Elaborate plans were made in Belfast to supply the BEF with guns, ammunition, petrol, and medical equipment by rail. The British marshalling yards at Balmoral, south of Belfast, were extended to take long ammunition and fuel trains which were loaded and ready on new sidings. In addition three ambulance trains were equipped and positioned around Belfast and an ambulance railhead established to take the wounded returning from the south of Ireland. British soldiers stripped the sides from dozens of coal trucks transforming them into flat cars for armoured vehicles and tanks that would be sent southwards. Once the 53rd Division was committed in Ireland, the British military authorities planned to run thirty-eight supply trains on the two railway lines to Dublin every day – thirty down the main line through Drogheda (if the viaduct over the Boyne river remained undamaged), and the remainder along the track which cut through County Cavan. The Port of Belfast was estimated to have needed to handle 10,000 tons of stores a week and could receive up to 5,000 troops every day for the battle-front.