http://www.atlantic-books.co.uk

AlsobyChristianWolmar

Fire&SteamTheSubterraneanRailway

OntheWrongLineDowntheTubeBrokenRails

ForgottenChildrenStagecoach

TheGreatRailwayDisaster

DedicatedtomywonderfulDeborahwhoputsupwithmyobsessionsandfoibles,andinspiresme

tokeepgoing.

Contents

Cover

Copyright

ListofMapsandIllustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Maps

1TheFirstRailways2EuropeMakesaStart3TheBritishInfluence4TheAmericanWay5JoiningUpEurope6CrossingAmerica…7…andOtherContinents8TheInvasionoftheRailway9TheRailwayRevolution10GettingBetterAlltheTime11ChangingTrains12DeclineButNotFall13RailwayRenaissanceBibliography

Notes

THEBRITISHINFLUENCE

Britainhadagreatadvantageinitsattempttoremainattheforefrontofrailwaydevelopment.Notonlydiditservealargedomesticnetworkwhichgrewrapidly,albeit in fits and starts as the various railway manias flared up and ran theircourse,but it alsohad theadvantageofacaptivemarketamong its expandingcolonial empire where it could export locomotives, rails and other railwaysupplies.Consequently,asMichaelRobbinsputsit,‘Untilabout1870…Britainwastheheartandcentreofrailwayactivitythroughout theworld’,1andwhileBritain’sownnetworksufferedfromunnecessaryduplicationandaproliferationof lines that could never be viable because the government deliberatelyeschewedplanningoranyattemptstocontroltheprivatecompaniesbuildingthenetwork, its lead was such that its technology, expertise and finance wereexportedtomanycountries,includingveryunlikelyonessuchasseveralinLatinAmerica and Asia with little previous connection with the British Empire.British technology, therefore, was widely imitated and its finance in the lastquarterofthecenturybecamevitallyimportantformanysystems,buttheBritishstyleoflaissez-faireplanningfortherailways,characterizedbylackofinterestfromthestate,wasrarelyimitated.

Ireland,thenpartoftheUnitedKingdom,wasthemostobviouscountrytobeinfluencedbyBritishtechnology,butoddlythisdidnotextendtothechoiceofgauge.Irelandwasanearlystarter,anditsfirstrailway,thesix-mile-longDublin& Kingstown Railway, was built to standard gauge but it was to prove theexception. The Dublin & Kingstown was intended to provide improvedcommunicationbetweenDublinandtheharbouratKingstown(nowcalledDunLaoghaire)whereshipsfromLiverpoolandHolyheaddocked.Ratheruniquelyoftheseearlyprojects,detailedsurveysoftrafficontheexistingroadhadbeencarried out to assess potential demand before seeking investment for the line.Thepromotershadtoallaytheveryvociferousoppositiontotherailway,whichwasbasedonsuggestionsthattheline’sbuilderswerecrookedandonfearsthatthelinewouldaffectexistingcommerce.Ittookmuchdeterminationonthepartof thecontractor,WilliamDargan, toensuretheschemewasbuiltashehadtoappeasetwolargelandownerswhosoughtmassivecompensation.Oneofthem,

Lord Cloncurry, not only demanded a private bridge over the line so that hecould retain access to his own secluded bathing area but also a shortRomanesque tunnel through an embankment in order tomaintain his privacy.Dargan,whocamefromahumblefarmingbackgroundandhadlearnthistradebuilding highway schemes under Thomas Telford in England, went on toconstruct800milesofrailwayinIreland,aswellasfundingtheGreatExhibitioninDublinof1853andhelpingtoestablishthecountry’snationalgallery.LikehisfellowcontractorThomasBrassey,whobuiltmoreoftheEnglishrailwaysystemthan anyone else, he had a reputation for paying goodwages and treating hismenfairly,ararequalityamongtheirfellowrailwaycontractors.

TheDublin&Kingstownlinewasbuiltby2,000navviesinthespaceoftwoyears and opened, slightly late, inDecember 1834with locomotives importedfrom the mainland. The railway’s opponents had certainly been right inpredictingthatthepatternsofcommercewouldchangesincethecrowdedroadbetweenDublinandtheharbourlostmuchofitstraffictotherailway,despitethelatter’s early teething problems, which included a collapsed bridge replacedhastily.Therailwayhadbeenintendedforbothgoodstrafficandpassengers,butthe latter, who included some of the very earliest daily rail commuters in theworld,becameitsmainstay.

Irelandwasnotreallyfertileterritoryforrailwayssinceitwasapoorcountrywith little mining and no heavy industry.While it was initially quite denselypopulated,thecountrywouldlose20percentofitspopulationinthefamineofthe 1840s and evenmore over the ensuing decades as a result of emigration,leavingasparselypopulatedislandwith incomelevelswellbelowthoseof therestoftheUK.Moreover,theterrainwasnoteasywithmanydifficultgeologicalfeatures for railways to cross. Therefore, the railways developedmore slowlyandinaverydifferentwayfromthemainland,not least in termsoffinancing;evenbefore the famine, thepeculiar circumstancesof Irelandwere recognizedby the British government which provided both loans and grants for theconstructionof railways,apolicywhichministershadalwaysrefused toadopton the mainland. This financial support from the state was a rare earlyrecognitionof the economicdevelopment that the railwayswould stimulate intheirwake,butultimatelythesecontinuedsubsidieswouldleadtoIrelandhavingtoomanyrailways2 inrelationtoitssizeanditseconomy.Inotherwords, therailwaysweredevelopedinIrelandforpoliticalandsocialpurposes,andyet,bycontrast, on the mainland such measures would have been seen as totallyunnecessary– scandalous,even– interferencewithmarket forces.Even today,Northern Ireland’s railway remains publicly owned and run as an integratedbusinesswhileintherestoftheUKthenetworkhasbeensplitupandprivatized.

TheBritishgovernment’sattitudetothegaugeofthetracksontheislandwasstrangelyincoherent.GiventhatthefirstIrishrailwayhadusedstandardgaugeandthat,by1845,theGaugeCommissioninEnglandhadruledinitsfavour,itwassurprisingthatministersdidnotinsistthatIreland,whichafterallwaspartof theUK, should followsuit.Not so.The second railway tobebuiltwas theUlsterwhich ran betweenBelfast andPortadown inNorthern Ireland andwascompleted in 1842. Following the recommendation of an 1836 RoyalCommission, it used thegenerousgaugeof6ft2ins.Thencame theDublin&Drogheda,whichplannedtouse5ft2ins,despitethefactthateventuallyitwasexpected toconnectwith theUlsterRailway.At thatstage, theBoardofTradesteppedin.TheBoard’sinspector,aMajorGeneralPasley,soughttheadviceofthe Stephensonswho, strangely, rather than pressing the case for the standardgaugewhich they had created, bizarrely suggested something between5ft and5ft6ins.AsthehistorianoftheIrishrailway,H.C.Casserley,putsitsarcastically,‘whereupon the major general came up with the discovery that the averagebetweenthetwofigureswasexactly5ft3insandthiswasthefigurewhichwasdecided upon.’ 3 Casserley notes, quite rightly, that the bit of extra roomavailable inmost Irish coachesmakes an appreciable difference in comfort topassengerscomparedwiththestandardgaugetrainsonthemainland.Althoughthechoiceofgaugewascurious,atleastthemainlinerailwayswereallbuilttoitwhichensuredtheycouldbeconnected,althoughmanyminorlinesusedsmallergauges,mostly3ft,inordertosaveonconstructioncosts.

Theadoptionof this initiallyuniquegauge,whichwouldlaterspringuponrailways indiverseplaces around theworld, includingBrazil, threeAustralianstatesandNewZealand,undoubtedlyhamperedthedevelopmentandeconomicsof the railways in Ireland.Much to the inconvenienceof passengers travellingacrosstheIrishSea,thebreakingaugeprecludedtheestablishmentofferryboattrains, which became widely used across the Channel between Britain andFrance and several other places in the world after first being developed inDenmark in the 1870s. Whereas between the wars, the Southern RailwayintroducedTheGoldenArrowPullmanandtheNightFerrywhosesleepingcarswent right through to theGare duNord in Paris, nothing of the sort could bedevelopedacross the IrishSea. Instead,overnightpassengersonTheNorthernIrishmanwereunceremoniouslywokenatanungodlyhouratStranraerandhadtowalk carrying their luggage on to a ferry forLarne, all because of the daftdecisionovergauge.Moreover,the5ft3insgaugenecessitatedtheconstructionof specially adapted rolling stock and prevented the shipment of rail wagonsfromtheUK,allofwhichaddedtotheexpenseofoperatingtherailway.

Ireland’srailwaysdevelopedrelativelyfastthankstothecombinationofstate

aidandentrepreneurialactivity.While therailwaymaniawas less intense thanonthemainland, therewasarapidgrowthinthe1840sandby1853, themaintowns–Dublin,Belfast,CorkandGalway–hadallbeenconnectedand,alongwithvariousbranches, therewere830milesofrailwayontheisland,ofwhich130miles had opened that year. Given the economic difficulties and the lowpopulation density, this was a remarkable achievement so early in railwayhistory.Casserleysuggeststhatoccasionallytheruralnatureofthecountryandthe famously relaxed ways compromised safety: ‘The casual attitude of thesouthern Irish iswell illustrated by the story of the level crossingkeeperwhokeptonegateoverhissinglelineopentotherailwayandtheothertotheroad,becausehewas“halfexpectingatrain”.’4

IrelandmayhavebeenlegallypartoftheUnitedKingdombutitwastreatedverymuchasacolony,ratherthananintegralpartofthecountry,bytheBritishgovernment.WhileIndiawasmuchfurtheraway, theBritish influenceover itsrailwayswasjustaspowerful.TherailwaysonthesubcontinentweredevelopedratherlaterthaninIrelandbuttheyweretohavethemostdramaticeffectonthecountry, beyond what even the most far-sighted of its promoters might haveimagined.While,asweseethroughouttheseearlychapters,theBritishinfluenceontherailwayswasenduringandworldwide,Indiawasthejewelinitscrown.The British Raj created a system designed and built by British engineers –helped, of course, by hundreds of thousands of Indian labourers – usingequipmentexportedfromBlightyinthousandsofBritishships,thatwastoformthebackboneof thenationand, indeed,remains todayaheavilyusedandvitalpartoftheinfrastructureforbothpassengersandfreight.Moreover,thebreadthofconceptionof therailways in India, laidoutasanetworkfromaveryearlystage, made it the biggest public works project since the construction of thePyramids.

TherailwaywasbroughttoIndiabytheBritishEastIndiaCompany,whichwaseffectivelythecommercialarmoftheBritishgovernmentandwhichruledIndiauntilthesecondhalfofthenineteenthcentury.Theprimemotivatingforcebehind the introduction of the railway system in Bombay 5 was the need totransportcottononwhichthecity’seconomydepended,thesameproductwhichhad stimulated the creation of theLiverpool&Manchester. The failure of theAmericancottoncropin1846pushedtheclothmanufacturersinManchesterandGlasgowtoseeknewsourcesofthematerialsuchasIndia.However,inordertoguarantee a steady supply, transport to the port at Bombay needed to beimprovedand therefore thecottonmagnatespressed theBritishgovernment tobuildarailwaythere.

In fact, there had been talk of railways in India since the early 1830s butbureaucracy, and the long distance between the country and the motherland,ensured therewasmuchprocrastination. It tookmonths to receivea reply toaletter,which sloweddown thedecision-makingprocess, and therewere strongdoubts in Britain about whether a huge investment in a railway in a distantcolony – and huge it would have to be – would reap dividends. There weredoubts, too,amongtheBritishrulers inIndiaabout thevalueofarailwaytoacountrywheremostpeoplelivedindesperatepovertyandwhoweredividedbya caste system which created a huge number of ‘Untouchables’ with whomhighercasteswouldnotwanttotravel:‘Willtheybeabletopayforthefareofaticket?Wouldtheyfeelatallforthenecessitytoincreasethepaceoftheirlife?Would themasses ever travel by train, if it were introduced? These were thedoubts that assailed the authorities in thosedays.’ 6 The answerswould all be‘yes’,butitisunderstandablethatsuchseriousreservationswereexpressed.Theneedforastablecottonsupplyappearstohavebroughtabouttheturningpointinthedecisiontoproceed:‘TheincreasingBritishdemandforalternativesuppliesofcottonfromIndiapossiblytippedthebalanceinfavourofquicklyprovidingthisrapidmeansoftransport.’7

Thefirstschemeforarailwaywassetoutin1844byaRowlandMacDonaldStephenson (no relation toGeorgeorRobert)whoargued thata railwaycouldoperate safely and profitably in India even to remote corners of the countrydespitetheharshweatherandchallengingtopography.Hestressedthebenefitsitwould bring to a landwhose population was then around 100million, a vastnumberandyetfewerthanonetenthoftoday’stotal:‘Thecommercialbenefitsthatarelikelytoarisefromrailwaysareunquestionableandalmostincalculable.’8Hewenton to list thepotentialuses forboth freight andpassengers suchasincreasing the tradebetweenCalcutta, 9 the capital at the time, and theUpperProvinces ‘which is sure to increase with the facilities of railwaycommunication’,and,‘whileweadmitthatthemajorityofpeoplecannotaffordto travel in a railway train… the growing classes of intelligent nativeswouldfreelyresorttoit’.Heeven,verypresciently,suggestedthattherewouldbeabigtake-upamongpilgrimsgoingtoholycitiessuchasBenaresandAllahabad,buthewarnedthatseparatecarriageswouldhavetobeprovidedfor‘Mahomedans,andhighandlowcasteHindoos’.Andiftherewereanyfemalepassengers,theytoowouldhavetobeprovidedwiththeirownaccommodation.With11millionpassengersusingitdailytoday,Stephenson’spredictionswereprovedcorrect.

Confusingly,anotherStephenson,George’ssonRobert,nowcomes into thestory, having undertaken a survey of the line after his appointment as the

consulting engineer of the first Indian railway company, the Great IndianPeninsular.However, Robert remained in England, leaving the actualwork ofchiefengineertoJamesBerkley,hispupil.

UnlikethehaphazardprocessofdevelopmentoftherailwaysintheUK,therail network in India was created through centralized planning with thedeliberateambitionoflinkingallthemajorcitiesassoonaspossible.Theplanwas laid out byLordDalhousie, theGovernorGeneral of India from 1848 to1856,whosupportedthebuildingoftwoexperimentallines,onefromBombay,nearthepresentVictoriastation,toasmalltown,Thana,twenty-onemilesaway,whilethesecondwasafargreaterundertaking,a121-mile-longlineinBengal,stretchingfromHowrah–onthewesternsideoftheHooghlyriveracrossfromCalcutta, which could then only be reached by boat – and the small town ofRaniganj, chosenbecause itwas situatedconvenientlyamong thecoalfieldsofBurdwanwherepreviously,accordingtoStephenson, it took‘twoseasons…tobring the coal down a direct distance of seventy five miles’ 10 by a verycircuitous route.Both these railwayswere clearly intended tobe the start of anetwork, linkingBombaywithPuneandeventuallyMadras,andCalcuttawithDelhiandlaterthroughthenewlyconqueredPunjabrightthroughtoLahoreinwhatisnowPakistan.

DalhousiehadbeenpressingforthecreationofastrategicrailnetworksincehisappointmentasGovernorGeneral.Hewas the sortofdynamicmodernizerwhich the British Empire occasionally threw up and he later claimed he hadunleashedinIndiathe‘greatenginesofsocialimprovement,whichthesagacityand scienceof recent timeshadpreviouslygiven toWesternnations– Imeanrailways, uniformpostage and the electric telegraph’. 11 Indeed, he had a pastinterest in the railways, having chaired a ParliamentaryCommittee in 1844–5whichattemptedtoputsomeorderintothechaoticsituationwhenattheheightof the railway mania Parliament had been literally inundated with billspetitioning to build lines. Under pressure from the railway companies, thecommitteehadbeenabolishedwithinafewmonthsofitscreation,butDalhousiehad clearly understood that the haphazard development of railways was awasteful process. Dalhousie set out the basic framework for the railways, notonly devising the outline of the network, but deciding on the gaugewhich hearguedneededtobewiderthantheBritishstandardgaugebecausehefearedthatnarrowtrainsmightbeblownoffthetracksintropicalstorms.12Hewanted6ftbut under pressure from London, he settled on 5ft 6ins, 9½ins wider thanstandardgauge.Hisvisionwasfar-sighted.Bridgesandtunnelsweretobebuilttoascalethatcouldaccommodatedoubletrack,eventhoughalltheinitiallines,

apartfromafewsectionsnearmajorstations,weresingle.Justbeforeworkstartedonthefirstline,Dalhousiewroteafamous‘minute’.

