European Railroad Discussion > A sad train.....Morgue Train

The saddest train in some time.

Gray refrigerator cars are being used as a temporary morgue for the victims recovered from MH-17 crash last week. Train is about 9 miles from the crash scene according to news reports.


Prayers for the victims and their families.


Video: MH17 plane crash victims put in refrigerated wagons -link below


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10979116/MH17-plane-crash-victims-put-in-refrigerated-wagons.html

---

Life is cheap to these former Eastern Bloc fools.They have no respect for themselves ,let alone anyone from the west.They have blood on their hands ,and they couldn't give a rats @$$.
As out prime minister(Australian) said, "they are treating this like a garden clean up ,rather than a forensic investigation"
Regards,DK

It is Putin who has blood on his hands and the once strong and mighty USA does nothing about it even though the legitimate government in Kiev has begged us for help. My girlfriend is Ukrainian and can't believe we have just stood by and done nothing to help her country defeat Putin's terrorists. Putin is laughing at us behind our backs at the weakness we have shown. What's next? A train being blown off the tracks? Or the invasion of another country?

This is another tragic, albeit increasingly common, failure of -- or perhaps absence of -- American leadership.

After all is said and done, much will have been said, and bother will have been done. Witness the recent kerfuffle about Crimea.

There was lots and lots of: "You stop it, now !!" and "We won't stand for it !! " Anybody heard anything about Crimea's fate lately?

More letters will be forthcoming protesting Russia's actions " … in the strongest possible terms ..."

More sanctions -- "Sales of peanut brittle to the Soviet Union … oops, Russia … will be banned."

"No more Mister Nice Guy, Vladimir. This time we mean business."

298 innocent people have died as a result of a barbaric Russian-sponsored attack on an airliner. The russian response? Yawn …..

Fritz in HSV, AL, USA

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is Putin who has blood on his hands and the
> once strong and mighty USA does nothing about it
> even though the legitimate government in Kiev has
> begged us for help. My girlfriend is Ukrainian and
> can't believe we have just stood by and done
> nothing to help her country defeat Putin's
> terrorists. Putin is laughing at us behind our
> backs at the weakness we have shown. What's next?
> A train being blown off the tracks? Or the
> invasion of another country?

You seem to feel pretty strongly about this conflict which is perfectly understandable given your personal connection...perhaps you could travel to Kiev and enlist in the Ukrainian army and provide the type of assistance you seem to want from the USA. You probably remember that Ernest Hemmingway felt that way once upon a time and placed himself in harm's way for his belief in a cause far from his comfort zone.

For me, letting economic sanction continue their bite on Putin's rear end will ultimately bring the desired effect. The option the send military assistance is always open, but wildly unpopular with the American public currently given the disaster the last Administration provided us with the invasion of Iraq.

The notion of sabre rattling with Vladimir Putin doesn't sound very sensible, Russia is not Iraq. Ironic that as we commemorate the tragedy of August 1914 some appear to want to repeat the folly.

When Putin invaded the Crimean Peninsula, Obama took the same military action that Eisenhower took when the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956. He took the same military action that Kennedy excercised when Kruschev built the Berlin Wall in 1961. He took the same level of military action that LBJ excercised when Breshnev invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. Carter took no military action against Iran over the embassy hostages although he tried and failed to rescue them. Reagan and Clinton both fled the scene and retreated when (1.) the barracks were bombed in Lebanon killing hundreds of U.S. servicemen (on RR's watch) and (2.) after the failed Battle of Mogadishu (on Clinton's watch). Clinton had a golden opportunity to take out Osama Bin Laden prior to 9-11 and chose not to. The Kurds are STILL angry at us while Sadaam slaughtered a bunch of them and we did nothing on George H.W. Bush's watch.

This is not the first time that a U.S. president has appeared weak. And it's not a Democratic or Republican thing.

But imagine how many MORE wars we would have been involved in if we had acted on the events listed above.

