Two Hundred Tonne Railway Gun!

 

The relatives are now on their way back to France having had a jolly good time. This included a trip to Fort Nelson, the Royal Armouries museum outside Portsmouth, which I haven't been back to for ages. It has a very nice new reception shop thingy and a much refurbished series of indoor exhibits, including a very impressive 200 tonne 18'' railway howitzer c1918. This is worth a visit just in itself, especially as entry to the museum is completely free!

 

 

After a picnic lunch we hopped over to the Spinnaker Tower which sits amidst the god awful Gunwharf Quays shopping centre, the only redeeming feature of which is a branch of The Works in which I found a hardback copy of Trains to the Trenches. This is a splendid book and very well illustrated with contemporary photographs of all sorts of railway related military scenes from the First World War, including not a few railway guns in action. I think someone is trying to tell me something?