Royal Engineers Transportation Service

The Royal Engineers' interest in mechanical transport began in 1868 when they purchased a traction-engine (described as Steam Sapper No 1 but named The Prince Arthur after the Duke of Connaught) from Aveling & Porter of Rochester, Kent. And conducted a series of exercises to assess the viability of the use of steam traction, free from the permanent railway track for military purposes.

A second Steam Sapper was purchased in 1871 and a fourth was deployed for the first time during the Ashanti Expedition (1873) in West Africa.

Unfortunately this first deployment was a rather ignominious début due to trouble with leaking boiler tubes which prevented it from being used to its full capacity, although it did sterling service powering a saw mill. The last time steam traction engines were deployed under the Royal Engineers control was during the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902).

In the meantime, the Royal Engineers also showed an interest in the new developments in the railways. This first began when the Board of Trade appointed the onetime Director of the Royal Engineer Establishment, General Sir Charles Pasley as Inspector of Railways in 1840. Pasley held the appointment for four years. Through his patronage many junior officers carried out much of the physical work of railway safety inspections and thereby began to develop interests in both the construction and the operation of railways.

In January 1855, during the Crimean War (1854-56), a railway was constructed under Royal Engineers supervision by civilian contractors to carry stores between the port and Balaclava, but it was not until the 1882 that provision for railway construction and operation was added to the Royal Engineers establishment, when 8th Company was convert into a Railway Company and trained on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway.

In 1882 8th Railway Company (Major S Smith) was deployed with the British Expeditionary force to Egypt, where it operated trains in support of the force. It was again deployed on the Nile Expedition (1884) to relieve General Gordon (who was a former officer commanding 8th Company) in Khartoum, Sudan.

During Brigadier General (later Field Marshal Lord) H H Kitchener's (1850-1916) expeditions to Sudan (1896-98), which ended with the defeat of the Mahdist Dervishes at the battle of Omdurman (1898) sections from 8th and 10th Railway Companies, under the supervision of the French Canadian Lieutenant (later Colonel Sir) E Percy C Girouard, Royal Engineers constructed a railway across the Nubian desert, a railway that ensured that Kitchener could keep his force well supplied. Its construction and operation is credited with being a significant reason for Kitchener's success.

In 1899 railway units, including Volunteer units, went to South Africa to operate and maintain the railways supporting the British Army against the Boers. After the war the Longmoor Military Railway (1905) was built in Hampshire to provide training facilities for the further expansion of the Transportation Service. At the same time the mechanised transportation element was given over to the Army Service Corps.

In 1902 engineer officers advised a War Office Committee on the steps to be taken to mechanise the army, in the same year the same committee recommended that the mechanical transport (MT) element of the Royal Engineers become the responsibility of the Army Service Corps (ASC). The Army Service Corps subsequently formed their first MT Companies in 1903-04, but their training was continued by Royal Engineer instructors.

The First World War (1914-18) saw the founding of the Inland Water Transport Section of the Transportation Service in 1915, which operated barges on the canals in France and Mesopotamia. The following year (1916) the operation in support of the Western Front was extended to include sea-going barges operated from Richborough, Kent across the English Channel to the Continent.

In 1917 on the Western Front the Transportation Service took over the responsibility from the field engineers for the construction and operation of the Light Railways used to carry the supplies from the refilling points to the front lines .

The many achievements of the Transportation Service during the Second World War included:

• the construction of deep water military ports at Faslane, Cairnryan and Addabiya,
• the construction of the Western Desert Railway (1942),
• the doubling the Burma-Assam Railway (1944-45),
• The development of the Z-craft,
• the construction and operation of the Mulberry Harbours in support of Operation Overlord (1944)
• the re-opening of the port and railway system of Western Europe on the cessation of hostilities (1945)

In the immediate post-war period the Transportation Service was involved in the operation of ports and railways in Korea, Egypt and Christmas Island, as well as, the clearance of the blocked Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis (1956).

During the early sixties it was decided to rationalize the logistic support of the British Army, which resulted in elements of the Transportation Service being amalgamated with the transport elements of the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) to form a new corps, the Royal Corps of Transport (RCT) in 1965. This new corps had overall responsibility for the operation of all military transport and the control of military movements.

The Corps of Royal Engineers however retained the responsibility for the construction of transportation facilities should they be required, and training in these skills continues to this day.

The Royal Engineers - (RE 200 brochure, Institute of Royal Engineers, Chatham 1987)

The History of Corps of of the Royal Engineers - Volumes I-X (Institute of Royal Engineers, Chatham)

Follow the Sapper. Napier G (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 2005)