Hunslet 1215 A War Veteran's Story

Hunslet 4-6-0T No.1215 was one of a class of locos built to the order of the British War Dpt for use by what became the Directorate of Light Railways. This organisation used 600mm gauge railways to supply the trenches by bridging the gap between the end of the standard gauge railways and the relatively static front line of World War I on the Western front. They were used to move huge quantities of troops, casualties, shells, rations and other supplies over a network that, at its full extent, included over 3,000miles of track. Apart from being one of the largest classes of one single type of narrow gauge locomotive built within the UK, the vast majority were also completed within the space of three years. A total of 155 were ordered by the War Department from the Hunslet Engine Co. at a time when Hunslet were also constructing howitzers, shells, and machinery to make shells, as well as a limited number of other locomotives. By comparison, in peacetime they averaged about 40 locomotives of all types per year.