Being the world's police force is a nearly impossible task. I find it more than strange that we are more concerned about the security and sovereignty of the Iraq-Syria border than we are of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rail content: While president, Eisenhower rode by train to Monterey on track that has since been ripped up.

I didn't vote for this fool either time. You people that did, it's your problem now. Have fun with it. I am retired and don't give a c--- what our stupid government does. But you will have to live with it.

Here goes another stolen thread....which started out to express sadness over this "morgue train" movement. And, to all you war mongers itching to take some military action....are you suggesting that somehow if the US had "shown more spine"...made more serious threats of military action....that whomever it was that shot down the airliner would have chosen to not shoot it down specifically because the US was talking tougher than actually was the case? What are you suggesting? Do you even know beyond the concept that "we have guns so lets shoot something/someone"? Well, the dialogue here sounds way too much like the presumed thinking of those who shot down the airliner..."we've got guns, lets shoot something/someone." We have a problem with violence, so what is the answer? More violence, of course....works every time, eh? AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

To follow up on Original post: News reporting Morgue Train has left the station for a point west of crash area so that forensic investigators can begin identification. Again prayers for the victims, their families, and friends.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699787/MH17-crash-victims-bodies-tossed-rubbish-trucks-carted-morgue-train.html#v-3689022674001

---

---

The train already arrived in Kharkov, a large city in northeastern Ukraine, and firmly outside of rebel territory.

It had an accompanying personnel car which was in the livery of the premier overnight train "Donbass" (Kiev-Donetsk).

Any ideas on how these cars are cooled?
thanks/Roger B

Electric generator

These are modern cars....the long ones were built in East Germany in the late 1980s.

DKay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Life is cheap to these former Eastern Bloc
> fools.They have no respect for themselves ,let
> alone anyone from the west.They have blood on
> their hands ,and they couldn't give a rats @$$.
> As out prime minister(Australian) said, "they are
> treating this like a garden clean up ,rather than
> a forensic investigation"
> Regards,DK


You know nothing about the "eastern bloc fools" you're blabbing about. They are no different than people anywhere else fought in a bad situation.
Need I remind you that the US Navy cruiser USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner killing 290 passengers in 1988? The US has never offered an apology, lied repeatedly and tried to cover up the incident. We also provided training and equipment to blow up a Cuban airliner. So before we engage in too much Murica F'yea we need to consider out own past misdeeds and inhumanities.

Amen, from someone who spent a few of my formative years in eastern Europe during the cold war.

This incident is pretty clearly an act of ignorant thuggery, aided and abetted by a cynical Russian autocrat. Thuggery and cynicism are widely distributed, worldwide.

But as you note, we Americans are in a bit of a glass house when it comes to shooting down passenger planes, and when it comes to admitting our error. Maybe we should refrain from throwing too many rocks.

Details on the Vincennes incident here:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/07/the_vincennes_downing_of_iran_air_flight_655_the_united_states_tried_to.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/14 13:06 by march_hare.

Back in the height of the Cold War,J.N.Westwood ,a British author ,wrote a book on Soviet Railways called "Soviet Railways Today". Much of the text was from the USSR Government itself. Despite this, after an initial research visit, he was denied any further visitors visa.

He was granted very little access to photograph Russian trains of the era. The authorities were happy to give him photographs and a full set of drawings for a refrigerator train. These consisted of several plug door reefer cars, a power car and an accommodation car. The train was equipped with a flexible pipe between the cars which I assume distributed cold air from the generator car to the rest of the train.

Although I didn't see Russian reefers in Cuba when I visited, I was told they were there in the 1970's, and bits remain in MOW service.

I did see Russian reefers (or Chinese copies of them) in China, serving as insulated box cars.

My guess is that the Ukrainian morgue train had long ceased to haul produce, and was being held in reserve by the military for precisely what it was used for. Some pictures show the train leaving a gated compound.

GettingShort Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Need I remind you that the US Navy cruiser USS
> Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner killing
> 290 passengers in 1988? The US has never offered
> an apology, lied repeatedly and tried to cover up
> the incident.

