American railway troops at the light railway works at Boisleux-au-Mont, 2 September 1917 (b/w photo)

American railway troops at the light railway works at Boisleux-au-Mont, 2 September 1917. Photograph, World War One, Western Front (1914-1918), 1917. Railway engineers were some of the first American troops to arrive on the Western Front. They were deployed to maintain the railroads in support of the American Expeditionary Forces’ arrival and to assist the Allied war effort. To do this the engineers laid nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of standard-gauge tracks in northern France. From an album of 54 photographs that belonged to Mr Herbert Cawthorne who served with a Canadian Regiment.