Railways and Invasions
The Volunteer Review at Brighton, in 1862, afforded a good practical demonstration of the facility with which troops might be moved towards a threatened point on the particular railway which would be most likely to be required for such a duty in an actual case of emergency. On the morning of the review, 6922 Volunteers were despatched from London-bridge in 2 hours and 41 minutes, and 5170 from the Victoria Station in 2 hours and 20 minutes, without difficulty. They were conveyed in 16 trains, each composed of an engine and tender and 22 vehicles, and each carrying on an average 20 officers and 735 men; and they reached Brighton in an average of 2 hours and 28 minutes from the time of starting. The Company had also to provide for the Easter Monday traffic, and to convey upwards of 2000 Volunteers along the south coast from the several stations on their own line. Indeed, the total number of passengers who travelled upon the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway on that day was 132,202, including Volunteers and the holders of season and return tickets.
The vast power which the railways of this country place at the disposal of the Government for the transport of troops is little known. It is in practice limited only by the number of troops that are forthcoming; and railway organization is highly favourable for the concentration of all its energies upon this object whenever it is worth while to interfere with the ordinary traffic.
Connected with the Brighton Railway system alone there are 145 locomotive engines, 1858 carriages or passenger vehicles, and 2588 waggons and trucks or merchandise vehicles, for working 240 miles: on the South-Eastern there are 179 engines, 972 carriages, and 2535 waggons, for 286 miles; and on the South-Western, 177 engines, 850 carriages, and 3488 trucks, for 444 miles. These numbers might be increased to any amount, if increase were required, at a day’s notice, by aid from the gigantic resources of the more extensive systems north of London. Excursion traffic is more difficult to manage in many respects than military traffic. A word from the commanding-officer procures an amount of order in the one case which barriers and policemen fail to do in the other. A hundred thousand men may at any time be conveyed without fatigue from London to Brighton in a single day, and they may further be transported along the coast from point to point, to Portsmouth and Weymouth on the west, and to Dover on the east, without break of gauge. They may also be brought from the north through London, and from the north, via Reading, without coming to London at all; and, indeed, the means of communication thus afforded are of so much importance to successful defence, that the railway system determines to a great extent in this country, as it has notably done in America, the strategic lines along which offensive operations must be carried on, and defensive movements effected.—Quarterly Review, No. 223.