13 expressing the hope that ‘this great instrument of improvement may beextendedoverall the landbringingwith it the richandnumerousbenefits it iscalculatedtoproduce’andarguingfortheneedtolearnfrom‘theerrorswhichwehavecommittedathomeinlegislationfortheregulationofrailwayworks’.Inotherwords,heargued,therailwaysshouldbeviewednotmerelyas‘privateundertakings but national works, over which the Government may justlyexerciseastringentandsalutarycontrol’.Dalhousierecommendedtheadoptionofaformofcompulsorypurchaseorder,ensuringthatlandownersonthepathofthe railway could not hold the railway to ransomby demanding an exorbitantpricefortheirland.

Therewas no attempt to disguise the fact that thiswas a nakedly imperialprojectwhichlaterwouldattractthewrathofnationalists,includingGandhi.TheBritish rather than the Indianswoulddecideon the locationof linesandwhenthey would be built. If necessary, parts of India not controlled by the Britishwouldbecrossedirrespectiveoftheviewsofthelocalmaharajahs.Dalhousie’s‘minute’ was effectively a blueprint of how to build a railway network in anunderdevelopedcountryforthebenefitoftheimperialpower.WhiletheBritishimplicitly accepted that the Indianswould benefit in countlessways from therailwaysthroughtheirimpactonthedevelopmentoftheeconomy,thenetworkwas designed to serve imperial interests above all and was seen as a way ofBritain establishing itself in its most lucrative colony. As Ian Kerr, a prolificwriterontheIndianrailwayssays:‘TheinterestsoftheIndianswereincidentalalthough, as represented in the writings of Dalhousie and many Britons, theprogressiveconsequencesforIndiaoftherailroadswasaself-evidenttruth.’14

Dalhousie recognized, too, from the outset the tremendous militaryadvantagesofrailwaysforasmallcolonialadministrationstretchedoveravastnation(whichatthetimeincludedpresent-dayPakistan,Bangladesh,SriLankaand,later,evenBurma)sincetheywouldallowtherapiddeploymentoftroopsanywhere throughout the country in days rather than months. Indeed, theadvantagesofthiswereshownearlyinthehistoryoftherailwayswhen,in1857,theywereusedextensivelytotransportforcestoputdowntheIndianMutiny.Bythentherailwaynetworkwasstillinitsinfancywithonlyafewmajorlines,butnevertheless theygreatlyfacilitatedthemovementof troopsandtheauthoritiesrecognizedthathadamoreextensivenetworkbeenavailable,theMutinymighthave been quelled more quickly. Given both these military and economicreasons,thecostoftherailwaystothecolonialgovernment,therefore,wasseen

asasmallpricetopayifitallowedtheBritishtomaintaintheirrule.Britain would also benefit through the easier access to India’s produce,

especiallycotton,andthroughthefacilitytoexportthemanufacturedgoodsbackto the subcontinent.Therewasnodoubting the scaleofDalhousie’s ambition:‘Thecompletepermeationoftheseclimesofthesunbyamagnificentsystemofrailway communication would present a series of public movements vastlysurpassinginrealgrandeur theaqueductsofRome, thepyramidsofEgypt, theGreatWallofChina,thetemples,palacesandmausoleumsofthegreatMoghulmonuments.’

The first completed railway, as in many other countries, was a seeminglymodestaffair,theexperimentallinebetweenBombayandThanaonwhichworkstarted in 1850, but the nameof the companywhich built it, theGreat IndianPeninsularRailway, rather gave the game away as to the railway’s ambitions.The Thana line, now part of Bombay’s extensive bustling suburban network,went throughattractivecountryside thatpresentedseveraldifficultobstacles totherailway,includingamarshwhichlikeChatMossonthepioneeringLiverpool&Manchesterrequiredthebuildingofacomplexembankment,andahillwhichinvolved cutting through a mile and a half of hard rock. These majorundertakings were typical of those that virtually every future railway on thesubcontinentwouldneed.Afterthelinelefttheconurbation,itcrossedattractivecountryside with views of the Thana river and the Ghats, the mountains thatwouldprove,asweseebelow, tobeadauntingbarrier to therailway’sfurtherprogressoutofBombay.

TheopeningofthelineinApril1853,thefirstrailwaytobebuiltintheFarEast, was a momentous event, not least because India, unlike the Europeancountries where railways were springing up, had hardly seen any industrialdevelopmentandsteampowerwasstillanovelty.TheIllustratedLondonNews,15which reportedon theopening twomonths laterwhen thedespatch reachedLondonbyboat,waseffusive,stressingthattheeventwouldberememberedfarlonger than therecentbattleswhichhadbrought India into theBritishEmpire.Those military victories, the paper wrote, ‘seem tame and commonplace’ incomparison to such an event whereas England’s power, ‘was never so noblyexemplifiedas…whenthelonglineofcarriagesconveyingnearly500personsglidedsmoothlyandeasilyawayamidsttheshoutsofassembledthousands’.

Thecrowds,manyofwhomhadperchedonwallsorclimbedtrees togetabetterview,wereall themoreimpressedbecauseof thesheerscaleof thefirsttrain.Sincetrialsof thelocomotivesandrollingstockhadbeenundertakenforseveralmonthspriortotheopeninginApril1853,theauthoritiestooktheriskofrunning an enormous train, carrying all the VIPs in one train of fourteen

carriages which was sent off with a twenty-one-gun salute. As had becometraditionalatrailwayopenings,apublicholidaywasdeclaredandabanquetwasprovided for the VIPs who reached Thana after a trip of fifty-five minutes,representing a speed of over 20 mph. The sightseers, who according to theIllustratedLondonNewsincludedvisitorsfromasfarafieldastheEastCoastofAfrica, the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, were a mile thick at Thana, andslowed the progress of the train by spilling on to the tracks, a habit that hassurvivedtothisdayonthesubcontinent.

Therailwaywaspresentedby theBritishas theembodimentofcivilizationwhichtheyweregraciouslyofferingIndia.Onespeakeratthebanquet,atwhichthe Indianswere seatedon separate tables from theBritish, summed it up: ‘Awelldesiredsystemofrailways,ablyandprudentlyexecuted,wouldbethemostpowerfulofallworldlyinstrumentsoftheadvancementofcivilizationineveryrespect.’16Atthestarttherewerejusttwotrainsperday,andnofreightsincethewagons were not ready, but traffic built up rapidly as more equipment, allimportedfromBritain,arrived.

A separate company, the East Indian Railway Company, had beenincorporated to build the more ambitious Bengal line which started work in1851. Various mishaps held back progress, including the sinking of a shipcarrying the first railway coaches at Sandheads on the Bengali coast, and theerroneous routing of a vessel carrying locomotives from Britain to Australiainstead of Calcutta! The locomotives eventually reached their destination atCalcuttaayearlate,forwhichpresumablysomepoorclerkmusthavereceivedaroyal rollicking, although perhaps the mistake was understandable given thatAustralia,too,wasjoiningtherailwayage(seebelow).Despitethesesetbacks,progressonthelinewasrelativelyfastasthetopographywaseasierthaninthewest, and inSeptember1854 the first sectionwasopened,with theentire121milestoRaniganjbeingcompletedbyFebruary1855.

Down in the south more railways were being built. The Madras RailwayCompanyopeneditsfirstsixty-fourmilesoflinein1856fromMadrastoArcotoneasy terrainandstretchedfromcoast tocoastby1861.Thepatternwas thesamethroughoutthecountry,withsectionsoflinebeingopenedalmostannually,focusedonthetrunkroutesbetweenmajorcities.

Other large companies sprang up to build lines in the Punjab (the Sind,Punjab&DelhiRailway)andnorthwardsfromBombay(theBombay,Baroda&Central India Railway). Dalhousie’s ‘minute’ had expressed a vision for arailwaythatwasbothstrategicallyimportantbutalsoprofitable,statingthatonceopened, these railways ‘will, as a commercial undertaking, offer a fairremunerative return on the money which has been expended in their

construction’.17 Thatwas an ambitious aimwhich he realizedwould only bepossiblewithinitialstateaid.Therefore,mostIndianrailwayswerebuiltthroughan arrangement combining the public and private sectors. Conventional jointstock companies, based in the UK, would raise capital, mostly from Britishinvestors,tofundtheconstructionbut,toensurethatthemoneycouldberaised,thegovernmentofIndiaguaranteedahealthy5percentrateofreturn.Thiswasessentialasittookmanyyears,sometimesdecades,forthecompaniestoachieveprofitabilityandthegovernmenthadtobethefinancialbackstoptopickuptheshortfall.

Thetwofirstcompaniesweresoonexpandingandtheinitialextensionoftheline out of Bombay was to be the most ambitious project yet attempted byrailwaybuildersanywhereintheworld.ItinvolvedcrossingtheWesternGhats,themountainrangethatrisesupfromthecoast.ThiswasarguablyanevenmoredauntingtaskthanbuildingtheSemmeringcrossingoftheAlps(seeChapter5)sincetheconditionswhichtheworkershadtoface,includingextremeheatandmonsoonrain,weremorechallengingthanthosefoundinEurope.

TheWesternGhatsseemedlikeaninsuperablebarrier.Theymayonlyriseto2,500 feet but they present steep faces and rugged terrain and the few roadswhichhadbeencutintothemwerenarrowandfullofperiloushairpins,notatallasuitablealignmentforarailway.TheroutethroughtheGhatswasdecidedbythe engineer, Berkley,with advice fromRobert Stephenson, but itwould takeeightyearstobuildthefifteen-milepassandpoorBerkleywouldnotlivetoseeit,dyingyoung,likesomanyofhisfellowengineers,backinEngland,hishealthbrokenbythetropicalclimate.Heproduced3,000mapsanddrawingstoworkoutthepreciselineupanddownthemountainandcreatedtherailwayequivalentofahairpinbendinordertokeeptothe1to37gradient,themaximumthatthelocomotives of the day could handle. 18 There were two major inclines, theBhoreandtheThal,aswellasseveraltunnels,andBerkleydevisedanovelwaytobuildthelineupthehill.Insteadofconstructingacontinuouslinehecarvedareversing section out at a bend near the summit, obviating the need for astationaryenginethatwouldhaveprovidedpowerthroughacable.Itwasaneatsolution that survived well into the twentieth century, despite the obviousinconvenience of having to reverse all trains, and the samemethodwas laterusedonrailwaysinBrazilandtheAndes.

The raw statistics of the Ghat project were staggering. It involvedconstructing twenty-five tunnels, eight substantial viaducts, and cutting 54millioncubicfeetofrock.Thecostwas£70,000permile(sayabout£5millionin today’s money), which, given it was about one and a half times the

expenditure on an average line in Britain where wages were much higher,demonstratedthescaleofthetask.Exceptinthetunnels,workontherailwaysinIndia stoppedduring the four-monthperiodof themonsoon,whichmeant thatformost of the time construction took place in intolerable heat. Theworkingconditionswere perilous in the extreme.On several cliff faces, therewere nofootholds and consequentlyworkers had to be let down on ropes to drill andblasttheface.Itonlytookabreakintherope,astumbleorthecarelessuseofblastingpowdertoresultinacrueldeathdowntheravinefromwhichthebodieswereneverrecovered.

Accidentswere,however,theleastsourceofdeathandinjury.Diseaseswererifeand,inthosedaysbeforeantibiotics,frequentlydeadly:cholerawasthemostprevalent,butotherkillers includedmalaria, typhoid, smallpoxandblackwaterfever which together wiped out a large proportion of the malnourished andoverworked coolies.One historian estimates therewere 25,000 19 lives lost inthe construction of the Ghat inclines, mostly to disease, and given that evenduringthebusiestpartoftheprojecttherewereatmost42,000peopleworkingonthescheme,suchadeathtollsuggeststhattheaveragelifeexpectancyoftheworkerswas remarkably short.Thecolonial attitude towards the suffering thatthe building of the railways engendered is neatly encapsulated in an officialreport which uses chilling language: ‘The fine season of eight months isfavourableforIndianrailwayoperations,butontheotherhand,fatalepidemics,suchascholeraandfever,oftenbreakoutandthelabourersaregenerallyofsuchfeeble constitution, and so badly providedwith shelter and clothing, that theyspeedily succumb to those diseases and the benefits of the fine weather are,thereby,temporarilylost.’20

Onecouldaskexactlywhose responsibility itwas toprovide that foodandshelter. As Anthony Burton, the author of the book which quotes thismemorandum puts it, ‘the notion that lives – and the inconvenient loss ofworkingtime–couldbesavedbyprovidingpropershelteranddecentconditionsdoesnotseemtohavebeenconsidered’.21Thedeathtollwassimplystartling,innumbersnormallyonlyseenonthebattlefield.Deathsofnavviesduringtheconstruction of the railways in Britain were a common occurrence, 22 butnothinglikeonthescaleinIndia.Nowonder,attimes,therailway’sagentshadto scour far andwide to findwilling labour, especially as therewere frequentdelaysinpayingthem.

It was, of course, not only the Indians who suffered. The poor engineer,SolomonTredwell,sentfromEnglandtoworkouthowtherailwaycouldscaletheGhatsperishedfromdysenteryjustfourweeksafterhisarrival.Later,when

cholera struck inApril1860,25percentof theBritishcontingentworkingontheBhorGhatInclinesuccumbed.23Theywereapreciousresourceofskillsandexperience,andsuchadepletionoftheirnumbersposedathreattotheprogressoftheproject.Overall,therewereanestimated500Britishengineersworkingonthevarious Indian railwaysduring thehecticperiodof the1860s,whenatanyonetimearound1,000milesoflinewereunderconstruction,involvingperhaps250,000 Indian labourers and craftsmen. Itwas a remarkably small numberofengineerstotakeresponsibilityforsomuchworkandthequalityofthesemenwasvariable,tosaytheleast.Manywereroughfortuneseekerswhotreatedtheworkerslamentably,buteventheywereseenashavingavitalmanagementroleto ensure projectswere completed. The quality of theBritish contractors alsovaried considerably, ranging from undercapitalizedmen of little experience tothelikesoftheubiquitousandconscientiousThomasBrassey.

TheworksitesforthescalingoftheGhatswerereputedtobetheworstinthehistory of the railways, though those on the PanamaRailway (seeChapter 6)must have run them a close second. When, in January 1859, the Indianworkforce turned violent and attacked their bosses with sticks and stonesbecausetheirdelayedwageswerepaidoutathalftheagreedrateforthejob,aBritishofficialcommentedwrylythatitwassurprisingthattheyhadnotrevoltedsooner:‘Itisevidentthatlabourershavebeenmostgrosslyabusedinthematteroftheirwages.’24

Theworkingmethods, too,werecompletelydifferent from those inBritainand it took theBritishawhilebefore realizing that theycouldnot just imposeWestern ideas on the workforce. Bridge construction, for example, requirederectingtheprimitivebuteffectivebambooscaffoldingusedinIndia,‘aforestofjunglewood’ 25 as aBritish engineer called it, although it is far safer than itsflimsy appearance suggests. Sometimes trying to force British practice on totime-proven Indianmethodsofworking resulted in lowcomedy suchaswhenIndiancoolies,orderedtousewheelbarrows,simplycarriedthemontheirheads,asightwhichfinallypersuadedtheBritishtoleavewellalone.TheBritishalsotried to stop women and children working on the site but eventually had toacquiescetotheemploymentofwholefamilies.Themenwouldbreakupstones,and the women and children carry them away, which might have seemedprimitiveand labour-intensive,but thesemethodshadprovedgoodenough fortheconstructionoftheTajMahal.

