User:Mrg3105/sandbox for Military railways

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Military railways From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Difference between revisions)

Military railways are a form of transport communication technology used by the military forces for movement of strategically significant forces, bulk cargo or as a platform for military systems. The use of railways by the national armed forces allowed large forces to converge to the area of critical deployment by different routes.^[1]

Due to the expense of building the railway networks, the national railway infrastructure is usually utilised by the military forces, however it often uses specialised rolling stock designed to solve uniquely military logistics or combat problems.

Contents 1 Current railways 2 Operation 2.1 Technology 2.1.1 Gauges 2.1.2 Engines 2.1.2.1 Germany 2.1.2.2 England 2.1.2.3 Australia 2.1.2.4 Rest of World 2.1.3 Railway-mounted weapons 2.1.4 Armoured carriages 2.1.5 Rolling stock 2.1.6 Light rail 2.1.7 Monorail 2.2 Planning 2.3 Management 2.4 Advantages 2.5 Disadvantage 2.6 Current uses 2.7 Prospects for the future 3 History of military railways 3.1 Wars of Italian Independence 3.2 Crimean War 3.3 American Civil War 3.3.1 U.S. Military Rail Road 3.3.2 Confederate Railways 3.3.2.1 Great Locomotive Chase 3.4 Franco-Prussian War 3.5 Russian use in Asia 3.6 European colonial administration 3.6.1 War Department Railways 3.7 First World War 3.8 Russian Civil War 3.9 The Maginot Line 3.10 Spanish Civil War 3.11 Second World War 3.11.1 Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft 3.11.2 German use of railways in Poland 3.12 Germany 3.13 Japanese use in China 3.14 Soviet Union State Railways 3.15 War Department (United Kingdom) 3.16 Australia 3.17 Cold War 3.17.1 Soviet Union 3.17.2 NATO 3.17.3 Warsaw Pact 3.17.4 Baikal-Amur Railway 3.17.5 Use by United Nations 4 References 5 Sources

[edit] Current railways

• Longmoor Military Railway
• British military narrow gauge railways
• Melbourne Military Railway
• Bicester Military Railway

• The main US Army repair and storage depot has an internal railway system with interchange to the national network.

[edit] Operation

[edit] Technology

[edit] Gauges

Around the time of the First World War gauges begun to be standardised throughout national rail networks although different track gauges were used in different parts of the world including 600 mm (1 ft 11⅝ in), 760 mm (2 ft 5⅞ in), 1,000 mm (3 ft 3⅜ in) and 1,050 mm (3 ft 5⅓ in).

The military light railways in France were of 600 mm gauge and used a variety of steam and petrol locomotives from French, British and American builders. The Germans installed their 600  gauge Feldbahn system early in the war. Trench railways of the World War I western front produced the greatest concentration of minimum gauge railway locomotives observed to date.^[2]

A narrow gauge railway (or narrow gauge railroad) is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) or less.

See also List of rail gauges

[edit] Engines

To ease the shortage of engines in wartime, carefully chosen classes of engines were mass produced. The locomotives were often found useful postwar.

Davenport built a number of locomotives for the United States Army including World War I trench railways, the USATC S100 Class 0-6-0 of World War II, and eighteen larger switchers during the 1950s, two of which were adjustable in gauge -- one could operate on broad gauges up to 66-inch, and one on narrow gauges -- the latter operating for a period on the Denver & Rio Grande Western.

[edit] Germany

• Kriegslokomotive

[edit] England

• ROD.

[edit] Australia

• Australian Standard Garratt - for narrow gauge.

[edit] Rest of World

• List of locomotive builders

[edit] Railway-mounted weapons

The idea of railway guns appears to have been first suggested in the 1860s by a Mr Anderson, who published a pamphlet in the United Kingdom titled National Defence in which he proposed a plan of ironclad railway carriages. A Russian, Lebedew, claimed to have first invented the idea in 1860 when he is reported to have mounted a mortar on a railway car. The first railway guns used in combat were constructed and used during the American Civil War, when guns and mortars were mounted on flatcars and during the Siege of Petersburg. France also used improvised railways guns during the Siege of Paris in 1870 and the United Kingdom mounted a few six inch guns on railway cars during the First Boer War intending to bombard forts around Pretoria, but Pretoria was captured before they could be deployed.

