Hi Jefff,

Naturally, the railways were vital for moving heavy equipment, munitions, artllery etc., and troops around. The French Railways would have been responsible for that in France behind the Western Front. In the UK the railway companies had the same responsibilities to the southern and western ports for onward shipment abroad. It's largely forgotten now. I used to live at Hook in N. Hampshire. A tiny village 1914-1918. Yet the railway station had and has long platforms and a gap in the middle where there was another long platform. Whole divisions (18,000 officers and men would come in with all their equipment, usually it took about 75 trains! offload and camp on Hook Common, until moved by rail to ports for transshipment overseas to France or elsewhere. Same facilities existed just down the line and A30 at Basingstoke.

Oddly enough my grandfathers sister Kate had a stepson, company commander in 18th Division, I think, without looking it up. They were offloaded at Hook before onward movement to Avonmouth and thence to Gallipoli where the Turks shot him through the head. He's buried in the Commonwealth War Graves cemetry at Hellas. His parents were then living in Lydney (Kate (Griffiths) and George Grail both from Soudley, George Grail previously manager of the Dulcote Leather Board Company (Soudley Mill) and all the gruesome details were printed in the Lydney Observer. Both his and his brothers names are on the Lydney War Memorial.

Yes, my father was clever clever, industrial chemist and physicist, had 3 patents, not like me.

Oh yes, I expect that lots of FoD men were sappers and miners, being miners, going back to the inception of gunpowder. Guns were cast in and around Soudley for the Royal Navy until stopped, probably in the time of King Charles II, because too many trees were being cut down. Conservation 17th Century style.