Armoured train

“ They were used besides to carry reinforcements and stores when needed. The armoured train was indeed a very important factor in the British military tactics, and one we had to take fully into account. The railway between these two stations was also guarded by blockhouses. Every morning the British soldiers carefully inspected their particular section of the railway before trains were despatched in any direction. The peril of running trains at (p. 488) night was speedily recognised, and of those that attempted the journey very few indeed escaped capture. ”

“ On our left is the railway, and all along on our right, extending far in front and far behind, advances the army."
"We incline to the left near to the railway. The horrid, little, grey-bluish, armoured train crawls in front. It is dreadfully excited always in presence of the enemy, darting forward and then running back like a scorpion when you tease it with your stick-end. One can see by its agitation this morning that the enemy are not far off. Behind it comes a train of open trucks with the famous Naval Brigade, with their guns, search-light, &c. ”

“ Another method adopted for the safeguarding of railway lines in war is the use of armoured trains; though in practice these are also employed for the purposes of independent attacks on the enemy, apart altogether from any question of ensuring the safety of rail communication. [10]
For the protection of locomotives and rolling stock, and to prevent not only their capture but their use by the enemy, the most efficacious method to adopt is, of course, that of removing them to some locality where the enemy is not likely to come. ”

“ Material aid given to expeditions to countries otherwise devoid of means of communication, by the construction of military railways.
Employment of armoured trains which, apart from their usefulness in defending railways against attack, may, as movable fortresses, render important service in the operations against the enemy. ”

“ The possibility of carrying on warfare at a great distance from [x] the base of supplies by means of even a single line of single-track railway; the creation of an organised corps for the restoration, operation or destruction of railways; the control of railways in war by the railway or the military interests independently or jointly; the question as to when the railway could be used to advantage and when it would be better for the troops to march; the use of armoured trains ”

“ Tiny trucks and trains are stretched through all the sector. They look like a child's railroad, the locomotive not more than four feet high. They brush along by the road, and wander through fields and get lost in woods. The story goes in the field service that one of these wee trains runs along on a hillside, and just back of it is a battery of 220's which shoot straight across the tracks at a height of three feet. The little train comes chugging along full of ammunition. ”

“ Earlier it had been discovered that engine crews often were killed by Allied strafing while the locomotive remained intact. Special light armor plate therefore was introduced on all cabs. Also, it had been noticed that fighter-bomber pilots tended to work on a train at relatively high altitudes when subjected to antiaircraft fire. ”

“ Early in the morning of the second day, an engine, with a single private car attached, arrived at the station and side-tracked. At this sign that life had renewed in the dead roads, the whole army lined up beside the track.
But never did life renew so monstrously on a dead railroad as it did on those two roads. From the west came the whistle of a locomotive. It was coming in our direction, bound east. We were bound east. A stir of preparation ran down our ranks. The whistle tooted fast and furiously, and the train thundered at top speed. The hobo didn't live that could have boarded it. ”

“ The next moment there was a long weird shriek of the whistle, then the grinding of brake-shoes on the wheels as the signal for the train guards to man the wheel brakes followed in staccato blasts. Groaning, straining, shaking, screeching, bumping and thumping, the train slackened its speed, crawled for a few yards, and then with one last resounding rattle it stopped, and there, but a few short yards ahead, waiting to discover the reason for the wild signals for help they had picked up, stood the officers and men of the artillery train, safe and unharmed. ”

“ Two sharp, shrill, and sudden whistles from the engine tell the guards that danger is a-head—that is, should they not themselves have seen it; an unlikely circumstance, [235] for they are as keenly alert in their break-vans as driver and fireman are on their engine. In a moment three powerful men are applying, with utmost energy, the immense break-power at their command—so powerful that the passengers often feel a concussion that awakes the dormant, and almost hurls them against their opposite neighbours, and the train is pulled up within a space varying from 200 to 400 yards. ”

“ The waggons and locomotive are covered by boiler-plating three-quarters of an inch thick, as firmly riveted as time will allow. One of these trains was constructed at Mafeking, where there are several railway shops, the town being on the new main line from the Cape to Buluwayo. The locomotive is the only part of the train that does not carry guns, the steel casing being solely to protect the mechanism of the engine from the shot of the enemy. ”

“ She struck the freight cars just before she came to a stop, smashing a cylinder and nearly jerking the heads off the passengers. All the windows and doors of the coaches flew open with a slam, and the train hands and passengers began to swarm out like hornets out of a hornets’ nest. The trainmen started forward on the run to see what was the matter and to look up the operator and find out what he was trying to do.
The Man opened a window in front of the station, with a revolver in his hand, and told them that what he was trying to do was none of their business. ”

“ The trains are crammed with people and stacked on top of each other are bundles and boxes of all shapes and sizes. From the boxes come the whining of dogs, the screeching of birds, and the mewing of cats. It is indescribable.
On the way back I have the luck to get a train which takes seven hours from Paris to Esbly, being side-tracked all along the line to make way for trains carrying wounded, war supplies, or troops on their way to or from the front. ”

“ During the time the troops are travelling by railway their power of resisting attack is much more restricted than it would be if they were marching by road, they can do little or nothing to protect the railway lines, while if the enemy can only get to the railway he may be in a position to prevent the train from continuing its journey, and take the troops in it at a disadvantage. ”

