Tracks to the Trenches 13-15 July 2018

[E759]

I wish to commend the organisers and re-enactors for a highly respectful event remembering the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice during WW I and the role of narrow-gauge railways in The War to End all Wars. This was very much an event centred around the people taking part and the story-boards dotted around the trenches and “camp” telling us the gruesome realities of life on the Western Front.

A sobering experience indeed and the words of Dan Snow tempering the sight of narrow-gauge petrol and steam power running throughout the event: “The railways enabled the carnage to continue as they bought supplies up to the Front Line”.

A couple of other observations which further delineate this event: I shared a Taxi from SOT to Apedale (we’d just missed the free Heritage bus) and we both had Grandparents who fought in The First World War. I broached the subject of the negative reactions to re-enactment of the “other side” of conflict at Heritage railways. This subject requires further discussion but as pointed out to me there are many with memories which cannot be forgotten easily or quickly. On the return bus and train to EUS a small group of us discussed a wide range of world issues around conflict including the role of objectors who did not wish to fight on the front line but did want to play their part in the war effort. This event was an exception to the rule that both before and after intelligent conversation centred around the people being remembered rather than the machinery.

Again, my thanks and appreciation to the event organisers, volunteers and re-enactors for an utterly unforgettable day.

 

[Trackbedjolly]

I have not read what Dan Snow has written but I would like to quote from a discussion of an ICE paper of 1920:
"There was a gradual evolution from this primitive way of working to a very good system of light railways behind the front line in 1917.
After Sir Eric Geddes came to France and took over the new transportation directorate the army commanders did not interfere in details as some of them had
previously done, while the Director of Railways was under the
Quartermaster General. By the time Sir Eric arrived the Somme
battle was over. Towards the end of that battle, railways came
into their own, as they had to be relied on almost entirely for
transport, since the heavy motor-traffic had made the roads impassable."

Source for this is here:
https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/pdf/10.1680/imotp.1920.15539

This suggests that it was only in the last year or so of the Great War that railways actually made efficient transport of materiel possible. I wonder if DS is not guilty of over-egging the railways' contribution and thereby creating a new urban myth in the process?

 

[Old Yard Dog]

This weekend, 21/22 Sep 2019, the Apedale Valley Light Railway ran passenger services over part of their complex 2-foot Field & Trench railway network for the first and possibly last time. Passengers sat sideways on open benches mounted on a couple of small wagons and were chained in. These were top and tailed by small diesel locos when I was there. These might have changed over the course of the weekend.

 

[madannie77]

The locos used on the Field Railway passenger trips changed regularly whilst I was there on Sunday, but all were diesel or petrol engined. I was very pleased to get a ride (or two) over the field railway, having been a regular visitor to Apedale since the opening event in 2008 and often coveted a ride across the field.

 

[ian1944]

Andrew Martin's "The Somme Stations" gives a convincing account of the reality of things, as the fictional railway detective Jim Stringer goes to war.