Bad Bentheim Feeding Station

Has anybody any details of this? It was a stop on the German / Dutch trooping train route to/from Hook of Holland. I am guessing it would have been used until 1955 after which a full dining car service was provided on these trains.

Can't remember this from 1952/4 - as I recall, we had a dining car then. The only stop on the border was for the customs to search for any coffee etc we might be trying to smuggle in.

As a self confessed railway enthusiast and member of small group of BAOR warriors who exchanged information on the BAOR Troop Trains may I attempt to answer your question.. Sadly the group is now virtually defunct, old age/illness has finally caught up with us.

The definitive answer can within the MacNaughton Report, written in 1961, to record the History of the BAOR Troop Trains shortly before the ending of the Hook of Holland Sea Trooping system.

A system of reinforcement by train had been in place from July 1944 to support the advancing 21 Army Group (future BAOR) using the Channel Ports. By September 1945 the heavily damaged German Railway system (including locomotives and coaches) had been sufficiently patched up to permit the introduction of a BAOR wide timetable of both inter Garrison and Long Distance train services for the exclusive use of British Servicemen (and later their families)

In the early days not all the trains had on board feeding facilities, and there certainly were Feeding Stops where passengers would disembark and been served some form of hot food from a Military Cookhouse. I have not studied the subject in detail but I know the National Archives in Kew do hold copies of the Official Unit Diaries for two/three locations. One of which was in the Bentheim area, a second was at Minden.

Hope this is helpful, would be very interested to exchange information, my thoughts are that the feeding stops were obsolete by the late 1940's. Incidentally in 1947 Soldier Magazine published a short article on the "Champagne Express" so called for the quality of the Food served on board. The Ambulance Train ran once/twice a week calling at all the major Garrisons before terminating in Cuxhaven and connecting with a hospital ship which took the patients back to the UK for further treatment.

Cliffo wrote:

Can't remember this from 1952/4  - as I recall, we had a dining car then.  The only stop on the border was for the customs to search for any coffee etc we might be trying to smuggle in.

In 1953 the trains had a 'pullman' car, I remember it well, it was the first time that mum and us kids had ever seen pats of curly butter, the food was great, the service was very good, my mum had never been out of Scotland at that time, she traveled all that way, [ train, boat, train] with us three kids, it must have been terrifying for her! Ian.