Religious sensibilities couldnot, however, be compromised.HenryFowler,oneof themaincontractorstobuildthelinefromBombaytoThana,madethemistake of taking water from a workman’s pot only to find that the man

immediately broke the vessel on the ground because it had been defiled by apersonoutsidehiscaste.TheBritishdidnotrepeat themistakes that ledto thechaotic and lawless sceneson theGhat instead, by trying toblend inwith theexisting culture, rather than riding roughshod over the localworkforce. In thewords of IanKerr, a historian of the Indian railways, ‘The lessons theBritishlearned from theBhoreGhat extendedwellbeyondcivil engineeringand theywere applied well beyond the Ghat construction.’ 26 Conditions improved onlater railways, though they were still awful even by Victorian standards withperilous working practices and disease ravaging the work camps at regularintervals.

TheBritish,too,realizedthattechniquesimportedfrombackhomewerenotalwayssuitable for the tropicalconditions,notablywhenbuildingbridges.TheMhok-ki-Mullee viaduct, part of the Bhore incline project, was an eight-archbridgedesignedintheclassicalstyletocrossa135-footravine.Ithadbeenthesubjectofconcernbecauseofrumblingnoisesreportedfromtheriverbelowandthe development of small cracks, but on examination nothing untoward wasfound. However, suddenly, in July 1867, a platelayer tightening bolts on thetrackonthebridgenoticedthegroundstarttogivewaysoonafterthepassageofatrain,andrantotheendofthebridgeasitwascollapsing.Hemanagedtowarnan oncoming train and, miraculously, no one perished in the incident. Theprecisecauseoftheaccidentwasneverascertainedthoughthereweresuspicionsthat‘scamping’,thedeliberateuseofinferiormaterials,mayhavecontributedtotheweaknessofthebridge.Moresignificantly,thebuildersoffuturebridgeshadtoadapttowaterflowscausedbymonsoonsandsnowmeltfromtheHimalayasfarinexcessofthoseencounteredbackhome.AsKerrsuggests:‘it tooksomedecadesofbitterexperiencebeforetheengineersunderstoodhowdeeplybelowtheriverbedtheyhadtoplacebridgefoundations inorder tosecure themfromthescouringeffectsoftheextremelyhighflowlevelscarriedbymanyrivers.’27Therailwaybuildershadtobecomehydroengineers,shiftingwatercoursesandguidingflowsawayfromthepiers,inordertoprotecttheirbridges.Overall,thelearning process was slow but steady, ensuring that railway building dideventually become routine: ‘Those who managed the construction processslowly came to know much better how railways should be built in India. Aprocessonlypoorlyunderstoodinthe1850sand1860s–whosefirstmodelwasrailwayconstructioninBritain–hadbythe1890sbecomefamiliar,routinizedtoacertainextent,andbetteradaptedtothenaturalandsocialconditionsofIndia.’28

Theproblemsencounteredbythetwoinauguralrailwayswouldbereplicated

throughout themassive expansion that took place over the rest of the century.Despite the array of difficulties and obstacles, both human and physical, therailways were built, and built rapidly.Within ten years of the opening of theThana line, therewere2,500milesof railway in thecountryanddouble thatadecadelater,notquiteasfastastheUKwherethenetworkreached7,000milesinjustovertwentyyears,butexcellentgoinggiventheconditions.Bythe1890s,thebasicnetworkoftrunklinessetoutbyDalhousiecoveringthewholecountryhadbeencompleted.

Therailwayswereagreatengineofeconomicgrowth,notsomuchforIndiaasforBritain.Forthefirstcoupleofdecades,virtuallyeveryitemofinvestmentintheequipmentwasshippedfromtheUK.Bytheendof1863,barelyadecadeintoIndia’srailwayage,3milliontonsofrailwaymaterialhadbeensenttoIndiain3,751ships.29Itwasnotonlythemanufacturingandshippingcompaniesthatbenefited: theCityofLondon,too,enjoyedtheIndianrailwayboomasBritishmoneyfinancedtheconstructionandeveryshipmenthadtobeinsured–rightlyso,sincetherewereconsiderablelosses–furtherboostingbusinessintheSquareMile.

AndiftheeconomicbenefitwaslargelygoingtotheBritish,sowasthebestoftherailwayservice.First-class,whichprovidedacompletelydifferentorderofcomfort comparedwith the third-class carriages usedby the Indianhoi polloi,waslargelythepreserveofthewhites.ItprovidedastandardofaccommodationthatwasfarbetterthananythinginEurope.Onetravellerenthused:‘Sodawaterisofferedtoyoujustasyouareconceivingawishforit.Teacomespunctuallyat6am.No sooner have you passed your hand over your stubby beard, a barberappears to shave you in the carriage. You get a “little breakfast of eggs andbaconwithbananasandorangeateight,adelightfultiffin[lightlunchorsnackinIndia]intheheatofnoon,andagooddinneratsunset”.’30Evenwiththeseluxuriousfacilities,railjourneys,whichwereoftenmeasuredindaysratherthanhours, were tedious affairs and constant vigilance had to be kept for skilledthieveswhodevelopedspecialtools,suchaslongsecateurs,tocutoffjewellerythrough windows.Women travelling on their own were put into Ladies Onlycompartmentsbut‘thesewereafavourite targetof thethieves’.31On the longhottripsuptothecoolnessofthehillstations,blocksoficewouldbeplacedonthe floor of compartments everymorning, but the passengers still stewed andweresoonengulfedindustoncethesunrose.

Even affluent and educated Indians were not made welcome by the whitesahibs in these relatively comfortable surroundings and there are numerousaccounts of petty discrimination. No Indian would attempt to enter a

compartment occupied by a European and, while the converse was true,problemscouldarisewhentherewerenovacantcompartmentsavailable.JusticeNanabhai Haridas, the first Indian judge at the Bombay High Court, wasreturningtoBombayfromSuratinJune1885withhisson,andfoundonlyonefirst-classcompartmentwithtwosparespacesbutitwasalreadyoccupiedbyaCaptainLochwhoobjectedbecausehis sickwifewas travellingwithhimandwasinastateofpartialundress(whichprobablymeanthershoulderswerebare).The stationmaster at first tried to persuade the captain to accommodate theillustrious Indian, pointing out that the compartment had not been reserved,whereupontheofficersimplypaidforthereservationandthejudgeandhisladendedupinsecondclass.

TheIndiansdid,though,occasionallygetrevenge.SirAshutoshMukherjee,anotherrenownedlawyerwhobecamethefirstIndianchiefjusticeinCalcutta,dozedoffinafirst-classcarriageandfound,onawakening,thathissandalsweremissing.Awhiteplantationownerhadtakenagainstthemandthrownthemoutof thewindow,but thenmade themistakeofgoing tosleephimself.Whenhewoke up, he found his jacket was missing and when he complained to SirAshutosh,hewasinformedthat‘yourcoathasgonetofetchmyslippers’.

While, in India,detailedplanningandstrongdirectionfromthestate led tothecreationofacoherentandintegratedsystemwhichbecamethebackboneofthecountry’sinfrastructure,inAustralia32thefailuretoimposeauniformsetofstandards,notablyanagreementongauge,wastoprovedeeplydamagingtotherailways.AsinIndia,theAustralianrailwaysmadeanearlystartandalsocameupagainstnaturalbarrierswhich,thoughnotasdifficulttobreachastheGhats,posedaformidableobstacleforrailwaypioneersanddelayedprogress.

Astonishingly,thefirstrailwaydidnotusesteamorevenhorsetraction,butwas human-powered and, since this was Australia, the muscle inevitablybelongedtoconvicts.Theinauguralrailwaywasa5-milelineacrosstheTasmanpeninsulainwhatwasthencalledVanDiemen’sLandtoenablepassengersfromthecapital,Hobart, toavoida lengthyseatriparoundCapeRaoulandthroughtheappropriatelynamedStormBay,aperilousandroughjourney.Instead,usingthe railway, boats would be able to anchor in the quiet Norfolk Bay andpassengersandgoodscouldbetakenacrosslandontherailwaytoabaywhichthenprovidedeasyaccesstotheconvictsettlementatPortArthur.Theideaforthe railway came from the commandant of the settlement, Captain O’HaraBooth,andheusedtheprisonerstobuildthecruderailway,whichhadwoodenrails about a foot apart and followed the contours of the land in order tominimizeheavyearthworks.

More controversially, though, he then organized the prisoners to pull the

trains,whichwasbynomeansaneasy taskas thegradient leaving theprisonwasrelativelysteep.Anearlyvisitor,aCaptainStonor,describedthecarriagesas‘veryrudeconstruction,verylow,doubleseatedwithfourverysmallcastironwheels.Oneithersideprojectedtwolonghandleswhichtheprisonersleanontopropel thecarriage.’ 33 Stonorwas appalled at the sight of the poor prisoners,whoweredressedinsaffronprisongarbcompletewitharrows,havingto‘puffandblowpushingon thecarriage’up thehillbutnoted that ‘whendescendingtheyjumpalongsideofyouandawayyougo,dashing,crashing,tearingon.’34Atthemidpointoftheline,therewasareststationwherethecrewchanged,andthemaintenancegangwashoused.The fresh teamthenhad tostruggle furtheruphill foramile,afterwhich therewasasimilar lengthofdescent to the jettywhich was, according to Stonor, ‘quite a nervous affair and as the speedincreaseseachmomentyouexpecttobedashedoverintosomeprecipiceordeepjungle alongside the tram’. 35 Brakingwas crude in the extreme: therewas aguard on the train who could ‘check the wheels with a drag’. Later visitorsclaimedthatthespeedonthefinaldescenttowardsthejettywasfortymilesanhour,butthisseemsunlikely.Therewasnoshortageofcriticsshockedattheuseof such labour in torrid conditions, especially as sometimes themendid threereturn journeys in a day, covering thirtymiles (though theydid ride thedownsectionsonthetrain):‘Itjarsharshlyagainstthefeelingtobeholdmanasitwereloweredtothestandardofthebrute,tomarktheunhappyguiltycreaturestoilingand struggling along, their muscular powers exerted to the utmost and theperspirationburstingfromeverypore.’36Thewriter,though,laterpointsoutthatmanyofthe‘free’navviesbuildingBritain’srailwaystoiledinsimilarconditionsfordaysonend.For thepassengers,however,whohadpaidashilling(5p)forthejourney,itwasactuallyalovelyridethroughheavilyforestedcountrywhichinspringtimewas‘thickwithpink,redandcreamheathandstuntedlittlegoldenwattles’.37

Tasmaniaperseveredwithoutrecoursetosteamenginesuntil1871,butevenafter thatdatebuilt thelongesthorse-drawnrailwayin theBritishEmpire.Thelinewasoccasionedbya rush toexploit the richest tinmine in theworld inamountainoriginallyknownasMountBischoff,butlaterunimaginativelythoughaccuratelydescribedas ‘themountainof tin’which the railwaywouldquicklyhelptoreducetoahillofdebris.TheVanDiemen’sLandCompany,aLondon-basedconcern,laiddownarailwayfromEmuBaytothemountain,adistanceofforty-fivemiles and operated the linewith horse-drawn trucks. Itwas a crudeaffair,builtentirelywith localmaterials includingsleepersmadeofmyrtleandstringybarkwhichtendedtoexpandinwinterandshrinkinsummer,makingfor

a bumpy journey. Navvies imported from Victoria built the 3ft gauge line,cutting through the rugged country where few people had even travelled andwhichwasfullofwidegulliesthathadtobecrossedusingcrudebridges.

Irritatingly, the railway ended short of themountain because the companycould not get the right of way through the adjoining farm, which meant thefreight had to be manhandled on a muddy track for the final twomiles. Theservice, though, proved amazingly popular,with a train scheduled to travel ineachdirectiononalternatedays,exceptSundays,andonmanyoccasionsfreightandpassengershadtowaitacoupleofdaysforthenexttrain.Thehorses,whichwereusedonthelineforhalfacentury,werespeciallybredcoachanimalswithstronglegsandselectedfortheirrelativelymodestappetitesinceeveryounceoffoodhadtobebroughtinontherailway.Fourhorses,whichwererestedeveryten miles, pulled the trains, and the trip took seven or eight hours, though itcouldtaketwiceaslongwhensnowcoveredthegroundonthehighpoint,2,000feetabovesealevel,oroneofthehorsesplayedup.TheTasmaniantraditionofbuilding horse-drawn lines survived into the twentieth centurywith the layingdownearly in the1900sofafour-mile timber-trackedlinebetweenTullahandBoko Siding in the west of the state, where a mine was being developed. Itquicklyprovedinadequateandwasreplacedwithinadecadebyanarrow-gaugesteamrailway.

Horseswereusedonthefirstironroadonthemainland,too,theseven-mile-longlineinSouthAustraliabetweenGoolwaonthelowerMurrayriver,andPortElliotonthecoast,openedinMay1854.Itwasbuilttogiveaccesstotheseaportfor goods taken down the Murray river, especially wool, and was built withambitious intent to provide an important artery but like so many such earlyschemes,itwasnotproperlythoughtoutasPortElliotprovedtoosmalltobeaviableseaport.

Meanwhile the first steam-hauled linewasbeingbuilt inVictoriausing theIrish5ft3insgauge,andtheinauguraltrainranthetwoandahalfmilesbetweenFlindersStreetinMelbournetoSandbridge,nowPortMelbourne,inSeptember1855.Therehadbeentalkofbuildingacanal,instead,butasPatsyAdamSmithpointsout,‘railwayswontheargumentagainstcanalsanda“navigationcanal”hasneverbeendug inAustralia’.38NewSouthWalesentered the railwayagebarelyamonthlaterandonlymissedoutonbeingthefirstbecauseitsinauguralrailway was delayed by the insolvency of its promoter, the Sydney RailwayCompany,whichwentbankruptleavingtheprojecttobetakenoverbythestategovernmentandthusbecomingthefirstintheBritishEmpiretobegovernmentowned.The thirteen-mile linebetweenSydneyand the inelegantlynamedDog

Trap 39 Road, Parramatta, was built using standard gauge and included oneremarkablestructure,thestone-archedLewishamViaduct.

Apart from using controversial labour for its first railway, and perseveringwithhorse-drawntrainsfarlaterthaninEurope,Australiacanalsoberegardedasthecountrywherethetextbookofhownottobuildarailwaynetworkshouldbe written. The almost simultaneous opening of these two railways inneighbouringstatessowedtheseedsofthedisastrousfailuretoagreeacommongaugethatwastodogthedevelopmentofAustralia’sironroads.Thefailuretoensureauniformgaugeprovedtobeaninsuperableobstacletotheestablishmentof a coherent system, ensuring that coastal shipping freight would remaincompetitive in a country whose sheer size should have favoured railways.Indeed, the railways in Australia, though in many ways as important to theeconomy as elsewhere in the world because of their impact on the miningindustry, did not have the same nation-building effect as in the world’s otherlargecountries,suchastheUSA,CanadaorRussia.

