The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-01-12

water transport section of the royal eng
 ineers was formed in December, 1914. So
 rapidly did it's work increase that in Sep
 temher. 1916, it had to be linked up with
 the directorate Of inland waterways and docks charged with the supply of per
 sonnel and material for the equipment
 and working of docks overseas and for constructional and other work at vari-
 ous ports About this time, Dover, which
 had been used as the British transit
 port for the l. w. T. barge service, had
 to be given up. It had become inadequate
 for storage and railway requirements.
 Early in 1916 it had become clear that
 w. T. requirements could not be met
 at any then existing port. The swamps
 on which Marlborough now lies were con sidered at Lloyd Georges suggestion. scheme was decided upon for the con struction of a wharf with railway ac cess, etc, in the Stour.
 In the summer of 1916, a squad of royal engineers was sent into the swamp to peg out the site of the present port. On their heels came civil and mechanical engi-
 neers in khaki. to tackle the building diff faculties due to the nature of the ground. 4 great wharf was commenced, with rail ways to link up with the Southeastern and Chatham railway near Minister. A hill stood in the way of the planned sid ings. Steam shovels reduced it to dead level. Marshes were drained, waterway s were widened or filled up and the first regular cross channel service was started from the new port in December, 1916. To provide for the enlarged wharf nec- essary to take care of the rapidly grow ing traffic. it was necessary later to make
 new cut in he>~marshland and to di- vert the Stour For mile there was | built steel and concrete dock, equipped with travelling cranes and railway sid ings with channel narrowing to a width of $50 feet at the upper end. It has been necessary to dredge the channel at intervals, and the dredgings brought up by suction dredges have been carried | by pipe line across the marshes, where the l material has been used for the reclama- l tion of the beach. Over 250 acres which | were flooded at high tide are now solid | level ground from five to eight feet above high tide, and are used as a royal air l force salvage depot.
 Near the main wharf is the Richbor- l ough terminus for the cross-channel train l ferry, which is the greatest of the won | ders connected with this wartime won der port. GA second train ferry plies be- 1 tween Southampton and Dieppe; it has | been built on the success of the Rich 1 borough ferry).
 1 The ferry was made possible by the fact l that the French and English railways use the same gauge, fact which, unfor 1 tunately, does not hold true in the case | of the talked-of England-Ireland train ferry. The quays are fitted with ad- | unstable bridges or aprons by which trains of goods, cars are shunted aboard , and locked on the rails.
 THREE TRAIN FERRY BOATS 1R Iz, I~ox .4rl thus far to ply between Richb orough
 and Calais or Dunkirk. Their principal | dimensions are: Length, 363 feet, 6 | inches; breadth, 61 feet, 6 inches;
 draft, 10 feet; speed, 12 knots. They are twinscre craft, with a displace-
 ment of 3654 tons apiece. Each is pro 1 vided with four lines of railway track | of the English standard gauge, feet, S1a inches; of a total length sufficient
 to carry 54 lotion goods wagons, be- I sides a deck load of $50 tons. They
 also carry motor lorries on their own wheels
 1 A regularly scheduled service has l been carried out from the first It has | proven of the greatest use for trans porting such bulky freight as rail- | way wagons, tanks, locomotives, big
 guns and machinery, as well as the
 ordinary freight which, when trans | ferred by ferry, does not have to be 1 transloaded from railroad to ship on
 the English side and from ship to rail
 road on the French side. The service | is, of course, subject to interruption by l fog and heavy weather, but it has suf- i fered no other interruptions since it's | inception. It more than paid for itself ! in the rushing of guns, tanks, etc, to | the front during the last big German :, offensive, when the rapidity of trans
 port it offered, proved invaluable. It 1 saved crane power, man power and
 time. It would not be an exaggeration l to say that this feat alone more than | justified the port of Peterborough | Two hundred and siXty-nine round
 trips were made in the first six months
 of the ferry's existence. During these l six months the ferries carried 1S5,- | 7S6 deadweight tons of material to France and 5S,9S1 tons on the return | trip. It should be borne in mind that | these are deadweight tons, and as the | greater part of the freight has been of 1 a bulky nature, the shipping space saved as judged in measurement tons 1 is probably three or four times greater than is shown by the weight records These cargoes for France have included 150 locomotives, each weighing 91 tons
 620S new railway trucks, BPS good cars,