EMPIRE RAILWAYMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1942, Page 4

EMPIRE RAILWAYMEN

RUNNING TRAINS IN MIDDLE EAST. Vital movement of troops and equipment for Britain’s armies in the Middle East, as well as supplies for a civil population of 50,000,000 people, are being largely handled by 15,000 men who in peace time work on the railways and docks of Britain, Australia, Nev/ Zealand, South Africa, and India. Formed into companies of the Royal Engineers, .New Zealand, Australian, South African and Indian Engineers, these men carry on in the Army the work of engine drivers, platelayers or stevedores, just as they did at home. Operating companies, consisting of engine drivers, firemen, signalmen (called “blockmen” in the Army), brakesmen, shunters, boilermakers and fitters, guards and station-masters, each have about 100 miles of line to work, some of it —like that on the Trans-Iranian railway —over mountain ranges . in wild, inhospitable country. Much of their rolling stock has seen service on the railways of the United Kingdom, and more than 100 locomotives and some 1,500 waggons have been sent to Iran alone since last September. Where a railway has to be built from scratch, a construction company and a survey company are called in to erect depots and lay tracks. Platelayers and other men from the railways make up a company of about 300 who, with the assistance of large gangs of native labour. can construct up to a mile of track a day. In this way over 1,000 miles of track have been laid in the Middle East on strategic main lines and in sidings since the outbreak of war. Ports throughout the Middle East are manned by dock companies, consisting of stevedores, checkers and crane drivers from British ports, .all expert in their jobs. Before going out to their jobs, the British Army’s railwaymen are given a course of training at an Army railway school and a film will shortly be seen in overseas countries showing them at work there.