How on earth did this gauge chaos occur? The reasonwhy theAustralianstates, who inevitably blame each other for the situation, adopted differentgaugesisaconfusingtalewhoserootwastheobduracyofacoupleofrailwayengineers in New South Wales. In 1846 the British Colonial Secretary hadrecommended that theAustralian railwaysbebuilt to standardgaugebutF.W.Shields, the chief engineerof theSydneyRailwayCompanywasan Irishman,familiar with the 5ft 3ins gauge which he persuaded the New South Walesgovernmenttoadopt.TheVictorianandSouthAustraliangovernmentsdecidedto fall in line and altered their gauges to conformwithNewSouthWales andseveralrailwaycompanieswhichhadsprungupinVictoriaduring1852orderedrollingstockonthatbasis.Then,suddenly,Shieldsresignedoverasalarycutandhis replacement, JamesWallace,wasanEnglishmanwithanattachment to thestandard gauge. Despite protests from the other two states, the change wentthrough and New SouthWales built its railways to the standard gauge whileVictoria and SouthAustralia held firm, arguing that itwould be too costly toaltertheirstock.AsthechroniclersofthehistoryoftheAustralianrailwaysputit,‘thegloriousbunglebegan’.40Infact,itwasnotverygloriousbutitwastoproveexpensiveandapermanenthandicaptotherailwaysonwhichmillionsofdollars are still being spent to remedy the situation in the twenty-first century.When the railways finallymet atAlbury in June 1883, it ‘showed the brokengauge in all its limitations and folly’. Moreover, two other mainland states,QueenslandandWesternAustralia,alongwithTasmania,adoptedanarrow3ft6ins gauge, which meant that a transcontinental journey could require two

changes of train. South Australia has the dubious distinction of having threedifferentgauges–narrow,broadandstandard,causinginnumerableproblemsofbreakofgauge.

As elsewhere in the world, each of these inaugurations was marked byceremonies and trips on the new line by the great and good, but in Australiathereseemedtobeanunspokencompetitionbetweenstatestoholdthegrandestgastronomic display. At the opening of the forty-five-mile-long Geelong–MelbournelineinJune1857,thetownofGeelongorganizedarepastconsistingof ‘twoand threequarter tonsofpoultry, twoand threequarter tonsofmeats,threequartersofa tonof fish, threequartersofa tonofpastries,halfa tonofjelliesandices,halfatonoffruit,atonofbreadandunlimitedwines,spiritsandales.’41Thisseemsfar-fetchedbutdespite thiscornucopia, theVIPsnevergottheirtucker.Aftervarioushold-upscausedbyproblemswiththelocomotiveandlackofcoordination, theguestsfromMelbourneonlyarrivedatGeelongwhenthedinnerwasoverbecausethelocalpopulacehadtakenadvantageofthedelaytohavetheirfillasneverbefore.Theopening,incidentally,liketheinaugurationof the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, was marred by a fatality: HenryWalters, the locomotive superintendent of theGeelong&Melbourne RailwayCompanywaskilledwhenhewasknockedfromthetrainwhilepassingunderabridgetwomilesfromMelbourne.42

ItwasonthelineheadingwestwardfromSydneytowardstheinteriorofNewSouthWalesthatAustralianengineersfacedtheirmostdifficultchallenge,when,withinafewmiles, theyfoundtheBlueMountainsextendingupto3,000feet,barring theirpath.The localpopulationwas insufficient toprovide themusclerequiredtocarvetherailwaythroughthemountainsandin1858alabourforcewas recruited by Thomas Brassey, the British contractor, who found 2,000,mainlyScottish,menwhowerewillingtotraveltotheotherendoftheworldtobuildtherailway.AccordingtoBrassey’sVictorianbiographer,43manyofthesemen decided, on arrival, that they would rather work in an easier job thanbuildingtherailway,andthereforewages,andconsequentlycosts,werenotablyhigherthanbackhome.Theengineer,JohnWhitton,originallywantedtouseagradientof1 in20 to scale thehighest ridge,whichwas3,336 feet above sealevel,butno locomotiveof the timecouldhavemanagedsuchaclimbandheeventuallysettledforaseriesofzigzags,similartothoseontherailwayuptheGhatsinIndia,andamile-longtunnel,Australia’slongest,atWoyWoythroughthemountain.Therewas a considerable amount of blasting required includingdislodginga40,000-tonchunkofrock,aneventsospectacularthattheCountessof Belmore, the wife of the Governor General, was called upon to push the

button setting off the explosion. Australiawas on theway to getting a cross-continentalrailway,thoughitwouldnotbeuntil2004thattherewouldbealinelinking the north with the south through Alice Springs, in the middle of thecountry.

Railways came late to the other major part of the British Empire, Africa,where in the last decade of the century, the great transcontinental project, theCape toCairo railway,was begun and although itwas never completed, largesections were built (see Chapter 7). The British tradition would prevail in itscolonies apart fromCanada, aswell as throughout LatinAmerica, covered inChapter8,buttheothergreatstyleofrailway–theUSrailroad–wasbeginningtoassert itself andwhile that typeof railwaydidnot extendmuchbeyond theAmericancontinent,itwouldhavethemostprofoundinfluence,notleastonthecountrywhereitoriginated.

…ANDOTHERCONTINENTS

The other great transcontinental schemes were started later than those inAmericabutwereequallyepicprojectswhich,intheirdifferentways,brokenewground,figurativelyandliterally.AswiththelinesacrossAmerica,themotivesweremostlypoliticalwithlittlerealeconomicrationaledespitetheoptimismoftheirpromoters.Indeed,ofallthecross-continentalrailwayschemes,theTrans-SiberianRailwaywasthemostpolitical,acreationofaweakgovernmentintentonholdingtogetheravastbutpoornationwithlittleregardfortheeconomicsoftheproject.Itwas,too,themostremarkableengineeringfeat,arailwaythatwastwiceaslongasitsAmericancounterpart,stretchingnearly6,200milesbetweenStPetersburgontheBalticandVladivostokonthePacific,andrunningthroughsomeof themost inhospitable land in theworld – although, thankfully for itsengineers,muchofit,inwesternandcentralSiberia,relativelyflat.

JustaswiththeAmericantranscontinentalrailway,therehadbeendreamsofimproved transport to Russia’s furthest lands for several decades. However,RussiaintheearlyageoftherailwayscouldnothavebeenmoredifferentfromthecountrythatwouldbecomeitsrivalintheColdWarformuchofthesecondhalfofthetwentiethcentury.Russia’shugebutlargelyinaccessibleandunfertileterritory ensured that the requirements of themilitary determined governmentpolicythroughtheneedtoimposecontroloverdistant lands.ConsequentlytheTrans-Siberian was a military and political project, rather than a commercialventure.IthadnoneoftheromanceandadventureassociatedwiththeAmericantranscontinentalsbutratheritwas‘ashabbybureaucraticaffair,anditscost,forapoorcountry,wasstaggering’.1

Railway development in Russia had not followed the European pattern,becauseofitsweakeconomyandthestringenciesofthepolicestateimposedbytheTsar’sregime,whofearedthattherailwayswouldbeademocratizingforce.ThelinebetweenStPetersburgandMoscow,completedin1851,wasoneoftheworld’s great early railways, built by an engineer, Pavel PetrovichMelnikov,who was easily the equal of a Brunel or Robert Stephenson. He produced arailway which was almost dead straight with gentle gradients but despite itssuccess it did not, as happened in western Europe, lead to a network of

secondary lines and branches. Partly the reasonwas cost allied to the lack ofcapitalinpre-industrialRussia,butcruciallytherailwaycouldnotbeprofitablebecauseTsarNicholasdemandedthatallpassengersweresubjectedtoapolicecheck before travelling and required to carry a passport. This stymied thedevelopment of a strong passenger base by limiting travel to the rich and thepoliticallysound.

Thehumiliatingdefeatin1856ofRussiabyGreatBritainandFranceintheCrimeanWarshowedthatRussiahadfallenwellbehinditsEuropeanrivalsanditactedasaspurformodernizingthestate.Consequently,underAlexanderII,aforward-looking tsar, there was a modest railway boom in the 1860s, but theconstraintsunderwhichtheRussianrailwayshadtooperatemeantthatevenbythe1880s therewasonlya sketchynetworkofmain lines.For example, thereweremainlinesconnectingStPetersburgwithWarsaw,thenpartoftheRussianempire,andKievandOdessa,butnothinglikethecomplexnetworksbeingbuiltelsewhere.EveninEuropeanRussia,westoftheUrals,thedensityofrailways2before thestartof theconstructionof theTrans-Siberian in1891was less thanonetwentiethoftheUK’ssystem.Thelackofsustainedinvestmentandthepoormaintenanceofthetrackaffectedperformanceasevenexpresstrainsaveraged,atbest,30mph.The journey timefor thenear400-mile tripbetweenMoscowand St Petersburg, which was originally thirty hours, was still a ponderousfifteenhoursin1880,anaverageofjust26mph,farslowerthancontemporarytrains inEurope (see chapter9).As inEurope, the state’s role in the railwaysincreasedastheprivatecompanieswhichhadbeenencouragedtobuildthemfellintofinancialdifficulties.

The Trans-Siberian was much more than a mere extension of the existingrailway network. Since the sixteenth century Russia had been growing in alldirections from its heartland, the Duchy of Muscovy. After its victory overNapoleon in 1812 Russia had continued its expansion into the CaucasusMountainsandacrosstheUralsintoSiberiabuthadneverconsolidateditsholdoverthesedistantlands.AlexanderIII,althoughmoreconservativeandcautiousthanhisfather(whowasassassinatedin1881),sawtherailwaysasapowerfulunifyingforcewhichwouldallowhimtoimposethestampofRussianauthorityin these regions and pushed strongly for the building of the Trans-Siberian.Siberiawasagrimland,withasmallpopulationlargelyconcentratedonafewriverarteriesandroads,andmostlyemployedbythestateeithertomaintaintheroadsorguard the territory.Therewas, too,anassortmentofcriminalexiles–being sent to Siberia was a long established tradition – many of whom hadescaped to scratch an impoverished living off the land, frequentlymaking lifedifficult for the few honest citizens. Diplomats and bureaucrats despatched to

serve in the Pacific coast town of Vladivostok, the largest settlement in theregion, thoughstill littlemore thanacollectionofhutsandonlywrested fromtheChinese in1860, complainedof theexpensive rottingmeatandvegetablesand the lack of staples such as freshmilk and butter. Therewas, though, ‘anabundanceofdrinkinghouses,tavernsandhousesofpleasure’,3whichaddedtothe feeling that civilization’s toehold in Russia’s far east was precarious as aresultoftheharshclimate,poorlandandabsenceoftransportlinks.Thiswasnotthe burgeoning Wild West of the United States full of entrepreneurs andadventurersouttomakeafastbuck.Therewas,however,wealthintheformofmineralswhichgavetherailwayatleastasmallmeasureofeconomicpurpose,but the true value of this vast hidden treasure only became apparent when athorough geological survey was undertaken after the Trans-Siberian had beencompleted.

The impetus to build the railwaywas rooted in the history of the RussianoccupationofSiberia.RussiahadestablishedabaseonthePacificasearlyastheseventeenth century but it was only in the mid-nineteenth century that itsterritoriestherebegantobethreatenedbyWesterninterests.Thedevelopmentofefficientsteamshipsinthe1840sandthecompletionoftheSuezCanalin1869madeiteasierforthemajorWesternnationstoreachthePacificsideofRussianterritory than for Russia itself. The building of the American transcontinentalrailwayandthebeginningsofthePanamaCanalprojectraisedfearsamongtheRussian elite that the country’s territorial integritywould be threatenedby thegrowingcommercialopportunitiesaffordedbyimprovedtransportroutes.

Therehadbeendreamsof aSiberian railwayas early as the1850sbut thefirst serious discussion emerged soon after Alexander III became tsar. ThegrowingthreatofChina,withwhichRussiasharedthousandsofmilesofborder,was the catalyst that focused attention on the need to strengthen the nation’seasternprovinces.Russia andChinahadprettymuch ignored eachother for acoupleofcenturiesbutadisputeoverTurkestaninthe1860sledtoaseriesofdiplomaticdisputesthatthreatenedtobreakoutintofull-scalewar.TheChinesebegantocolonizeManchuria,alargelyemptybufferareabetweenthetwogreatstates, and were even contemplating a Manchurian railway with Europeanbacking, giving further ammunition to the growing lobby for the Siberianrailway.

ItwasnotonlyChinathatwasseenasapotentialthreat.TherewasalsothegrowingmilitarypresenceofBritain,whichwas incompetitionfor territory intheFarEastwithRussiaformuchofthesecondhalfofthenineteenthcentury,andtherelationsbetweenthe twocountrieshadbeenfractiousevenbefore theCrimeanWar. In1885,BritainoccupiedPortHamiltonoff thecoastofKorea,

from which Vladivostok could be attacked, and the Russians feared that thecompletion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which cut the journey betweenEngland and Japan by fifteen days to five and a halfweekswould enable theBritish to transport troops there faster than they could.Building railwayswiththe aim of securing distant territory had a precedent. In June 1885, the tsarordered the extension of the Transcaspian railway along the border withAfghanistan,bothtomakeiteasiertosubjugatetherebelliouslocaltribes(’twasever thus!) and to put pressure on British interests in India 4 throughAfghanistan.

Bythemid-1880s,therefore,pressurewasgrowingingovernmentcirclestobuild a Siberian railway. There were domestic concerns, too, arising fromconflictingviewson theextent towhichSiberia shouldbeallowed todevelopindependentlyofRussia.TheSiberianromanticswhosawtheregionasseparateand independent from European Russia, with its own strong identity andtraditions, thought that a Siberian railway would be used by absentee miningfirms, shipping out the region’s natural wealth in exchange for expensiveimportedmanufacturedgoodswhichwouldflood thefragile localeconomy. InMoscow, theseviewswere fiercelyopposedby thedominant conservativeandimperialistelitewhoarguedthatanysuchtalkofregionalismandseparatenesswasathreattotheintegrityoftheRussianstate.Siberia,theyargued,wasnotacolonyofRussiabutpartofRussiaitself,andtherailwaywasawayofensuringthat itwouldremainsoforever.Alexander III,concernedabout thegrowthofseparatist thinking, responded by further restricting Siberia’s autonomy andstronglysupportingtheconstructionoftherailway.

As consideration of the Trans-Siberian intensified, the Russian railwaynetworkproceeded steadily eastwards, reachingOrenburg at the south-westernborder of Siberia in 1877, and in 1880 an immense bridge, modestly calledImperatorAlexanderII,spannedtheVolganearSyrzan,bringingcentralRussiaevenclosertoOrenburgandtheSiberiansteppe.In1884,workbeganonthelinefrom Yekaterinburg on the east of the Urals to Tyumin, 1,330 miles east ofMoscow.

StartingsuchamassiveprojectastheTrans-Siberianinarelativelybackwardcountry such asRussia in the 1880swas no easy task. Itwas built eastwardsfromChelyabinskandwestwardsfromVladivostok,andwasbyfarthebiggestrailwayprojectever,atitspeakemployingover89,000men.Theeventualcostoftheinitialalignmentwouldbeatleast855mroubles(say,around£85m5),astaggeringsumforanimpoverishedgovernmentofalargelyagriculturalnationwith a small tax base. First thereweremajor administrative hurdles, with the

finance and transportministries both trying to assert control over the project,which led to major internal battles. Then there was the need to obtain thefinance, which led to the sensitive issue of whether this vital part of Russianinfrastructure should be funded by foreign interests and thirdly, there wereconcernsaboutthechoiceofroutethroughthesteppe.Ittookalmostadecadeofwrangling over these issues before the ceremonial first stone for the railwaycouldbelaid.

