TECHNICAL ARTICLE
AS PUBLISHED IN The Journal October 2018 Volume 136 Part 4
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Making tracks to AUTHOR:
Les Fox the front line BEng (Hons) C. Eng MPWI
Light Railways on the Western Front in WW1
Appropriately for this centenary year of At their peak in 1917 the British light railways Learning from resounding defeats during the the 1918 Armistice, this article gives an on the battlefields were carrying over 210,000 Franco-Prussian War of 1870, by 1914 the overview of the battlefield railways on tonnes of goods per week, including general French were well prepared for war in Europe the western front in the Great War and stores, rations, munitions and transporting once more, famously building the Maginot commemorates the enormous sacrifices personnel and wounded casualties, hence Line as part of the defensive preparations. made by the railway men and women making an essential contribution to the war The French military took a keen interest in worldwide, who volunteered for service in effort. This paper will give an overview of the Decauville’s ideas and 60cm gauge light the Great War. In the limited space allowed background to the battlefield railways, the railway tracks were soon adopted as standard for this article, the content presented people who built and operated them, technical for moving supplies from standard gauge can only really skim the surface of this details of how they were constructed and rail heads to the various fixed fortresses and fascinating but vast subject area. a brief look at some of the typical types of defences being installed around the country traction and rolling stock employed. from 1888 onwards. More detail will be covered in a planned presentation to be given by the author to PREPARATIONS Arthur Koppel a German visitor to the 1878 the Manchester and Liverpool Section of World Exposition liked what he saw in the PWI on 15th November this year. In 1878 at the World Exposition in Paris, whilst Decauville’s portable railway system and the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower was taking by 1914 the German army had their own BACKGROUND place, an entrepreneur by the name of Paul comparable system ready for the big push Decauville showcased his portable railway across Western Europe. The British however had already decided that providing a solution During the ‘noughties’ whilst employed by WS system, comprising prefabricated panels to logistics for a flexible war of manoeuvre was Atkins, the author was fortunate enough to be of light weight steel rails secured to steel the way forward. By 1913 Army Regulations involved in the fascinating task of undertaking sleepers. The first Decauville railway used 400 stated that as such lorries and other road routine biannual track inspections on MOD mm (15 3⁄4 in) gauge; Decauville later refined vehicles were the approved method of moving owned and operated standard and narrow his invention and switched to 500 mm (1 ft 73⁄4 supplies from railheads to forward units on the gauge railways in England and Scotland. in) and 60cm (1 ft 11½ in) gauge. The art of modular track laying had been born. front lines. Images 1 and 2 are re-enactments of early war British road transport at ‘Tracks to This experience, coupled with the author’s the Trenches’ 2018, staged at Apedale Valley previous military service as a reservist during Light Railway. the twilight years of the Cold War piqued the interest in military railways. The final inspiration to prepare the presentation for the PWI this year is very much due to the outstanding series of ‘Tracks to the Trenches’ living history events staged by the Moseley Railway Trust at Apedale Valley Light Railway, which were held in the summers of 2014, 2016 and 2018. The colour photos of ‘living history’ recreations included in this paper were taken by the author at these events.
INTRODUCTION
The role of the War Department Light Railways on the Western Front battlefields of WW1 cannot be underestimated. Whilst by the end of the first two years of the war only 96 miles of railway were being operated on the battlefields of the Western Front, this had increased to over 2000 miles by the end of the war, with over 1300 miles being laid in 1918 alone. Image 1: Horse drawn General Service Wagon
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Image 3: WW1 Cavalry re-enactment by the 16th Lancers Display Troop. Cavalry were the first British Army units to see action during the Great War, but Image 2: Requisitioned London bus quickly became redundant in static trench warfare
Image 5: The Railway Industry Memorial at the National Arboretum, Staffordshire
Image 6: Reconstruction of a 60cm gauge field railway Image 4: LNWR Memorial at Manchester Piccadilly at the ‘Tracks to the Trenches’ event 2016, Apedale Station Valley Light Railway
