RAILWAYS AT THE FRONT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12176, 27 November 1917, Page 3

RAILWAYS AT THE FRONT.

iWOM>BRFUL CANADIAN WORK.

jßuilding a military railway is not li&e constructing a transcontinental twites Mr Roland Hill, in " The Noti&ighamshire Guardian" of August 25). You do not know quite what the route will be, and your right-of-way has to be purchased with blood and shels. But you have to make a road bed and strong rails just as swiftly, perhaps more so, for the penalty clause in the contract is defeat.

When you at home read that " the guns are being brought up satisfactorily, " and that there "has been heavy rain all day," you picture struggling teams of horses dragging batteries into advanced positions. There are some of these old pictures of war left, but they are few and far between. Sometimes the guns and ammunition have to take tho muddy tracks, but if hick is the least wttfch us now they go over well-planked roads, where hauling is fairly light, And by the time tho roads are getting wearily worn of the traffic the railway i's there. We learneed the value "of lumber and railways at tho Somme. . EVER ADVANCING RAILHEADS. On a huge stand, such as you might see at the draftsman's office at railhead on construction at home, there was a large scale map of what was ■yesterday '' Germany in Flanders." There are blue and red linos which begin behind our old trenches and end nowhere—perhaps on tho Rhine. They are the standard gauge and the light railways, and they are wanted quickly. Some of ihe material was already up. British labour parties, under the direction of a Canadian major who had worked gangs on the prairies and in the western mountains, were out in the shell-pocked area making the first thousand yards grade. The new railhead which had been advanced from yesterday was fast fi'llmg up with metals, 'fish-plates, spikes and ties. There were just enough for the length to be built. Right and left-hand switches were labelled for the stations and gun spurs where they should be laid. Tho junctions and stations were sympathetically named after the places, big and Jittle, in the Dominion, where they were torn up months ago and cast into this melting pot of the Empire's war. T am not giving the names that are on the map, but do not- be surprised if you hear that this new Regina, or Lopas or oven Ottawa has been shelled. There will be a good 8 or 12, perhaps loin howitzer to give an account of itself there. ; MIXED GEOGRAPHY. <; I'D want 200 12in. shells at Ottawa | flump to-morrow night," said the gunner captain. "Mind you, th& lino isn't built yet, and the gun is somewhere back at Vancouver, which is an old, hefore-the-push station." "All serene," answered the Canadian adjutant; "I can pick them up at Halifax dump and bring them with the train taking the Bin. to Ashawa." Dominion geography is a bit mixed out here.

It is swift travelling for a newly constructed line, but then when the combination of railway and artillery exports gets going, things do travel with celerity. If Hindonburg wanm to keep away from the big guns, he will have to fall back more than 5000 yards in two days. Thanks to sacrifices by British and Canadian railways, we have plenty of material, and we have blended brains and labour, too., in these men of modern war, who pave the way for the hugo guns and cheer the way for the fighting men who " go over."

Yesterday I wandered along tho fringe of the greatest battle the- world has ever seen. Canadians may, for a 'time, proudly call it the third battle of Yprcs. Where otico there had Ven a Canadian battalion's headquarters there was a nearly built -hell-proof series of dug-outs, with a Rritish brigadier and his staff busily at work. The walls were- panelled with stained wood, and brown Backing to match. There were even places for ordnance maps ready, when the new tenants had eniiered that day. Water was laid on even for the' general's sleeping section. A self-contained electric plant lighted tho offices and tunnels, where a whole battalion could shelter in comfort. Electric fans kept the atmosphere pure. Canadian tunnelling companies, some of the men who bored under the Huns at Mostdnos. built them, and even the Huns would admit that they are quite the latest fashion in dug-outs. .NETWORK OF STRATEGIC j JNES.

Outside the entrance, his blue prints spread in front of him, a Vancouver captain was discussing a similar set, somewhere about the place where Canada made her greati stand at Sb Julien. He had been out in the newly captured trenches that morning, a few hours after our wave bad o-ono iorward, and had found, still marked, somo of tho Canadian graves their comrades left when they retreated that April afternoon.

For over a year Canadian railway battalions have been building strator'ic ■linos of all gauges up to our former trenches. At first Fritz used to hothcr them with shells, but this vear these expert Itracklavctrs have "won their own victory. The Huns have discovered that tt- is cheaper for us to ■build and repair this steel network than lor them to shell and destroy it. Xight and day, in sunshine and rain though these Canadian battalions and their British aids of the Labour battalions were under fire, and casualties were not Three days ago o no battalion was shelled out of its headquarters, hut they completed the spurs which they needed for the big guns on tho morning of the at tack 7 "

i BRIDGES FOR, THE BTO- GFXS. . Out on tiie cana/I, across which our Dominion troops retreated over a shell*\vept pontoon bridge, there are more construction men helping the everbusy Royal Engineers to 'throw across new wooden structures that will boar i-he heaviest artillery and rolling stock. The timbers have been sawn and .xrin-pecl and fitted in a little Canadian mi IT right under the nose of the. enemy, -where Amherst boilers drjive, .saves which cam© from Hamilton, and tlie .sawyer and his men still wear the Stetsons of the woods and live, on bacon arid Beans—sometimes. "British rations are. they say, too luxurious. oren for bush num.

Everyone out hero knows thatCanada is in this great battle heart and soul, but in the victorious excitement of a yreat attack one is liable to forget these Tnen from overseas who have been plodding away under fire for mouths to make success doublv .sure. They are content, and appreciate to the fri'll the praise their Imperial comrades! have not been slow to give them, and that they receive officially. There are as many honours to be' won by them as by their ficrhting comrades around Lens, and they are winning them.