WWI Railroad Unit in New England

Neat. I'm impressed that you were able to locate actual footage of the unit (even if it's mixed in with others). I was wondering whether or not is was in France. They seemed to be wearing an awful lot of unnecessary junk while doing their jobs. Must be in garrison!

Have you located the Distinctive Unit Insignia? Since they served in WWI I would think they have one.

Another interesting question. What was their divisional affiliation?

I'm assuming given their highly specialized status they may have been attached directly to some part of QM HQ AEF?

Goerge,
That footage was taken in France. They were never "in garrison" so to speak other than Basic at Rockingham Park. I did locate a whole 14th Engineers (light railway) uniform that was sold at auction a few years back, but the picture is not good enough to see the patch. They were assigned directly to the British 3rd Army at Boisleux and Poziers, and then to the 1st Army. So they would have worn the big A. I'm not finding any divisional lineage, but you know as wll as I do that the Army keeps AWSOME records. All I have been able to find so far is attachment to 1st Army HHC.

steamer69 wrote:Goerge,
That footage was taken in France. They were never "in garrison" so to speak other than Basic at Rockingham Park. I did locate a whole 14th Engineers (light railway) uniform that was sold at auction a few years back, but the picture is not good enough to see the patch. They were assigned directly to the British 3rd Army at Boisleux and Poziers, and then to the 1st Army. So they would have worn the big A. I'm not finding any divisional lineage, but you know as wll as I do that the Army keeps AWSOME records. All I have been able to find so far is attachment to 1st Army HHC.

Given how quickly the whole thing was over that sounds about right. Echelon (Army) sounds correct as well. Out of curiosity what was the selling price?

It didn't say, I didn't catch it when it was still for sale, and all it says now is SOLD. I hate winning. It was a full Sargeants uniform.....patches and everything.

George,
I just found a couple of pictures. Patch and tunic, still no asking price. The 14th Engineers is one of the rarest combat patches to find. Here is the patch.

And Tunic George,

Sargeant stripes are on the other side. They only wore rank on one side. The "corporal" stripes are time overseas, and the PFC stripe is the honerable discharge from active duty stripe....as far as I understand. They did some weird british like stuff back then......

The quality of the film is extraordinary. It was amusing to see panel track being carried about by hand... and made me wonder if this was a very early application of panel track.

Cowford,
It may ave been one of the first "mass" uses, but the application had been tested a while before the war. The pannel system is described in the 1917 US Army Railroad Manual for Light Railways as beeing the best application of track work for forward deployment as it is much quicker to lay under fire. The basic system that you saw in the footage is all Decauville based systems that the company pionered for industrial/farm work in 1875. It didn't become standard for military use until 1888 and then it was mainly for carying amunition in forts like big artillery rounds. Since most of the "forward" positions and track were all the 2' gauge, it just made sence to lay all of the main supply tracks of the same gauge that way entire supply trains could be run right into forward possitions without trans load or gauge changes at the front under fire.

Hope that helps