Attended our platoons 50th anniversary at PI a few years back. We were staying in Beaufort and made a side trip up to Yemassee to see the station. There's a memorial plaque at the station commemorating all the young Marine wannabees that arrived at Yemassee on their way to PI. Some of the recruits in our platoon came thru Yemassee, others ... including myself, flew into Charleston, then by bus to PI arriving in the middle of the night as well.
Train I arrived on was assembled in DC from all over eastern U.S.
As I remember, there were about 800 on the train...
At 1 A.M., 30 DIs and MPs used Billy-clubs and swagger sticks to get the train emptied in a hurry and the buses loaded...
They informed us, very loudly and profanely, that we were stop-gap cannon fodder...