The Rail Splitters

With a chuff of steam and a skirl of wheels, the aged black locomotive pulled out of Danang, carrying 500 passengers bound for Hue. Soon it began to climb toward the mist-shrouded Ai Van Pass. As the train reached the crest and began its freewheeling descent, the passengers relaxed--prematurely. Suddenly the rails snapped like broken rubber bands as a Viet Cong pressure mine exploded. When the smoke cleared, the passengers--fortunately uninjured--clambered wearily through the brambles to nearby Route 1 and thumbed or hiked their way into Hue. It was business as usual on South Viet Nam's French-built, American-supported, Red-racked railroad.

Costlier Beer. The vast U.S. buildup has made the railroad of prime concern to the Saigon government and its allies--and a favorite target of the Viet Cong. Last year the Reds staged 811 incidents along the line's 690 miles of track, mostly mine explosions and sniping attacks that killed 126 Vietnamese. Today only 345 miles of track are usable, despite the fact that most trains carry three squat grey gun cars bristling with automatic weapons, and are often preceded by diesel-powered machine-gun-bearing armored cars called con rua, or "turtles," by the Vietnamese. But armored cars are easily blown up, and even turtles can be turned back by heavy machine-gun fire or a 57-mm. recoilless-rifle shell.

The strength of the Vietnamese rail road lies with its plucky engineers, Oriental Casey Joneses who have spent as much as 20 years red-balling the route from Saigon to Hue. Engineer Tran Chan Cha, 46, has steamed the Danang-Hue run since the days of the Indo-China war, has been blown up so often that today he is nearly stone-deaf. Engineer Nguyen Tran Lo, 48, has been ambushed some 50 times, wears a Buddhist good-luck medallion under his faded blue uniform. When Lo's yellow and green diesel rumbles north from Saigon's Chi Hoa marshaling yard, his wife lights candles before an altar adorned with a gaudy bas-relief of a train steaming around a mountain.

So far, prayer has not been very effective. Red rail splitters frequently remove 20-yard stretches of track, once pirated a locomotive and sent it barreling into Saigon's Central Station, where it demolished two waiting rooms and killed ten sleeping soldiers. More damaging has been the effect on South Viet Nam's economy: vegetable prices have soared 60% since the Communists cut the line between Dalat and Saigon, and the cost of "33" brand beer, Viet Nam's favorite brew, has climbed from 15 to 70 piasters a bottle in Danang. Says a U.S. adviser: "The only way to secure the line is to take up the rails at 5 p.m., and lock them up for the night."

Steaming Symbol. Since 1961, the U.S. has put $25 million into the railroad, including 48 General Electric diesel engines and 200 new boxcars. For all that, the line is in roughly the same shape it was at the end of the Indo-China war in 1954. Last month

Premier Nguyen Cao Ky refused to set aside money for the railroad in his 1966 budget, and General William C. Westmoreland received a letter coyly suggesting that the U.S. lease the railroad for $340,000 a month.

American military men fear that a U.S. takeover of the line would give the Viet Cong a propaganda symbol of "foreign domination." Hence the U.S. will probably reject Ky's offer but continue to subsidize the line to keep it rolling. Increased U.S. air cover and tougher-shelled turtles should be able to secure the key 240 miles of track that link the American enclaves--particularly the stretches from Danang to Hue and Saigon to Bien Hoa.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.