The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-05-25 00:00:00

PIONEER AND MILITARY RAILWAYS,

A sectios of a novel military or pioneer railway was
built en Monday, on the ground lying waste at the
rear of Whitehall-place, in four hours; and to show
the simplicity of the work, its constructors were 10
soldiers sent as a fatigue party from the Grenadier
Guards and one or two ordinary unskilled labourers.
This railway is the invention of Mr. J. L. Haddan,
ex-engineer in chief of the Ottoman Government, and
the railway was primarily designed to meet the need in
the East of having a speedily constructed, cheap, and
effective means of transport for men and stores over a
wild country without the necessity of surveying, level-
ing, and passing through the preliminary stages of ordi-
nary railway making. The new railway built on Monday
in the grounds of Whitehall is a "one rail" structure, and
the line it represented requires neither sleepers nor foun-
dations, the line running upon 7ft. posts, 440 to a mile,
the rolling stock upon it being shaped like an inverted
V, designed upon the "camel saddle" principle. The
carriages and engines fall on each aide like panniers on
an animal's back, the wheels of the engines, trucks,
and carriages being horizontal, and gripping on each
side of the rail. The material of the new railway is
wholly of timbers, which were brought on the ground
ready cut for use, and the plans having been explained
to the sergeant of the fatigue party, the piles were
sunk in the ground, the cross timbers were readily
fixed and bolted, and by a series of ingeniously de-
signed wedges an 80ft. or 100 ft. section of the line,
running over very uneven ground, was made secure
and apparently quite solid.
In the evening, the inventor read a paper on the
subject at the Royal United Service Institution,
General Sir Garnet Wolseley, 8.C.8., presiding.
During the discussion which followed the reading of
OAS paper, Sir Garnet Wolseley, speaking of the rail-
ways in the Crimea, said that, though that was not a
great success, it was very useful, and by making it the
English nation was the first to use railways in war.
The great thing in regard to railways used in war was
that they should be quickly made and worked, for time
was everything. If we had to go to war and to operate
inland in a country where there were no roads, it would
be of the greatest importance to have a line from the
base to the scene of operations, and Mr. Haddan's
proposals gave a system which would meet the require-
ments of an army in that position. As to particular
railways which had been proposed for army trans-
ports, in these days of short and sharp campaigns
earthworks were out of the question, for now armies
did not sit down to long campaigns like the sieges of
Troy and Sebastopol. Others systems required good
roads, but for a country without the roads, and in
rapidity and simplicity of construction, Mr. Haddan's
railway would meet an army's wants.
The proceedings lasted until eleven o'clock at night,
and the company then went to view the section in the
grounds at Whitehall lighted by port fires.—Wednes-
clay's Times.