In France, Lt. Col Peigné is often credited with designing the first railway gun in 1883. Commandant Mougin is credited with putting guns on railcars in 1870.

See also: railroad plough

[edit] Armoured carriages

[edit] Rolling stock

[edit] Light rail

[edit] Monorail

[edit] Planning

[edit] Management

[edit] Advantages

[edit] Disadvantage

[edit] Current uses

[edit] Prospects for the future

[edit] History of military railways

The railways, which had revolutionised civilian transportation in the second half of the 19th century, also had a dramatic effect on the conduct of military conflicts.^[3]

First used...

[edit] Wars of Italian Independence

In the course of the Wars of Italian Independence, railways proved to be instrumental in the defeat of Charles Albert's army at Peschiera, as well as in the Austrian ones at Palestro and Magenta: in the latter, French troops were able to reach quickly the battlefield thanks to the new transportation mean, and established a defence line right on the ballast of the line.

[edit] Crimean War

One of the first uses of military railways was to establish a more reliable supply of British Army troops in the Balaclava positions during the Crimean War severe winter of 1855.

However, railways also defined a change from the simple times when an army need only to have brought food and ammunition to the time when it was reported that half a battery of artillery required “a long railway-train” making for a “complex military operations of modern times”.^[4]

[edit] American Civil War

[edit] U.S. Military Rail Road

United States Military Railroad known as the City Point Railroad, which extended to Petersburg during the Siege of Petersburg during the American Civil War in 1864 -1865. Commanded by General Haupt, the USMRR also exercised a wide control over tracks and trains in all areas near the front lines, and took responsibility for building and maintaining the railroads which provided supplies to the Union armies throughout the Souther Campaigns. A factory in Taunton, Massachusetts manufactured a locomotive named in the honour of the USMRR commanding general.^[5]

[edit] Confederate Railways

Because of the strong belief in States Rights centralised control of southern railways was not adopted until far too late, so that railways remained in the hands of over 100 private companies.

[edit] Great Locomotive Chase

The Great Locomotive Chase was an attempt by Union soldiers to destroy Confederate Railway Infrastructure in a raid.

[edit] Franco-Prussian War

Government involvement in the railroads did mean that the French rail system became based on a very inefficient design. By 1855, the many original small firms had coalesced into six large companies, each having a regional monopoly in one area of France. The Nord, Est, Ouest, Paris-Orléans, Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (PLM), and the Midi lines divided the nation into strict corridors of control. Difficulties arose in that the six large monopolies, with the exception of the Midi Company, all connected to Paris, but did not link together anywhere else in the country. The French railway map comprised a series of unconnected branches running out of Paris. While this meant that trains served Paris well, other parts of the country were not served as well. For instance, one branch of the Paris-Orléans Line ended in Clermont-Ferrand, while Lyon stood on the PLM Line. Thus any goods or passengers requiring transportation from Lyon to Clermont-Ferrand in 1860 needed to take a circuitous route via Paris of over seven hundred kilometers, even though a mere hundred and twenty kilometers separated the two cities.

This grave inefficiency lead to great problems in the Franco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871). The German railway lines, inter-connected in a grid-like fashion, proved far more efficient at advancing troops and supplies to the front than the French one. "Combien nous a été funeste l'absence de lignes transversales [...] unissant nos grandes artères" reported a military officer to the parliamentary inquiry on France's defeat.

However, the German General staff was able to also include the use of rail into its planning and doctrine by publishing a tractate on the use of railways. "The importance of the railways placed a premium on planning and doctrine. In 1870, German general headquarters was divided into three sections - movements, railways and supply, and intelligence . The staff officers with field formations were in a sense Moltke's representatives, with wide powers of initiative and discretion in operational matters."^[6]

[edit] Russian use in Asia

Trans-Siberian Main Railway (Транссибирская железнодорожная магистраль - Транссиб), before 1917 was named The Great Siberian Way (Великий Сибирский Путь). First construction begun on 19 (31 May) 1891.

