The French railroads run again.

The French railroads run again. At the heels of the Allied armies which drove the German invaders from France, an army of 15,000 U.S. Transport Corps soldiers under Brigadier General C.L. Burpee rebuilt within five months from "D-Day" (June 6, 1944) 2,400 kilometers of double and single track railways which had been hammered in turn by the British Royal Air Force, the U.S. Army Air Forces and the German Luftwaffe, as well as being destroyed during the ground fighting. Of the 11,800 locomotives possessed by the French railroads before the war, only 2,800 were running September 1, 1944. By November 2, the number in service increased to 4,200 and by December 31, the figure is expected is reach 6,000. In addition, nearly 400 U.S. locomotives lent to British railways prior to the landings in Normandy were shipped to France and Belgium. The rebuilding with permanent of temporary structures, and in the order of their importance to traffic, of the 4,000 bridges destroyed by war is being carried out steadily. Two of the most important, the Maintenon viaduct between Paris and Chartres and the railway bridge at Orleans, are scheduled to be ready for traffic by the end of November, 1944. In a section of the railroad yards at Alencon, Normandy, wrecked freight cars lie between destroyed buildings and torn-up tracks as a result of bombings by American and German planes. The yards were attacked by U.S. planes June 6 and 8, 1944, during the landings of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Northern France, and by the Germans after American troops had captured the town. This picture has just been released by the censors.