Marshalling yard at Erding

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Roland,

The fuselages at both Berglern and the airfield at Erding were bare metal, not painted. I can e-mail you with some comparative photos if you'll use my e-mail address provided in my PM to send them to you.

I thank you for the link to the history of the power company's Industriebahn. That added information about its use for passenger and freight service. Still, the Luftwaffe had its own rail link into the airfield at Erding and, for moving major components to the airfield, going through the city seems to me would have made more sense. Moving them from Berglern into the airfield, as far as I can tell, was not the easiest way to go. Thus my interest in finding out of the marshalling yard in Erding had been hit and was no longer available, thus requiring use of this curcuitous route.

As you hinted, perhaps the Luftwaffe's rail line was hindered in some other way - perhaps a destruction of a bridge. Anyway, I thank you for seeing what you can learn this weekend. Jürgen Zapf contacted several folks in the area and, every time he came back to me with new information on the Berglern to airfield connection, it was different and conflicted with previous information, which left me not knowing what was the truth. Perhaps you'll have better luck.

As for why my detailed information was not independently learned by Peter, research in an archive and finding something that others don't find can be a matter of luck and what guidance one can get from archivists and friends. A lot of it is grunt work and just trying to connect the dots, using whatever search aides are available. While I've researched at a number of archives, in the last decade I've focused most of my effort at NARA II and the NASM Garber archives. Even then, there is a wealth of information that simply remains unseen. I remember one document at NARA II where it was clear that no one had looked at it since WW II. How could I tell? The staples were rusty and the pages showed no signs of being bent back for copying. One effort has been to work back and forth between the 2 archives to try to compile a list of captured German documents that had subsequently been translated, as the USAAF and U.S. Navy had a huge joint program to carry out this effort. You may have seen some of these translation reports. Garber has the originals on microfilm, now moved to the NASM's Udvar-Hazy Center. A third program was undertaken to combine the translations with the original reports. Compiling a combined list of all three has been a very big undertaking for me. Beyond direct access to archives, there are the personal contacts one makes all over the world, such as yourself. So, please forgive Peter and others that their stories are not complete. Each research brings the results of his own research to the table and we all learn from each other.

Regards,
Richard