Just as with the American coast-to-coast railroad, it would take aninspirationalandvisionaryfiguretopushthroughtheproject.InthecaseoftheTrans-Siberian,itwasSergeiWittewho,despitehavinganoblemother,workedhisway up from the lower echelons of government administration to become,first, transport, and then finance, minister.Witte’s father and grandfather hadbeen colonial administrators in the Caucasuses, a land with the same type offrontierspiritastheAmericanWestand,giventhisupbringing,itisnowonderthatWitte had an interest in colonizing Siberia.Witte, whose cleverness wasmatchedbyhisambition,startedhiscareerasanadministratorwiththeOdessaStateRailwaybutthenenjoyedameteoricrise,oncejumpingsevengradesinasingle promotion in the railwayhierarchy, thanks to his adept use of contacts,including thepress,andhiscannynetworking,aswellasa ruthlessnesswhichseveral times saw him turn against former allies in order to further his owninterests.ARussianhistoriandescribedhimasamanof‘great ideas’whowas‘unscrupulousintakingadvantageofanymeansavailabletomakethingshappenhis way. He was no stranger to playing a game concocted of brinkmanship,bribes,rumoursandallegationspublishedinthepress.’6Astaunchmonarchist,with an almost filial devotion to the tsar, and a fierce nationalist protective ofmotherRussia,WittesawtheSiberianrailwayasawayofshowingtherestoftheworldthatthecountrywastheequalofthemajorEuropeanpowers,abletoundertake the globe’s biggest engineering project. InWitte’smind there wereendlesshopesfortherailway:itwouldbringaboutanendtotheisolationofthecountry’s east, it wouldmake Russia a key player in trade betweenAsia andEurope andwould open up newhorizons forworld trade,withMoscow at itscentre.Asabiographeroftherailwaysuggestssardonically,thisdescriptionoftheTrans-SiberianRailwaybyWittewas‘amodernequivalentofthemedievalreligiousdoctrinethatproclaimedMoscowas“theThirdRome”’.7

WittefirstpushedtheprojectthroughtheextremelybureaucraticmachineofRussian government and then ensured it had virtually limitless supplies ofmoneyfromtheexchequer.Witte’scleverestpieceofmanipulationwastohavethefutureTsarNicholasII,AlexanderIII’sheir,appointedin1891aschairman

oftheCommitteeoftheSiberianRailroad,thegovernmentbodyoverseeingthescheme, a brilliant move which ‘all but guaranteed the completion of theSiberianRailroad’.8Nicholashadtravelledtothefareastearlier thatyearandlaid the foundationstoneof the railwayatVladivostok,a journey thatputhimstrongly in the camp of the Orientalists, those Russians who saw a kinshipbetween Russia and Asia that was distinct from Europe. Indeed, Nicholas’scommitmenttotheschemewassuchthathechosetoretainthechairmanshipofthe committee following his accession as tsar on the death of his father threeyearslater.

TherailwaywasmorethanjustanironroadthroughtheRussiansteppe.Inorder to providematerials for the railway and to create through transportationroutes, therivers in theregionwere improvedtomakethemnavigableandthecost of the railway therefore included a vast array of associated works. Therailwayineffectconnected25,000milesofnavigableriverstoformatransportnetwork for the summer months. The centralized nature of the Russian statemeant that the route was determined with little regard to natural barriers orexisting settlements, many of which were bypassed in an effort to keep thelengthoftherailwaytoaminimum.Surveyingwascursory,withtheteamssentout by theMinistry of Transport exploring a narrow band stretching just twokilometres either side of the line drawn on the map arbitrarily by the civilservants inMoscow.Not surprisingly, as a result, the precise line of the routewas frequently changed quite dramatically by the construction gangs thatfollowed.

Theawesomescaleofthetaskofbuildingseveralthousandmilesofrailwayin one of the remotest and coldest environments on earth cannot beoverestimated. When work finally started in 1891, it progressed relativelysmoothlyinwesternSiberiabutconditionsworsenedonthestretchbetweentheObandLakeBaikalincentralSiberia.BeyondKrasnoyarsk,thefoothillsoftheSaian Mountains are interspersed with bogs and the hills are high withprecipitous forested slopes. The surface remains frozen until mid-July, twomonths longer than inwestern Siberia, andwhen itmelts the land becomes aswampwiththeresultthatthenavviesfrequentlyhadtolabourin2feetofwater.Countlessrudimentarywoodencrossingswerebuilttofordtorrentsandstreamsandmany substantial structures were needed, such as a half-mile-long bridgeacrosstheEnisei.LakeBaikalitselfprovidedthebiggestengineeringchallengeasitisadeepbasinsurroundedbysteepruggedmountains.

Afterthelake,therewastheequallyunforgivingareaofTransbaikaliawherethe Trans-Siberian became a mountain railway, its tracks cut perilously intoledgeson the sideof thecliffs.Earthworks inTransbaikaliawereheavier than

elsewhereontherailwaybecauseofthepermafrostwhichcouldonlybebrokenup with dynamite. Flooding, here, was an ever-present danger and in aparticularlyseriousincident,a200-milestretchofcompletedrailway,includingfifteenbridges,wassweptaway.

Progress from the eastern side proved equally difficult. The easternmostsection,namedaftertheUssuririver,wasinitiallybuilttoonearthetorrentandhadtoberebuiltbecauseengineersunderestimatedtheheightofthewaterlevelwhenthesnowmelted.Moreover,heavyrainsreducedthealreadyshortworkingseasonbytwomonthsannuallyandtherewastheaddedthreatfrombandits.Therailway initially went south over the Chinese border through Harbin inManchuria,becausethiswasaneasieralignmentthantheRussianrouteviatheAmur river which was eventually completed in 1916, though most trainscontinued on the original route until the Japanese invadedManchuria in 1935andchangedthegaugetostandard.

The Trans-Siberian line opened in stages, with trains initially using atemporarylineacrossthefrozenLakeBaikalinwinterandBritish-builtferriesinsummer, until the completion of the railway around the lake in 1904 whichinvolvedtheconstructionof200bridgesandthirty-threetunnels,finallycreatingathroughrouteallthewayfromtheBaltictothePacific.

Apart from the harsh conditions, the other difficultywas finding sufficientlabour to build the railway. The Committee of the Siberian Railway hadcalculatedthat30,000navvieswouldbeneededtopreparetheearthworksandafurther50,000mentoconstructthelineduringthefirstthreeyears.Inthewestthedemandwasmostlysatisfiedbythelocalpeasantrywhosupplied80percentoftheworkforce,butonceconstructionreachedthesparselypopulatedforestsofcentralSiberia,theselabourerswerereluctanttomovetoofarfromtheirhomes.The solution was a very Russian one and proved highly effective: the use ofprisoners.Theyhadalreadybeenusedonrailwayconstructioninthe1860sbutnotonsuchalargescale.

Inthespringof1891,600convictswhowerebeingsentbyshipfromOdessatoVladivostok,were rerouted toworkon theUssuri railway.Ahandfulof themost vicious criminals escaped, causing a crimewave inVladivostok, but themajority laboured assiduously. Overall, the experimentwas deemed a successandwas rapidly expanded to include political and, other exileswho had beensenttoSiberia.Attheheightoftheconstruction,therewere13,500prisonersandexilesworkingontherailwayand,bywrinklingoutthemostlikelyrecidivists,escape levels dropped to 1 per cent. They had the added inducement that foreveryyear theyworkedon the railway, twowereknockedoff their sentences.Initially,theseforcedlabourerswerepaidjust30percentofthewagesreceived

bytheirfreecolleaguesbutlater,inordertoencouragethemtoworkbetter,theywere granted parity and their productivity rose accordingly. Battalions ofsoldiers,too,wereenlistedtoprovideaddedmanpower.

Workconditionswereundoubtedlyharshwiththirteen-hourdays,5a.m.to7.30p.m.,witha90-minutebreakforlunch,sixdaysperweek,withSundaysoff,and living arrangements spartan,withmany sleeping in tents or thatched hutswhichoffered littleprotectionagainst the torrential rainsor thecold.Thefoodwasgenerallyplentiful9butbasic,withahotdishoffishormeatatlunchtime,togetherwith a vegetable portion, and thin gruelwith butter or lard at dinner.UnliketheheavydrinkingofBritishnavvies,therewaslittlealcoholapartfromasmallamountofwinethatwasallowedonholidays.

Aswithallthesegreatrailwayprojects,innumerablemenpaidfortheprojectwith their lives. In Transbaikalia, there were regular outbreaks of potentiallyfatalSiberianboilplague(usuallyacattledisease)andin1895cholerastrucktheworkersontheUssuri.However,overall,giventheharshnessof theconditionsandtheweather,thedeathrateofaround2percentforbothprisonersandfreelabourers compared favourably with other major railway or canal-buildingprojects,andfarbetterthanthoseinIndia,AfricaandPanama.

While the sheer achievement of building the line over a period of thirteenyearscannotbeoverestimated, thehighcost, amounting to twoandhalf timestheoriginalestimate,andthepoorqualityoftherailwaywere,asonecriticputit,a‘monumenttoRussianofficialbunglingandlaxityofadministration’.10Theconstruction and operation of the line was bureaucratic and centralized to anabsurd degree. The records of the Committee of the Siberian Railway, forexample, chaired by the tsar and attended by several of his ministers,meticulouslynoteditsdecisiontograntapeasant,FedorKoniakin,500roubles(£50) as compensation for his disability resulting from an accident during asurveyingexpedition.Despitesuchdetailedcentralcontrol–orindeedperhapsbecauseofit–therewaslittleclearaccountingofthemoneyspentontheprojectand inevitably therewasextensivecorruption.Basic standardsofbookkeepingwereneverestablishedandthetruecostwillneverbeknownaseventenyearsafter its completion, investigations into where the money had gone were stillbeingcarriedoutandtheresearchwasnevercompletedbecauseoftheoutbreakoftheGreatWarandtheensuingrevolution.Moscowturnedablindeyetotheselaxstandardsbecauseitwantedtherailwaybuilt,andbuiltquickly,irrespectiveofthecost.Thiswasnotaprivaterailwayaccountabletoshareholders,butonethatwasthecreatureofanauthoritarianandundemocraticstate.

Andassuch,itwasafailure.Therailway’simpactonSiberianeverfulfilled

thehighhopesofTsarNicholasIIandWitte.ThecolonizationofSiberiaandthefar east afforded by the railway had little in common with events on theAmericansideofthePacific.Russianemigrationeastwardswassponsoredandsupportedby thestatewithvery littleof thespontaneousWildWestspirit thatcharacterizedthemassivemovementofpeoplesintheUnitedStates.

While, aswehave seen, in theUSA the federalgovernment subsidized therailways through landgrants, soft loans and surveys, inRussia virtually everyaspectoftheprocesswascontrolledbythegovernment.Cut-pricerailfareswereoffered to family ‘scouts’ who were encouraged to move to Siberia and laterbring theirwivesandchildren.Thepeasants induced tomoveeastweregivenloans to help them settle, as well as being provided with land and buildingmaterials, and could obtain agricultural implements at low set prices. It washopedthatthevastnessofSiberiacouldbecomethegrainbasketofthecountrywiththehelpofsubsidies,buttheinfertilityofthelandandtheharshnessoftheconditions ultimately made this uneconomic. Siberia was not the AmericanMidwest, or even Ukraine! Virtually all aspects of the emigrants’ lives, eventheirspiritualneeds,werecateredforbythestateintheeffortto‘russify’Siberiathroughtheconstructionoftherailway.Afundestablishedbythetsarprovidedspecialmobile railway coach chapels staffed by priestswhowould follow theworkers as construction progressed and then ensured that churches would bebuilt once stations and settlements had been established. The Russiangovernment even tried to bring back Slavs who had emigrated to the UnitedStates,providedtheywerenot‘infectedwithsocialistteachings’.11

ThesettlementofSiberiawasverymuchintheRussiantraditionoftryingtodictatewherepeopleshouldlive,whichwashardlysurprisinginacountrywherethe serfs had only been emancipated a generation ago. Indeed, although theprocess was carried out by a monarchist government, it was more like theSoviet-typecolonizationsthatwouldfollowinthetwentiethcenturyratherthanthe free-market experience of the United States. Even decades after theconstructionoftheline,Siberia’sindustryremainedbackwardand,forthemostpart,thesmallamountofeconomicdevelopmentstimulatedbytherailwaywasconfinedtofiftykilometreseithersideofit.

Therefore,while in transport terms, theTrans-SiberianundoubtedlyopenedupAsianRussia, ithadnothinglike thesameeffectas the transcontinentalUSrailway.Partly,theharshrealitiesofthegeographyandweatherwereagainstit.The Siberian land and its climate were largely untameable, and the distancesinvolved, mostly through incredibly hostile territory, were far greater. As thebiographerof the line suggests: ‘The successof colonizationanddevelopment

dependedon thesuccessof the railroad’12 and the railway itselfwasnotverysuccessful.Itwasbuilt,aswehaveseen,notinresponsetoanygreateconomicneedbutbygovernmentfiatinordertofulfilthetsar’spoliticalaims.Thetsar,ofcourse,wasdoomedandwouldendupfacingaBolshevikfiringsquad,andthepainfulironyabouthisgreatestlegacy,theTrans-SiberianRailway,isthatitwasmoreaSovietprojectthanatsaristone:anexpressionofcentralizedpowerbuilt at thewhim of an imperialist regime.An economic historian of the linesumsitupthus:‘theTrans-Siberian“taught”Russianotmanagerialcapitalism,as railroads did in theUnited States, but rather the possibility of perfecting acentralized economy’. 13 In other words, the tsar’s project had created themethodsofhisownundoing.

The motivations behind the railway’s creation and the inadequacies in itsconstructionwouldensurethatitwasnot,inmodernparlance,‘fitforpurpose’.Therailway,whichwassingletrackthroughoutwiththeoccasionalpassingloop,had,unsurprisingly,beenbuilttoadeficientstandardinvirtuallyeveryway.Thepermanentwaywasflimsy,withlightweightrailswhichbrokeeasily,insufficientballastandsleepersoftencarvedfromgreenwoodthatrottedinthefirstyearofuse. The small bridges were made of soft pine and rotted easily (thoughfortunately the large ones were well constructed and several survive in theiroriginalformtoday),theembankmentsweretooshallowandnarrow,oftenjustten feet wide instead of the sixteen feet prescribed in the design, and easilywashedaway.Therewereviciousgradientsandnarrowcurveswhichworeouttheflangesonthewheelsoftherollingstockafteraslittleassixweeks’use.

Fromanoperationalpointofview,therewereinsufficientpassingplacesandsidings,andinitiallytherailwaywasexpectedtocarryjustthreetrainsperdayineachdirection.Its inadequacieswerehighlightedintheRusso-JapaneseWarof1904–5. The Japanese, who wanted to establish power over Manchuria andKorea, had correctly calculated that the railway would not have sufficientcapacity to bring large numbers of troops eastwards, and launched their warconfident that they would not find themselves outnumbered by the rapiddeploymentof fresh troops.Despite recent improvements to the line includingthecompletionof the routealong thecliffsofLakeBaikal, theRussianswerebeatenbothonlandandatsea,andwhenthedefeatedtroopsusedtherailwaytoreturn home, delays caused by lack of capacity led to a revolt which left therailwayinthehandsofmutineersandrebelsforseveraldays.

Therailwaydid,however,haveclearattractionsforcertain travellers.Soonafter it opened, twiceweekly international trainswere launched, a very handyalternativetothelongsearoutefordiplomatsheadingfromEuropetoBeijingor

Tokyo. It cut their journey time fromnearly twomonths toacoupleofweeksaccording to the timetable, although in practice the journey generally tooklonger. In theory, too, travel on these international trains was luxurious, withstaff being instructed inmeticulous detail about the emptying of ashtrays andspittoons,and thenecessity tokeepcarriage temperaturesat14°C. Inpractice,though,customerservicewasnotgenerallytherailway’sstrongpoint.OneearlyAmerican traveller 14 reported a seventeen-hour halt with no explanation anddescribedhowateachstationthetrainwouldstopandthepeasantsscrambleoutofthecarriagestomaketheirtea,cooktheirsoupand‘stillthetrainwouldwait’even though there was no service waiting to pass in the other direction (thelocomotivewasprobablytakingwaterfromtheoftenverysmallandinadequatepipes characteristic of the line). Eventually, ‘for no particular reason’, thestationmasterwouldringalargebellandafterhehadrepeatedtheexercisefiveminutes later and theguardhadblownhiswhistle a coupleof times, the trainwouldstartlumberingoff‘onlytorepeattheprocesstwohourslateratthenextstation’. For long stretches, the trains had to slow down to 20 kph, half theprojectedspeed,causingextradelays,becauseofthepoorconditionofthetrack.

Therailroad’srestaurantcarsservedmealsbyStPetersburg time,obliviousoftheseventimezonesseparatingtheBalticfromVladivostokonthePacific,sotowardstheendoftheeastwardsjourneybreakfastwouldbedishedupat2p.m.anddinnerat3a.m.!Thetightsecurityalsoaddedtothediscomfort.Theforeigndiplomats and the fewearly touristswhoventuredon the international servicewere banned from taking photographs of even the most harmless sights andcould not communicate with the railway’s staff who invariably spoke onlyRussian.

