Much of this narrow-gauge track that went to France was manufactured at the rate of between 5 and 6 miles of completed track a day.
Great quantities of the fabricated track produced by the Lakewood Engineering Co. were loaded upon camouflaged steamers in Cleveland in May, 1918, and sent direct to France, via Lake Erie, the Welland Canal, and the St. Lawrence River.
CHAPTER III.
ENGINEER ACTIVITIES AT HOME.
A vast quantity of motorized or portable equipment was required by the Engineer units of the American Expeditionary Forces and this had in the main to be furnished under the supervision of the Engineers in this country. The extent to which this material was produced is shown by such items as 6,923 trucks of all kinds, 2,082 portable buildings, 124 portable shop and material trucks, 51 portable pile drivers, 90 electric storage trucks, 6,006 boilers, and 3,504 dump cars. Two-thirds of this equipment was shipped overseas before the armistice was signed.
The development of mobile shops was one of the most interesting phases of this branch of engineering work. Quite early in the war, when we began the construction of the great base shops in France, we developed these portable machine shops, blacksmith shops, carpenter shops, and storeroom shops in demountable truck bodies, to be used for general service in the field. The shops were so constructed that they could be entirely closed up when the unit was in motion; but when the shop was ready for use the sides and ends of the inclosing structure were lowered, forming work tables when the shop was left on the truck chassis. If the shop were entirely demounted, these sides and ends, let down, formed extensions of the floor. With this arrangement a wide range of general repair and construction work could be handled on the spot on short notice. If it were necessary for the shop to stay in one place for several days or weeks, the body could be demounted, and the truck chassis was then used for transporting materials to and from the shop.
Each portable shop contained about 800 different items of tools and equipment. Each was mounted on a 5½ ton truck. The portable machine shop contained a workbench, a drill press, a portable electric drill, a grinder, and a 14-inch lathe, these being operated by an electric power plant carried on the truck; and it also had an equipment of necessary small tools and supplies, including an oxyacetylene welding outfit.
The portable blacksmith, plumbing, and tin shops each contained a workbench, forges, hoists, pipe-fitting machines, a shear and punch, vises, and a welding and cutting outfit, together with a power plant and switchboard and the necessary small tools and supplies. The portable carpenter shop contained boring machines, a drill press, a bench grinder, a workbench, a saw bench, a winch, power plant and switchboard, small tools and supplies.