Hospital train
![A Red Cross Train, France; wounded British soldiers are transferred from a motor ambulance to a Red Cross train, 1918, artist Harold Septimus Power.](/Images/godic/202412/20/A_Red_Cross_Train,_France_Art.IWMART10314002.jpg")
![The railway yard at Balaclava, where the first hospital train operated, during the Crimean War.Photograph by Roger Fenton.](/Images/godic/202412/20/Crimean_Railway_24002.jpg")
![A French Red Cross train bearing sick and wounded soldiers to Paris.](/Images/godic/202412/20/Bound_for_Paris_NGM-v31-p3344002.jpg")
![Departure of the hospital train from Lübeck on October 27, 1914](/Images/godic/202412/20/HL_Damals_–_SK_WKI_19144002.jpg")
A hospital train is a railway train with carriages equipped for the provision of healthcare. Historically this has ranged from trains equipped to transport wounded soldiers, with basic nursing and first aid facilities on board, to fully equipped mobile medical centres, sometimes including operating theatres and nursing wards.