With this being Veterans Day week, it caught the Newser's attention that the Zany Zen Railway was doing a commemoration in honor of the soldiers of the First World War, "Tracks to Trenches."
It's that time of year again when we remember those who fought for us, as always the ZZR will be remembering the men and women who served on the WW1 trench railways, delivering vital support to the front line troops. ... During this special tribute, the ZZR will transform into a front-line service, paying homage to all those who served during this critical period in history. You can choose to ride the rails in our Troop Transport, experiencing the journey as soldiers did, or join the munitions train responsible for supplying our troops on the front lines.
I dropped in on the last day the exhibit was still being set up. The volunteers were dressed looking more like they were getting ready for a wild party than a military exhibition, but they did their job well. the station had plenty of barbed wire and an observation tower next to it, with a trench and British Mark 1 tanks and Sopwith Camels across the road. At the station itself, small trains were making their rounds. I hopped on one after getting a ticket, and traveled to a couple other stations, the engineer telling any soldiers boarding, "keep your battle bowlers on."
I had a few words with Zen Swords-Galway (ZenriaCo Resident), one of the women setting up the exhibit. She told me this was the eighth year in a row the ZZR had done an exhibit like this. She enjoyed the banter from the bot engineers, "love those announcements, we got supah lucky and found a actor in SL who did a fairly good British accent."
World War One, originally called The Great War, has been overshadowed by the Second World War, particularly in American history books. But it still had a huge impact on world history. All the death and destruction was a profound shock to Western Civilization and would lead to what some called "The Age of Anxiety" which would last for some decades. Almost 20 million were killed and about as many wounded, many in the static trench warfare that characterized the fighting on the Western Front in which thousands would get killed in fighting a battle and the front line would barely change. The war toppled empires, resulted in the creation of the world's first Communist dictatorship, and although called "The war to end all wars" sadly a generation later the world would be caught up in an even greater global conflict.
The exhibit will be up until Monday November 13.
Bixyl Shuftan
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