HAZARDOUS WORK

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 246, 19 October 1942, Page 4

HAZARDOUS WORK

"THE BLUE; EXPRESS." MANNING WESTERN DESERT RAILWAY. P.A. WELLINGTON, Oct. 19. "The railway construction group has one of the toughest jobs in Egypt. They are continually bombed and strafed, and have to work in standstorms, while there is always a shortage of water. The construction gorup is one of the finest in the world," commented a New Zealand soldier who has returned from the Middle East. He added that the New Zealanders liked working with the Indians, and there threatened to be a big row once when there was a proposal to take their Indian working colleagues away. The train running over the line built in the Middle East across the desert from Alexandria to Tobruk, it was stated, was known as the Blue Express. When one of the three German columns which made the last enemy advance in Libya started to make for the railway, every bit of rolling stock was evacuated, and as many damaged tanks and g.uns as possible were loaded on the railway and brought back, so that not a single locomotive fell into enemy hands. Numbers of drivers and firemen had been killed or wounded in operating trains over the desert railway. It was hazardous work, as the noise of the train made it impossible often to hear the approach of hostile planes, which machine-> gunned the engine crews.