Railway transport

Were they Canadian pine, as used in Burma? 😉

In Canada newly built Chipmunks for export were loaded into wooden shipping containers and moved out by rail. The boxes had large maple leaves on them advertising the fact that the contents were ‘DH Chipmunk AIRCRAFT MADE IN CANADA’

Reading the BOAC War Diary: When Imperial Airways were evacuated from Croydon on the outbreak of war, the Southern Railway laid on a train specially for them. This had been planned for some time, as had the use of local hauliers and coach companies to do other parts of the evacuation. Any aircraft that could fly flew to Bristol or wherever they were needed. Any aircraft that couldn’t fly was repaired to the point where it could fly at least to somewhere it could be better repaired. There were apparently no aircraft that did not fall into one of these two categories. It would appear that British Airways Ltd were included in this arrangement, as the two companies were already operating together even though the full merger into BOAC wasn’t completed until April 1st 1940. Once they had left they record the airfield as being completely clear ready to be handed over to the RAF. The train waited in the sidings at Waddon for some days while precise arrangements were finalised. One of the specific additions was two low-sided wagons, although quite why they were needed isn’t clear – the implication is that there was no aircraft-specific stock, just whatever useful wagons were available. There were obviously very detailed plans for which bits went by which means of transport, and one imagines many larger parts would have been a natural for the railway, but the manifest is not on record. One thing that is specifically mentioned as being carried by rail is the spray equipment, which was urgently needed to camouflage the aircraft once they arrived in Bristol. Perhaps indicative of the confusion of the times, the diary records Imperial staff surprise that their train was to be accorded higher running priority than trains full of evacuee children, and on the next page records their frustration that Southern couldn’t find a locomotive to pull it!

Wow thanks guys please any information like this is brilliant.

SNAFU thanks for the photos as they show how the split in the wings should look like

WP840
PM Sent

Re the 737…they do come through my area enroute to Seattle looking as seen in the photos. The fuselages sections are made in Wichita, Kansas. The current 737 high production rate probably makes air transport uneconomical. I do wonder if they ever suffer any damage or vandalism?

The B737’s are renown for turning up in Seattle with various bullet holes courtesy of the good ol’ boys along the rail route from Wichita.:)

I believe the Germans were into shipping aircraft around via the rail network in Europe. In fact, I think you will find that part of the design brief for the Bf109 was the need to be able to be quickly dismantled and re-assembled for moving by land means. The main landing gear was purposely attached to the fuselage to not only save weight, but to enable it to be easliy moved around with the wings removed.

The Deutsche Reichsbahn transported new as well as damaged aircraft.
Including the recycling of Allied aircraft for precious metals.

A railway line used to run in to Boscombe Down (Amesbury Branch Line), does anybody have any pictures or information?

Some crated wagon loads might be quite recognisable as aircraft parts, see this website:

http://www.ngaugesociety.com/index.php?page=mill-lane-sidings-gallery

For the Great Western Railway ‘AERO’ wagon, recognisably for carrying propellors.

Re the 737…they do come through my area enroute to Seattle looking as seen in the photos. The fuselages sections are made in Wichita, Kansas. The current 737 high production rate probably makes air transport uneconomical. I do wonder if they ever suffer any damage or vandalism?

About WWII aviation, Moggy is correct, we’ve all seen photos of Thunderbolts and P-38s wrapped in canvas being loaded on ships for transport to the UK…and towed on streets to depots for reassembly.
I’ve never seen a US bomber transported like that, however.

Raided from the Luftwaffe Experten Message Board (sorry) but (probably) copied off of Ebay and the like!
Captured Fairey Battles on wagons in France, presumably loaded to be repaired but abandoned in the retreat…

Gah – one day I’ll know what I’m doing!

One here takn in 1936 http://www.flickriver.com/photos/39411748@N06/tags/steamtrain/

Something more modern Boeing 737
http://pixabay.com/en/train-transportation-airplane-53874/
http://www.featurepics.com/online/Aircraft-Fuselage-Body-Being-Transported-Train-909154.aspx
http://alongtherails.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/the-airplane-train/

Interesting question.

I am trying to think of any reason that an aircraft would find itself on a train.

Generally speaking new aircraft were delivered by air, there being little point in building them, and then stripping them down to transportable units, only to reassemble them yet again at their destination. This is the whole reason for the ATA.

Only if they were to be shipped overseas, Burma for instance, would they be likely to travel from factory to docks, and then, most likely crated.

That said, the Americans did ship a lot of airframes uncrated, there are plentiful pictures of them being towed through the streets of Liverpool from the docks to the assembly facility near Speke. So this might make a project if your tastes are for American trains. In fact here’s some civil Boeings

[ATTACH=CONFIG]220504[/ATTACH]

And just for fun, the polar opposite

[ATTACH=CONFIG]220505[/ATTACH]

I am wondering about repair sections for heavy bombers. But since they would be unlikely to be needed in bulk at any one airfield (Woodbridge and Manston apart) my guess is they’d be roaded, on Queen Mary artics.

Fascinated to see the Sunderland images.

Moggy

This is something I’ve been trying to research , because I want to build a 1940 Southern Railway themed model railway with evacuees on the stations and aircraft and tanks on flat trucks and maybe a crashed German bomber or something, but trying to research any kind of writing or photos of the railways during the war has proven to be near impossible, unless I’m looking in the wrong places.

New aeroplanes would have been transported in cases, just as any other machinery. Crashed recovered probably on whatever flat wagons were available. Scrap would have been in any open wagon that was available. There is a photo kicking around of the remains of a Sunderland in farly small pieces heading through Cardiff, will have to see if I can find the book in question.