Casemate Railway
A casemate railway is a railway for special use in fortified military facilities. It is usually designed as a narrow-gauge railway . In contrast to mobile field railways in military use ( army field railways , trench railways ), casemate railways are a fixed part of a defense system or a depot.
description
The railways are used to supply supplies within the narrow corridors of the casemates . Casemate railways existed in almost every military installation that was built up until the 1950s. In addition to smaller systems in a variety of locations, larger networks were laid out in the defense systems of the 1930s and 1940s. On the German side z. B. in positions of the West Wall and in the Atlantic Wall , on the Allied side z. B. in the Maginot line .
The casemate railways have many similarities to mine railways due to the fact that they are mostly inside buildings, often underground . While on smaller networks the wagons were mostly operated by hand, otherwise mostly battery-powered, less often steam or diesel-powered locomotives were used. Pneumatic locomotives were occasionally used in ammunition stores to avoid the risk of explosion. With newer large systems such. B. Fort Hackenberg on the Maginot Line was also driven with overhead lines. This railway is now operated as part of the museum.
In the civil sector, similar systems for mail transport were built in some cities, such as the Post-U-Bahn in Munich .