Steam train

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

That's actually what I meant. If you're adding armaments to existing train cars, it's difficult to do it well. A train is long and usually has lots of windows in the passenger areas.

Also, it doesn't have much armor. Though the cars might have enough to be of use against pistols, if the windows are taken care of. I don't know.

Against small arms stacking sandbags up the insides of the walls will work quite well as a quick means of adding armour.

Given more time attaching sheet metal to the sides (including skirts to protect the running gear) is pretty straightforward. Remember, for trains adding weight to passenger cars isn't going to affect it much unless you've only got a small engine intended to light passenger trains.

One thing to remember is that trains weren't really that fast, but they could go constantly. (sort of)

It depends on what you mean by 'not that fast'. For most of their history they were at least as fast as other means of land transport (horses, carriages, early cars on less than great roads), and were more reliable than most.

The big vulnerability of an armed and armoured train is of course the tracks - remove a section of track or seriously warp it and the train is stopped, possibly catastrophically if it didn't notice the break in time and ran into it.