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Remembered Today:

Railway operations in the UK


John_Hartley

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I'm trying to help a local community group develop an exhibition next year. They are a "friends of the railway station" and are looking to major on the railway side of medical services in the UK. That's because the local area did have a hospital, albeit a small one (and I doubt whether casualties generally arrived by rail). Can anyone point me in a direction to get some general info. They'd also be interested in photos of "hospital trains" - which I assume were kitted out for stretcher cases, etc.

 

TIA

John

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National Railway Museum in York may well have something.

 

Also some images here:

wellcomeimages.org

 

sJ

 

 

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Hello John

 

Try to get hold of Volumes I and IV in the "General" series of the Medical Official History. Volume I pages 104 to 108 has information about the ambulance trains in the UK, and Volume IV pages 628 onwards deals with ambulance trains abroad, particularly France. They are not over-burdened with photos but there are diagrams of the coaches, showing their layout and the order in which they were marshalled, in the info in Volume IV.

 

Transportation on the Western Front by Col A M Henniker, an "extra" volume in the ordinary OH series for France, also has some info on ambulance trains in that theatre but, from memory, there is little in it that is not also in the Medical Volume IV.

 

The IWM Department of Photographs probably has some material on ambulance trains, too.

 

You probably know about the "Brechot apparatus". This was a stack of three frames, one above the other like bunk beds, each carrying one stretcher perframe, and there were four sets (basically one in each corner) in each "ward" wagon, of which there were usually 33 in a 40-vehicle train.

 

Ron

Edited by Ron Clifton
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John, which locality does the community group represent? I have contemporary postcards of the Great Western Railway  ambulance train built at Swindon, ambulance coach, kitchen, ward car and treatment room.

 

Moonraker

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Thanks to all. I've passed on your suggestions.

 

Moonraker - the station was an LNWR one, I believe. If it's OK, I'll PM you if the group would like a copy of the GWR train photo.

 

John

Edited by John_Hartley
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  • Admin

I attended a Rails at War event at Didcot  Railway Centre last Sunday. They had some photos on display, and also a carriage set up with medical equipment. It might be worth your group contacting them ?

 

Michelle 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The latest WFA Bulletin has an article (pages 53 to 55) which is a reprint of a talk given at its AGM earlier this year. It has a number of photographs and although some of them were taken in France they may be of use.

 

Ron

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Off-topic but hoping a WFA member might be looking in to follow up on this... I just searched for the WFA on Google and got this message: 

Whoa!

Are you sure you want to go there?

http://game5454.cdn-network35-server4.to… may be risky to visit.

 

Why are you seeing this?

When we visited this site, we found it exhibited one or more risky behaviors.

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trajan

Off topic as well but I am also now get a similar notification when I try to access WFA homepage direct through Virgin media, won't let me go through unless I "change" my Safe settings. I can however access via subsections without problem.

 

Maybe mods can put these comments into appropriate section?

 

John

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15 minutes ago, Knotty said:

... I can however access via subsections without problem. ... 

 

 

 

Same here - I was trying to access using my uni system here in Turkey and my McAfee system gave m the warning.

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John, I knew I had this somewhere: RN hospital train, a photograph of a photograph in the archive at work. I can't recall if it is home or abroad, but if you are interested please drop me a line.

sJ

IMG_20170904_175244.jpg.c78c7efa3d60be9cdd5512b6c7d6c7d9.jpg

 

 

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