After the war with the Japanese, millions of roubles were spent onimprovements,increasingcapacityfromthreedailytrainsineachdirectiontoadozen,and theoretically shortening the journey time.However, ‘people setoutfromMoscow in high hopes of reaching Vladivostok in two weeks but theyalwaysallowedanextraweek formishaps’. 15 In theearlydays, therewasanaverageof twoderailmentsonevery journeyof the international trains,mostlycausing little damage or delay because they occurred on sections of the trackwherespeedswerevery low,but thereweremoreseriousaccidents too. In theworst year, 1901, before the line had fully opened, there were nearly 1,000accidents and derailments, with ninety-three deaths and over 500 seriousinjuries,more thanon thewholeof the restof theRussiannetwork.Thepoorcondition of the line when it was first completed was highlighted when thelocomotivehaulingtheinauguraltrainbetweenMaiinskandActinskfellintoa

river below the tracks. The railway did have other uses, however. Theinfrequencyoftrainsmeantthatitwassafeformotorvehiclestodrivealongthetrack,whichwasbetter than anyother route, aswitnessedby the fact that the1907Beijing to Paris racewaswon by a carwhich bumped along theTrans-SiberianRailwayformuchofitslength!

Africa presented a rather different set of obstacles which ultimately provedinsuperable,andtheratherinsaneambitiontocreatetranscontinentalrailwaysondifferentaxesby the twobig imperialpowersof theday–north–southfor theBritish,east-westbytheFrench–nearlyprecipitatedthemintoawar.Therewasalsoatenseface-offbetweenBritainandthePortuguese,whotogetherwiththeTransvaal Republic, wanted to build an east–west route linking the twoPortuguesecoloniesofAngolaon theAtlanticOceanandMozambiqueon theIndianOcean.

The neatly alliterative but overambitious Cape to Cairo railway, stretching6,000miles,was an empire-building project promulgated largely by that greatimperialistCecilRhodeswho had establishedBritain’s dominance in southernAfrica.Hisdreamwasforacontinuouslineofpink16fromoneendofAfricatotheotheranda railwaywasperceivedas themeansofestablishing thatdreamandmaintaining control over the continent. As the biographer of the Cape toCairorailwayargues,‘thehistoryoftherailwaysisthehistoryoftheBritishinAfrica.EverywherethattheUnionJackflew,railwaysappearedastheprimarymeans of communication and imperial expansion.’ 17 The railways were theBritishEmpire’sequivalentoftheroadsbuiltinlandsconqueredbytheRomans,notleastinBritainitself.

A railway between the Cape and Cairo was first suggested in a DailyTelegraphleaderin1876,followingHenryStanley’sexploration,buttheBritishgovernment was never in a position even to contemplate funding it. InsteadRhodes,whohadmadeafortunebycreatingthedeBeersminingcompanyandwhoin1890becametheprimeministeroftheCapeColony–SouthAfricawasyettobeunited–instigatedtheschemeasawayofextendingBritishinterestsnorthwards.Aswiththeothertranscontinentals,theconceptfortheprojectwasnotthatmanypeoplewouldtravelfromoneendofAfricatotheotherbutrather,ashewrote,‘theobjectistocutAfricathroughthecentre,andtherailwaywillpickuptradeallthewayalongtheroute’.18

Itisacomplexstoryofaprojectthatwasdivertedbydiscoveriesofmineralswhich led to other railways being constructed, delayedby lackof governmentsupport,gravelydamagedbythelossofitsmainprotagonist,Rhodes, in1902,

andultimatelystymiedbythearcanepoliticsofAfricaandthesheerscaleofthescheme.Despite its failure, theCape toCairo idea left a legacyof a stringofrailwaysthroughoutthecontinent,manyofwhichwouldneverhavebeenbuiltwithout the grandiose scheme to cross Africa. The story of the project is,therefore,inmanywaysthehistoryoftherailwaysinwhatwasthenknownasthe‘DarkContinent’.

ThefirstrailwayintheCapeColonywascompletedin1863andthelinewasgradually extended northwards over the next couple of decades, reachingKimberley, the centre of the diamond mining industry, in 1885, thanks to abridgeovertheOrangeriverwhichRhodespersuadedtheBritishgovernmenttofund.Therewas something of a railway boom in SouthernAfrica in the finalfifteen years of the nineteenth century, stimulated by the discovery of variousmineralsbutalsobytheoutbreakofrinderpest,adiseaseofcattle,whichwipedout90percentoftheherdinSouthAfrica.Theconsequentshortageofoxentopullcartsmadetheneedforrailwaysevenmorepressing.

Several of the lines spreading across what is now the Republic of SouthAfricawerebuiltbyGeorgePauling,who,togetherwithhisbrotherHarry,andlaterhiscousinHarold,formedthemostsuccessfulrailwaycontractingcompanyin Africa. Pauling was one of the great characters of African railwaydevelopment, a fat man who professed that the only way to resist the localdisease was through vast consumption of food and, especially, alcohol.Famously,ononetwo-daytripalongtheBeiraRailwaywithitsmanagerAlfredLawley and chief engineer, A.M. Moore, the three consumed 300 bottles ofGerman beer.Breakfast for three, a few days later, consisted of 1,000 oysterswasheddownwithamodesteightbottlesofchampagne.ThePaulingbrotherswere largely responsible, too, for building up the network of railways insidewhatwaslaterRhodesia.ThedrivenorthwardswasdistractedbythediscoveryofgoldintheTransvaalandtheresultingconstructionofalinetotheeastwhichwasnotreallypartoftheCapetoCairoprojectanddivertedresourcesfromit.

Proposalsweredrawnup foranother railway, runningeast–west toprovidethe fast-growingFortSalisbury (laterSalisburyandnowHarare, thecapitalofZimbabwe),where therehadbeenagold rush,with anoutlet to the seaandaconnectionwiththepartlyconstructedmainCapetoCairoline.Rhodeshadhiseyeon thenascentcolonywhere theBritishflaghadonlybeenrecentlyraisedand where the white presence in 1890 amounted to little more than a fewhunters, prospectors and chancers, supported by the odd administrator. FortSalisburywas1,000milesfromKimberley,thenearestrailhead,andtheroadupfrom South Africa was made almost impassable by the rebellious localtribespeople.Arailwaytothenearestnavigablepoint,fiftymilesupthePungwe

riverfromBeirainMozambique,wasclearlytheanswerbutthePortuguese,thecolonial rulers, were reluctant to cooperate. It was only after the BritishdeliberatelyprovokedanincidentwithaPortuguesegunboatthatatreatyledtothestartoftheconstructionoftherailwayandPauling,freshfrombuildingalinebetween Pretoria in South Africa and Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) insouthernMozambique,wassoonappointedascontractor.

The line, whichwas the longest narrow gauge railway in theworld at thetimeusedthetiny2ftgauge.Itwasalsooneofthoseprojectswithaclaim,likethePanamaandtheIndianrailwayuptheGhats,tobeingthedeadliestintermsof the toll on its workforce. During the first two years of constructionwhichstarted in1892,GeorgeTabor, thehistorianof theCape toCairo, reckons that‘60percentofthewhitemen–about400[outofatotalofabout650]–diedoffever [and] the 500 Indian employees almost all succumbed’. 19TheAfricansfaredonlymarginallybetter,withadeathrateofaround30percentsincetheywereslightlymoreimmunetothemalarialmosquitoes.Malariawas,indeed,themain killer as the benefits of quinine were only just being understood, butdysentery, cholera and sleeping sickness also contributed to thehighmortalityrate,aswellastheshortageoffreshfoodbecauseofthelackoftransportwhichthe putative railway was intended to solve. There was, too, the ever presentdanger from thewildlife, particularly crocodiles and hippopotamuses 20 in theriverandlionsonthelandwhoquicklyrealizedtherewereeasypickingsatnightsince theworkersmostlyslept in theopenwhere theywereeasyprey: ‘Inonemonth lions scoffed two of our white employees’, 21 Pauling is reported assaying,omittingtomentionthenumerousnativevictimsofthefelinepredators.

The first fifty miles of construction, in particular, were a nightmare sinceconditionswere little different from those on themurderous PanamaRailwaybuilthalfacenturybefore.Therewaseventhesameproblemofdispensingwithbodies as coffins were in short supply, so the dead were unceremoniouslydumped in the river weighed down with stones: ‘Sometimes at night strangegurglingsoundswereheardandbubblesappeared,asgasescapedfromthefastdecomposing corpses. They also had a nasty habit of being washed up afterheavyrainsontopeople’sverandahs.’22 Itwas‘amonumental fewmonthsofmiseryintheworstfevercountryintheworld’.23

TherailwayhadtobebuiltonembankmentsbecauseoftheregularfloodingofthePungweandZambezirivers,whichturnsthewholeareaintoalake,andthusprogresswasslow.AllmaterialshadtobebroughtinfromGreatBritainbytugupthePungweriverfromBeirawiththeresultthattherailwaycouldonlybebuiltfromthatend,sincetherewasnoconstructionmaterialor,labouravailable

in Salisbury. But despite this difficulty and the terrible conditions, the linereached itshalfwaypoint to theMozambique frontier, seventy-fivemiles fromtheriver,inOctober1893,eighteenmonthsafterworkhadstarted.Thishastilyassembled railway, built to very low standards on its tiny gauge, wasimmediatelyputtouseandwasdeemedagreatsuccess.Itslittleenginescarriedpassengersinopen-toppedwagonsratherlikethoseonafairgroundridewith,ifthey were lucky, a tarpaulin to protect them from sparks, at speeds rarelyexceeding 10 mph. The male passengers had to be willing both to help liftcarriagesbackonthetrackafterthefrequentderailmentsandpushthetrainupthezigzagsandspurswhenasecondenginewasnotavailable.By1894,whenthelinereachedChimoio,nearly120milesfromtheriverheadatFontesvilla,therail journey would take anything between fourteen and thirty-six hoursdepending on the number of delays, in addition to the two-day cart ride to orfromSalisbury.AtChimoio,theusualfinancialdifficultiesandtheobstacleofamountain range,which had to be crossed atUmtali 24 on the border betweenMozambique and Rhodesia nearly 4,000 feet above sea level, broughtconstructiontoahalt.Eventually,withaworkforcenumberingupto12,000,thelinewascompletedtoSalisbury,200milesfromUmtali,in1899and,asbefittedsuchanimportantrailway,itsgaugewaswidenedtoafarmoremanageable3ft6ins.Salisburywassoonreachedfromthesouth,too,whichmeanttherewasathroughlinetoSouthAfricafromtheMozambiquecoast.

As with all such railways that establish a basic transport link where noneexistedbefore,thelineutterlytransformedtheeconomicsituationofthecountryitserved.Thelinecreatedasupplyrouteforbothgoods,especiallyvitalminingequipment,andpassengersthatconnectedSalisbury,hithertoanisolatedalmostwildbackwater,withthemodernworld.ThepoweroftherailwaywassuchthatUmtali,asmalltownbeforethearrivaloftheironroad,hadtobemovedinitsentiretywhenitwasfoundthatitslocationwasinaccessibletothelinebecauseofasteephillwheretheoldwagonroutecrossedtherangeatChristmasPass.Ifthe railwaycouldnotget to the town, then the townhad toget to the railway.Identical plots of land on the new sitewere allocated to householders and theramshackle buildingswere transported down the hill by the railway company.With the arrival of the railway, it became ‘a trim little townwith flamboyanttrees and parks [and] run by that old school of landladies that took the strainwhile their husbands took the back seat, often behind the bar’. 25 The BeiraRailway,althoughgoingeast–west,wasverymuchseenaspartof theCapetoCairoproject.WhenthefirsttrainfromBeirareachedUmtaliinFebruary1898,the locomotive was not only decorated with flowers but it also sported the

colloquialandultimatelymisguidedmessage:‘Nowweshan’tbelongtoCairo’.In 1898, Rhodes brought the main line of the Cape to Cairo up through

BechuanalandtoBulawayoinsouthernRhodesia26havingpersuadedPaulingtobuild the railway at great speed across the vast Kalahari Desert. While theweather conditionswereverydifferent from those in theMozambique forests,theywereequallyharshwithhightemperaturesandashortageofwater,butthetarget of a mile per day was achieved. It was an efficient operation overrelatively easy territory, redolent of the last stages of the first transcontinentalacrosstheUSA.AtonestagethesurveyingpartieswerejustadayaheadoftheplatelayersandthedivisionoflabourwasFordianwitheverymancarryingoutaspecifictaskefficiently,fromlayingoutthesleepersandrails, tospreadingtheballast andbanging in the spikes to secure the rails.Bridgeswereoften crudetemporary affairs that would have to be improved later but speed was of theessenceasRhodeswasrightlyconcernedabout theunstablepoliticalsituation,whichwouldeventuallyleadtotheoutbreakoftheBoerWar27inOctober1899and,asheforesaw,putahalttofurtherprogress.

Rhodes’sachievementinbringingtheline1,400milesupfromtheCapewasrecognizedbyQueenVictoriawhosenther congratulationsduring tendaysofriotouscelebrationsthatgreetedtherailway,whichthegreatmanhimselfmissedas he was convalescing from a bout of malaria. The question on reachingBulawayo was where would the railway go next? Rhodes, confident that hecould now achieve his goal, wanted to take the shortest route up to LakeTanganyika, about 800miles throughRhodesia,where the coaches and truckswouldbecarried400milesnorthonferries.Theroutewouldhaveveeredeastbetween the borders of the Congo Free State and Portuguese-controlledMozambique, north up to Lake Tanganyika, and then on ferries through threeother lakes,Kivu,EdwardandAlbert,with rail connections to cover the shortlandgapsbetweenthem.TheroutewouldhavecontinuedthroughUgandaalongto theWhiteNile, andup toCairo, againwith longsectionsbeingcoveredbyshipsalongtheriver.

Thisdirect route, though,wasblockedbecauseofamistakeby theForeignOffice a decade previously which had allowed Germany to gain control ofTanganyika,therebycreatingabarrieracrossEasternAfricawherethemapwasnolongerpink.Rhodes,realizinghewouldhavetonegotiatewiththeKaisertoallow the railway topass throughEastAfrica,went toBerlinbut after severalmeetingsitbecameclearthattheGermanswereadamantthataBritishrailwaywouldnotbeallowedtocrosstheirterritory.HedidofferRhodestheconcessionof allowing a telegraph line to be built across the territory, and ultimately a

ricketywire,heldupbytreesandthinpoles,carriedsignalsallthewaythroughtotheMediterranean.Rhodes’shopesthatthisthinmetalcablewouldopentheway for a railway were misplaced, especially given the added problem offinance. The British government, which blew hot and cold on Rhodes’s greatproject, showed no interest in providing the £2m that Rhodes estimated wasneededtobuildit.

Nevertheless, Rhodes did manage to continue northwards from Bulawayo.Paulingwasawillingcontributortotheenterprise,promisingasevertobuildamile a day, and Rhodes cobbled together the finance from various sources,includingDeBeers,thediamondcompanyhehadcreated.DelayedbytheBoerWarandthenbythedeathofRhodesinMarch1902agedjustforty-nine,thelinereachedVictoriaFallsafterarelativelyeasy300milesfromBulawayoin1904amidtheusualcelebrationsandthearrivalofyetanotherlocomotivebedeckedin greenery, palms for Cairo and proteas, the beautiful local flowering plants,representingtheCape.