“ The relief train had come and gone, bearing away the unhurt, the injured, and the dead. A temporary working-track had been laid through the cut, and the mighty one-hundred-and-fifty-ton steam crane, its movements directed by a big, rather flashily dressed man with an accurately creased brown hat pulled down over his brows, was reaching its steel finger here and there in the débris and plucking the derelict freight-cars out of the way.
Up at the other end Fordyce, the trainmaster, was working with another crew, using a mammoth block-and-tackle, with a detached locomotive for its pulling power. ”

“ The railway was a single-track line; it had only a limited equipment of engines and cars; there was the prospect of further immediate requirements in other directions, and Haupt took the liberty of thinking that he had better keep his transportation for more pressing needs than a journey to a prospective battle-field only eighteen miles away—the more so as if the men were attacked whilst they were in the train they would be comparatively helpless, whereas if they were attacked when on the road—doing what amounted to no more than a single day's march—they would be ready for immediate defence. ”

“ There is a possibility of having a toy railway, with stations or rolling stock into which troops might be put, on such a giant war map. One would allow a move for entraining and another for detraining, requiring the troops to be massed alongside the train at the beginning and end of each journey, and the train might move at four or five times the cavalry rate. One would use open trucks and put in a specified number of men—say twelve infantry or five cavalry or half a gun per truck—and permit an engine to draw seven or eight trucks, or move at a reduced speed with more. ”

“ We struck the railroad about daylight, when we removed a few spikes, spreading the track, for the purpose of stopping the train and, being in a thick woods out of hearing, with no settlement near, we all laid down for a short nap. The mail train from the army was due at this point about eleven-thirty; another mail train from above was due about twelve o’clock, with numerous freight trains, carrying troops and war material, due throughout the day, also trains returning with wounded and discharged soldiers. ”

“ We have nothing to do but to improvise well-adapted gun-carriages for our rails." At the same meeting Mr. T. Wright, C.E., gave details of a proposed railway train battery for coast, frontier and inland defence which was designed to carry ten, twenty or forty guns or mortars.
Another early advocate of the use of railways as an actual instrument of warfare was Colonel E. R. Wethered, who, in 1872, wrote to the War Office suggesting that heavy ordnance should be mounted on wheeled carriages so constructed that they could be moved along any of the railways, from point to point. ”

“ In time of war, its logic ran, troop trains, squeezed into schedules with difficulty, don't stop and block things for the carelessness of a single man. Such a catastrophe would be treated by sending back word from the next station. No, the calm reasoning went on, it must be something far more serious than that. We believed it when word came along that The Great wanted the train stopped. We could hit on only one explanation. The train must have broken in two. An express thundered behind us. ”

“ One such train used by the French included armored locomotive, flat cars on which were mounted the guns in "barbettes," or steel turrets, and completely protected armored cars, used to transport troops or detachments of men.
A feature of the train was the observation tower. It was mounted upon what would ordinarily be the cab of the locomotive. Such towers have in one form or another become very common in the war. One type resembles the motortruck ladder and platform devices used by the man who repairs electric lights and wires in our city streets. ”

“ Very soon the train came up, turning a bend in the road about a half mile below us. The engineer, to fool us, put on more steam, making us think that they were entirely ignorant of our presence, and stopped right at the place we had shifted the rail. Soon they were right on us and began firing with about three hundred muskets, killing seven of our party, who were lying on the ground and jumped up, and badly wounding me, but the balance of our party, eleven strong, behind trees, with six-shooters, drove those fellows off the train on to the other side of the track. ”

“ With their better engine it would have been comparatively easy for our pursuers to come near enough to pick off man after man with their guns, while entirely out of reach of our revolvers. But had they come up so close, any obstruction we might have placed on the track would have been terribly efficient. As long as we possessed cross-ties or anything large enough to wreck a train they were bound to keep a respectful distance. ”

“ Flat cars that could be carried by hand and dropped on the rails, great strings of them. Up to the nearest point of battle came, on the regular railway, this small one.... It seemed to me that hundreds of men had been trained for this task, for in but a few minutes that small portable train was buzzing backward and forward on its own small portable rails, distributing food and supplies.... I've an idea that in time of battle it would be possible for those sturdy little trains to shift troops to critical or endangered points at the rate of perhaps twenty miles an hour.... ”

“ All trains are soldier trains. They must stop to take on soldiers and to let soldiers off. They must stop to make repairs. They must stop for many reasons. Don’t imagine you are in America, on an express train. Some time when the war is over trains will run on time, but now,—well stop kicking.” I stopped.
In Rejistza we learned that we must wait until four P.M. for a train going to the Dvinsk front. In the division commandant’s office we found two foreigners who had come across the front the night before. They were on the way to Moscow, and were being checked in as I had been. ”

“ Ordinary freight trains go on a side-track and wait till the Armour cars go by. The railroads sometimes even side-track passenger trains in order that a meat train may be rushed by to make a little more profit for the Beef Trust. Armour’s system of checking his cars by means of his agents stationed at icing points along the principal roads keeps his central office constantly informed of the whereabouts of every car. If a train has lost time, if an Armour car is side-tracked anywhere the Armour office asks over the wires: “What’s the matter?” ”

“ So an officer and several men, crawled forward over a string of goods vans to the locomotive. The execution to their clothing was appalling. But they persuaded the driver to stop the train, although he seemed in danger of a fit before he yielded, shouting things about the express that our amateur interpreters had difficulty with. They gestured rather more than he did and got their way. The train stopped. The engine driver animated himself volubly. He saw that the train had not broken in two. ”