Editing Roll-on/roll-off (section)

===Expansion===
Train-ferry services were used extensively during [[World War I]]. From 10 February 1918, high volumes of railway rolling stock, artillery and supplies for the Front were shipped to France from the "secret port" of [[Richborough]], near Sandwich on the South Coast of England.

This involved three train-ferries to be built, each with four sets of railway line on the main deck to allow for up to 54 railway wagons to be shunted directly on and off the ferry. These train-ferries could also be used to transport motor vehicles along with railway rolling stock. Later that month a second train-ferry was established from the [[Port of Southampton]] on the South East Coast. In the first month of operations at Richborough, 5,000 tons were transported across the Channel, by the end of 1918 it was nearly 261,000 tons.<ref name="Pratt-Edwin A">{{cite book|last=Pratt|first=Edwin A|title=British Railways and the Great War Book|year=1921|publisher=Selwyn and Blount, Ltd.|location=London|isbn=1151852406|url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092566128#page/n7/mode/2up}}</ref>

There were many advantages of the use of train-ferries over conventional shipping in World War I. It was much easier to move the large, heavy artillery and tanks that this kind of modern warfare required using train-ferries as opposed to repeated loading and unloading of cargo. By manufacturers loading tanks, guns and other heavy items for shipping to the front directly on to railway wagons, which could be shunted on to a train-ferry in England and then shunted directly on to the French Railway Network, with direct connections to the Front Lines, many man hours of unnecessary labour were avoided.

An analysis done at the time found that to transport 1,000 tons of war material from the point of manufacture to the front by conventional means involved the use of 1,500 labourers, whereas when using train-ferries that number decreased to around 100 labourers. This was of utmost importance, as by 1918, the [[Railways in the United Kingdom|British Railway companies]] were experiencing a severe shortage of labour with hundreds of thousands of skilled and unskilled labourers away fighting at the front.  The increase of heavy traffic because of the war effort meant that economies and efficiency in transport had to be made wherever possible.<ref name="Pratt-Edwin A"/>

After the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918, train ferries were used extensively for the return of material from the Front.  Indeed, according to war office statistics, a greater tonnage of material was transported by train ferry from Richborough in 1919 than in 1918. As the train ferries had space for motor transport as well as railway rolling stock, thousands of lorries, motor cars and "B Type" buses used these ferries to return to England.