Armstrong Whitworth railway guns/howitzers

[RobL]

I've seen mention of heavy rail-mounted gun carriages sent TO Newcastle from the Birmingham area by the London North Western Railway during the war... This suggests that the railway mountings for the AW rail guns were built elsewhere, can anyone confirm/deny this?

I'm also very interested in how the completed railway guns/howitzers were transported to the front once completed. The 12 inch howitzers at least don't look too complicated to travel complete (apart from their height) but larger ones would no doubt be an issue... Does anyone know how they were transported to the front, and on which routes?

[RobL]

Just to add a bit of visual interest, nice photo of a 12 inch Mk V howitzer taken at the Elswick works I spotted at the Discovery Museum

[RodB]

I've come across many references to railway workshops contributing an engineering effort - they presumably had the right equipment and skills to produce things like gun carriages.

Re getting them to the front : they were designed to be operable on standard railways in both Britain and France, including height issues. There were tricks such as disconnecting the barrel from its carriage to lower it for transiting railways with height limits. I would think the only challenge was getting it aboard a ship but there were some pretty big wharf cranes around at the time. I believe the carriage and gun were shipped disassembled. Presumably after the first unit was proofed those buillt at Elswick wouldn't even be assembled prior to shipping, initial assembly would be in France. This was an age of gigantism, and there were loads of facilities for handling really big units : shipping naval guns of fourteen inches was pretty routine by then in Britain and France.

[centurion]

According to Hogg the Mark I 9.2 inch railway guns were mounted on a standard well truck but the Mk II and subsequent designs including the 12 inch howitzers were mounted on trucks designed and built for the purpose at Elswick. So it would seem entirely possible that trucks were sent to Newcastle for the production of the Mk I 9.2 inch guns

[RobL]

One of them certainly was - the North Eastern Railway built a well wagon at Gateshead in September 1914 to be fitted with a 9.2 inch gun, then used on coastal defence work