The story of how the Engineers, under the direction of Brigadier-General W. W. Atterbury, formerly vice-president of the Pennsylvania, Director-General of Transportation, with Colonel Wilgus as his deputy and Chief of Staff, built up in France a transportation system which was one of the marvels of the war, is outside the province of this narrative, while the story of the production of railway material in America and its shipment overseas would require, for its proper telling, a chapter to itself. It is enough to say that, when the Armistice was signed, 60,000 men were engaged on railroad work of various kinds in France; more than a thousand miles of standard-gauge railway (equal to the distance by the Pennsylvania from New York to Chicago) had been laid; upward of 1,300 locomotives (300 more than are owned by the Atchison system) had been shipped overseas, and, had the war continued, we would have had in France by July, 1919, enough American cars to make up a train the caboose of which would have been leaving Paris when the engine was entering Berlin. The Transportation Department had in operation between Tours, which was the headquarters of the Services of Supply, and Chaumont, which was the Great Headquarters, an all-American train, drawn by an American locomotive, driven by an American engineer, and, as a final touch, with its sleeping-cars in charge of former Pullman porters, in khaki, it is true, but retaining their grins and their whisk-brushes. Every one in the A. E. F. was inordinately proud of that train, which stood as a sort of visible proof of American accomplishment in France. It had been officially christened the “Atterbury Special” in honor of the Director-General of Transportation, but the soldiers had disrespectfully dubbed it the “Attaboy Special.” One morning, as a group of American congressmen, on their way up to the front, were standing on the platform of the Tours station, the special came roaring in. “There’s an example of American energy and promptness for you!” exclaimed one of the politicians proudly. “What a contrast to those wretched French trains! Not an hour or so late, as they are, but on time to the very minute.” “Pardon me, sir,” said a military policeman who had overheard the conversation, “that is _yesterday’s_ train.” * * * * *