Re: Baldwin Trench Locomotive back in service in UK

The little trench engines were designed to run on the first "snap track"--panels composed of steel rails welded to steel ties (locomotives and track all provided by Baldwin, with some contributions from Porter). Entire branch lines from storage depots to the battle front could be quickly rearranged by simply collecting the panels and re-laying them elsewhere. Gasoline-powered trucks were new to combat and prone to be unreliable, so the military resorted to what it knew best--steam-powered railroads. Germany had its own trench locomotives and railroadsfrom a variety of manufacturers.

The little teapots had one major flaw: the high-mounted water tanks, combined with the very narrow track gauge, made the engines highly unstable. The only book I have seen on the subject of the trench engines said the locomotives fell over frequently, particularly because of the hastily-laid track they ran on, coupled with water sloshing around in the tanks. The Army's military engineers apparently had quite an operation going, setting trench engines back on the rails.

Most of the locomotives that made it to France and survived the war were left behind as a gift to the French farmers. A few never made it off the docks in America and went to now-forgotten industrial operations and a handful of military bases. One base operation lasted through WW2 before beign scrapped; the rest disappeared long before. Only one of these American locomotives survives in the US; it is located at an Army museum in Georgia.