Likeontheothertranscontinentals,thelinesoonattractedthoseadventurous–andaffluent–touristswillingtobravethediscomfortsoftheweatherandthesheer lengthof the journey,aswellas the indignityofhaving todownadailydoseofbitterquinineservedwithbreakfast,inordertovisitapartoftheworldnot hitherto seen by a Westerner until ‘discovered’ by Livingstone barely ageneration before. The Zambezi Express was soon a regular arrival, with thepassengers using the train to sleep on until the opening of the Victoria FallsHotelin1906.Therewas,too,theDiamondExpress,theImperialMailand theAfricanExpresswhichwenttovariousplacesonthecoast,providedbytheCapeGovernment Railways.No expensewas spared to attract these luxury touristswhomight,otherwise,sojournontheRivieraortakewatersintheGermanspas.The coaches were ‘finished with oak panels, teak framing and mahoganymouldings;windowswere hungwith crimson curtains and tableswere spreadwithstartlingwhitelinen’.28 ‘Express’wasnotexactlyanaccuratedescriptionforthesetrains,astheaveragespeedwasonlyabout35mphcomparedwiththe50–55mphcommoninWesternEurope.This‘Africanspeed’meantCapeTowntoBulawayowas scheduledat justunder threedays,butwhocaredwhen six-coursemealsofthehighestqualityincludingexcellentwineswereservedthreetimes a day, along with refreshments in mid-morning and afternoon. Afterdinner,themenretiredtoarathercrampedsmokingroomorperhapstheyhadabathusingtheconstantflowofhotwateravailablefromtheengine’sboiler.

The height of luxury, though, was simply to rent a private carriage whichcouldbetackedontoascheduledservice.Thesebecameavailablein1909andeachonecomprisedthreebedrooms,abathroom,aloungeinwhichmealswere

taken, awriting or smoking room, a reading room for the ladies aswell as acoupleofspareroomsinwhichtodumptheservantsandluggage.Forthepriceof £360 per week (say £20,000 in today’s money) the food and chef wereincluded.

It was not, however, these luxury travellers who were going to make theinvestmentworthwhileanddeliverareturntotheshareholders.Itwastherichesof the minerals, hundreds of miles to the north, that would provide the realbonanza but first there was the obstacle of the Zambezi river to be crossed.Paulinghaddeliberatelybrought the line toVictoriaFallsbecauseRhodeshadalwaysstressedthathewantedoneofthegreatestsightsintheworldtobeseenfrom the railway, despite the fact that there appeared to be a rather easiercrossingataplacecalled theOldDrifta fewmilesupriver. In fact, thoughhenever lived to see the bridge, Rhodes proved unerringly prescient. A surveydiscovered that within sight of the Falls, there is a gorge that allowed thecrossingtobemadewithasinglespanofjust600feet,andthebankswerefoundtobeof solidbasalt rock thatwas sufficently strong toprovide foundations atbothends.Breachingthechasmwashardenough,however,andtherewasmuchtroublemerelyconnectingthetwosides:whenakitefailedtocarryalineacross,asmallrocketattachedwitha thincablewasused,andthenthickeronesweredragged across until eventually an electric winch carrying men in a deviceresemblingaski-liftchaircouldbedeployed.Unsureofthequalityandabilityofthe local labour, the bridgewas built inEngland in the yard of the successfulcontractor, Cleveland’s of Darlington, which had bid lower than Pauling andwouldlaterbuildtheSydneyHarbourBridge.Thebridgewastransportedinkitform to the shorewhere it was assembled like a giantMeccano set. The twohalvesofthesingle-archcantileveredbridgewerebuiltoutsimultaneouslyfromboth banks until theywere ready to be joined. The datewas anticipatedwithtrepidation.OnAprilFoolsDay1905,anoddchoice,justfourteenmonthsafterworkonthebridgehadstarted,thetwosectionswerejoined,withanaudienceofthousands of tribespeople from across the country attracted by their chief’spredictionof a spectacular collapse into the abyss.TheCassandrawas provedwrong.After some difficulty caused by heat expansion, the two halves of thebridge were successfully bolted together and the ensuing celebrations lastedseveral dayswith the added feature of a regatta upstream from the Falls. Thebridgespanningthegorgeiseasilythemostimpressiveandmemorablestructureof theCape toCairoproject, offeringoneof themost striking railway imagesanywhere in the world, comparable with the Forth Bridge or those ricketytrestlesfromthepioneeringdaysoftheUSrailroads.

ThecompletionofthebridgegaveaccesstocentralAfrica,andwithRhodes

gone, it was George Pauling who was eager to push the railway northwards,though for interests thatwere rather baser than the notion of aCape toCairorailway.HewassupportedandfundedbyRobertWilliams,whohadobtainedtheconcession to exploitminerals in a large areanorthof theZambezi.Williams,rightly, had predicted there would be extensive mineral wealth on the dividebetweentheCongoandtheZambezirivers,butneededarailwaytoexploitthedepositshispreliminaryprospectinghaduncoveredandhetookupthemantleoftheCapetoCairoproject.

Even before the bridge had been completed, therefore, his contractor, thetirelessPauling,wasbusyatworknorthoftheFallssurveyingtheareatofindarouteuptotheKafueriverinNorthernRhodesia(nowZambia)andawayacrossit.Alocomotivetohelpwiththeworkhadbeenstrippeddownintosmallenoughparts to carry across theZambezi on thewinch andPauling,with a surveyingteam, headed into the plains. This surveying party was a bizarre mix of theluxuriousandthemake-do.Thesurveyorswereaccompaniedbyapartyof300porters carrying both the necessities and luxuries of camp life, ranging fromtables, beds and chairs, to medicine chests, barometers and compasses. And,sincePaulingwas incharge, largequantitiesofalcohol,especiallychampagne,were in the baggage train.The chef, according to Pauling, 29was a ‘treasure’who‘providedmagnificentdinners’everynight,comparablewiththosefoundinmajor European hotels from amixture of game, fruit and vegetables gatheredfromtheplainandtinscarriedbytheporters.Workingfromdawntodusk,withabreakforthemiddayheat,thepartytrekkeduptotwentymilesdailyworkingouttheroute.Atnight,therewastheoccasionalgameofbridge,thoughmostlyPauling and his fellow surveyors were too tired, instead indulging in ‘asomnolentsmoke’beforeturningin.

AswellastheusualdangersfacingrailwaybuildersinAfrica,therewastheaddedperilofhostiletribesmen,andcannibalswithaparticularlikingforyoungwomen’s thighs and babies.One night, Paulingwas appalled to be told that acoupleofhisworkershadstolenatwo-month-oldbabyfromanearbykraalandwere preparing to cook it. Hemanaged to prevent the feast just in time. Thehostilelocaltribesmanwereafiercebunch,deliberatelyeschewinganyclotheseven on cold evenings to demonstrate their manhood, both physically andpsychologically.Thehungry lions in the areawere, too, particularly voraciousandindiscriminate,gobblingupeverythingfromtheoxenused tohaulcarts tothevariouspetsPaulingandtheotherwhiteshadtakenwiththem,aswellasanymenunwiseenoughnottoensuretheirtentswerewellsecured.Thelargeherdsofroamingelephantsprovedtobeahazardtothesupplytrainsrunningupthecompleted sectionsof the line, causing collisionswhichwere fatal toboth the

beastsandthetraincrews.The big obstacle was the Kafue river. The flat terrain means that the

meandering river isup toamilewide inparts,buta sectionwhere itwas just1,500feetwasfound,andabridgewiththirteensteelspanslaidwithremarkablespeed, in just six months. The spans were supplied from England by theprosaically namedPatent Shaft andAxleTree company and sent by rail fromCapeTown.TheaimwastoreachtheCongoFreeStateborder400milesaway,buttheinitialcontractwastobuildtherailwayfromjustnorthoftheZambezitoBrokenHillwhereWilliamshadalreadyestablishedarudimentarytowntoservethemine.Thelinewasbuiltwithremarkablespeed,withPaulingachievinghisusualtargetofamileadaybytakingjustninemonthstocomplete281milesofrailway,admittedlyovertheeasytopographyofthegreatcentralplateau.Ontheway, almost casually, the town that would become the capital of NorthernRhodesia,Lusaka,namedafterthelocalheadman,wascreated.

By theendof1906, therefore, the linestretchedover2,000miles from theCape,andPaulingwantedtocontinuetotheborderbuttherewasnofinanceandno precise idea of where the railway would go. After a delay of three years,Pauling, largely funding the project himself, began building again towards thefrontierwith theCongoFreeStateandcrossed it, taking theCape toCairoforthefirsttimeoffBritishsoil.ItstretchedfarintotheCongo,thepersonalfiefdomof theappallingKingLeopold IIofBelgium,whose legacyofoppressionandexploitationforpersonalaggrandisementremainstoday.In1918,atBukama,30on the banks of yet another part of the Congo river systemwhich comprises12,000milesofnavigablewaterway,450miles from theborderwithNorthernRhodesia, theCape toCairoproject finally came to an end.Therewere trainsthatrantwiceperweek,withexoticnamessuchasCapeorCongoExpress,fromthe Cape to Bukama, taking six days to cover 2,600 miles. From Bukama,steamersalong theUpperCongoreachedLakeTanganyika,whichwasnowinBritishhandshavingbeentakenfromtheGermansasoneofthespoilsofvictoryin theFirstWorldWar.During thewar, thepolitical ambition to complete theschemehadbrieflyflourishedintheForeignOffice,butaftertheArmistice,thepoliticalmomentumstalledandultimatelydissipated.

TheprojectmightnothavefulfilledRhode’sdreambutthesouthernsectionof theCape toCairo providedAfricawith a spinal railway offwhich variousbranches reached the sea, either directly or via navigable waterways. KingLeopold, for example, eager to exploit the resources of ivory and rubber, andlater all kinds of other minerals, had developed a railway in the early 1890sbetweenMatadi, upriver from the coast, and Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) tobypass a section of river which was not navigable. The construction of this

narrow gauge line, just 750 mm (2ft 5½ins), was another of those desperateaffairs with a mortality that was inconceivably high; it took three years tocomplete the first fourteenmiles and eight to finish thewhole240miles.Thenavigablesectionof the riverendedatPortFrancqui31 and to tap themineralwealth of the Katanga 32 region a line was started that eventually joinedPauling’satBukama.

Further south there was the Benguela Railway across Angola, whicheventuallymettheCapetoCairoatTshilongo,100milessouthofBukama.TheBenguelawas another epic railwaywhichwas largely thework, yet again, ofPauling’s company. Built at the instigation of Robert Williams with Britishmoney, it ransolely throughPortugueseandBelgian territorysince, fouryearsbeforehis death in1909,Leopoldhadhandedoverhis personal colony to theBelgianstate.Williams’sintentionwastoprovidetheshortestpossiblerouteforthe export of copper fromKatanga, cutting the journeyvia theCapeby3,000miles. Labour was scarce, as the coastal Angolans had been decimated bysuccessiveslaveraidsandimportedworkerssuccumbedquicklytoalltheusualtropical diseases. The topography was difficult, too, with a mountain rangehavingtobecrossedwithinthefirstfiftykilometresandasteeponeandahalf-mile rack railway was built to reach the plateau 3,000 feet above the ocean,which was still visible from the railway.Williams had hoped there would beplenty of mineral discoveries on the way, but was to be disappointed as thesurveyingteams,spreading100kilometresouteithersideoftherailway,foundnothing other than a small copper deposit. Stopping for the war and theinevitableshortagesoffinance, theprojectwasnotcompleteduntil1932whenthe connection with the Cape to Cairo was eventually made. Apart from themodest line running entirely inSouthAfrica, linkingCapeTown andDurban,whichwas completed inOctober 1895, theBenguela thus became part of theonly true transafrican railway since it provided a through route linking theAtlantic port ofBenguela inAngolawithBeira inMozambique on the Indianocean.33

These railways incentralAfricawerebuilt toexploit resources, rather thanbring in development. Theywere not, in contrast to the other transcontinentallines, seen as away of opening up the area for immigrantswhowould createself-sustainingcommunities.Nordidtheystimulatelocaleconomicdevelopmentfortheexistinginhabitants.TheAfricanswerepushedasideinthesamewayasthe Indians in the USA, but the climate and conditions were too harsh forpermanentsettlementbywhites.Instead,theminerals,whichweresignedawaybylocalchiefseitherbysubterfugeorforce,wereremovedataminimumcost

with the help of the railways.While these lines inevitably created a few localjobsintheminesandontherailwaysthemselves,theirprimarypurposewastheextraction of minerals and other primary resources through a process thatprovided little benefit to local people and their communities. Their purpose,indeed, was the same as that of the original wagonways built in Britain andelsewhereinEuropefromtheseventeenthcenturyonwards,thelinkingofmineswiththenearestnavigablewaterway,except,ofcourse,theywereconsiderablylonger.

If the southern sectionof theCape toCaironevergot as far asRhodes,orindeedWilliams,hadhoped,nordidthenorthern.StartinginEgyptandrunningthroughSudan,itwasanequallyambitiousexercisesimplybecauseofthesheerscale of the enterprise, even though it passed through relatively easy territory.The line had to traverse vast swathes of desert, and its construction in thoseharshconditionswasonlymadepossible throughmilitarydiscipline. Indeed, itwas intended as a military railway built to give the British access deep intoSudan,andwasconstructedattheinstigationofHerbert(laterLord)Kitchener,whoatthetimewasthesirdar(commander-in-chief)oftheEgyptianarmy.

Before the British occupied Egypt in 1882, the Egyptians already had anembryonic railwaysystem,Africa’s first.Completed in1856 the120-mile lineconnected the port of Alexandria on the Mediterranean with Cairo and wasdesignedbynoneotherthantheubiquitousRobertStephenson.Therailwaywasnomean achievement, having to cross theNile twice, and the linewashighlyprofitableasitattractedtravellersusingtheoverlandroutebetweenEuropeandIndia,whichavoidsthelongseavoyageviatheCape,whopreviouslyhadtousecamels or roughhorse-drawn carriages to crossEgypt.Despite the openingoftheSuezCanalin1869,whichtookawaymuchofitsrevenue,therailwaywasextended to reachedAssiut on the banks of theNile by 1874 and Luxor 340milessouthofCairoin1898.

Sudan,southofEgypt,hadbeenabandonedin1885bytheBritishafterthesiegeofKhartoumwhichendedwith themassacreofGordonandhisarmybyrebels,ledbyMahdiMuhammadAhmad,areligiousleaderopposedtoWesterncontrolofEgypt.Adecadelater,KitchenerobtainedpermissionfromtheBritishgovernmenttobuildtheSudanMilitaryRailwaythroughtoKhartouminorderto reconquer the country and defeat the Mahdi rebels. To get to Khartoum,hundredsofmilesacrossthedesert,KitchenerrealizedthatarailwaywasneededfromtheSudanesefrontieratWadiHalfaontheNilewhichcouldbereachedbyshipsfromLuxor.

Helped by an eccentric but capable young Canadian military railwayengineer, Edouard Girouard, and supplies from the United Kingdom, work

started in 1896 with the reinstatement of an existing railway that had beendestroyed by the Mahdi’s followers. At first progress was slow. While theterritorywasflatdesert,conditionsweredifficultbecauseofthewatershortage,which was simultaneously also making life difficult for Pauling across theKalahari3,000milessouth.Temperatureswereregularlyabove40°Cduringthedaybutfortunatelywater,essentialforbothmenandmachines,wasfoundattwopointsalongtheline,whichsavedtheday.Thelabourforce,too,wassomewhatunreliable since a shortageofmenhad led to convicts andothermisfits beingtakenon,butsoonthemilitarydisciplineandprecisionpaidoffandconstructionreacheda ferociouspacewith, at times, threemilesbeingcompleted in aday.Girouardwasgreatlyhelpedbythefactthathehadcadgedfiveengines,destinedforthesouthernAfricasection,fromRhodes,whomhehadmetonatripbacktoLondontosortoutsupplies.Everyday,twotrainsweresentdownthelinefromWadiHalfa,wherealltheengineeringworkwascarriedout,totheteamslayingthetrack.Thefirstwouldarriveatdawn,carrying2,000yardsofrailalongwithsleepersandtheaccessoriesneededtolaythem,and,ofcourse,water,whilethesecond,atnoon,broughtinmorerailandotherequipment,butalsotheluxuriesforthewhiteengineersthatkepttheirmoraleup:aswellasfoodandwatertherewould be whisky, cigarettes and even newspapers. Only halted by occasionalbattles, which were won easily thanks to the supply line, and intermittentproblemswiththeavailabilityofequipment,KitchenerandtherailwayreachedOmdurman,ontheoutskirtsofKhartoum,inSeptember1898wherethedecisivebattle34 forcontrolof thecountrywas fought, inwhich, incidentally,WinstonChurchilltookpart.35Aremarkable576milesofrailwayhadbeencompletedinundertwoyears,amidconditionsofextremehostilitybothfromtheweatherandthelocalpopulation.NowonderthattherailwaywasfetedbyVictorianwritersas‘thegreatestweaponagainsttheMahdi’.

