Rails to the front: The role of railways in wartime

Praise for Rails to the Front

"This book is an excellent value for the money. It fulfills its broad purpose of presenting the role of railways in warfare and provides an excellent launching platform for those wishing to know more about detailed individual circumstances."
- Railroad History, Fall-Winter 2017

"This is an authoritative work, engagingly written, attractively designed, and given its nice price, easily recommendable as the go-to work in its field."
- The Lexington Quarterly, January 2018

About the book

“The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car [...] You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors.”
~ William Tecumseh Sherman, 1860

The military use of railways derives from their ability to move troops or materiel rapidly and, less commonly, on their use as a platform for military systems (like armoured trains and heavy artillery). Until recently, the mobility of large armies generally depended on control of railways to move reinforcements, ammunition and food, as the locomotive and railway cars proved far superior to animal-drawn equipment.

In Rails to the Front, historians Augustus J. Veenendaal and H. Roger Grant capture the critical impact of railways in an abundance of conflicts worldwide, from the German revolutions in the 1840s to the Gulf War in the 1990s. This lavishly illustrated, careful study is the first of its kind in English.