"...The difficulty of bringing a nation's resources to bear quickly and at one point had diminished. The railway allowed an army to tap all the resources of manpower and industry . In 1854 the Russian army, fighting in the Crimea on the end of a long land line, had been exhausted by a smaller force fed from the sea. In 1904 it had fallen prey to the same fate. But the Japanese had acted then because they realised that, when the Trans-Siberian railway was completed , the logistic balance would swing in favour of the continental power. However, beyond the railhead, movement had not undergone a comparable revolution. ^[7]

"...The Russian use of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1904 demonstrated this: the line kept the Russian army in the field but being single-tracked never really allowed the full flow of supplies its existence might have suggested." ^[8]

[edit] European colonial administration

[edit] War Department Railways

The War Department was the United Kingdom government department responsible for the supply of equipment to the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the pursuance of military activity. In 1857 it became the War Office. Within the War Office the name 'War Department' remained in use to describe the military transport services of the War Department Fleet and the War Department Railways.

One aspect of the War Department's work was the supply of locomotives and rolling stock for use on railways in the United Kingdom, other parts of the British Empire, and in theatres of conflict.

To overcome the tyranny of distances in the colonial possessions, Europeans made extensive use of railways in campaigns, none more so then the British. "In 1898 Kitchener, in his reconquest of the Sudan, built 230 miles of railway line to effect this, but the pace of the campaign could in consequence be no faster than the rate of construction"^[9]

[edit] First World War

Trench railways represented military adaptation of early 20th century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I. The large concentrations of soldiers and artillery at the front lines required delivery of enormous quantities of food, ammunition and fortification construction materials where transportation facilities had been destroyed. Reconstruction of conventional roads and railways was too slow, and fixed facilities were attractive targets for enemy artillery. Trench railways linked the front with standard gauge railway facilities beyond the range of enemy artillery. Empty cars often carried litters returning wounded from the front.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. A trench railway system was included in construction of the Maginot Line, but internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for wheeled vehicles rendered trench railways obsolete within a decade.

The outbreak of the First World War caught the French with a shortage of heavy field artillery. In compensation, large numbers of large static coastal defense guns and naval guns were moved to the front, but these were typically unsuitable for field use and required some kind of mounting. The railway gun provided the obvious solution. By 1916, both sides were deploying railway guns. The most famous railway gun of the war is probably the Paris Gun.

Soon after annexing Polish areas, the German railway army readjusted the railway from Russian (broad gauge) to standard width (1435 mm). On the Russian side, most of the rolling stock of the Warsaw–Vienna Rail, Warsaw–Bydgoszcz and Kaliska Rail (as well as the headquarters of these lines) was relocated to Russia. In response to a counter-attack by the Russian army, German General Ludendorff ordered the destruction of strategic parts of the Warsaw–Vienna line and the Kalisz Railway between Warsaw, Łódź, Kutno and Kalisz.

The Feldbahn (German for "Field Railway") was a military strategy from World War I that made use of strategically placed narrow gauge railway systems for military purposes, and as part of the larger war machine. Field railways were attached to the Imperial German Army in the First World War. The railways were very similar to the British and French trench railways of World War I, but were usually more permanent installations, which were usually part of a farm, mine, or other industry. Both during and after the war, they were used to transport agricultural, forest and industrial raw materials such as wood, peat, rock and sand.

In 1915, adaptation of a significant portion of all broad gauge track to standard width was completed by the German and Austrian armies. As the railway bridge over the Vistula River had been damaged, the Germans used ferries to move locomotives across the river in Warsaw. During the same year, construction of military railways on the routes Wielbork–Ostrołęka and Rozwadów–Sandomierz as well as additional lines on the Kalisz Railway took place. Modern German railway rolling stock replaced the broad gauge stock which had been removed to Russia.

In World War I the War Department ran the War Department Light Railways which were a system of narrow gauge Trench railways used for the supply of ammunition and stores, the transport of troops and the evacuation of the wounded.