You conveniently overlooked this tidbit of info:

As part of the settlement, the United States did not admit legal liability but agreed to pay on an "ex gratia" basis US$61.8 million, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims.

It will be interesting to see if the Ukraine rebels or the Russians offer compensation.

Did the Russians offer any monetary compensation over the downing of Korean Air 007?

I think we all know the answer to that one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/14 21:05 by CA_Sou_MA_Agent.

eminence_grise Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My guess is that the Ukrainian morgue train had
> long ceased to haul produce, and was being held in
> reserve by the military for precisely what it was
> used for. Some pictures show the train leaving a
> gated compound.

The longer cars are relatively modern, so my personal guess would be that since UZ continues passenger and freight operations as much as possible (across the front lines in many places), the cars were sitting in a siding in rebel-held territory waiting for a load when they were commandeered for this grim task.

The gated compound you saw is the Malyshev Factory in Kharkov (its production includes tanks and APCs) where the train was held after its arrival from rebel territory and until the bodies in contained could be transferred to the Dutch and Australian air force transport planes.

Russia says they had nothing to do with the airliner crash. They have shown their satellite photos of the area at the time of the crash as proof. The USA has similar photos but refuses to show them. The USA instigated a coup which removed the legitimate Ukranian government, months before an election. Haven't you all heard of Victoria Nuland (US State Dept) and the $5 billion the US put into the Ukranian revolt?

Russia would gain nothing by downing the airliner. The USA's puppet Ukranian government, and the fools in Washington and Wall Street, however, have a lot to gain:

1. Payback for Putin's making the USA back off against attacks against Syria last year that made Obama and the neocons look foolish.
2. Load Ukraine with debt from the IMF so the bankers and ultra-rich can loot the country (i.e. privatization of national assets and resources).
3. Pressure Russia to stay in the dollar currency exchange system. If that system collapses, the USA's astronomical foreign debt charade may come crashing down.
4. Keep the military/industrial complex rolling along in a brand new cold or hot war with the Ruskies.

Sanctions against Russia really only hurt Ukraine and Europe, who depend on Russia for gas. Secondarily, sanctions hurt USA business that deals with Russia. That's why the U.S. Chamber of Congress and other American and European business organizations have opposed sanctions.

The Korean airliner that was shot down was 200 miles within Soviet airspace. There was a US/NATO spy plane shadowing the civilian airliner, and the radar system was not able to tell that there were two planes. The pilot had received training from the CIA.

Look these things up. Don't believe the lies you hear from our government or the mainstream press. Paul Craig Roberts' website is a good source for what's really going on in Ukraine.

RRTom,

As someone who is very familiar with Ukraine and the dynamics/mentality of Russian-Ukrainian relations, I find your statements to be more typical conspiracy theory nonsense than anything remotely realistic.

They ignore a lot of realities on the ground in relations between the two countries/people, and also fail to explain certain recent developments.....like the enormous increase in aggressive nationalistic attitudes coming from Russia that started at the time of the invasion of Crimea, or the fact that mainstream Russian media is being caught like every week in gross lies and exaggerations (and I'm not talking about point-of-view differences.....I'm talking about reporting as "news" things that never happened!)

The Russian photos that "prove" that it wasn't them or the terrorists they support that have shot down the airliner have been revealed as having signs of being heavily Photoshopped (and clumsily at that).

Your statements also do not match the actual timeline of the November-February EuroMaidan revolution (recently called "Revolution of Dignity" in Ukraine). If anybody was paying anybody to keep the revolution going, the actual events almost make it seem like the former President (Yanukovych) was being paid to provoke the population each time they started to calm down.

The statements also ignore the fact that the country was virtually bankrupt when Yanukovych fled......there was only $4 million USD (or Euros, but that doesn't matter) in the bank. This is for a country of 45 million people!!!

As for the Korean airliner, the claim that a spy plane was shadowing it is not supported even by the statements of the pilot that did the shooting!!! And he had the airliner in visual sight when he opened fire!!

Sincerely,

A Russian-speaking Ukrainian Jew living in the United States



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/14 15:45 by chs7-321.