Landships II

Judjing by the rest of the range I would have thought they are of prototypes I supose they ran on lines of the Eastern front(?) but the Russian gauge was alot bigger than the German so this would have restricted their use. One explanation is could they have been captured Russian stock?
Will look up my books to see if I can find anything else.

The middle pic rather accurately depicts the Pz.T9( tenderlokomotive T9 ); which did indeed exist.  They were used  extensively with KuK armoured trains when moving grain from the Ukraine in 1918.

Yes, the Ruski railways were all 5 ft. gauge.  A purpose design to deny ready use of their rail system by western European powers operating standard gauge( 4' 8 3/4").

28juni14 wrote:

---

 Ruski railways were all 5 ft. gauge.  A purpose design to deny ready use of their rail system by western European powers operating standard gauge( 4' 8 3/4").

---

If that were the reason it was singularly ineffective as the Germans very quickly came up with a wheel spacer kit. I had understood that it was to ensure that incoming commercial goods had to be transhipped onto Russian trains (and duties, tolls  collected etc) - some similar silly tricks were once applied on Britains canal system about a hundred years before to force transhipment etc between canals owned by different companies.

Indeed, German railway engineers were continually busy in occupied territories. The Russians did, however, buy time with their unique gauge. Laying an inside rail on Ruski sleepers( known as ties in USA ) provided a quick bed for 60cm traffic, but the standard qauge traffic was not addressed so easily by the pioneers. The 5' gauge was just narrow enough to prevent a 3rd rail for standard gauge to be laid. This neccessitated pulling a rail, and repositioning a new rail a little more than 3" in from the old rail location. There is an old pic illustrating German gondolas piled full of rail, and cut bridgework apparently routing back to German mills.

Hello Elbavaro!

The last wagon in your photo captures a rare 7,72cm Eisenbahn Flakwagen.
Mounted on a special depressed short flat wagon, this weapon system came into use in mid 1918.   What makes your pic particularly rare is the splinter shield fitted to the piece.   Good find !