He had no truck with these

Why do some folk like rail-mounted guns so much? They pop up in films such as Doctor Zhivago - the best version, the one with Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay and Omar Sharif in which the armoured train bristling with guns is positively a character in its own right. The guns were effective fund-raisers, appearing on war-time campaign postcards, bought by the thousand by the public. They pop up in novels - the sort I wouldn't admit reading! They were loved by newspapers. Pictures from the Boer War show rail-mounted machine guns heading up a train. They are depicted on the front of serious histories. You can't get a more serious historian than Christian Wolmar and his 'Engines of War - how wars were won and lost on the railways' On the book jacket there is a picture of the massive gun the Germans used on the Russian front.
Even my 'other half', normally a reasonable person, is keen. He longs to build a model of such a gun. Oh well, go on, let's have a picture!

Postcard of rail-mounted gun sold to as part of the War Bond Campaign during World War One. The landscape suggests that the gun is on trial in Scotland. The material was passed by the censor who may have demanded that details were omitted. Messrs A.M. David London

When we were planning illustrations for our book 'Colonel Pechot:  tracks to the trenches', Malcolm was very keen to include a picture of a rail-mounted gun.   He was overjoyed when Dr Christian Cenac gave us permission to include a drawing of an affut-truck, the version of the rail-mounted gun which was used on the Pechot system. That is why 'truck' is in the heading. There are some excellent drawings in Cenac's book '60 cm track used to supply the French fronts during the 1914-18 War'
Speaking personally, I am not so keen on the affut truck/rail mounted gun. Truck=bogie can easily be confused with truc=thingy/widget, another splendid French word and so I think of them as 'rail-mounted thingymebobs'. 
To be honest, they were not a great deal of use. If you ask me, a rail-mounted gun is great for selling books but a bit explosive - like sex really.
But as you are reading on, I assume that you want to know all about the affut-truck Peigne. As the name suggests, the idea came to General Peigne. He saw the Pechot system being installed around the frontier fortresses in the 1890s. Rather than trains loading and unloading guns, why not fire them from the train!  There was even the suitable Canet gun carriage. Nothing to his mind seemed more logical and simple. Why hadn't Pechot thought of it?
The 120mm and 155 Court (short-barrelled) guns were both tried on the affut truck. http://fortificationetmemoire.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AFT2.bmpTo prevent damage to the track, there were fold-out supports which the crew deployed before shooting. Trials were not a great success. The system was a bit flimsy and the operators tended to lose the keys provided for winding out the supports.  A second generation of affut-truck had more sturdy fold-out supports. The fiddly keys were replaced with solid bars with special cradles on the supports.
A photographs in Voie Etroite magazine no 81 shows  an affut-truck with 18 soldiers, plus an inspection squad.  Photographs taken around the place forte/frontier fortress of Epinal  circa 1900 suggest that each gun had a crew of five, not counting the crews bringing ammunition. http://www.fortiffsere.fr/artillerie/index_fichiers/Page1488.htm
Exercises showed that these guns were not actually much use. If they fired, they gave away their position to observers.They could move to shelter before enemy artillery were trained on them, but the rail could not and it suffered accordingly. No wonder Pechot did not approve!
The war service of the rail-mounted gun was short - on the Pechot lines at least. Rather surprisingly, the affut-truck Peigne emerged after the war. Voie Etroite no 79 shows a German 0-8-0 Brigadelok (ceded to France as part of war reparations) pushing a rake of them along the network at Toul. But no, none have been found decaying on a forgotten siding in postwar years.

Hunslet Quarry Tank- Work starts

Hi, I thought it was time to report what is happening in the Wrightscale workshop.  After designing a tool for the laser cutter to work from and taking the prototype to bits to measure all the component to be etched I have finally reached the start of the first batch to be built. The metal is in stock, the castings likewise, and the first batch of laser cut parts and the etch arrived last week.

The first sheet of laser cutting, the loco sides frames, are in the workshop for assembly.  The water tank has been assembled to test the design. Soon there should be an assembled chassis.

I think I am going to overlay the steel frames with etched overlays with the axlebox, rivet and bolt detail etched, rather than assemble the frames using actual scale bolts etc.  It is hard to believe but a single 3/64" brass rivet is now 6p, so I think soldering in 32 per loco pair of frames is a bit over the top.  I have made provision for riveted  running plates and also the water tank can be riveted too.
So now it is test assemble the frames, machine a batch of axleboxes, slip eccentric components, wheels, cranks, crankpins, cylinder covers, valve chests, valves, pistons......... and the chassis can be completed and air tested.
Soon be will be writing to the first few on the interest list to offer them an engine.  Hopefully this batch will be completed later this year. So watch the blog and follow the progress.
Sarah's book- Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the Trenches is getting near the end; she is doing the final proof reading.  So if you want a copy of the authorative book on the innovation of narrow gauge military transport with loads of good photos, lots of drawings, maps and 22 years of research watch out for her postings over the next couple of months.

