Treaty fortification limits and colonial infrastructure

Did naval-treaty limits stop powers from turning old battleship guns into colonial railway and coastal defences?

They had some effect, but administrative decisions mattered more in the failure to build useful coastal railway infrastructure in India.

Treaty clauses restricting fortification of colonial possessions also affected the use of old battleship guns as railway or coastal artillery, though their effect was limited. Britain could still have developed a coastal railway around India had it chosen to make that infrastructure a priority. Colonial administrators repeatedly avoided decisions that would have improved Indian transport and defence. The distinction separates a formal arms-limitation constraint from the domestic and imperial choices that shaped what was actually built.