The Army still does have railway MOS; however, the list posted above is way out of date by perhaps a decade or more. Consolidation has left only three: 88U (rail operations), 88T (track maintenance) and 88P (locomotive repair). The Regular Army deleted rail MOSs in May 1976, leaving them only in the Army Reserve. The National Guard has never had rail MOSs or rail units. The last active duty railway unit, the platoon-sized 1st Railway Detachment, was inactivated at Fort Eustis on September 30, 1978. Together with civilian employees, it had been in charge of running the post utility railway and providing training for reservists during their summer training increments. When they left, the handful of civilian employees remained behind to run the line.
Fort Belvoir's line had long been a civilian-manned railway by the time it ceased operations and was pulled up in the early 1990s.
US Army rail operations in Vietnam were extremely limited. Statkowski's rail operation was primarily a short utility line, not mainline operations over the national railway. As a former US Army rail liaison officer from the early stages of the war stated, the more they used the national railway, the more it was attacked, so the Army declined to use it much.
In Iraq, there was a British Army railway unit involved in restoring rail operations at the port of Umm Qasr in the wake of the invasion two years ago. Later there was a small detachment of the Army Reserve's 757th Transportation Battalion (Railway), plus there was other Transportation Corps involvement in overseeing rail operations. Restoring and conducting rail operations, however, has mainly been turned over to contractors and Iraqi employees.
As posted under another Military Railroads topic, there are only a few USAR rail units left.
- 757th Trans Bn (Rwy), headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, with subordinate companies in various states. It is the only overseas-deployable rail unit.
- 1205th Trans Railway Operating Battalion, headquartered in Middletown, CT. This specially-configured unit only has about 50 authorized slots, although it may have about 70 assigned via double-slotting of personnel. Its mission is to provide rail operations (88U) and track maintenance (88T) support at stateside bases, usually Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, NC, but also MOT Concord, CA, and other selected locations. Currently it's set to be inactivated in 2006 as the Army Reserve revamps its force structure to focus on overseas-deployable units.
- 226th Trans Co (Rwy), headquartered at Westover Air Reserve Base, MA, just east of Springfield, MA. Attached to the 1205th for peacetime admin purposes, it is configured for overseas deployment and would be assigned to the 757th when mobilized.
- Two USAR Garrison Support Units (GSUs) have a handful of rail operations personnel to support mobilizations at Fort Hood and Fort Eustis.
