Maps and photographs reveal the railway album as a record of logistics rather than a collection of locomotives. Standard-gauge railways fed 60-centimetre light railways, distribution lines, Royal Engineers tramways, and ropeways. The same network connected ammunition transfer points, depots, and casualty-clearing stations behind the front. It compensated for inadequate roads and too few trucks. Enemy artillery deliberately targeted the track, so the system had to be rebuilt quickly across shell-damaged ground.
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Light railways sustained the Western Front
A War Department Light Railways album maps the layered rail, road, depot, medical, and ropeway network that moved supplies toward the First World War front.