It was made up of freight cars filled with provisions and cartridges, with the doors stamped and sealed.

A third-class car was occupied by the train escort, a detachment of provincial guards.

He was installed in a second-class compartment with the lieutenant in command of this guard and certain officials on their way to join their regiments after having completed the business of mobilization in the small towns in which they were stationed before the war.

The crowd, habituated to long detentions, was accustomed to getting out and settling down before the motionless locomotive, or scattering through the nearby fields.
In the stations of any importance all the tracks were occupied by rows of cars.

High-pressure engines were whistling, impatient to be off.
Groups of soldiers were hesitating before the different trains, making mistakes, getting out of one coach to enter others.