1/ The Military Engineer Platelayer 🧵. This thread is a guide to one of the smallest and niche trade groups within the British Army. It will dive into who can join, how they are trained and roles that ME Platelayers will undertake.





2/ Who can join? We recruit reservists directly from the Rail industry and rail heritage sectors. We recruit infrastructure operatives to engineer grades with specialist backgrounds in design, renewals and maintenence in track, civil engineering, signalling and electrification.

1/ The Ambulance Train🧵 Recent near peer conflict and Covid has seen the re-emergence of the ambulance train, somthing only seen in times of need for the movement of mass casualties. This thread explores the history and consideration for future use of the capability.





2/ The first trains. There is evidence as far back as the Crimean war of the use of railways for movement of casualties. The US Civil war saw wholesale use of rail for troop trains and dedicated hospital trains for mass casualty movements. Use followed in the Franco Prussian War.

1. Operation Iron Friendship. 🧵This is a story about an STRE who wouldnt accept the status quo, a project team who showed determination to deliver, suppliers who went beyond the norm and most of all an Iron Railway who continue to show courage to keep a network running. 2. Infra destruction. In the early stages of the Ukraine conflict many key railway bridges were blown to deny their use for Russian forces, latterly Russian forces would target tunnels, bridges and other infra to disrupt the Ukrainian network managed by @Ukrzaliznytsia.

The Armoured Train 🧵 A review from genesis of the armoured train through to modern day application. These trains are normally adhoc wartime field expediants designed to force protect the railway LofC, rarely do they exisit in peacetime. 1/Genisis. The first armoured trains were built by the Austro Hungarians in 1845. The US Civil War in 1862 would see use of the fledgling technology mating 32pdr cannon to wagons and would be used by both sides to protect the railroads.

A thread on classic military railway engineering 🧵 This thread explores some of the more interesting aspects of military and wartime railway engineering from across the globe. 1/Wickham armoured rail cars. These were bought in the 1950s by the British for use in Malaya to secure rail LofC latterly they were bought for the same duties by the Government of Vietnam and served throughout that conflict.

The Tank Wagon 🧵 The British Army were the first use tanks, to deploy them they invented the first tank carrying wagons. 104 years later the Army has more modes to deploy MBT but should also consider its future tank carrying wagon needs to support Op Mobilise. 1/ The Parrot Wagon. Copied from an existing LNWR design in 1917, this was the worlds first tank carrying wagon. Designed to carry 40t and fitted with screw jacks to prevent dynamic loading of the bogies whilst loading/unloading tanks. These jacks would appear on all tank wagons.

The Rail Head thread 🧵 A review on the use of Rail Heads (RHD) in the Corps/Divisional area. Point of embarkation is not considered given their fixed and well equipped nature, focussing on tactical far bank RHD. 1/Location. RHD will need to use existing rail network in the Corps assembly areas. Later in the operation more tactical RHD will be pushed forward into the Div and Bde areas for replenishment of specific comodities as demand is established to tempo of operations.

1/The railway loading guage thread 🧵
With a potential for increase in the use of rail under Op Mobilise deployments, it is important to understand the importance of loading gauge on the rail network. 2/ Infra Constraints. Loading gauge is the physical constraint on the size of rolling stock and loads imposed by physical infrastructure. This includes station platforms & canopies, retaining walls, bridges and tunnels. This is all proportional to the placement of the track.

The military railway bridging 🧵 Road bridge capability is well supported in NATO with MGB & LSB systems. Railway bridges with higher dynamic loads have less options, planners for future warfighting need to consider what bridging options are available to secure the rail LofC. 1/Historically railways up to the 1940s used timber trestles given good availability of lumber and wood working skills. With increased axle loadings & speeds alongside availability of sawn timber this method fell by the wayside. Photo: Longmoor, 1941.

Op MOBILISE & Rail. A short 🧵
Some thoughts for the application of rail following @ArmyCGS speach at @RUSI_org land warfare conference.
Rail is one of many transport modes and needs a flexible plan to integrate with sea, air, road and inland waterways. 1/ Heavy lift wagon fleet. Challenger MBT is reliant on 6 axle SALMMs wagons to move, these are limited in the UK to HS1 but are cleared in Europe. The wagon pool is small therfore the fleet strength needs increase given all NATO nations are reliant on it for MBT.

#VE75 Part 5. Crossing the Rhine. Our penultimate look at the RE Railway opertions leading to VE day.@Proud_Sappers @RE_Hist_Society @REMuseum

With staging areas set up in Holland, the focus became crossing the Rhine and projecting railway lines deep into Germany to support ops On 24th March 1945, Op Varsity Plunder commenced, the crossing of the Rhine at Wesel. 1056th Engr Group, US Army Engineer Corps bridged the Rhine by the 9th of April at Wesel using British trestles on timber piles and 1752ft of 4ft deep RSJ and 2 miles of track.

Part 3 #VE75 RE Railway troop actions till VE day. Into Belgium. @Proud_Sappers @REMuseum @RE_Hist_Society

After the advance through France, 21st Army Group's railway troops found Antwerp in a poor state of disrepair and heavily damaged following bombing and German demolition. The port could not be used till the enemy were cleared from Walchere and mines removed. The Germans had removed 207 turnouts and 35 miles of track. 8 bridges had been destroyed. These were replaced with RSJ spans and UCRB. The flyover was salvaged and placed on trestle piers

#VE75 part 2. Once the Allies had formed a beachead they pushed in land. Damage to the railway was minimal due to achieving complete suprise. At Caen they found heavy damage to the railway from Allied bombing in an effort to disrupt traffic. @Proud_Sappers @RE_Hist_Society The RE railway troops were organised under the Way and Works group as Rly Survey Coys, Rly Bridging Coys and Rly Construction Coys. This was augmented with Pioneer Coys and Plant Coys. Some 200 Officers and 7000 men were available for the task.

#VE75. Looking at the RE railway contribution to the long road to VE Day. The first problem to delivering railways post D Day was the landing of rolling stock on the beaches. Solution was to fit special ramps to landing craft and install rail on the beaches. Loading trial by RE troops in a Landing Ship Tank prior to D-Day.
#VE75 #smartsappers #proudsappers
@RE_Hist_Society