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1914 THE ROAD TO WAR Primary uses of the railways and tramways conditions allowed. It is fair to say that track comprised the following functions; alignment and quality of finish reflected the The Great War began in Sarajevo in August relatively temporary nature of these railways 1914 following the assassination of Archduke • Construction of the trenches, including and was by necessity a bit ‘rough and ready’ by Franz Ferdinand. This led to a complex train supplying materials and removal of spoil todays expectations. of events and the great empires of France, Britain and Tsarist Russia squared off against • Conveying troops to and from the front A key advantage with the 60cm gauge light the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. line railway track system was the speed of track At the outset, the Germans implemented the laying, enabling shell damaged tracks to be Schlieffen Plan (which with typical German • Transportation of rations and munitions repaired with great speed. Where new track efficiency some believe was based around was to be laid, the ability to lay the narrow the principles of railway timetabling). The • Transportation of casualties from the front gauge lines to very tight radii enabled the track first major engagement being with the British line to rear echelon field hospitals and to be simply laid around larger shell craters and Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French at dressing stations other obstructions, rather than waste valuable the First Battle of the Marne, September 1914, time and effort making good the ground. a vital engagement to defend the outer reaches Without the railways and tramways the fixed of Paris. From then on, this highly mobile form defences of the trenches could not have The tramways initially used 9lb/yard flat bottom of war quickly became a very static affair in been effectively constructed and meeting the rails, these subsequently being mixed with Europe, as both sides ‘dug in’ and the fixed logistics requirements of the war could not 16lb/yard rail and eventually 20lb/yard rail trench based fortified front line stretched from have been possible. becoming the standard on the British light the Belgian Coast to the Swiss Alps. Planning railways. The standard pattern of moveable on a new highly mobile form of warfare the PERMANENT WAY S&C by the end of the war was the 30m radius British soon found themselves ‘high and dry’ in turnout, comprising 3 panels, the switch panel the mud entrenched and cratered landscape, The military railway system leading from the being 9’ 3.5” long, belly panel 7’ 2.5” long and where the preference for road vehicles soon rear echelons to the front line consisted of the the crossing panel 8’ 1.25” long. See image 9. proved to be hopelessly inadequate. following hierarchy; Standard patterns of riveted fixed crossings RAILWAY VOLUNTEERS • Standard Gauge Railways – The main for light rail tracks and also for light rail track arteries: Trans continental railway system. crossing standard gauge track were also utilised. . At the outbreak of the war the Royal Engineers Railheads often located no closer than See image 10 had 2 regular and 3 reserve Railway 5500yds from the front line. ‘Companies’ (a total strength on paper of 651 TRACTION AND ROLLING STOCK men). By the end of the war in 1918 this had • ‘Main’ Light Railways – 60cm Gauge: increased to 45 Royal Engineer Companies. Connecting main standard gauge railway After its misguided initial reliance on wheeled Through the course of the war there were to ‘Field Railways’ 4000yds or more from road transport in 1914, by 1916 the British a total of 180,000 enlistments from staff the front line. Army had really stepped up to the mark with employed with railway companies in the UK, its light railways and a vast fleet of locomotives 45,000 of these went to serve with the Royal • ‘Field’ Railways – 60cm Gauge RE Corps and rolling stock had been shipped to France Engineer Railway Companies. Approximately Tramways: Connecting the ‘Main’ Light from sources all over the empire. By the end half the officers for the new units were provided Railways to ‘Trench Railways’ Typically of the war there were many different types of by Britain’s civilian railway companies and 1200yds from the front line. steam loco and petrol tractor in use on the the other half were mainly men from overseas narrow-gauge lines, far too many types to even who had been employed on colonial and • ‘Trench’ Railways - RE Divisional Trolley give a passing mention in this paper. foreign railways. Some of the Companies Lines or Ropeways: Make shift temporary One of the more bizarre creations was from formed in 1915 drew upon a large contingent systems connecting the Light Railway LNWR’s Crewe Works, hence the name the of local men, forming the kind of unit seen in railhead right to the front line trenches. Crewe Tractor. This was based on the Model the infantry as “Pal’s Battalions”. However, as These trench railways included aerial T Ford. The “tractors” were designed by the time wore on and with major re-structuring in ropeways and various types of monorail Chief Engineer of Crewe Works (although 1917, the local flavour would become diluted as system such as the ‘Irish Pattern’ and his daughter apparently had the initial idea). men were transferred between regiments and ‘Wilson’ type monorail. The tractors were designed to run on 60cm experienced men from other army units were gauge tracks and the 25HP engine reportedly headhunted to swell the ranks of the dedicated The standard gauge railways were not suited to allowed haulage of loads of up to 5 tonnes. Railway Companies. exposure to the dangers of the front line, due However they were probably better suited to to the more permanent nature of the track and serving as officers’ staff cars. These tractors In respect of their highly valued experience the time and cost involved in repairing battle were converted from the cars by inserting a 4 of narrow gauge railways, 18 men from the damage. Further limited capabilities of the wheel rail chassis under the cars chassis with Ffestiniog Railway left to join the forces (one track alignment (i.e. restrictions on curvature) the rail wheels being driven from the normal fifth of