From 1888 to 2014 and still going strong

The sight of a Pechot wagon at the Apedale Heritage Centre may seem unremarkable. To see it loaded with rail may not excite much interest, save a small sigh of satisfaction. After all it's better to move rail-related material on a railway rather than using road transport. Would you believe it but we have followed a lorry carrying a Caledonian sleeper carriage! But I digress.

Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth

Yet this photograph deserves a closer look. Pechot wagons - Artillery 1888 material, to give them the correct name - were built between 1888 and 1893. The one making its way around the yard at Apedale is a sprightly centenarian. In fact, in Tolkien terminology, it has celebrated its eleventy first birthday. As our friend Jim Hawkesworth gathers, the wagon was used by the French army until the Second World War. Somehow it escaped the Germans. It was then used industrially in northern France. At some point, it lost the stanchions which go into the little pockets you can see as bulges along the wagon side. Not only did the stanchions serve to retain the load on the wagon, but they could also be used as re-railing bars. The wagon has also lost the brakestands which should be at each end. Recently, it was purchased by an English enthusiast for  light duties and an honourable retirement.

Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth Beside the coupling chain can be seen a pocket to take the re-railing bar - going off the rails occurred all too frequently.

Not many wagons of this age look this good. Other countries such as Germany and Britain emulated the Pechot system. They simplified the design - cut corners, you might say. By the 1960s, their wagons were sad, battered shadows, bulging at the side, bowed below by their load.Their reasoning was sound enough. Even the admirers of Artillerie 1888 admitted that it was 'too complicated, too expensive, too perfect. It couldn't be manufactured in the quantities required for war' (Lt Georges Mangin, who saw service during the First World War) All the same, if you want wagons which wear well, nothing beats a good Pechot design. If the brakestands are removed by some reason, the brakes can still be operated by a screw lever.

The stanchions have survived on this wagon, and also the brake-stand at the left hand side.

The Apedale wagon is not exceptional. When we visited Fermont, a post on the Maginot line, we found another Pechot wagon. It is not quite in original condition; it has been repainted. Originally Artillery 1888 wagons were grey; as we all know, colour was invented half-way through the 20th century! The history of the wagon was something like this. It was used by the French Army and retained at the end of the First Word War. Once plans were made to create the Maginot Line, it was moved east to the frontier with Germany. During the Occupation, it was pushed into the deepest part of the Maginot fortification. When enthusiasts decided to preserve Fermont as a historic monument, the wagon was returned to the surface. There it sits. Like the Apedale wagon, it's still game. Unlike the one in England, it can't move - it is on a short length of track!

Tracks to the trenches - someone else got our title

As you know, we have been preparing a book about Colonel Pechot, a modest French soldier who, almost single-handedly, introduced 60 centimetre gauge railways as a way of supplying an army at war. These  narrow gauge railways were used by both sides on the Western Front and elsewhere between 1914 and 1918. We therefore were going to call our book 'Colonel Pechot: Tracks to the Trenches' If it doesn't say what's inside the tin, folk aren't going to buy the tin; and what applies to groceries, applies also to literature!

The good people at the Apedale Heritage Centre - Loomer Road, Chesterton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs ST5 7RR - have used our title! We are fond of Apedale. It is on an industrial site which took advantage of 60cm equipment that was sold off after the First World War. The site, now run by volunteers, features a coal-mine that can still be visited and an abundance of preserved stock, some of which dates back to the time of the Great War.  One or two photos in our Pechot book were taken there, so we always look to see what's new, so to speak. This time, we were startled to say the least!

We saw a trench!

Digging a trench is hard work and involves some extra materials. You can see how they stand out against the freshly turned earth. When the War began, French soldiers actually had to fight in bright blue uniforms. The British were more fortunate to be in khaki.

For an instant we wondered if we had been swept back in time, but no, the world was still in full glorious colour, and the sound was working perfectly. We went over to investigate. Three lads were indeed digging a trench system.

