Well There's Your Problem | Episode 67: Armored Trains 

"Lion's led by problems", and it's sister pod: "well there's your donkeys"

Somewhere in Siberia, a steam locomotive from the Russian civil war roams the land like a metal wooly mammoth.

The Jewish-Armenian space laser is the Apollo-Soyuz of inter faith conspiracy lasers.

Remember comrades, we are armoured train! They take out the tracks, we artillery! They take out our main gun, we pillbox! They take out our machine gun, we bunker! They take out armour, we heroes!

The best part is when Justin says „we're gonna get to that“

imagining a typhoon class on rails "give me one ping vasili" *trolley bell rings once*

You'd think those Soviet anthem drops would start to get old after a while, but they really just don't.

18:50 "Rub a dub dub six men in a tub, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the ammunition bearer, the machine gunner, and the fire team leader"?

"Lions led by Problem" This whole podcast has left me deceased. Please invite Joe back.

1:01:16 "Thomas the Tank Engine's grumpier German cousin: Gustav the Railway Gun."

LJSLA: Liam Jewish Space Laser Anderson I know I am correct and will accept no alternative

"I knew a dude named glasscock; you could always see him coming." --Alan Davies (paraphrased)

Gotta say, I was expecting a repeat of the Hindenburg episode that was basically 3 hours of "Hurr hurr, airships are stupid". Was surprised and gratified to hear "Armored trains are stupid but we love them". Because they are stupid and we do love them. One thing to point out regarding the whole tearing/blowing up the track thing: Most armored train doctrine called for having a "control car", basically a flatcar weighed down with random stuff, as the first and last cars of the train. The idea being that if the track was damaged or mined, the expendable flatcar would derail and/or explode before the rest of the train. Likewise, most of the "random stuff" on said cars would often include spare rails, sleepers, ballast rock, sandbags, and other supplies that could be used to rebuild the track. So if the train were derailed, the control car would either be pulled back onto the surviving track or pushed onto the lineside, and some of the armored train's crew would get out and, under the cover of the train's guns, rebuild the section of track that was damaged, and the train would proceed on its way. Obviously, this method was of dubious effectiveness, but it was considered from the start.

Sad they didn't mention the ridiculous amenities on Trotskys armored train. Also Sad they didn't mention Poncho Villa sending a train loaded with explosives against another train full of Troops outside Ciudad Juarez during the Mexican Civil war, one of the great examples of Chihuahuan excellence. Also yay Liam

Btw the Czech legion at one point controlled the entire trans-Siberian railroad, practically occupying an area several hundred times the size of Czechia The Schwerer Gustav was actually effective in that it destroyed the underwater Sevastopol armoury, because it turns out that you need a stupidly big gun to take out an armoury that is several feet under water and concrete

5:35am on a Wednesday... Time to eat magic mushrooms and laugh at trains.

I feel you Joe. When I was in the military they gave me a name tag that said "Ass FAC". Supposedly this was short for Assistant Forward Air Controller.

"Valley of Humiliation" needs to be on a NJ license plate.

Fun fact: I might be related to General Gajda, who led the Czechs across Siberia (similar spelling to my Polish name which originates in nearby Silesia). When y'all mentioned they "captured some stuff" you didn't really get the full scale across. They captured 20,000 prisoners, 5,000 railway cars, 60 cannons, 1,000 machine guns, and an entire naval fleet in just a single battle.

It's fitting that the start of the Soviet National Anthem sounds a bit like a distorted train horn.

Speaking as a chemist, I am dreadfully disappointed that my favourite free RU-vid vaguely informative engineering disaster podcast seems to have abandoned Roz hilariously mangling organic chemistry nomenclature in favour of inserting more drops of the Soviet Anthem. I would like a refund of my subscription fee of £0. How dare you not cater to my niche, narrow interests!

Some good news for Giuliani: Chevron is leasing the back half of his head for exploratory drilling.

I think the nuclear missile train idea could have worked if EVERY freight train in America were required to include one of these cars and no one knew which ones were armed and which were carrying ballast. And then just don't arm any of them.

In fairness to armored trains, they were an attempt at fulfilling the desire to have actually mobile heavy tanks/land battleships before the technology existed to make that kind of mobile, armored firepower. And let's be clear, here: the better-made armored trains look fucking cool as hell, and we all wish that things like that could be practical (by not actually needing tracks or getting stuck on terrain).

