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The attack on transportation was the decisive blow that completely disorganized the German economy. It reduced war production in all categories and made it difficult to move what was produced to the front. The attack also limited the tactical mobility of the German army.
The Survey made a careful examination of the German railway system, beginning as soon as substantial portions were in Allied hands. While certain important records were destroyed or lost during the battle of Germany, enough were located so that together with interrogation of many German railroad officials, it was possible to construct an accurate picture of the decline and collapse of the system.
Germany entered the war with an excellent railway System; it had general overcapacity in both lines and yards (built partly in anticipation of military requirements), and, popular supposition to the contrary, the system was not undermaintained.
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Standards of maintenance were higher than those general in the United States. The railway system was supplemented by a strong inland waterways system connecting the important rivers of northern Germany, crisscrossing the Ruhr and connecting it with Berlin. The waterways carried from 21 to 26 percent of the total freight movement. Commercial highway transport of freight was insignificant; it accounted for less than three percent of the total.
Although the investigation shows that the railroad system was under strain -- especially during the winter campaign in Russia in 1941-42 when there was a serious shortage of cars and locomotives -- it was generally adequate for the demands placed upon it until the spring of 1944. New construction and appropriation of equipment of occupied counties remedied the locomotive and car shortage. The Reichsbahn had taken no important steps to prepare itself for air attack.
The attack on German transportation was intimately woven with the development of ground operations. In support of the invasion a major assignment of the air forces had been the disruption of rail traffic between Germany and the French coast through bombing of marshalling yards in northern France. At the time of the invasion itself a systematic and large-scale attempt was made to interdict all traffic to the Normandy beachhead. These latter operations were notably successful; as the front moved to the German border the attack was extended to the railroads of the Reich proper. Heavy and medium bombers and fighters all participated.
Although prior to September 1944, there had been sporadic attacks on the German transportation system, no serious deterioration in its ability to handle traffic was identified by the Survey. The vastly heavier attacks in September and October 1944 on marshalling yards, bridges, lines, and on train movements, produced a serious disruption in traffic over all of western Germany. Freight car loadings, which were approximately 900,000 cars for the Reich as a whole in the week ending August 19 fell to 700,000 cars in the last week of October. There was some recovery in early November, but thereafter they declined erratically to 550,000 cars in the week ending December 23 and to 214,000 cars during the week ending March 3. Thereafter the disorganization was so great that no useful statistics were kept.
you had to be weary of trains. as they became "targets of opportunity" the germans took measures to counter the loses. they had special cars with drop down sides and an 88 crews inside. these 'flak wagons' gave more than one straffing airman an nasty surprise! as for how fast they cleaned the tracks up? my ex-brother-in-law used to work the wreck crew for the RR. its quite an undertaking but i am sure the germans ( and russians) had this down to an art. so what takes a week or 2 now probably could be accomplished in days back then.