The Cordova daily times., 1917-10-09
RAILWAY LINES IN GREAT BRITAIN
 A PROBLEM

LONDON, Oct. 8-One of the great est of British war efforts has been in the department of railway transport. both at home and abroad. Very lit- tie has been said about this work, per haps because it has gone on steadily. silently and unobserved. Some time ago Aristide Brian, then premier of France, visited a great railway work. shop behind the British lines in France. The great fault I have to find with you English" he said upon that occasion, 'is that you do enor- nous things, but nobody has any idea of what you are doing"
 At home, war has put a tremendous strain on railways. It was an instance of Britains military unpreparedness that military and stragetic consider ations found no place before the war in her railway system and manage ment. The railways lacked uniform ity. For example, there were three different types of air.brake in use, so
 that rolling stock of different compan- ies often could not be made up into one train. The width of cars and the
 clearance space between tracks var
 led considerably Very few stations
 had adequate platform accommoda- ton for rapidly entraining troops. During the three years of war much progress has been made under govern ment control of the railways, toward standardization and such reconstruc-
 tion as was feasible to remedy the
 most serious shortcomings. This is frequently noticeable of rural stations
 where platforms of the type most
 suitable for military use have replaced
 the old suburban platforms, and gi- ven military air to the otherwise peaceful countryside.
 The proper platform for cntrainlng
 troops is a wide one running the
 whole length of the longest train.
 From such a platform troop trains | can be loaded at the rate of one an
 hour, and this rate can be improved
 upon with practiced troops. Where
 a railway station possessed the most tup-to-date platform facilities such as
 all British station platforms will have | by the time the war is over, 1t is poss. ! ible to load two trains simultaneous ly, and such station is called in mill itary parlance a half hour station" ." At an ordinary old.fashioned way side station is often necessary to al low two hours.
 Entraining is the ruling factor in calculating troop movements since de- | training does not take quite so long, The maximum normal capacity of a double tracked line or railway in England Is figured by the military specialists at six trains per hour each way, in the early days of the war the trains containing the British Ex- peditionary force were run into the docks at intervals of twelve minutes or at the rate of five per hour. On
 siugle-track line, three trains per
 hour hour can be worked each way.
 The principle adopted in moving troops by train Is that each train
 load should be complete subdivision of military unit. The size of such train load is definitely limited by the number of coaches of which a
 train can be made up with safety. An ordinary infantry battalion makes about two train loads During the five days when the first
 British military force was being moved to France, 300 trains were run loaded with troops and as many re- turned empty, giving an average of 36O trains a day employed in the movement of troops alone. In the first year of war, moves were made over seas of 100000 officers. 2,5S6, 900 other ranks and 542,000 horses. These f. gures include cross-channel traffic and all other moves made by sea. Figures for later years, presumably larger, are not at present available.