Although the Imperial Russian Army was seriously challenged by the lack of rail line and rolling stock at the start fo the war, they proved to be far more resourceful then expected and managed to increase the flow of their trains from 250 to 360 per day, allowing them to mobilise two-thirds of their Army in 18 days.^[10]

[edit] Russian Civil War

U.S. Army 167th and 168th Railroad Companies (sent to Murmansk to operate the Murmansk to Petrograd line) in 1919, and Russian Railway Service Corps (a contingent of U.S. railway workers and managers who accompanied locomotives and rolling stock that the U.S. had originally committed to the Kerensky government for improving the Trans-Siberian Railroad). The Czech Legion captured the strategic city of Simbirsk and between May 1918 and August 1918, captured so much territory that they controlled the Trans-Siberian railway from Simbirsk to Vladivostok.

[edit] The Maginot Line

Ouvrages fortresses were the most important fortifications on the Maginot Line, having the sturdiest construction and also the heaviest artillery. These were composed of at least six "forward bunker systems" or "combat blocks", as well as two entrances, and were interconnected via a network of underground tunnels that often featured narrow gauge electric railways for transport between bunker systems.

[edit] Spanish Civil War

During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s the railway network was extensively damaged. Immediately after the war the Franco regime nationalized the broad gauge network, and in 1941 RENFE was formed. Narrow gauge lines were nationalized in the 1950s, later being grouped to form FEVE.

[edit] Second World War

• The war's effect on existing railways
• Railway-building troops
• New track, sidings and signalling
• Railway use planning (for invasions and counter-invasion)
• Armoured trains
• Rail-mounted guns
• Anti-rail warfare
  • Attack by mines
  • Removal of rails
  • Damage to signals
  • Air attack on railways

Raids on marshalling yards isolated goods, and by 15 March 1945 German railway car loadings had been cut by 85 per cent through intensity of Allied bombing campaigns.^[11] This was particularly felt by German troops on the Western Front after the Normandy landings when "The bombers interrupted their attack on Germany to strike transport and railway networks, and so prevent the reinforcement of the Germans in Normandy."^[12]

• • Train-mounted devices

A railroad plough (also known in German as a Schienenwolf ('rail wolf') or Schwellenpflug ('sleepers plough')) is a rail vehicle which supports an immensely strong, hook-shaped 'plough'. It is used for destruction of rail track in warfare, as part of a scorched earth policy, so that the railway line becomes unusable for the enemy.

In use, the plough is lowered to rip up the middle of the track as it is hauled along by a locomotive. This action breaks the sleepers and pulls the rails out of alignment; bridges and signalling equipment also suffer serious damage.

• Ambulance trains
• War locomotives
• Purpose-built freight vehicles
• Evacuation / movement of people and forces

[edit] Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft

National railways of the German Reich.

[edit] German use of railways in Poland

[edit] Germany

On September 1, 1939, railwaymen of Szymankowo stopped a German armoured train before its arrival on the bridge over the Vistula River and blew up the bridge. After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, most of Polish rolling stock fell into Soviet hands.

The Polish railways on Silesia, Wielkopolska and Pomorze are adopted to German railways Deutsche Reichsbahn after September 25.

Schwerer Gustav (English: Heavy Gustav) and Dora were the names under which the German 80 cm K (E) railway guns were known. They were developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in order to destroy large, heavily fortified targets. They weighed nearly 1,344 tons, and could fire a shell that weighed more than 7 tons at distances up to 37 km (23 miles). Designed in preparation for World War II, they were intended to be used against the Maginot Line. But instead of a frontal assault, the Wehrmacht outflanked the line during the Battle of France. One of the guns was used in the Soviet Union at the siege of Sevastopol during Operation Barbarossa. It was destroyed near the end of the war to avoid capture.^[13]

To the last moment before attack of Germany on the Soviet Union in 1941, the cargo trains transported goods from the Soviet Union to Germany. The beginning of German attacks on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 resulted in the possession of railway and rolling stock by Ostbahn and the possession of PKP rolling stock with broad gauge track and the reconstruction to standard gauge. The beginning of organized sabotage by the Polish resistance movement on railways took place about the same time.

Although much has been written about the German use of tanks (panzers) in their Blitzkrieg doctrine, much of the motor transport was stripped from the army as a whole to provide this ability to less then a quarter of the [[Heer|ground forces]. Because of this, roads were crucial to sustain the advance by the rest of the German infantry, artillery and support troops. In the Soviet Union, however, "the railway remained the foundation of long-distance transport. Roads were few, and, while the Germans battled for their possession, the Russians concentrated concentrated on guarding their rolling stock."^[14]

In Spring 1942 when the Heavy Artillery Unit (E) 672, reorganised from a battery, went on the March from Rugenwald, the western front and Gibraltar were n o longer objectives but the German offensive in the Crimea was halted, and Sewastopol was in Russian hands. A first test at the front would be at that place.

