Heeresfeldbahn
The Imperial German Heeresfeldbahn (Army field railway) was a special railway system developed by the Army and for the Army in the years preceding the war as Germany always knew the importance of fast movements of men and materials.
The track would be standard narrow-gauge 600mm also employed on the British and French sides, Austro-Hungary in comparison fielded 700mm track exclusively. The laying of the tracks was done by the Eisenbahnpionieren, a specialist Army construction force, though through the war years slowly replaced by Prisoners of war to free up men for the frontlines.
Special locomotives were built for the service who were of course more compact and still had a decent output. These so called “Brigadelokomotiven” of these the most common and initial type was the D-coupled locomotive of which around 2500 were constructed followed up by these was the E-coupled successor model, lesser used models are the C-coupled locomotives.
Of course those who survived the war would see service with the civilian and successor military services.