The UK has a van running around to check for any unlicensed armored trains.

10 months later and Russia unleashes an armored train on Ukraine. Edit: 1:41:00 You guys predicted the Russian tank conga lines.

It’s good Biden recognized the Armenian genocide, which deserves more recognition than it often gets in the US. But if he wants to talk about Turkey it would be nice if he also discussed the historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing efforts of the Turkish state against the Kurds. In recent years it’s “just” been mob violence, activists and journalists disappearing, and the fact it’s illegal to use or teach their language in any school public or private, but there’s also the history of massacres and mass executions, a lot of it resembles the genocide against Native Americans Turkey is calling out. I’d like to think Biden responding to that acknowledgment with pressure for Turkey to treat minorities better right now could help to make change or at least bring more light to the issue. He probably won’t though because corporate Dems can be pretty cowardly.

The episode I didn't even know I wanted. Hoping it's as good as the zeppelin episode, which I have listened to several times because it's just...so good. I also have an undying love of airships, dirigibles, blimps, and balloons, impractical and deadly as they are.

“The Soviets built a second rail gun named Dora the Exploder”

One day General Kerensky will return with Clan Ghost Train and lay waste to the hubristic Houses of the Inner Sphere.

Feels almost like I’m being haunted by jokes from kill James Bond.

LIAM, I WANTED TO SAY THIS. You inspired me with your "no shit taken" attitude to straight up shut down an asshole who'd been harassing me. :) Thank you, oh Grand Duke.

Liam's full name is clearly Liamdon B Johnson

The Drunk Czech guy train riff made me laugh so hard I almost crashed my car.

The story of the Czech Legion's train adventure is the funniest thing I have yet heard on this podcast. The last funniest thing was the Hindenburg.

The wreckage of the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge serves as home to many giant Pacific octopus, the largest species of octopus in the world.

"Why are they putting a flamethrower at the front of it?" Because they had one? 😁

Justin, I appreciate that you have made seemingly no effort to make your podcast introduction sound smooth, professional, or even well spoken. And deliberately never start your podcast at the moment you introduce the podcast. It would honestly not be the same podcast if you started off a video with an immediate and well-rehearsed "Welcome to Well There's Your Problem! It's a podcast about engineering disasters, with slides." If you ever manage to get to your own damn name in this introduction without umming and pausing, I will consider this podcast to be too well produced, accuse you of selling out, and demand a refund for my free RU-vid content.

As soon as I heard "the Union _also_ came up with their own railroad gun" I was like "oh shit, this is the same bullshit as the ironclads, where each side had one and they were billing it as some kind of unstoppable superweapon, but it was actually kinda shit except in specific situations". Yep...

So around 56 minutes in you guys started talking about how they tried piping smoke down to ground level. Smoke elimination isn't so much as for stealth (i.e. not knowing that a train is nearby) but making it harder to locate without physically see it. That's not a new idea, it having been done to some extent on the narrow gauge lines supplying the WWI trench networks on both sides. Piping it down to track level was a quick and dirty method, and while your exhaust smoke would rise back up at some point behind the train, it's not going to go nearly as high (as you've lost heat energy that caries the exhaust skyward), and the train's own movement will help disburse the smoke cloud quicker and closer to the ground. Makes it damn near impossible for ground based observers to see, and aerial observers would likely have more difficulty as the smoke signature wouldn't be as obvious from a safe altitude. Another thing you could do is pipe your smoke into a water tank, whether the locomotive's own water supply or a separate water car. Doing it on the locomotive introduces a long term problem if you pipe the exhaust smoke and steam into the water supply, as locomotives of the time didn't have feedwater pumps that could inject water at a point close to boiling into the locomotive boiler. The standard injectors of the day would eventually not be able to pump the water into the boiler if it go too hot (I've heard anywhere from 150 to 180 degrees, but have struggled to find technical literature that gives an exact point that the water temperature is a problem for injectors.). And of course smoke elimination was a thing with railways in urban areas or with long stretches of underground rail routes that were served by steam locomotives. Operations in London around the turn of the 20th century are a good point to start, as just about every railway in the city had condenser-equipped locomotives for just that purpose.

as a czech the enrire fucking bit about czech legionaires and pilsner urquel had me out of the breath amazing episode as always

I’m so happy they keep bringing Joe onto the show. Two of my favorite podcasts! And yes, Liam, you’re doing good.

