More of Péchot's little ones: various designs of rail

You have already heard about the Tracks to the trenches event at Apedale, Staffs, 12th-14th September this year.We had a lot of fun admiring the many locomotives and wagons running on 60cm track. Once they had been on different sides during the Great War, now they could all run together. A sleek German D-lok, a Péchot wagon and various khaki-clad British locomotives could all travel over the same track because they were all the same gauge.
Yet a few years before 1914, this would not have been possible.

Henschel 15968 built in 1918 It can usually be seen at Toddington, on the North Gloucestershire Railway. After the Great War it passed into civilian use but was bought by the preserved line in 1985. Photo M.D.Wright

Just before I get down to the level of the track, here, courtesy of the North Gloucestershire railway, is German No 1091 0-8-0T, D-lok for short. Don't offend her by remarking on her dazzling red buffer beams. We know just how she looked in the sad days of war. Admittedly, most people and machines of 1914-18 were all black, white or shades of grey - film and photographs of the period prove this. The Germans were different. Tell them that something is colour no 208 and they will immmediately see magenta, colour 106 and they will see burnt umber und so weiter.
I'm making this up, but the Germans did have precise colour charts - a sort of precursor of pantone. With these charts, the good people of the North Gloucs. Railway were therefore able to match the colours precisely and so are confident that the D-lok appeared just as shown.
It could all have turned out differently. The trench railways of the various nations could have run on varied gauges. Before 1888, the French military were seriously considering metre gauge for military supply. At the same time, they were already using Decauville 40/50cm gauge industrial railways in some of their military bases. 75cm track was available in Germany. The Austrians tended  to 70mm. For Germans and Austrians there  was plenty available as it was a commercial design, available from Arthur Koppel of Berlin. Zezula, in his contemporary account of narrow gauge in central Europe mentions Kopppel by name as a track supplier.

Although this rail is stamped Decauville, photographs of the time show that Koppel produced prefabricated rail to this pattern which was put to military use. It was sturdier than some. The sleepers are corrugated to give extra rigidity and project slightly beyond the rails themselves giving a wider and more stable  'footprint'. Courtesy JIm Hawkesworth

The British flirted with 15" gauge, but settled for a very small stock of 2'6" gauge. It is a complicated story, and I say more in "Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the Trenches"

The Book! Published December 2014

Someone changed this outlook and this exuberant variety of gauges. That person was Prosper Péchot. In 1882, he sent his Memorandum to the Ministry, explaining that a system based on 60cm gauge could answer the needs of an army. For the rest of his career, he struggled to convince his superiors that prefabricated 60cm track was the way to bring the battle to the enemy's doorstep. Carefully he designed the right sort of track to ensure that his railways could be quickly rolled out. He realised that there was a trade-off between axle load, durability and portability and so he settled on 9kg/metre rails, and eight sleepers per 5 metre length. The sleepers were of 'box-lid' shape, to prevent the substrate from slipping away. They extended well beyond the rails and were set closer together than commercial prefabricated track of the period.

Track to the Péchot design. It appears in catalogue 130, being marketed commercially by the Decauville company. Courtesy Jim Hawkesworth

 By 1887, a 60cm test track was set up at Toul, north-east France.  In 1888, there were serious trials - 60cm against metre gauge. We know that since 1886, the world's Press had been watching French military developments. In June 1888, the Ministry decided in favour of his system. 'Artillerie 88' ie the Péchot system became the one in official use.
Quite suddenly, the Prussians and in due course all the other Germans adopted 60cm gauge. We have to remember that the Press had been invited and reported on the French trials. Records mention 60cm gauge being used in Prussia for the first time in spring 1888. By 1889, the strange little locomotives that the Germans used had been superseded by locomotives that looked suspiciously French.
Péchot track was and wasn't copied. The Germans tended to use prefabricated track sparingly, moving on to rail conventionally laid on wooden sleepers as soon as possible. A reserve was kept for quick repairs, as can be seen in photographs of the period. Photographs taken on German lines in the Great War show that the 'corrugated-sleeper' commercial pattern was still sometimes used.
Yet although the commercial design was convenient the Germans copied the Péchot sleeper, though not completely. Fach and Krall in their book on Heeresfeldbahn - German military narrow gauge show the new standard in prefabricated railways. The military pattern was pressed, like the French ones. For ease of manufacture, there was an obvious 'fold' which did the job of gripping the substrate.

This metre length of  prefabricated track is as used by the German Army. Something very similar was used by the British. Although it is a much simpler pressing, the track exhibits most of the essentials oif the Péchot design. The sleepers extend well beyond the rail, they are set close together and have a box-lid shape. Courtesy MD Wright

The British came very late to 60cm gauge - officially not until 1916. Though they were suspicious of Johnny Foreigner's Metric system, they saw the merits of standardising. They mixed prefabricated and conventionally laid track - in the proportion 60%:40%. They had great difficulty imitating the beautiful pressed steel Péchot sleepers and so theirs also have a 'folded' look, with corners. The rail was in 20lb/yard weight (the nearest Imperial equivalent to 9kg/metre) though supplied in metric lengths! The prefabricated track had nine, rather than eight sleepers per 5 metre length - super for durability, but a greater weight to carry by squaddies labouring in battle conditions.  People such as the author of 'Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the Trenches' can easily confuse the German and British designs.