The engine driver was Franz Vokl from the town of Kempten, along Gotenhafen ­ Bromberg ­ Krkau ­ Lemberg ­ Nnjepopetrowsk ­ Saporoshje en Melitopol the broken down Dora" rolled on railway track that had already been changed to Western European gauge.

At first Simferopol was the target, it was reached on 25th April 1942. During the fight for Kertsch a retreat was made to Taschlyk-Dair on the North of the Crimea for about two weeks.

At last the gun train reached as second train Bachtschisarai, 5 railway stations from Sewastopol. Here some thousands of men had already made a trench in a little hill, had constructed a switching point between the railway track and the gun emplacement and had constructed the firing curve.

The commander of the unit was Lnt-Col Dipl.Ing. Dr. Robert Bohm from the town of Stadtamhof near Regensburg. In an article on Dora after the war he writes about the assembly of the Giant Gun at Sewastopol as follows :

A single railway track was connected to the railway with a switch-point, it was made into double tracks by means of another switch-point. The double track was intended to assemble the gun. At the beginning of the double track another two parallel tracks were connected with switches, to enable the two railway cranes to do their job. The assembly-track consisted in this way of 4 parallel tracks that had very closely spaced sleepers to be able to withstand heavy pressure. The assembly took place with the help of two special double engines of 1000 hp.

1. On the double track the left and right half of the chassis were driven. Each half consisted of four five-axled boogies that were connected in twos, by beams in bearings. The assembled gun moved on 40 axles or 80 wheels. 2. The two assembled cranes were driven on the outer tracks. 3. On the first transport wagon the connection between the left and right part was brought in. It also embodied the mounting for the gun. It was placed with the help of the cranes. 4. On the second transport wagon the gun-cradle was brought in and was connected with the mounting. 5. On the third wagon the gun mantled was brought in and the fourth wagon brought the two parts of the barrel, that was placed in the mantled after having been assembled. 6. The fifth wagon brought the breech-block, after this the main parts of the

After this only ladders and platforms for the crew and elevators for the ammunition (two - one for the projectile another for the cartridge) had to be placed to make the gun ready to fire.

Everything was driven electrically; the horizontal movement was achieved by movement through the curve.

The assembly of the gun took three days. Before this however the railway track had to be laid, which took dependent from the conditions of the country some 3-6 weeks.

The crew that assembled the gun was about 250 men, mostly technicians on railways and electricity. The total crew needed to put the gun into a gun emplacement, ready to fire, was over thousands of men.

The gun emplacement was not only splendidly camouflaged but also surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by special units with dogs. In this way the Giant seems to have escaped the attention of the sovjet reconnaissance because during the total use of the gun during the bombardment on Sowastopol no enemy attack on it took place.

On June 2nd 1942 the firing on Sewastopol started: to move the gun in the firing curve an engine was used on each one of the tracks, the two engines were coupled with a cable and were driven by the engine driver Vokl, who had only the help of a Russian "Hilfswilligen" (someone who wanted to help the Germans). The engine was constructed so that as to be able to move inch wise with a very low speed and still being able to develop a large power. One of the constructors of the gun mentioned that it has had an own energy plant and each of the boogies a driving unit. During a lull in battle the engines were stationed very well camouflaged in an orchard.

Now and then other assignments were ordered for the engines. One time when the railway station of Bachtschisarai was full of wagons and the small engine stationed there could not fulfil the job engine driver Vokl cleared the situation with the D311 in a short time. Also the engine drove with three wagons to two railway stations to the South to the station of Belbek to get

For the drive from Rugenwald to the Crimea steam engines were used, mostly Prussian G10. The oil-electric engines were not used to spare oil, but were towed to their destination.