Come for the Yay Liam, stay for everything else

🎼 I'm a pillbox on wheels Say what you will I done made the devil a deal He made me baggage car He made me armored and I'm gonna break a million rails

Alternate podcast son name: Well there’s your donkey

I choose to believe that the armored train is, indeed, a technical (as long as it was not originally designed as that).

The ghost ridden locomotive story reminds me of how during the one railroad strike in PA, someone did the same thing to a heavy freight locomotive in Easton PA and sent it running into the LVRR railroad president's parked personal locomotive, which shoved it down the tracks into a parked coal train, crushing it. Edit: I love the Geschutzwagon(German gun Jerry Rigged onto a French tank) on an armored flatcar with the German armored train.

I’m just really glad they finally mentioned yugoslavia in an episode Edit: as for where they got the hell cat, the Yugoslav army had them laying around from the late 40’s

I worked with a Muslim guy who stopped drinking spirits during Ramadan, beer and wine were still ok though... Aussie-Islam !

"we've all become Czech" ahh, Brnofication

I'm convinced that union armored train car around the 30:00 mark is the progenitor of all modern RVs and or camper trailers... It looks just like every camper from the 70s/80s... Really just every camper trailer ever honestly. Good stuff...

The cute little British mini train actually shot down three German planes during the war. So a pat on its back is warranted, I suppose

1:37:19 "that day his prostate grew 3 sizes too big" i lost myself to laughter for like a full minute, like i replayed this section OMFG

There isn't a pinned comment yet, so let me predict how it will go. Pinned comment: "I don't like the thing you are doing can you do a different thing that I like" Liam: "I will fucking increase the fucking thing"

joe has such good chemistry with the three of 'em, they need to have him back more often

Since I could mute my mic for my test this morning, I got to listen to my two favorite podcasts while acing my final. Thanks WTYPPod and Joseph Kassabian!

After along exhausting day landscaping its so nice to come home to this! Gonna put this on the Bluetooth speakers and take a long hot bath.

I’ve followed Dononeat01 in being banned from Twitter for threatening Nazis. Damn shame. I’ve loved fighting with Nazis on Twitter, oh well hi guys. New episode of my favorite podcast will brighten my week

I'm imagining the nuclear train raising the missile and the mechanism that probably moves the missile towards the center of that car as it rises failing: "Do a wheelie!" And then you nuke somewhere directly behind you.

Honestly the best way to hide a nuke in a train car is to spay paint it with graffiti and just put it on a random siding. No one will look at it twice.

Yay Lliam!

Honestly, I'd love to see a treasure hunt movie about people trying to find the lost armored train of the Czechoslovak Legion, and its cargo of Tzarist gold.

Alice wisely forgot all of that "law" bullshit so she could make more room for jokes and being cool

Just making sure that people who might be interested that there are two studies about SEPTA Regional Rail and one about SEPTA Subway Surface rail that we did at Penn in the early 90s available on ResearchGate.

Walking the boardwalk at the Jersey shore and out of nowhere you hear, "Watch out for the tram gun, please." "What?" ::BOOM::

3:33 "What if your tank run on coal?" I am like "Sigh, here it goes, just be done with it.", and then "Where is my mandatory Polish coal joke?!"

The safety third reminded me of what is currently going on in Stockholm. Stockholm is a city in Sweden, northern Europe, it is rather pretty in the summer and there are quite a few tourists, as such we have sightseeing busses, double decker sightseeing busses, soft top double decker sightseeing busses. These busses like to drive with the top open to give their patrons a good view of the city. Stockholm also have a small tram network, a tram network that uses overhead powerlines. Parts of the open top double decker sightseeing bus routes crosses the path of the tram network. This has been running like this for years. Sometimes the busdriver takes the wrong route and drive along the tram tracks, with their double decker, open soft top bus, containing paying tourists, on the top floor, with the overhead power line running just above their heads. So far I have yet to hear about any deaths, but watch this space...

I transport all my gold via highly vulnerable fixed route that my vehicle can not deviate from.

Man, the fact that this episode dropped before 2022, and the fucking Russian Federal Armored Train, is tragic.

The way they described the misadventures of the Czech Legion made me really want to see that brought to the screen as some kind of dark comedy period piece. Call it ‘Last Train to Vladivostok’ or something.

