Railway troops

They build, repair, operate or destroy militarily relevant railway lines and their associated infrastructure.

In the American Civil War, unlimited authority over all railway lines in the North was given to General McClellan.

To begin with, McClellan formed a construction corps from ordinary soldiers, but he soon recognised that the lack of training of these troops for technical work meant that a specially organised corps was needed within the Union Army for technically trained civil engineers and workers.

For large construction projects, civilian workers were also contracted, for example, up to 1,400 carpenters were employed to build the Etowah and Chattahoochee Bridge.

The large and often decisive influence that these railway troops had on the course of the American Civil war, resulted in the European states establishing similar formations.

These units comprised twelve railway engineers and a detachment of about 50 men provided by the Ministry of Trade.

A monument in the Bundeswehr Headquarters on Munich's Dachauer Straße (on the corner of Hedwig-Dransfeld-Allee) commemorates the Bavarian railway troops and is open to the public.

These were utilised on a large scale during the First World War behind the front line for the transport of troops and supplies.

Shortly after its foundation, the Bundeswehr established a railway engineering training and trials company which, in 1961, was renamed (Sp)PiLVsuKp 872 and became part of 870 Special Engineer Training and Trials Battalion (Spezialpionierlehr- und Versuchsbataillon 870) in the German Territorial Army.

[3][4] It operated the ten-storey underground K85 command bunker in Zürich, which was accessible via the Hirschengraben Tunnel and is not open to the public today.