When I saw this post it brought back memories of my own Fort Irwin deployment in the summer of 1989. I was serving with the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry at Fort Drum, N.Y. and our vehicles went to and from California by train. The train arrived and departed Fort Drum on the Conrail, ex-NYC line from Syracuse through Watertown.

We also sent our equipment by train to and from south Florida in 1992 when our unit deployed to the area for Hurricane Andrew relief operations. I remember conoying up to the Florida East Coast intermodal yard at Hialeah, on the northwest side of Miami, on Oct. 1 where we did our loading for the trip home. I had the opportunity to "railfan" the operation, including photographing an inbound FEC train on the Hialeah Yard loop track from the top deck of an autorack.

Less than three months later, our equipment was off to the railhead again, this time for a trip to the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, N.J. for transport to Somalia and Operation Restore Hope.