Anti Gas Training

This photograph pops up on social media from time to time. I am not sure where it originated but it is normally described as gas training for Brighton Police and for the Southern Railway Police. It is the sort of photograph that lends itself to a caption contest but this is not my intention here, although a few suggestions do come to mind.

There are a few files in the National Archives describing the the arrangements for anti gas training for railway police (eg MEPO 2/3024) and during the war itself a debate took place about the type of respirators that should be issued to the railway police.

For many the issuing of respirators brought home the fact that the UK was about to face total war. The civilian services suffered significant losses and worked themselves beyond the point of exhaustion in their efforts to protect the population. The record of the railway and dock police forces in this regard was second to none. We owe that generation a great debt.

Respirators were again issued to BTP officers escorting Travelling Post Office (TPO) in the 1960s in the aftermath of the so called 'Great Train Robbery'. After the Tokyo Sarin attack in 1995 CBRN became, and remains an important part of BTP's Counter Terrorism work.

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