re: #250 Dark_Falcon

Taking out German-run railroads (as opposed to ones they only controlled, but were staffed by French or Italian workers) was very hard. The Germans set aside repair materials in good quantities, and had redundant switching and signaling equipment. A rail line is also a fairly hard target to hit hard enough to put it out for long.

Moreover, anti-railroad activities were aimed at crippling transport infrastructure in preparation for and support of Operation Overlord. A single rail line not supporting the main military effort simply was not a priority, what horrors the Germans were using it to commit. Some of the lines used by the death trains were attacked, but the Germans were able to repair the damage.

Blowing up rail itself is a relatively low value damage. It’s just rail, sleepers, and the bedding which can all be at least temporarily fixed quite quickly.

What gets targeted are the marshaling yards and infrastructure where the trains are put together, repaired, etc. And to take these out for an extended period requires repeated visits with fairly decent payloads. Not to mention that taking out railroad engines and cars required resources to be earmarked for replacement and repair.

The bottleneck “panacea” rail targets are few and far between (mainly tunnels and river bridges) and they are actually quite hard to hit and will also (since the Germans are not idiots) be defended by flak guns. Plus the Ukraine and Poland will have fewer of these as compared to northern Italy or other mountainous terrain.*

* - IIRC, the British went after a bottleneck tunnel with Lancasters carrying the big “Tallboy” bombs. Which included a spectacular near miss that hit farther up the hill from the entrance, penetrated, and collapsed the tunnel some yards into the mountain. I’m not sure how long the tunnel was out of operation, but it was more of an inconvenience to the Germans as compared to crippling. (Though the overall anti-transportation campaign was crippling over a period of time.)