The Great War's neglected piece of history.

BRADSHAW'S didn't see this coming. The last edition before the Great War of the railway traveller's guide may have eerily captured a soon-to-be-lost epoch, but even the oracle of all things steam couldn't predict a need to include ambulance trains in its timetables.

An exhibition train fundraising in Huddersfield.

The government did, though. In 1910 secret plans were made and engineering works alerted to the need for such things. Now the National Railway Museum (NRM) is about to launch a permanent exhibition exploring these locos, together with some little-known experiences of the patients and staff who travelled on them.

People like George Owen Willis, who introduced barrier nursing, after noticing that transporting injured passengers in close, cramped carriages meant the potential for diseases to break out was constant.

An ambulance train leaving for the front.

Life on board was often dangerous. The trains were a target for enemy fire, despite a Red Cross painted on their sides, and George's engine would often shelter in railway tunnels to avoid being bombed by Zeppelins. His office was once hit by a large, sharp piece of shrapnel during a raid – had he been in the room at the time, George would have been killed.

Finding recollections like this was a three year long needle in a haystack mission for NRM associate archivist Alison Kay and interpretation developer Jane Sparkes. The museum did have some designs from Wolverton railway works, which built many of the trains, and hidden away were a few old photos. But the idea was to focus on the stories of those who worked aboard or who were among the wounded.

NRM associate archivist Alison Kay. Picture: Matt Clark.

Trouble is, there weren't any.

"Normally when you research something, you start in the library," says Jane. "But there was only a handful of books on the subject and they were quite superficial. No one has ever done anything in depth like this before."

Fortunately the pair discovered that Leeds University held accounts from the Friends Ambulance Unit. They would prove a rich seam to mine.

"These first hand accounts describe the awful things people saw, but don't say how they effected them," says Jane. "Trying to draw conclusions without putting words into people's mouths has been an interesting challenge."

No problem with two of the passengers, though. Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon were both evacuated by train and their recollections offer a very different version to the official one with its photos of starched linen and flower festooned, pristine carriages.

A sanitised official image of an ambulance train.

"Most letters say the trains were smelly and dirty and describe the wounds; practical things, like that," says Jane. "Sassoon talks about it being haunting, with men carrying their wounds and their memories with them. They've escaped the front line but it can still lay its hand on their hearts."

One of the unexpected things to come out of the research is how keen the nurses and orderlies were to get to the front. Perhaps they thought the closer they were the more they could help. Or was it simply an adventure?

"The trains could get really close to the front line," says Alison. "We've found accounts of nurses hiding under them as they were being shelled, of every single window in the 16 carriages being blown out."

Even more unexpected was discovering how society reacted to ambulance trains. They were given the lowest priority on the railways with men complaining of being 'tagged up and feeling like freight'.

It was a far cry from Autumn 1914 when everyone thought the war would be over by Christmas. Authorities reckoned a military hospital at Netley near Southampton would cope with the few dozen casualties. Soon dozens turned into hundreds, then thousands. At first brass bands welcomed the trains, red carpets were rolled out and the mayor would turn up in his chains.

But by 1918 just shy of three million men had come home on an ambulance train. Hospital overcrowding was spreading ever-northward and the 20 minute morning ride to Netley turned into a day trip to Birmingham; eventually a night train to Inverness.

It was all too much. Brass bands stopped playing, there were no more red carpets. The mayor stayed at home.

"One of the big messages we've been following with the exhibition is that as well as physically bringing the wounded of the war home, ambulance trains were bringing the reality of the war home too," says Jane.

The exhibition also looks at the railway workers who built the trains at incredible speed to keep up with demand.

"It was August Bank Holiday and all the men from the Wolverton works were by the seaside in Blackpool," says Jane. "An urgent call went out to get them back and they worked day and night to build the trains."

18 days later the first one reached Southampton.

"Number 37 ambulance train was built in York carriage works and exhibited here, Selby, Hull and Leeds to raise money for more to be built," says Alison. "We have a fundraising brochure for it in the exhibition and apparently they used to dress German made dolls as English nurses which were sold to help the war effort."

That's a canny way to bypass embargoes.

It was a different story across the channel. The first British ambulance trains to operate on the Western Front were nothing more than empty French goods wagons with straw on the floor.

The purpose built versions were designed to take 500 people and consisted of wards, kitchens, surgical dressing rooms and dispensaries – even padded cells.

Ambulance Trains opens on July 7 to mark the centenary of the busiest day of ambulance train traffic; the Battle of the Somme, when all the rules went out the window.

"It was get the men on and pile them up in the corridor," says Jane. "Staff had to give up their quarters to make more room. If there's one moment that crops up again and again in everybody's accounts, it's the Somme."

The exhibition features as its centrepiece a carriage once owned by the Ministry of Defence. Built in 1907 for the London & South Western Railway and of the type that would have been converted for use as an ambulance train, it has been transformed to include a ward, pharmacy and nurses’ mess room.

Digital projection, sound and historic images recreate the intense atmosphere of these confined trucks, while photographs, technical drawings, letters and diaries bring to life the stories of those on board.

One of them was nurse Kate Luard. who in a letter home, described her work being 'the grimmest possible as we shall have some of the worst cases being equipped as a hospital.’ She served on train number 5; an early example, assembled at speed out of French railway trucks, wagons and any other kind of railway stock that could be found.

On the earliest trains, staff could only go between the carriages by walking along the exterior foot boards, often while it was moving at speed.

In another letter home, Kate mentioned that her train was a third of a mile long ‘so three walks along its side gives you exercise for a mile’.

The exhibition also reveals a place was found for conscientious objectors. Edmund Cooper, for instance, who joined the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), a volunteer service founded by Quakers. In August 1916 Edmund joined ambulance train number 16 as a medical orderly. It was one of four to be entirely staffed by the FAU.

"Life on board was incredibly difficult for members of the FAU," says Alison. "They worked tirelessly to stem the human cost of a war they morally opposed."

For the nurses medics and orderlies it was a life of extremes. Hours of intense activity followed days of sitting in their quarters waiting for another call out. Sport, painting the carriages and writing home occupied those seemingly never ending periods. Train 16's staff also produced their own magazine – A Train Errant – which featured jokes, poems, cartoons and stories about their experiences.

An anthology is held in the NRM's rare book collection.

"It chronicled the everyday experiences of life on board," says Alison. "The FAU wrote that ‘our train magazine… reflects for the most part the lighter side of our life – the other side was all too present in our minds'.

"Staff joked about the train’s food, particularly the ‘impenetrable pastry’ that made ‘armoured pies’, and the fashion among male staff for moustaches known as facefins."

Ambulance Trains opens on July 7 and includes a series of free talks by curators, experts and descendants of ambulance train staff that will delve even deeper into the subject. A special trail will be available for families to explore the exhibition together.

For more information, visit nrm.org.uk/ambulancetrains.