In the battle history of the Heavy Artillery Unit (E) 672 it is stated : 1.4 to 1.6 1942 siege if the fortress of Sewastopol. 2.6 to 4.7 1942 capture of the fortress ; 5.7 to 8.7 1942 consolidation of the fortress and the coast artillery ; 15.7 to 20.12 1942 battles Army Group North (near Leningrad) and 21.12.42 ­ 01.06.43 battles near Nowgorod.

The fortress Sewstopol surrended after heavy fights in the first days of July 1942. The Dora was unassembled soon after and was moved from Bachtschisarai to the northern part of the eastern front. A major attack on Leningrad was planned, for which as in the case of Sewastopol all heavy artillery was concentrated. In the surroundings of the railway station of Taizy some 30 kms of Leningrad the Dora was put into firing position as it had been near Sewastopol. It was fully operational when the attack was cancelled.

A new assignment did not follow. The engines were stationed near Wolosowo at Donzy south of the railway Leningrad-Narva-Reval. In the winter of 1942/43 they must have been there, snowed until the roof. One of them returned to Germany during the war, It survived the defeat at Krupp, Essen.^[15]

The Warsaw Uprising caused widespread damage of Warsaw rolling stock, network and electric traction; both bridges over the Vistula River and the underground tunnel on the Warsaw Cross-City Line were destroyed.

[edit] Japanese use in China

[edit] Soviet Union State Railways

[edit] War Department (United Kingdom)

In World War II, large numbers of steam locomotives were produced for the War Department (United Kingdom), as well as some diesel locomotives, of varying gauges to suit the area of planned operation. After the end of the war, these locomotives were largely disposed of to various railways around the world, though some were retained for peacetime use on UK military railways. Of those that were sold, examples of three types ended up as part of the British Railways fleet (where they were often referred to as 'Austerity' locos):

• Hunslet Class 50550 or Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST, BR numbers 68006-68080
• WD Austerity Class 8F 2-8-0, BR numbers 90000-90732
• WD Austerity Class 8F 2-10-0, BR numbers 90750-90774

For more details see the Steam locomotives of British Railways

[edit] Australia

Rail transport played a vital role in the Australia’s war effort. Rail transport was the main means of shipping service personnel and military equipment around the country. However, Australian railways were not up to the demands of war. Each state used a different gauge, much of the rolling stock was unsuited for the task, and not until early 1943 was rail transport centrally organised. And yet the demand for quick and efficient means of transport only increased as coastal shipping was diverted for use by the armed forces or reduced by loses to enemy action.

The rail network in Queensland was closest to the fighting. In 1942 the army had effective control of transport in northern Queensland. This led to the Queensland Railways Commissioner and the federal Minister for Transport clashing with the Minister for the Army, a dispute only solved through the Prime Minister’s intervention.

By the end of the war hundreds of thousands of Australian and Allied soldiers, and even enemy prisoners, had travelled millions of kilometres on Australian trains.^[16]

[edit] Cold War

[edit] Soviet Union

SS-24 Scalpel (NATO reporting name) or RT-23 is a Russian ICBM, developed and produced by the Soviet Union before 1991. It is cold launched, and comes in silo and railway car based variants.

[edit] NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Movement and Transport (M&T) Working Group brings together transportation doctrine experts to face a huge logistics challenge: standardizing and simplifying NATO transportation doctrine. This is not an easy task, but the experts charged with the task are making remarkable progress.

In an effort to standardize movement and transportation doctrine for NATO, the M&T Working Group is consolidating the NATO Standardization Agreements (STANAGs) for movement and transport into five Allied Movement Publications (AMovPs).

AMovP 4: Technical Aspects of the Transport of Military Materials by Railroad. AMovP 4 consolidates the documents and technical rules that apply to loading and transporting military equipment on railcars in European NATO countries. The custodianship for AMovP 4 is shared between Belgium and the Planning Board for European Surface Transport, a NATO civil-military body.

AMovP 4 is a very detailed document on European rail movements and includes maps and sketches of the different NATO country railways. It consolidates information from six STANAGs: 2152, Loading Ramps; 2158, Identification of Military Trains; 2173, Regulations for the Securing of Military Tracked and Wheeled Vehicles on Railway Wagons; 2175, Classification and Designation of Flat Wagons Suitable for Transporting Military Equipment; 2832^[17], Dimensional Restrictions for the Transport of Military Equipment by Rail on European Railways; and 2943, Regulations for the Lateral or End-On Loading and Unloading of Wheeled or Tracked Military Equipment Transported on Railway Wagons.

