World War 1 & the Railways: Difference between revisions

 

=== 1911 “Railway Manual (War)” ===

 

The main message of the booklet was that running the railways was too complicated for the military to manage alone. Being such a complex matter, railway management that would ensure the efficient operation of railways could only be ensured by “the cordial cooperation of railwaymen, combined with the strictest obedience of regulations by the troops.”

Before mid-summer 1914, thoughts of war were far from the minds of most people.

 

 

 

In May, Chester Races attracted large crowds. The Hooton Park Steeplechase meeting saw special trains running from Chester to the local station.

 

 

=== 1914 War declared ===

 

 

 

It was in this movement of troops and equipment that cooperation between the railways and the military worked beyond expectation. At Southampton, a troop train arrived, on average, every 12 minutes and within 15 minutes men, horses, weapons and supplies had been unloaded. Within 40 minutes of arriving at the docks the empty train was ready to depart.

Before August was out, many hundreds of men from all over the county had converged on Chester to enlist.

[[File:10HRA1 Soldiers Chester.jpg|center|thumb|449x449px|''Soldiers being seen off at Chester 1914'']]

 

 

In 1915, Eric Geddies, the deputy General Manager of the North Eastern Railway, was asked by David Lloyd George, the Minister of Munitions, to help to co-ordinate the whole rail network, along with the docks and canals, to enable a more efficient and faster transit of essential war materials.

 

==== Port Sunlight ====

 

Before leaving Port Sunlight they had been given a stirring speech by General Sir Henry Mackinnon, who had sanctioned the raising of this PALS Battalion. This was the largest number of volunteers from any factory or works to volunteer to serve King and Country.

Huge crowds were reported at both Port Sunlight and Chester to see them depart, some never to return. At the time, the workers were told that time spent serving King and Country would be counted as part of their employment service at the company with regard to benefits and years of service.

 

 

=== Ambulance Trains ===

In 1912, when the British government was secretly preparing for war and the Railway Executive Committee was formed to run the railways during the anticipated conflict, plans for 12 ambulance trains to be used in Britain were draw up. They were constructed in railway workshops. When war was finally declared, the trains were ready to transport casualties away from the channel ports.

''In one corner of the turntable building was a coach, built in 1907, for the London and South Western Railway. It was of a type that would have been converted for use in ambulance trains, in which a ward, pharmacy and nurses’ mess room had been recreated.''

 

 

''The museum’s interpretation developer said the display shed some insight into what historians have usually overlooked - the crucial role that ambulance trains played in the First World War. The mass casualties of this conflict called for evacuation of the injured on a scale never seen before.''

During the course of WW1, many ambulance trains were operated, both at home and on the continent, by the railways. When abroad they were hauled by British locomotives driven by British crews. The Great Western Railway (GWR) operated 62 such special trains to Chester and 134 to Birkenhead. A total of 160 ambulance trains were dealt with at Chester during the war, and, in addition to the Birkenhead trains, many others may well have passed through the station. In the two months after the end of hostilities, a further 10 such trains were dealt with at Chester.

 

General Sir William Henry Mackinnon was General Officer Commanding at Western Command (in Watergate Street) from 1910-1916 and his official residence was Government House, the former Dee Hills House. He became involved in the transport of wounded soldiers from the ambulance trains to various hospitals in the area and he also carried out nursing duties.

 

 

Several Chester-based London & North Western Railway (LNWR) men who had enlisted were killed in action. Nine members of the GWR based at Chester were also killed whilst on active service. There were Chester area men in the Railway Operating Division (ROD) including, it has been reported, some from the Hoole area.

As the war went on, government demands of the railways grew continuously. Overstretched and under attack, the French railways struggled to cope with the movement of injured soldiers. As a result, Britain built Continental Ambulance Trains for use in France. These trains were organised by the Royal Army Medical Corps and were used to evacuate more than 100,000 British casualties from the battlefield of Flanders in just one month in 1914.

