HISTORICAL EXAMPLE: BUILDING MILITARY RAIL CAPACITY – US CIVIL WAR

As the major means of inland transportation during the US Civil War, railways became a major influence on the direction and sustainability of operations. The North had a superior rail system to that of the less-industrialised South, and the latter also had an endemic shortage of rolling stock.

During the sideshow of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson advanced up to the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry, threatening the Federal capital Washington and drawing off forces from the Federal thrust against the Confereracy's capital Richmond. The Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road ran along the river, continuing its commercial operations by mutual consent.

Jackson began complaining that the rail traffic disturbed the sleep of his army, and demanded that trains not run at night. He then further restricted train passage times on the pretext of not interfering with his operational schedule, and kept squeezing the times so that through traffic was channelled into the hour at midday. This meant that he had a daily 67 trains passing through his lines at the same time.

When advancing Federal forces forced his withdrawal he seized the concentrated engines and wagons, destroyed most, but dragged 19 engines and 80 rail wagons with horses cross country to the southern railhead at Winchester, and fed them into the South’s rail system where they were able to provide a welcome boost to the Confederate transportation system.