It’s amazing to think people have been driving trains into cars, and filming it, for over a century. This week’s Armourer’s Bench video is something a bit different and not really military history related.
While I was doing research for our earlier video on the M1918 Ford Light Tank, I came across this amazing footage filmed by the Ford Motor Company in 1919. It shows what appears to be a Ford Model T Touring car being hit by a train. The result, as expected, is carnage.
It’s amazing to think people have been driving trains into cars, and filming it, for over a century. This week’s Armourer’s Bench video is something a bit different and not really military history related.
While I was doing research for our earlier video on the M1918 Ford Light Tank, I came across this amazing footage filmed by the Ford Motor Company in 1919. It shows what appears to be a Ford Model T Touring car being hit by a train. The result, as expected, is carnage.
118 ‘Brussels’ was a War Department-owned Austerity 0-6-0 saddle tank steam engine made by
Hudswell Clarke. Between 1945 and 1969 it worked on the Longmoor Military Railway (LWR).
The Austerity 0-6-0 locomotives were designed by
The Hunslet Engine Company
for shunting during World War Two. They continued to be used by both the British military as well as the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and coal mines into the 1970s.
Engine No.181 of the same class as Brussels operating on the LMR (source)
Brussels was used on the Longmoor Military Railway in Hampshire. The Royal Engineers built the first parts of what would become the LMR in 1903 to serve the Bordon and Longmoor Military Camps. This was later expanded with the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway before the lines in the area were renamed the Longmoor Military Railway (LMR) in 1935. The British Army and the Railway Inspectorate used the line to train personnel how to build and operate railways, as such its layout changed frequently until it closed down in October 1969. During its history the LMR was operated by the Royal Engineers, Royal Corps of Transport and Royal Logistics Corps.
This Pathe newsreel shows the LMR in action c.1961 (source)
When the line was closed down 118 Brussels was purchased from the Army by a local enthusiast who hoped to run it on parts of the LMR which would be run as a tourist attraction. This plan fell through and Brussels was offered to the Keighley & Worth Railway Society. Today Brussels is preserved at KWR’s depot at Oxenhope, Yorkshire.
Sources:
All main images taken by the author.
Longmoor Military Railway, Friends of Alton Station, (source)