The trenches are being constructed with corrugated iron, sandbags or, just seen, woven willow

This is to be part of the Living History display at their World War 1 Event which will take place 12th - 14th September. They decided to call the event 'Tracks to the Trenches'
For more details go to www.ww1-event.org

We took a closer look. Three sorts of trenches were under construction. Some had walls of corrugated iron. A length of trench was being skilfully sided with willow - back in the days of the War, some of the conscripts were old-fashioned hedgers and used their skills in the earth of the Western Front. Some trenches were walled with sandbags. Interestingly, if pressed, most veterans of World War 1 used to recount a version of the 'hand' story. A corpse has been incorporated into a trench wall; the hand protrudes. Any soldier passing shakes the hand. My grandpa, who was at the Western Front, used to tell the story. A similar tale was brought home by the soldiers from the Potteries. As Staffordshire is the county of the hearty hand-shake, story ends with the hand coming away in a soldier's grip! If there is a moral to the tale it is this. Veterans of the Great War knew that their listeners would never comprehend the full horror of their experiences. They fell back on macabre humour!

We looked into the construction. As it had been raining, the trench floors already looked authentically muddy. Although they looked deep, walking has to be achieved half-crouching. The trenches follow the authentic pattern of the Western Front, never straight for long. They weren't designed by drunkards; they zig-zig in order to foil enemy gunners.

The material at Apedale is mainly British. The British came late to 60cm railways, starting the War with a small amount of 2'6" gauge material, as I recounted in an earlier blog. Haulage was supposed to be accomplished by animal or human power.

To complete the Trench experience, you have to imagine the full-size version of this locomotive chugging towards the Front. Steam locomotives would stop short of the trenches and allow a petrol-powered one to take the train the rest of the way. Model of a British War Department Baldwin 4-6-0T by Wrightscale

Trench railways were introduced in a 'bottom-up' sort of way. Once the boys on the ground saw the Pechot system, they imitated it. Between spring and autumn 1916, the Top Brass followed, adopting the metric 60cm gauge in preference to 2'

Another system was being developed during the War. You could see from the photographs taken at Apedale how well bright colours show up against mud. The British had learned the value of khaki during the Boer War of 1899 to 1902. The art of camouflage continued to be studied during the 1914-18 War. Indeed, while my grandpa was running bent double along the trenches, Malcolm's grandpa was developing camouflage.

This model was built by Jim Hawkesworth, using a Wrightscale WD bogie kit. It shows a War Department water tank in camouflage. As well as using field colouring, the shape has been 'broken up' to help disguise the shape. WD wagons followed the idea introduced by Pechot - use braked bogies and standardise as far as possible

What if there hadn't been a Pechot?

Looking back at the fifty three months of the Great War, no-one thinks it could have been different. Somehow huge armies on several Fronts magicked the resources to slug it out for a protracted period. In fact, since the American civil war, nothing on this scale had occurred. The answer, we believe, is that portable narrow gauge railways, quickly laid, had overcome the logistics problem. Millions could be fed, watered and reinforced on the field.

Yet the invention was not inevitable. History turns on human will, not on faceless 'forces'. If Pechot hadn't devoted his considerable energies over a life-time to military transport, the French wouldn't have had a supply system ready - well - almost. There were the little problems of actually getting stuff made and training up the troops. They overcame such problems for the best possible reason - the opposition already had railways and trained troops. We are confident that the German Feldbahn system - of just such portable railways - owed its existence to the fact that, some years before the War, they saw what the French were doing!

A 60cm railway goes into the French fort  of Bois L'Abbe near Epinal. Before 1914, the French strategy was to depend on a network of these forts to deter invaders. Supplies and reinforcements were quickly moved thanks to the little railway which was equally at home inside as out.

There was nothing 'inevitable' about the Pechot System. We can imagine how things might have been if there had been no Prosper Pechot. Let us look at the British experience. In the 1870s, around the time that Pechot was looking at difficulties in military transport, the British Army were aware of these problems and setting their best minds to it. Those minds were in the Royal Engineers - allow me to be a little prejudiced - my Grandpa was a Sapper! Railways were the best form of military supply for the period but were hard to lay quickly, one obstacle being steep gradients. Mother Nature does not like flat spaces. If there are any, she fills them up with water. Elevated track in 18" (45cm) gauge looked promising. This was the Fell System. 500 man-days, it was calculated, were required to construct each mile of track. After a few trials in 1872-4, the Engineers filed a report and that was it.

The British Pechot, Mr Henry Handyside, lately Assistant Engineer to the Government of Nelson Province, New Zealand, then came forward. The Handyside Patent System enabled a locomotive to be used as a stationary engine to haul  its train up inconvenient gradients. Existing locomotives could be retrofitted with the necessary equipment. The need for civil engineering was much reduced. Handyside got into the Press and found himself a commercial backer. In 1876, the Royal Engineers were moved to witness trials, and by November 1876, they were ordering their own version - in their favoured gauge of 18". Trials went on until 1885 when it was decided to abandon the system Handyside System altogether on the grounds of unit and operational cost. Metre gauge lines were proposed as an alternative although no-one was delegated to look into the matter. Naivety or complacency? You decide. By 1914, 2'6" (75cm) was the British Army's gauge of choice - not that they had much material anyway (4 1/2 miles).

