Military railways
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The military use of railways derives from their ability to move troops or materiel rapidly and, less usually, on their use as a platform for military systems, like very large railroad guns and armoured trains, in their own right. Railways have been employed for military purposes in wartime since the Revolutions of 1848. Improvements in other forms of transport have rendered railways less important to the military since the end of World War II and the Cold War, although they are still employed for the transport of armoured vehicles to and from exercises or the mass transport of vehicles to a theatre of operations. The US Air Force developed the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison mobile ICBM in the 1980s, but it never reached operational status.
Due to the expense and time required to build specifically military railway networks, military use of railways is usually based on a pre-existing civilian railway network rather than a military-owned one. However, specialized military types of rolling stock have frequently been used. Military railway is usually built and operated by railway troops. Sometimes so called strategic railways are built where civilian considerations would not justify a line or not one built to those standards.
Military railways
- Bicester Military Railway
- British military narrow gauge railways
- Fort Eustis Military Railroad
- Melbourne Military Railway
Railways in war
Early Prussian use
The Kingdom of Prussia's VI Corps, some 12,000 men and their guns, horses, ammunition and other material, was transported on two railway lines to Kraków in 1846. The Prussian Army used railways to move its forces during the First Schleswig War in 1849–1851. Three Prussian battalions were deployed by rail to crush the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden. The first Prussian regulations for transport of troops on state railways were issued in 1856.
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
In 1849, an Imperial Russian corps with all of its equipment, was moved by rail from Poland to Göding in Moravia to link up with the Austrian army during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
Crimean War
Military railways were used to establish a reliable supply to
Second Italian War of Independence
During the
American Civil War
The American Civil War in 1861–1865 was the first large war in which railroads were both a major tool and a major target of military action. A few railroads were custom built:
- United States Military Railroad rebuilt the City Point Railroad, extending to Petersburg during the Siege of Petersburg
- Confederate railroads in the American Civil War
- Centreville Military Railroad
Paraguayan War
In 1867 during the
Russian use in Asia
The Trans-Siberian Railway (Транссибирская железнодорожная магистраль - Транссиб), before 1917 was called the Great Siberian Route (Великий Сибирский Путь). First construction begun on 19 May (31 May) 1891. It was used in the Russo-Japanese War and Russian Civil War.
Mahdist War
In 1896-98 during the Mahdist War, Kitchener built the Sudan Military Railroad extending the Egyptian railways into the Sudan.
World War I
The early phase of World War I was influenced to a large degree by the speed of
World War II
German military transport was mostly dependent on trains and
German bombing of Polish railways contributed greatly to the swift success of the 1939 invasion of Poland. In turn, losses due to air attacks on Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1944 severely handicapped German logistics.
Japan built several railways for military purposes, notably the Burma-Siam Railway, known as the
The existing
See also
- Central Asian Military railway
- Decauville railway
- Feldbahn
- Heeresfeldbahn - German and Austrian military railways
- Light railway
- Longmoor Military Railway - built by the Royal Engineers to train on railway operations on it. It closed in 1969.
- Railway troops
- Russian Railway Troops
- Strategic railway
- War Department Light Railways
External links
- "They're Highballing Now." Popular Science, February 1945, pp. 77–83, article on the landing of thousands of rolling stock across D-Day beaches During World War II and rebuilding of French railways.
Citations
- ^ Schneid 2012, pp. 35–36.
- ^ Schneid 2012, p. 36.
- ^ Schneid 2012, p. 35.
- ^ Schneid 2012, p. 52.
- ^ Schneid 2012, pp. 52, 58.
- ^ "El Kantara, Egypt. 1942-01. A member of the 2nd Railway Construction Company, Royal Australian Engineers". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
Bibliography
- Schneid, Frederick C. (2012). The Second War of Italian Unification 1859–61. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-787-2.
Further reading
- Vecamer, Arvo L., Deutsche Reichsbahn: The German State Railway in WWII, [1]
- Connor, W.D., Maj., Military Railways, Professional Papers No.32, Corps of Engineers US Army, Revised edition 1917, Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1917.