Trains were to fill the memories of all who went to war in 1914. The railway section of the German Great General Staff timetabled the movement of 11,000 trains in the mobilisation period, and no less than 2,150 fifty-four-waggon trains crossed the Hohenzollern Bridge over the Rhine alone between 2 and 18 August.8 The chief French railway companies, Nord, Est, Ouest, PLM, POM, had since May 1912 had a plan to concentrate 7,000 trains for mobilisation. Many had moved near the entraining centres before war began.
