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WW1 Narrow gauge photos.

Discussion in 'Narrow Gauge Railways' started by Baldwin, Nov 13, 2012.

  1. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    A subject which deserves attention. In the second posting there are some excellent British WW1 photos.
     
  2. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

  3. ilvaporista

    ilvaporista Part of the furniture

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    Works for me. Some interesting images there which should not be forgotten or lost
     
  4. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    I imagine a lot of us had relatives there, i know my grandfather was, went there in 1915 when he was only 17 and did three years.
     
  5. ilvaporista

    ilvaporista Part of the furniture

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    Yes my grandfather was there at the end of the first as a 17 year old and then went back driving an ambulance for the second one. He died 10 days before I was born.
     
  6. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    I knew mine, died when i was 8, very nice person he was, after he had survived the trenches he came out of the war as a pacifist like many others who had witnessed so much death and destruction. He was injured in the war and because of this he coudn't find work, so he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister saying he had served his country and explaining his situation, one month later he received a letter with a job at the Bristol Electricity board for a post as an electrical draughtsman.
     
  7. guard_jamie

    guard_jamie Part of the furniture

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    Very interesting photographs. I studied Britain's Railways in WW1 and now give a talk on the subject, about the railways both here and behind the Western Front (Secretaries of Societies take note!)
     
  8. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

  9. Martin Coombs

    Martin Coombs New Member

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    I wonder what the steering wheel did... :)
     
  10. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    .....What a silly question, to go round corners, of course !!
     
  11. Diamond Gaz

    Diamond Gaz Well-Known Member

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    Fascinating photos, thanks for sharing. I know that my great grandfather was in France during WW1 with the ROD, but have no further info on what or where he was doing - does anyone know if there are any historical records anywhere that I can search to find out more?
     
  12. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    ...Yes there is, try this = Military records. Ancestry.co.uk
     
  13. Ploughman

    Ploughman Part of the furniture

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    Somewhere for the driver to hang onto.
     
  14. Allan Thomson

    Allan Thomson New Member

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    I'm wondering, I could be wrong but would it be to allow the body of the 'car' to be rotated? I'm sure that the bodies were designed to be reversible?

    Some interesting films on youtube of railways in both wars

    Exactly how long do you need to lay track?.... WW1 Narrow gauge train lines in France - World War One - Historic Steam Trains & Railways - YouTube

    Or rip it up?.... 1945 Germans Destroy Their Own Railroads - YouTube

    Does it matter what condition it is in?...... Derailment - Experiments to derail trains during World War Two - YouTube

    Train wrecking..... Train Sabotage Experiments by US Military in the 1940's - Train and Railroad Crashes - YouTube
     
  15. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    It's clearly a converted road vehicle, so I wonder if there are any controls on the steering column (for example, the ignition advance / retard) and it was just quicker to leave the steering wheel in situ than disconnect the controls, remove the steering wheel and then reattach the controls.

    Tom
     
  16. sbt

    sbt New Member

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    The Somme Stations, a Detective story by Andrew Martin gives a flavour of the time and the place.

    The Somme Stations Jim Stringer Steam Detective 7: Amazon.co.uk: Andrew Martin: Books

    To my mind a good quality history book can give you the bare facts but a well written Historical Novel, Detective or otherwise, brings those facts to life to evoke what it may have felt like to be there. They are also useful in focusing peoples minds on the disparate facts and how and why they interact rather than considering them independently.

    I say 'may have felt', as we can never be sure and every persons reactions and experiences are different.
     
  17. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

  18. ilvaporista

    ilvaporista Part of the furniture

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    Ohh, that could start a whole new thread about a possible buried loco. If they can have Spitfires buried in Burma we may yet see Feldbahns coming out of the ground in France..
     
  19. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    But there are ! I recently came across a German forum where they've just found another locomotive buried, i've heard quite a few times about when a quarry closes down the easy thing to do is just to throw everything down into the hole, usually filled up with water !
     
  20. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    Presumably that is a blast nearby that has knocked the engines off into a nearby trench!

    I too would recommend The Somme Stations, the most interesting railway related book I have read this year. If only one of the ROD chaps could have written a 'footplate memoirs' at the time, what stories they could tell...and now a generation that has all passed on. They must have been extremely brave.
     

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