Can the Rail Industries Flatcar Inventory Support Two Major Theater Wars?

The ability of U.S. forces to change rapidly from a peacetime to a wartime force (to mobilize and deploy) is vitally important to national security. Successful execution of these movements depends, in large part, on the availability of the required transportation resources. Today's Army is heavily dependent on Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial railcar assets to move its wheeled/tracked vehicles from home forts to seaports of embarkation (SPOEs) to meet prescribed mobilization and deployment timelines. The primary research question answered by this paper is: Can U.S. military and commercial flatcar inventories meet DoD mobilization requirements for Army wheeled/tracked vehicles during two near-simultaneous major theater wars (MTWs)?

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