WAR TRAINS.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 14 May 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

WAR TRAINS.

WHICH HAVE DONE GOOD WORK IN THE PRESENT WAR. Railways have proved indispensable to the war ; without them it would be impossible to transport troops so quickly and in such numbers, nor to keep them supplied with ammunition, though, of course, the motor has a large share in this work. Without railways and motors, fighting on the present large scale would be impossible. The war is alsu notable for the perfection of the armoured and hospital train, the latter, curigusly enough, helping to undo the fell work of the former. As a matter of fact, the fighting train is almost as old as the railway itself, and in 1819 a Scotsman is said to have suggested frie construction of a nuinbci of batteries on trucks which could be taken at once to any -threatened point of coast. The first practical war tram, however, was used in America early in the Civil War. Bridges had been destroyed on the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railway, sp a special armoured car was built tor its protection. Plates of thick sheet iron, pierced with loop holes, were affixed to the sides of a baggage car. At each end larger holes were made on both sides, a can non working on a central turn-table firing through them. Sailors formed the crews for the guns, and fifty riflemen lined the loop holes. THE GERMANS KNOW THEM. German troops made their first acquaintance with French armoured trams during the fighting round Paris in 187071, heavily plated trains taking partin the various sorties. Thus at Buzenval, the last attempt to break through the investing ring, a well protected locomotive between two armoured trucks mounting heavy guns moved along the St. Germain line to aid the attack, while another was equipped at Tours with the special object of taking provisions to the beleaguered city. Roofed and protected at the sides, with loop-holed bullet-proof shields also pierced with larger openings for cannon. it tarried a crow ol 500 men and mounted four .small guns. During the Commune the revolutionaries seized seme of these trains, and every night ran out to engage the batteries arrayed against them. . Tt was in the- Egyptian campaign ot 1880 that the fighting train first made an impression on public imaginatron, Lord Fisher, the captain of the old Inflexible, superintending the fitting out of a train that ran out of Alexandria everv evening and caused severe loss among Arahi's men. The train was not altogether an armoured one, as sandbags were in evidence as much as the boiler-plates, which were also used to protect the locomotive and trucks. The engine was in the middle, and l on the foremost truck was a -fO-pound Ai mstrong gun, with Nordenfeldts in some of the others. One of the trucks carried a couple < t 9-pounder naval field guns, which weie lifted out by a small crane fitted for the purpose, and when the nightly runs were made a pilot engine went in front with the armoured train, dying a Union Jack and White Ensign “fore and aft, a short distance, behind. When necessary the train was speedily brought to a standstill, the guns hoisted out, run up the line a short distance, and brougnt into action against the enemy. AN IMPROVISED -ARMOURED TRAIN. Later, when the British were making their dash to seize the Suez Canal, truck, roughly armoured with plates of iron and mounting a 40-pounder and a Gatling, was used, while at Kassassin the Royal Marine Artillery mounted a captured Krupp on a truck, which they used with effect, moving it to and fro bv hand in -order to prevent the enemy getting the correct range. Armoured and sand-hag protected trains also did good service in the Sudan. " In 1891 during the fighting against the Chilian dictator Balmacoda. an armoured train was pressed into service, while in Cuba Spain used armoured engines and trucks manned by rifleman to keep open the line between Colon and Santa Clara. Perhaps the first armoured train built' fur the especial purpose was that constructed in 1894 for the Ist Sussex Artillery Volunteers, and kept at Nowhavcn. It consisted of a locomotive, two carriages. and a truck, all well protected by bullet-proof .steel plates, those of the carriage being loop-holed. The gun, a 40-pound breech-loader, was mounted on a turn-table so that it could be fired in any direction. On the same turntable was a large shield, six feet high, open on one side, and with a port for the gun at the other. Thus, in whatever direction the gun pointed, the crew were always protected from rifle fire. Tliis train was thoroughly tested and found extremely reliable and well suited to its purpose. Excellently bound armoured trains, m several instances specially built in England and shipped out to Capetown and Durban in sections, were nwich used in South Africa, one of the first actions in that campaign being the derailment of one of them on its way to Mafeking, while it was after a similar accident that Mr. Churchill was taken prisoner. These were usually partly-manned by seamen or marines, and naval twelvepounders or even larger guns were mounted.

AX INGEX IOUSLY-COXTRTVED MOBILE BATTERY. Bulawayo turned out an improvised train that did fine service on the Rhodesian border. Rails, strengthened at the angles with iron sleepers, formed a framework round locomotive and trucks, and to this steel and iron plates wore bolted. Sometimes a six-inch was mounted on a special type of truck, but as a rule these heavy guns wore only used on special occasions, most of the armoured trains that kept the lines open only Maxims and 12-pound-ers, and rifles fired through loop-holes. However excellent as were these steel moving fortresses they were neither so well protected nor so powerfully armed as those which have been in use in Belgium, where our sailors have once more shown how well they can fight such land craft, in this instance Belgians completing the crew. Another type of war train is the hospital train which is now such a wellknown feature of our own homo railways, though up to a few months ago only the South Western owned any. The hospital train has not such a long history as its fighting brother, and the first built exclusively for hospital purposes seems to have been constructed in England for the advance up the Nile, when Lord Kitchener finally broke the power of the Mahdi. while in 1900 the South Western Railway built the first in England For taking to Netley.