 

The first trains used on the Western Front were simply empty French wagons with straw laid on the floor. Twelve trains of converted French stock were soon in use and this situation improved a little with the arrival of the first purpose-built ambulance trains in November 1914.

[[File:10HRA3 Ambulance Train.jpg|thumb|377x377px]]

Trains bringing the wounded home were often packed with men scarred by both their wounds and their memories. The men were cared for by a small army of doctors and nurses who worked long hours under intense pressure. In France, the situation became so bad that even horse boxes were used to convey the wounded.

 

 

Three tiered bunks had to be introduced to cope with the ever-increasing number of injured and extra medical equipment was carried to treat injuries not previously experienced.

In the 1920s the railway historian Edwin Pratt wrote that Dover and Southampton between them dealt with almost 2½ million casualties on some 14,000 ambulance trains over the course of the war.

 

 

Richmond House, in Boughton, was used as a hospital for wounded Belgian soldiers at the start of the war. This facility was later moved to Hoole House. The Ursuline Convent in Union Street was also used for the same purpose.

Due to the proximity of the munition’s factory, the station became one of the first to be lit by electricity, to avoid any possible explosions from the gas that was still the usual form of lighting. One fear was that any explosion here could have a devastating effect on the area.

 

 

Another concern was the sulphurous fumes that could be smelt over a wide area, depending on wind direction. The smell that emanated from Cluttons Manure Works on the Saltney Estate in the late 1960s early 1970s, which could reach the Curzon Park & Lache areas with the wind in the right (or wrong) direction, was a strong reminder of these fumes during the first world war.

The Chester Shell Factory, located in part of the Electricity Works in New Crane Street, made nearly 100,000 shells between August 1916 and November 1918. It operated 24 hours a day, until a shortage of steel early in 1918 led to the night shift being discontinued.

 

 

Following the end of the war, Dundas Sidings, near Queensferry, were used to store approximately 190 ROD 2-8-0 locomotives, some of which had seen service in France. These had been designed by George John Robinson, born Bristol 1856, but educated at Chester Grammar School. He spent a short time working for the GWR at Chester. He is best remembered for being the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Central Railway and these locomotives were probably one of his finest designs. They would have passed through Chester to reach and leave Dundas Sidings.

The infrastructure at most of the collieries and ports prohibited the introduction of more modern rolling stock, a situation that lingered on well after the war was over. By 1918 fifteen trains were being run every day of the week. They had priority over most other traffic.

 

 

The Chester Station Coffee Tavern was a popular refreshment stop, and, during 1918, a ¼ million cups of tea and coffee were served, as well as 400,000 cakes and pies, to, on average, 500 soldiers passing through the station each day. Thanks to the generosity of staff and public donations most of these were free or just a nominal sum was requested from them. Groups of volunteers set up free or low-price buffets at many stations up and down the country, serving tea, sandwiches and cakes at any hour of the day or night.

The railway industry became one of the first in the country to allow women to work in almost all departments. This was necessary to replace the men who had voluntarily enlisted.

 

 

==== Railway Service Badges ====

Although not fighting at ‘The Front’ railway workers were proud that they were ‘doing their bit’ for the war effort. As well as building the trains, the railways also built stretchers, guns, shells and vehicles.

 

Without the railways, the movement of troops, supplies, food and equipment from Britain to North East France, would have been much more difficult and protracted. The railways also allowed the injured to be removed from the Front Line and brought back home far more easily. Horses, many thousands of them, and early road vehicles supplemented the railways, but both quickly became defeated by the mud and numerous craters in the vicinity of the front lines. It is doubtful if this war could have continued for so long without the use that both the British and the Germans made of railways as the main means of supplying their Front Lines, and in the use of light railways in getting close to the troops in the trenches. It has been called the first true Railway War.

 

The first Armistice Day commemorations in Britain took place in November 1919. Before this, in May, however, the railwaymen of Great Britain and Ireland were honoured.

 

 

Each member of the congregation was presented with an Order of Service that contained the details of the ceremony and a complete alphabetical list of the 18,957 men known to have been killed in the line of duty along with brief details of their pre-war railway grade and their military rank.