The U.S. representative to the M&T Working Group has a unique challenge. Since the majority of the NATO nations are in Europe, European transport standards are more relevant, and it is sometimes difficult to understand the terminology used. For example, Europeans call railcars "wagons" and measure distances in kilometers. These differences cause a lot of discussion and debate at M&T Working Group meetings. The U.S. representative must be diplomatic and keep U.S. interests in mind while helping to maintain unity in NATO. The chairman makes the final decision if the Group cannot reach a consensus.^[18]

See Fort Eutis Military Railroad

The railway track between Pristina and Pec was repaired by the Italian Railway Engineer Regiment, which is based at Teretna Rail Yard outside Pristina. When the Italians took over from 69 Railway Regiment of the UK Army, only the line between Kosovo Polje and Volkova in the Former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia (1) was operative. The work of the Italian engineers has resulted in the opening of the Kosovo Polje-Pec line and, on November 21, the line from Klina to Prizren. The Italian Railway Regiment is the only regiment of its kind in NATO. It contributes to KFOR with about 120 people, especially trained for missions like this and for repairing, managing and running railways. Before Kosovo, the Italian Railway Regiment was working in Bosnia, where the extent of damage to the railway system was much larger than in Kosovo.^[19]

A large amount of military equipment for Italian Operational Reserve Force (ORF) Battalion arrived in Pec/Peje, Kosovo by train.

“Using Kosovo Railways J.S.C. to transport the military equipment for KFOR has turned out big benefits for NATO troops,” said loadmaster Capt. Simone Baldo (Italian Army). “We can safe a lot of money comparing to road transportation and we are not exposed to traffic jams. All trucks, Armored Fighting Vehicles and containers full with important cargo arrived without any delays or losses on the spot.”

The Italian ORF Battalion is from the 7th Alpini Regiment located in Belluno, in the north-eastern part of Italy. It has 560 soldiers and has already conducted training in the KFOR area in 2006 and last summer. ^[20]

[edit] Warsaw Pact

[edit] Baikal-Amur Railway

Completed on the 29th of September 1989.^[21] (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation)

[edit] Use by United Nations

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Small, Charles S. (1982). Two-Foot Rails to the Front. Railroad Monographs. 
• Vecamer, Arvo L., Deutsche Reichsbahn: The German State Railway in WWII, [2]
• Strachan, Hew, European Armies and the Conduct of War, Routledge, New York, 1988 ISBN 978-0415078634

v • d • e History of rail transport in Europe Sovereign states Albania · Andorra · Armenia1 · Austria · Azerbaijan2 · Belarus · Belgium · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus1 · Czech Republic · Denmark4 · Estonia · Finland · France4, 5, 6 · Georgia2 · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Republic of Ireland · Italy · Kazakhstan3 · Latvia · Liechtenstein · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Republic of Macedonia · Malta · Moldova · Monaco · Montenegro · Netherlands · Norway · Poland · Portugal · Romania · Russia3 · San Marino · Serbia · Slovakia · Slovenia · Spain6 · Sweden · Switzerland · Turkey3 · Ukraine · United Kingdom (England • Northern Ireland • Scotland • Wales) Dependencies, autonomies, other territories Abkhazia 2 · Adjara1 · Akrotiri and Dhekelia · Åland · Azores · Crimea · Faroe Islands · Gagauzia · Gibraltar · Greenland7 · Guernsey · Jan Mayen · Jersey · Kosovo · Isle of Man · Madeira8 · Nagorno-Karabakh1 · Nakhchivan1 · Northern Cyprus1 · Republika Srpska · South Ossetia 2 · Svalbard · Transnistria Italics indicates an unrecognised or partially recognised country. 1 Entirely in Southwest Asia.  2 Partially or entirely in Asia, depending on the border definitions.  3 / 4 / 5 / 6 Has part of its territory in Asia / North America / South America / Africa.  7 / 8 Entirely on the North American Plate / African Plate.

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Useful categories

• Category:Military railways
• Category:Military railway equipment

• Category:Military communications