The military use of railways derives from their ability to move troops or materiel rapidly and, less usually, on their use as a platform for military systems, like very large railroad guns and armoured trains, in their own right. Railways have been employed for military purposes in wartime since the Revolutions of 1848. Improvements in other forms of transport have rendered railways less important to the military since the end of World War II and the Cold War, although they are still employed for the transport of armoured vehicles to and from exercises or the mass transport of vehicles to a theatre of operations. The US Air Force developed the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison mobile ICBM in the 1980s, but it never reached operational status.
Armoured trains, like this Slovak example, are one form of military use of railways
White Russian troops on a military train during the Russian Civil War, 1919
Italian military accompanied by his wife and two sons to the military railways, during World War I.
Finnish military vehicles being transported by train, 2008
Grand Crimean Central Railway
The Grand Crimean Central Railway was a military railway built in 1855 during the Crimean War by the United Kingdom. Its purpose was to supply ammunition and provisions to Allied soldiers engaged in the Siege of Sevastopol who were stationed on a plateau between Balaklava and Sevastopol. It also carried the world's first hospital train.
Main street of Balaclava showing the railway, painting by William Simpson
Samuel Morton Peto
Railway yard at Balaclava. Photograph by Roger Fenton