monogram 1/48 UH-1B and I plan on casting some dental acrylic copies and will just put in the lower berths since the upper ones will not be visible. Since it's not really an accurate model close is good enough.