the workforce) and another 18 men for were not suited to dodging obstructions such cars rear axle. This design allowing them to the Lynton and Barnstaple (one third of the as torn up/poor ground. be converted from the Ford road car guise workforce). Other narrow gauge lines saw a to the rail tractor version in approximately similar proportion of their workforces leave for The light ‘field’ railways were much more suited 40 minutes, hence these were the first true the front, with notably the Cambrian loosing to battlefield conditions and often by necessity road rail vehicle. It is though that somewhere 400 men (one third of their staff) to the armed were rather crude and hastily constructed between 130 to 140 vehicles of this type were forces. affairs, none the less standardised to 60cm built at Crewe. For anyone interested in what Gauge. Sleepers were timber or steel types, this quirky vehicle actually looked like a quick PURPOSE with minimal groundworks employed. The Google search for ‘The Crewe Tractor’ will formation was provided on the most cost reveal plenty of historical photographs. Three effective basis, i.e. locally won materials such of the more common types of petrol tractor Battlefield railways proved to be essential as chalk on the western front. The tracks were were produced by Simplex Motor Rail, the infrastructure to facilitate the required logistics often laid directly on top of existing ground, 20hp ‘bent frame’ tractor with an open cab associated with war. with little or no preparation where ground and two variants of the 40hp petrol tractor, the
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Image 7: Attending to derailment, a common Image 8: Shell damaged light railway at ‘Tracks to the occurrence on the hastily laid battlefield railways. In Trenches’ 2018, Apedale Valley Light Railway this case a 1917 vintage ‘Brush’ 4 wheel battery loco at ‘Tracks to the Trenches’ 2018, Apedale Valley Light Railway
Image 10: Apedale Valley Light Railway: Standard 60cm gauge Fixed Crossing of the type used on the WW1 light railways
Image 9: Apedale Valley Light Railway 2’ gauge turnout representative of the type used on the WW1 light railways
Image 12: Simplex Motor Rail 20 HP Open ‘Bent Frame’ Tractor with skip wagons
Image 11: Simplex 40HP Protected Tractor, originally restored for the ‘Salvage Squad’ programme Image 13: Converted ‘F Wagon’ carrying a field gun
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Image 14: American ‘Pershing’ Wagon with hay for the cavalry hauled by a German ‘Brigadelok’ Loco manufactured by Henschel & Son in 1918
Image 15: Class K skip wagons with a Simplex Image 16: Typical ‘P Class’ Tramway ‘Ration Wagon’ Motorail 20HP Petrol Tractor at a forward tented transferring stores to a trench at Tracks to the encampment, recreated at Tracks to the Trenches Trenches 2018, Apedale Valley Light Railway 2018, Apedale Valley Light Railway
‘protected’ type and a fully enclosed armoured Other wagons were also supplied by the USEFUL RELATED WEB LINKS version (sometimes known as the ‘Armoured French army and late on in the war by the Turtle’). Readers interested in vehicle American army. See images 13, 14, 15 and Apedale Valley Light Railway: restoration type programmes may remember 16. Essential for conveying bulk materials such http://www.avlr.org.uk/ an episode of ‘Salvage Squad’ broadcast on as ballast, spoil, coal etc was the British Class the TV 10 years ago, where restoration of K ‘Skip’ wagon, a similar ‘side dump car’ was Moseley Railway Trust: the WW1 Simplex protected tractor shown in also used by the Americans late on in the war. http://www.mrt.org.uk/ image 11 was featured. This vehicle is now owned and operated by the Moseley Railway EPILOGUE Decauville Track: Trust and runs on the Apedale Valley Railway http://www.pralymania.com/Decauville.html in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. In this centenary year of the armistice this paper has been published as a tribute to the The Crewe Tractor: By end of the war the War Department Light railway men and women who served or were http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/02/the- Railways had become very organised in affected in other ways by Great War. This crewe-tractor-ford-model-t-chassis.html terms of rolling stock, with a fleet of wagons has provided a very brief overview of the War identified by a simple letter code A to P, each Department Light Railways on the battlefields War Department Light Railways: class of wagon having a different purpose in of WW1. The proposed presentation to the http://www.wdlr.org.uk/wdlr/ mind. Examples of the system include Class Manchester and Liverpool Section of the A wagons, which were basic fixed wheel PWI planned for 15th November this year The Great War Society: base four wheeled wagons with folding sides. may interest some readers and will cover the http://www.the-great-war-society.org/ Class D were the definitive WDLR wagon, a subject in a little more depth. 10 tonne capacity bogie wagon with drop door 16th Lancers Display Troop: sides, a classic light railway wagon. Class F REFERENCES http://www.16thlancers1914.com/ wagons were similar to D class, but were well wagons, used for carrying field guns. Other 1. WDLR Album, Compiled by Roy C Link, RCL Images: Les Fox specially adapted wagons were also in use, Publications. being converted from standard components to 2. Apedale Valley Light Railway Tracks to the perform specific tasks. Trenches Events and Guidebooks 2014, 2016 and 2018.
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