Comments: Hardcover, 122 pages, all black-and-white
ISBN: 978-1-4738-5411-6
Price: $39.95
Publisher: Pen & Sword
From the publisher:
In the 19th century, the British War Office showed little interest in developing large heavy artillery for its land forces, preferring instead to equip its warships with the biggest guns. Private initiatives to mount a gun on a railway truck pulled by a steam engine were demonstrated before military chiefs but not taken up. However, the development of longer-range guns, weighing up to 250 tons, to smash through the massive armies and trench systems on the Western Front in 1916, led to a rethink. The only way to move these monsters about quickly in countryside thick with mud was to mount them on specially built railway trucks towed by locomotives.
The railway guns were to be put on little-used country lines where they could fire on beaches, road junctions, and harbors. The locations and cooperation given by the independent railway companies is explained, as are the difficulties of using the same lines for war and civilian traffic.
World War I also saw the emergence of large training camps for railway men. When the war ended, most railway guns were dismantled and lost in ordnance depots as training and development ceased.
Goodwin’s book largely concentrates on the realities of the time, the type of gun, the locomotives, artillery targets, locations, and what it was like when firing took place. Illustrated with pictures, maps, and plans covering different aspects of railway guns, their locomotives, and equipment.
FSM says:
Photos, drawings, and far-flung narratives provide a source for a specialized area of modeling in which comprehensive references are scarce.