THE BRITISH OVERSEAS RAILWAYS HISTORICAL TRUST
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Reference Sources for Military Railways
Following on from the earlier reference sources this document is to assist in research on British Empire and Commonwealth Military Railways. You are encouraged to look at the other research pages for further ideas, as there may be some duplication of material and those pages will also give an overall history of the railway. Also, please look at the general research page as that contains many sources that may be of assistance.
We define research in this field as the construction and/or operation of railways for the field army either by the Royal Engineers, their Commonwealth sister Corps or contractors under army supervision in overseas theatres of operations. This research will include the contribution of Dominion and Colonial Forces where appropriate.
The word Sapper derives from the French Sapeur i.e. one who dug trenches. In the Armed forces of the British Commonwealth it has a dual meaning, it is both the lowest rank in the various Engineer Corps and also a family name in the sense that all members of the Corps are Sappers.
The use by the British of railways to transport and supply the army in the field is a much-neglected subject. The earliest proposal for a British military railway was probably that which was contained in Wellington's memorandum of 1819 on the defence of Canada. Actual railways have been used extensively by the British Army overseas from the Crimea, where the railway was decisive in the siege of Sevastopol, until post-war Germany. However, there are only a few books on a few specific railways and no general history, other than what can be gleaned from the Royal Engineers Corps History, which is more concerned with organisational than technical matters.
With the demise of the Army Transport Museum at Beverley, there is no focus for research in this field. The only specialist group is the Military Railway Study Group (https://www.mrsg.org.uk/), which is small and its members are largely interested in the period from the late 1930’s to the 1950’s.
The following railways are known to have been built and/or operated by the Sappers or contractors working under military control:-
- A short railway in Canada from a quarry to the site of a canal lock being built by the Sappers in c. 1829.
- Crimean Railway built by Peto, Brassey and Betts in 1855 and operated by the Land Transport Corps.
- Abyssinian Railway built by the Sappers in 1867-68.
- The construction of the Bolan Pass Railway to support the 2nd Afghan War 1878-1880
- Operation of Egyptian Railways by the Sappers in 1882.
- Construction and operation of the 18" gauge line at Suakin in 1884-5.
- he construction of the Suakin-Berber Railway in 1885, effectively by the Sappers.
- The extension of the Sudan Railway in 1885 in support of the Gordon Relief Expedition.
- The rehabilitation of the Sudan Railway in 1896 and subsequent building of the Desert Railway from Wadi Halfa during the re-occupation of the Sudan 1896-99. The subsequent operation of the Sudan Railway by the Sappers until their withdrawal in 1926.
- Operations in support of the Field Army during the Boer War 1899-1902
- Operating the Chinese Railway during the Boxer Uprising.
- Shan Hai Kuan Toy Railway 1900 to c. WW2.
- Construction and operation of both standard and narrow-gauge lines in France and Belgium in 1914-19.
- Construction and operation of railways across Sinai and into Palestine during Allenby's advance against the Turks in 1917-18, in Mesopotamia, in the Balkans and on the Italian front in WW1.
- Operation of railways in South West Africa in WW1.
- Operation of railways in Kenya and Tanganyika during the campaign against General von Lettow-Vorbeck in WW1.
- Operation of railways in support of BAOR 1919-29.
- Railway operation in the Caucasus and on the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1919.
- Railway preparations during the Chanak Incident, 1922
- Survey and construction of the Khyber Railway 1919-26 following the Third Afghan War.
- Operations of railways in support of the field armies in most theatres in World War 2.
- Construction and Operation of railways during the withdrawal from Empire, especially, Palestine and Egypt.
- Detmold Military Railway, during the Cold War
- Railway operations in support of BAOR post WW2.
Firstly, a word of warning, there has been a spate in recent years of people finding books that are out of copyright, OCR’ing them and offering the copies for sale. Admittedly they do warn that the copies may not be perfect. The Trust brought a copy of a French book on African Colonial Railways that is extremely rare but found that no more than 25% of the pages were legible.
On these pages, we have tried to list all British Empire and Commonwealth Military railways about which we are aware of. This page will be very different from previous pages in that we will list the Corps we know operated military railways and then list the various campaigns. It is not just Engineers who have been involved with military railways, The Royal Army Medical Corps and the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps or their Commonwealth equivalents would have staffed Ambulance Trains and responsibility in the British Army for railway operation changed from the Royal Engineers to the Royal Corps of Transport in 1965 and subsequently to the Royal Logistic Corps in 1993 Mention should also be made of the Royal Pioneer Corps who provided the labour to construct the railways.
Some of the titles below are available in the British Library and can be found by searching their catalogue.
Journal articles listed should be available through JSTOR or appropriate online sources.
See also the following pages on researching Royal Engineering units in separate commonwealth countries:
The British Official Histories
The British Army began writing Official Histories following the Crimean Campaign. The following two links give an extensive overview on the problems of writing the histories and who should actually write them. These arguments are well rehearsed in the Wikipedia link. “Military History has three primary audiences: the general public, academe, and the armed forces –each has its own beliefs regarding the purpose and utility of the military past.”
[See also Van der Waag, Ian, THE UNION WAR HISTORIES AND THE BATTLE FOR THE
HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA, WIEDZA OBRONNA
2021, Vol. 274 No. 1 ISSN: 2658-]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Great_War
https://warchronicle.com/british-military-official-history/
The link below will take you to a listing of all the WW1 Official Histories that were produced, this includes the Dominions, France, Germany and the United States.
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/research/books/ww1-official-history.htm
Looking at https://generalstab.org/links/official-histories-ww1/the-official-british-history-of-world-war-one/ at least some of the British Official Histories are online and downloadable.
WW2
The following link lists all the titles in the British WW2 Official History. It also gives downloadable copies of the Despatches that were published in the London Gazette after the War.
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/index.html
It is interesting to note that the narratives complied for writing the Official WW2 Histories are available at The National Archives, Kew, a link to what is available is here. https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/Army.html
Australia
The Australian Histories from all conflicts including WW1 that they have been involved in are available online at https://www.awm.gov.au/
Canada
The Canadian Official Histories are available at https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/military-history/history-heritage/official-military-history-lineages/official-histories.html
India
We cannot currently find any downloadable histories. Some are available through sites such as abebooks.co.uk. A listing of the Official WW2 and subsequent wars and campaigns is available here. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1522933 see also https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/India/index.html
New Zealand
South Africa
The story of their writing is more convoluted than the British Official History. Political considerations in South Africa have always precluded issuing extensive histories. For WW1 see https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.5787/44-1-1163 and https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/historiography-1918-today-union-of-south-africa/#toc_biography
Buchans Official History of the South African Forces in France is at https://archive.org/details/historyofsouthaf00buchrich/page/336/mode/2up?view=theater
The Union of South Africa and the Great War: Official History by the General Staff in 1924. WW2
Collyer, J.J. The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914—15 (Pretoria, 1937)
Collyer, J.J. The South Africans with General Smuts in German East Africa, 1916 (Pretoria, 1939).
For WW2 see https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/SouthAfrica/index.html
This includes sections on:
- East African and Abyssinian Campaigns
- The Sidi Rezegh Battles, 1941
- Crisis in the Desert, May-June 1942
- War in the Desert
- Victory in Italy
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