I have seen the video of the Croats rolling a sea mine down a hill to chase Serbs out of a forest. It is Awesome

51:57 Missed a perfect joke: should've taken that left turn at Albequerstok.

The Chonky Choo Choo episode = much excitement

my dad was listening to this in the car and it was such a comfort to me i’m so glad i found it, i will now fall asleep to this :)

Bruh. L.J.S.L.A. Literally "Liam Jewish Space Laser Anderson"

"Scoreboard" is, to this day, my favorite shutdown.

1:08:35 I have seen this one several times in real life, and waited whether I can add a mention of it in a comment - but you really did your homework. But I will add some details. The genesis of this train is somewhat similar to the Bolshevik ones: Zvolen, a small city in the core region of the Slovak National Uprising, had (still has) one of the largest railway repair shops in the country, so they wanted to do _something_ big fast. It took just 18 days to put it in service, along with two other armoured trains. The way I read the story, it was repaired after it was first damaged and redeployed into battle, its operators abandoned it and switched to partisan tactics because they got surrounded. The train that is exhibited is not "real": although some of the cars used to be part of another armoured train, what you see was a reconstruction for a 1974 film.

Oh, fuck this is gonna be good. Edit 1: 9:05 Godamnit I couldn't make it 10 minutes without dying.

Theres a good chance that I exist only because of an engineering failure on D-day

The Railroad Battery reminds me of Vietnam-era Gun Trucks. Regarding the M18; Informbiro Period. 1948-55. Also included M36 and M47s.

M18 Hellcat - that's the WORST tank to use! It is a tank destroyer designed to move VERY quickly and so armour has been sacrificed. It even has thick armour (which only stops bullets) and an OPEN turret. So, it has been strapped to a flat bed trailer where its' speed advantage is totally nullified and the FYR is hilly/mountainous so the 'opposition' can fire down from above. Add in the fact that any main gun mounted in a tank turret has limited elevation and depression.

Joe talking about 'conga line tanks' hits a bit different after seeing Russia's attempt at one in Ukraine...

They had (still have? ) one of those mini trains in Wheaton Regional Park when I was a kid. I loved it. So cool.

So, probably unrelated, but I was sitting in a New York subway station and this giant armored train blew through absolutely hauling ass, took about ten minutes to fully pass and a bunch of pissed off Czech dudes kept jumping off

I haven't listened yet because I am saving it for work tomorrow but I declare this a great episode and y'all need to tell y'all's friends to listen.

That little English armoured train, did shoot down some German plains, that ended up hitting the ground as the side through off the pilots depth perception so the where too low to pull out of there attack dives. 😂👍

1:28:20 *inflates your missile making it big and round*

*to the tune of Arnold Layne* armored trains you're not to blame

1:31:04 They got the M-18 from the US, in the early 1950s, because America tried using Yugoslavia's independence as a wedge against the Warsaw Pact. They also sold the Yugoslav Air Force F-86 Sabre jet fighters. This was called the "Informburo period" and ended around 1955.

How did y'all mention "Train Corps" without talking about "train-Core", my newest least favorite metal genre?

'gotta mordernise that nuclear stockpile' just hits different mid 2022.

"So, there's some problems with nuclear weapons" is the most colossal understatement I've heard in my life... 😂

Rjalrad gün Also I can speak to the nuke maintenance and transport troops being scary as fuck, nothing like cresting a hill in western ND and facing 5 humvees with MGs and Grenade Launchers on top

goddamn the Zaamuret has some rad design and also a wild story.

Ok so this is the episode where I learnt a bunch of Czech guys did Xenophon’s March during the Russian Revolution, but with a train.

"You can't really switch the tracks without stopping, right?" What are you talking about? I've played Starfox, you just need to make sure you shoot the eight smaller switches, then the one big switch. And you've got a shitload of guns, so it should be easy!

If only they did this episode a little later The Russians are reactivating their museum armored trains

In WW1 the Belgian Army has a dedicated Armored Train Corps that was used for mobile defense in conjunction with its string of fortresses. They even had "Ram" or phantom trains that were literally used as suicide weapons against enemy trains. I even got a photo of a German train COMPLETELY WRECKED by a Belgian Phantom Train.

this has to be the funniest episode you've done since the V-22. I had to stop this video so many times it probably took me twice as much as it should have