Miscellaneous: Operating Equipment & Practices

Ambulance Trains: misc_equip245

Extract from ‘Notes on Military Railway Engineering - Part IV Operating’ published under the Authority of the Quartermaster-General, which describes the design, working and maintenance of Ambulance trains. This document was first issued after the First World War and was still current after the outbreak of the Second World War twenty years later. The Great Western Railway built four Home and ten Continental Ambulance Trains during the First World War, the details of which are listed below:

Train	Sent to	Into Service	Coaches	Comments
No 4	Home	24th August 1914	9	Twelve Ambulance Trains were provided by British Railway companies at outbreak of war
No 5	Home	25th August 1914	9
No 16	Home / France	24th April 1915	7	Paid for by UK Flour Millers Association
		May 1915	8
	Home	April 1915	11	Train Number not known
No 18	France / Italy	27th September 1915	16
No 19	France	8th February 1916	16 (+4)	Four coaches replaced when SS Africa sank
No 20		Home	11
No 26	Italy	14th May 1916	16
No 27	France	24th June 1916	16
No 33	France	28th August 1917	16
No 39	France / Italy	28th January 1918	16	'Two Ambulance Trains built for USA Army'
No 43	Italy	3rd June 1918	16	'Two Ambulance Trains built for USA Army'
US 54	France	1918	16	'Two Ambulance Trains built for USA Army'
US 55	France	1918	16	'Two Ambulance Trains built for USA Army'

Robert Ferris

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