Prisoners of War who worked on railway projects and/or stayed on in the UK working on the railways

[70014IronDuke]

It really started in WW2, when there was a shortage of cleaners and other basic loco grades. ....

Taunton shed were supplied with a couple of Italian prisoners-of-war for basic duties, but this was almost wholly ash shovelling and other such tasks. One of them didn't go home afterwards but carried on as an employee.

Taken from this thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/when-did-routine-cleaning-of-steam-locos-end.251937/

I thought this might be a good subject for discussion, although I have no idea if there is much - or any - literature on the subject.

I believe Italian POWs worked on the new shed (or coaling tower?) at Carnforth MPD. Any records of other PoWs working on the railways?

As for any staying on after the war, I imagine that would most likely involve Italians, rather than Germans. I assume there were very few, if any, Japanese PoWs in the UK? (Of course, at various periods, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland counted as part of the Axis powers, but again I doubt there were any PoWs from those countries in the UK.)

 

[Gloster]

When I was at Guildford one of the supervisors was Henry Metelmann who had been at Stalingrad. There was an obituary in the Grauniad and he is on Wikipedia.