In the period 1874-80, Captain Pechot of the French Artillerie had conducted trials to determine which gauge would be best for portable military track. When his superiors were too mean or cautious to help him, he turned to Paul Decauville the industrialist. He encountered opposition from the French equivalent of the Sappers. At the time that the British abandoned their trials, the French concluded to their own satisfaction that metre gauge would do for military purposes.  Pechot looked to the Navy for support. Then the Press discovered that all France's defences could be blown to smithereens by high explosive. The Government were forced to act. By sheer force of personality and the sacrifice of all his weekends, Pechot showed that 60cm gauge could, cheaply and quickly, provide the new mobility that was required.

And what of the Germans? They had favoured 75cm for military gauge. When the French were conducting trials around Toul, they too switched gauge to ... 60cm. Soon after the Pechot Bourdon loco appeared, the Germans switched from small locomotives with conical boilers and horse-drawn wagons to a system of bogie wagons of roughly the same dimensions as the Pechot ones, pulled by locomotives analogous to the Pechot one. They worked even harder at field supply than the French. By Christmas 1914, at the time when most experts decreed that the War would be over, it had only just begun.

More progress in the Workshop

More work has been going into the batch of Quarry Hunslets.  Last time I prepared the bar stock to make the cylinder blocks.  This time more of the same.  The first operation is to machine the middle of the block away to form the valve face.

Using the table stops on the mill makes machining the valve face quick work.

This is recessed so that the valve chest sits under the smoke box of the engine. Then narrow grooves are milled across the width of the block, these are to take 1/16" wide keys that retain and lock the block into the frames.  They also provide a useful point to index the block when machining the locations for the cylinders themselves.  Again the face of the machine vice provides the datum, material in the slot  providing a useful stop.  In this way all the blocks end the same size and the cylinders are parallel and the same distance from the face of the frames.  All done without measuring just using a centre finder, the machine vice face  and the stops on the machine.
The next stage is bench work with a small drill press and a pendant drill. This is the bit where a mistake is starting to be costly. First the centre line have to be lightly marked on the valve face.

Having machined the valve face the tool marks have to abraded away without the flatness being lost.

Then the hardened drilling jig is clamped on, sighting the scribed lines through the holes in the jig.  Then the ports are drilled through.  I have found that round ports work perfectly well and drilling them all the same size does not adversley affect the running of the engine.

Using the jig to drill the ports.

Then all the steam ways have to be drilled into the block  and sockets formed to take the inlet and exhaust steam couplings. Connecting the exhaust to the central exhaust ports is the bit I like least since it has to be done by eye using a pendant drill.  If you miss the port  you can write off the block.  The drill press is used to drill from the cylinder face to the inlet ports , it is a deep hole and can wander if the chips are not cleared.

All the steam ways drilled, next make the cylinders.The valve face is offset to one side to give room for the exhaust pipe.

Back in the Workshop.

It was an enjoyable break in France, as Sarah told you, the visit to the Gare de Sos was a real treat.
At the 16mm AGM show in Peterborough I purchased a kit from Swift Sixteen for a protected Simplex(Tin Turtle).  The were built in large numbers, 104 were ordered in 1917 and quite a few are still around.  This kit was based on the locomotive at Apedale. Where they are having a WD commemoration  on 12th/13th September this year.  Well worth going to, not only a unique assembly of WD locomotives and stock but also an accurate re-creation of a section of trench showing all the different trenching methods used.
The kit itself was excellent.  Well detailed and no problems in assembly- everthing fitted and the downloaded instructions were OK, perhaps some of the photos were a little hard on old eyes. Last weekend saw it built and painted.  I still have to paint the details and apply the well etched works plate and number plates.

The Tin Turtle assembled from a Swift Sixteen kit

After the Turtle was finished thoughts turned to the Quarry Hunslet locos.  We have notes of interest in over 50!  So the time has arrived to start building them.  I have decided to start with the mechanism.  We make this in house by fabrication.  The cylinder block starts out as a length of 3/4" x 1/2" bar.  The first operation is to get the batch all square and the same length having cut them roughly on a chop saw.

All machined to length

Next using the end of the machine vice as the datum they are all endmilled with a recess that is going to become the valve face between the frames of the loco.  The removal of metal is limited by the table stops and the down stops.  So once set up not much skill is needed.  The machine takes off 50 thou at a pass.

Starting to machine the last one in the batch.