Instruction in reconnaissance and survey work is given to officers while at head-quarters, and a certain number of N.C.O.'s and men are also instructed in railway survey work. Parties, each commanded by an officer, are sent to carry out a reconnaissance and final location of a railway between two points about forty miles apart on the assumption that it is an unmapped country, and complete maps and sections are prepared. The Companies have also undertaken the construction and maintenance of the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway,—a 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge military line, about six miles in length, connecting Bordon (London and South Western Railway) with Longmore Camp. All the plant necessary for railway work and workshops for the repair of rolling stock are provided at Longmore.
In time of war the chief duties of a Railway Company, R.E., would be to survey, construct, repair and demolish railways and to work construction and armoured trains.
In the South African campaign, when the military had to operate the railways of which they took possession in the enemy's country, some difficulty was experienced in obtaining from the ranks of the Army a sufficient number of men capable of working the lines. As the result of these conditions, it was arranged, in 1903, between the War Office and certain of the British railway companies that the latter should afford facilities in their locomotive departments and workshops for the training of a number of non-commissioned officers and men as drivers, firemen and mechanics, (capable of carrying out repairs,) in order to qualify them better for railway work in the field, in case of need. This arrangement was carried out down to the outbreak of war in 1914. The period of training lasted either six or nine months. In order to avoid the raising of any "labour" difficulties, no wages were given during this period to Army men who were already receiving Army pay as soldiers, but a bonus was granted to them by the railway companies, when they left, on their obtaining from the head of the department to which they had been attached a certificate of their efficiency.
Strategical Railways
The subject of strategical railways will be dealt with, both generally and in special reference to their construction in Germany, in Chapter XVIII. In regard to Great Britain it may be said that the position as explained by Sir George Findlay in his article in the United Service Magazine for April, 1892, is that whilst Continental countries have been spending large sums of money on the building of strategical lines for the defence of their frontiers, (or, he might have added, for the invasion, in some instances, of their neighbours' territory,) Great Britain, more fortunate, possesses already a system of railways which, though constructed entirely by private enterprise, could not, even if they had been laid out with a view to national defence, "have been better adapted for the purpose, since there are duplicated lines directed from the great centres of population and of military activity upon every point of the coast, while there are lines skirting the coast in every direction, north, east, south and west."
Some years ago there were certain critics who recommended the building of lines, for strategical purposes, along sections of our coast which the ordinary railways did not directly serve; but the real necessity for such lines was questioned, the more so because the transport of troops by rail on such short-distance journeys as those that would have been here in question might, with the marching to and from the railway and the time occupied in entraining and detraining, take longer than if the troops either marched all the way, or (in the event of there being only a small force) if they went by motor vehicles to the coast.
One point that was, indeed, likely to arise in connection with the movement of troops was the provision of facilities for their ready transfer from one railway system to another, without change of carriage, when making cross-country journeys or travelling, for instance, from the North or the Midlands to ports in the South.
We have seen that in France many such links were established, subsequent to the war of 1870-71, expressly for strategical reasons; but in Great Britain a like result has been attained, apart from military considerations, from the fact that some years ago the different railway companies established physical connections between their different systems with a view to the ready transfer of ordinary traffic. When, therefore, the necessity arose for a speedy mobilisation, or for the transport of troops from any part of Great Britain to any particular port for an overseas destination, the necessary facilities for through journeys by rail, in the shortest possible time, already existed.
In effect, the nearest approach to purely strategical lines in Great Britain is to be found, perhaps, in those which connect military camps with the ordinary railways; yet, while these particular lines may have been built to serve a military purpose, they approximate less to strategical railways proper, as understood in Germany, than to branch lines and sidings constructed to meet the special needs of some large industrial concern.