TheEgyptianrailwayswerestandardgaugebutKitchenerbuilthislinetothecheaperCapegauge,3ft6ins,demonstratinghisambitionthatonedayitwouldmeetupwithRhodes’srailwaysdownsouth–althoughthemorepracticalreasonmayhavebeenthatthefive3ft6insgaugelocomotivesGirouardhadborrowedfromRhodeswereCapegauge.Withrapidprogressatbothends,by1900thereseemedastrongpossibilitythattheCapetoCairorailwaywouldbecompleted.Thatyear,RhodeshadcheekilysentatelegramtoKitchener,saying‘ifyoudon’tlook sharp, I will reach Uganda before you’. Kitchener replied, with equalchutzpah,‘hurryup’.ButtherewasalongwaytogoandtheBoerWar,thelackofwillon thepartof theBritishgovernment, theblockageby theGermans inTanganyika and the sheer ambition of the project meant it would never be

completed.AswastheBritishway,withtheexceptionoftheSudanlinedriventhrough

byKitchener and small sections in theCapeColony andEastAfrica, the vastmajorityof the completed sectionsof theCape toCairohadbeenbuilt by theprivatesector.TheCape toCairomayneverhavebeenfinished,but itspartialconstruction left behind a notable legacy, helping to establish a permanentBritishpresenceinmuchofcentralandsouthernAfricaandeffectivelycreatingthetwonewcoloniesofnorthernandsouthernRhodesiawhich,understandably,werenamedaftertherailway’sprincipalprotagonist.

Hadthelinebeenfinished, itwouldnot, inanycase,havebeenacompleterailway like theother transcontinentals. Itwasnever envisaged that a travellerwouldhavebeenabletoundertakethewholejourneyinasingletrainbecauseofthe difference in gauges and the various sections covered by boat. The riverjourneyon theNile extendedmore than850miles and therewerenoplans tobuildaparallelrailway.

Nevertheless,by1928,withtheconstructionofasectionoflineinUganda,the whole journey became possible by public transport – buses, trains andsteamers–andentirelyonBritish territoryasMombasa,on theKenyancoast,could be reached by a combination of boat and train from Khartoum. Thebuildingof theSudanMilitaryRailwayhad stimulated furtherdevelopmentofthe iron road inSudan to serve local interests rather than as part of the granddesignofatranscontinentalrailway.TherailwayreachedKosti,240milessouthofKhartoum in 1911, fromwhere a ship could be taken up theNile to Juba.Therefolloweda100-milejourneyinabusoverthefrontierintoUgandawhere,atNimule,asteameranda furtherbusreachedanother railheadatNamagasalifromwhere,aftertwoseparatelineshadbeenlinkedin1928,adirecttrainwenttoMombasa.Itwasnotatripforthecasualtraveller!

Mombasa, an old slaving port on the Indian Ocean, had been the startingpoint for the Uganda Railway, whose name referred only to its projecteddestination,sinceitsentire600-milelengthwasinKenya,terminatingatKisumuonthelake.AboatcouldthenbetakentoKampalainUganda,althoughlaterthelinewas extended there.Thiswas a truly imperial project, built by theBritishgovernmentwithlittlepurposeotherthantocementitscolonialpower,andwasdubbedbythepressasthe‘LunaticRailway’becauseofthecostanddifficultyofconstruction.

After much discussion in the British Parliament, the sum of £5m wasallocated, though Pauling, who was snubbed for the contract because of hisassociationwiththeout-of-favourRhodes,claimedhecouldhavedoneit forathirdof theprice.Therewere few local inhabitantsand the labourwas largely

imported from India, with 32,000 men being brought over from the Indiansubcontinent soon afterwork started in 1896.Many died, such as the twenty-eightkilledbyapairofferociousmanelesslionsatChristmas1898,promptingtheir fellows to strike until the beasts were shot and, overall, the meticulousrecords kept by the railway showed that 2,498 workers died during theconstruction. Although most of the surviving Indians returned home to thesubcontinent, precisely 6,724 chose to stay after the completion of the line in1901, creating a community of Indian East Africans who were to flourish astradersandmerchants,butlatersufferthedisgracefulexpulsionfromUgandabyIdiAmin’s dictatorship in the 1970s.The line swept through the gap betweenMountKilimanjaroandMountKenyaandhalfwayalongreachedNairobi,thenlittle more than a water hole in a swampy marshland but, thanks to theavailabilityofflatland,wasmadetherailway’sheadquarters.AsTaborputsit,‘noothercapitalcitydevelopedsoreadilyandrapidlybecauseoftherailway,asdidNairobi’.36AfterpassingNairobiandcrossingtheGreatRiftValley,thelineclimbed up the escarpment on twenty-seven viaducts to reach the astonishingheightof8,740feetwheretherewasthecoldeststationintheBritishEmpire–ontheequator.

TheUgandaRailway,which at £5.5m cost only 10 per centmore than itsbudget because the British government had been pessimistic in its estimates,provedtobeanythingbut‘lunatic’sinceitwashandedtoaprivatecompanyandquicklybecameprofitable.Branchesweresoonbuilttohelptheexportofcoffee,sodaandsisal,andteabecameaviablecropthankstoeasyaccesstoMombasa.Moreover, the railway effectively realised the original aim of establishingBritain’s undisputed rule over the territory.Unlike the lines in theCongo, theUgandaRailwayattractedconsiderablenumbersofsettlerswhograbbedthelandwithoutanyregardforthenativepopulationandtherailwayeffectivelycreatedthecoloniesofKenyaandUganda.

Furthersouth,theGermansdidmuchthesameforTanganyika.TheybuiltaparallellineinlandfromDaresSalaamwhicheventuallyreachedKigomaonthebanksofLakeTanganyika1,200kilometresawayinFebruary1914,justbeforetheoutbreakofthewarwhichwouldresultinGermanylosingitscolonies.ThelinetookmuchlongertobuildthantheparallelBritishonefurthernorth,partlybecauseofunderstandableGermanhesitancyabout thevalueof the railway tothemother country’s economy, but also because of the bureaucratic nature ofGerman administrative processes born of the Teutonic emphasis onGründlichkeit (thoroughness). Just like theRussianson theTrans-Siberian, theGermans insistedonaccountingforeverythinghoweversmallandreporting ingreat detail back to the centre, which caused endless headaches for railway

managersandcreatedaweightybureaucracy.Thehistorianoftheline,M.F.Hill,recounts a lengthy dispute between Berlin and the line’s supervisor whocomplained bitterly ‘that the typewriter ribbon sent to him did not fit hisRemingtonmachine’ and that previous requests for a newmachine ‘had beenrefusedonthegroundsthat[his]officeworkwaslikelytodecrease’.37Hisletterwas accompanied by a four-page memorandum listing the typewriter’s faults,whichHillwasabletouncoverwhenhewrotetherailway’shistoryfiftyyearslater,thoughhedoesnottelluswhetherthesupervisor’srequestwasgranted.

Despite such obstacles, another line was built from Tanga, on the IndianOcean almost equidistant between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, northwardstowards the southern flank of Kilimanjaro and terminating just east of themountainatArusha.Theselines, too,attractedsettlers,particularlyfromSouthAfrica where many Boer farmers were eager to flee British control. TheGermansbrieflyconsideredtheideaofanextensiontomeettheCapetoCairoand run a line through to the Congo Free State, but realized there was noeconomic justification since the rich minerals from Katanga would never betransportedinaneasterlydirection.Orat leastnotuntilsixtyyears later,whentheChinese tookan interest,building theTazaraRailway toenableZambia toexport itscopperwithoutgoing throughSouthAfricaorRhodesia.Sectionsofthe line are actually on the route theCape toCairomight have taken had theKaisernotblockeditspath,andasaresultthedreamofaCapetoCairorailwayis not entirely dead. As recently as 2004, the Sudanese governmentcommissionedastudybyGermanconsultantsforaraillinktoKenyaconnectingeventuallywiththeTazaraline,whichwouldalmostcompleteRhodes’svision.Itwaspricedat$25bnfora1,500-milerailway,butwarandpoliticaldifficultieshaveintervenedtoputtheideaonhold.

ThethirdcolonialpowerwithtransafricanrailambitionswasFrance,whichnottobeoutdone,hadastrategyinthelate1890stolinkitscoloniesfromwestto east across the continent, from Senegal to Djibouti. Southern Sudan andEthiopia were in the way, but France sent expeditions in 1897 to establish aprotectorateinsouthernSudanandtofindarouteacrossEthiopia.TheschemefounderedwhenaBritishflotillaontheNileconfrontedtheFrenchexpeditionatthe point of intersection between theFrench andBritish routes, leading to theFashoda Incident. Kitchener and the leader of the French expedition, MajorJean-Baptiste Marchand, who had reached Fashoda on the Nile south ofKhartoum, with a force of 150 after an epic fourteen-month march fromBrazzaville, 38 discussed the situation over copious amounts of champagnebroughtbytheFrenchacrossAfrica.TheFrenchnotonlypaidforthedrink,but

hadtoacceptdefeatsinceKitchenerhadarrivedwithafarbiggerforce,andtheirrespectivegovernmentseventuallycommunicatedatreatythat involvedFrenchwithdrawal. As a result, the French were forced to abandon any hopes ofestablishing a presence in the Nile and, instead, the British allowed themunfetteredaccesstothousandsofsquaremilesoftheSaharaDesert.Despitethissetback, the French Transaharien continued to be part of the lexicon of itspoliticiansforseveraldecadesandtheVichygovernment,thepuppetregimeoftheGerman invaders in theSecondWorldWar,evenbegan tobuild it in1943butthatattemptwassoonabandoned,finallyputtinganendtothewholemadcapconcept.

Australia,too,wouldeventuallyboastatranscontinentalrailwayand,amazingly,itsnorth–southline,theGhan,namedaftertheAfghancameltrainswhichusedtotrekalongthesameroute,wasonlycompletedin2004(seeChapter13).Thetranscontinental east–west connection across Australia was, like in Canada, abribe for a far-off province to join the club. The railway linking Perth acrosshundreds of miles of empty desert with Port Augusta in South Australia andthencetherestofthecountry(though,ofcourse,withdifferentgauges)wasoneof the inducementsoffered toWesternAustralia to join theCommonwealthofAustraliawhichthefiveotherstatesestablishedin1901.Ittooktenyearstosortout the surveyand the legislationwaseventuallypassed inDecember1911. Itauthorized the construction of a line between the two existing railheads,Kalgoorlie,which had been reached by a 400-mile narrow gauge governmentrailwayin1896fromPerthandPortAugusta, theSouthAustralianrailhead. Itwas an enterprise that may not have been on the scale of the othertranscontinental railwaysas itwasonly1,050miles longbutwasneverthelessremarkable,notleastbecauseitwasundertakenquicklyatatimewhentheworldwasatwarwhichcreatedseveresupplydifficulties.Admittedlytheterrainwasflat, with a huge plateau covering over half the distance, allowing the line toincludethelongeststretchofstraightrailwayanywhereintheworld,adistanceof 297miles. 39 However, the climate was harsh, with temperatures at timestopping 50°C and, crucially, not a single water course was crossed. The aridconditions not only presented enormous difficulties during construction, but,oncethelinewasopen,thesteam-hauledtrainshadtocarrywaterequivalenttohalf their load, making operations inefficient and expensive. Work started inSeptember1912 fromboth ends andwas completed fiveyears later.Althoughthe adjoining railways at either endwere narrow gauge, the line was built tostandard gauge, forcing through travellers to change trains.Worse, passengers

hadtochangetrainsagainatTerowie,136milesnorthofAdelaide,becausethelineconnectingwith thestatecapitalusesbroadgauge (5ft3ins)asa resultofSouthAustraliahavingbuiltrailwaysinthreegauges.40Itwasonlyin1970thatAustralia’sintercityroutewasfinallyconvertedtostandardgauge.

Whilethesetranscontinentalrailwayswerethebiggestprojectsoftheirday,the period in which they were being built, particularly the last quarter of thenineteenth century, was the heyday of railway construction inmost countries.VirtuallyeverycountryintheworldwiththeexceptionofafewAfricancoloniesand even including some small islands, had a railwayby the beginningof thetwentiethcentury,builtforavarietyofreasonsandpurposes.

THEINVASIONOFTHERAILWAY

By the final quarter of the nineteenth century, railways were well establishedthroughout the world, and the sight of a steam locomotive puffing across thecountryside had become commonplace, not only in towns and on the majorroutes between them, but also in remote regions penetrated by the burgeoningnumberofbranchlines.In1880therewere280,000miles1ofrailwayandthatwould rise to nearly 500,000 by the end of the century. Across the worldrailwaysweregrowingattherateof10,000milesperyearandwouldcontinuetodosountiltheoutbreakoftheFirstWorldWar.Thiswastheperiodwhentherailways were in their pomp, spreading everywhere with the misguidedconfidencethattherailwayagewoulddefinethetwentiethcenturyasithadthenineteenth.

Thefirstundergroundrailwaywascompleted inLondonin1863,and therewasnoshortageofotherastonishingengineeringfeats,butthelastquarterofthecenturywouldseerailwaysgobeyondwhathadbeenachievedbeforetoconquerthemost inhospitable parts of theworld. Therewere no boundaries, physical,social or topographical, which could prevent their progress or delay theirdominance.Thetranscontinentalrailwaysmayhavebeentheheadlinestealersintermsof theirambitionbut theywerebynomeans theonlyones toovercomeremarkable obstacles.Mountains, rivers, deserts and jungles, as well as sheerdistance,wereallcomfortablyignoredastherailwayreachedplacesthatseemedinaccessibleforsuchacumbersomeandcomplexinvention.Sincetheseregionswereoftenlittleinhabited,thesenewrailwayswere,aswiththetranscontinentalschemes,frequentlypoliticallyratherthaneconomicallydriven.Evenso,manywere used for a precise economic purpose only, serving a particular mine orfacilitatingtheexportofasingleagriculturalproductlikesugarorwheat.

The global expansion of railways was at its peak in the final twenty-fiveyearsof thenineteenthcenturywhenindustrialdevelopmentinmanycountrieswas stimulating unprecedented rates of economic growth and the railwaywasunchallengedastheprincipalmeansoftransportforbothpassengersandfreight,since the development of motor cars and lorries was still embryonic. But itworkedtheotherway,too.Forsomecountriestheopeningoftheirfirstrailway

wasthestimulusforaperiodofsustainedeconomicgrowthandindustrializationbasedon thedevelopmentandspreadof the railwaynetwork.EveryEuropeancountry,2exceptforAlbania,3hadarailwayby1869whenbothRomaniaandGreece opened their first lines. By the early 1880smost Asian countries hadjoined the age of the iron road at the behest of their colonial powers, and inCentralandSouthAmericavirtuallyeverystateboastedatleastafewmilesoftrack. The hectic pace of railway construction only came to a halt with theoutbreakoftheFirstWorldWarin1914whichcoincided,too,withthegrowthof road transport thatwasbeginning toshift investmentaway from the iron tothetarmacroad.It is impossible,at thisstage, tomentioneverycountrywheretherailwayswerebeginningtobedeveloped,asthiswouldbebothlengthyandrepetitive, but there are several stories worth outlining in some detail asexemplarsformanyothers.

Latin America, for the most part, had been a late starter and its ruggedtopographymadeconstructiondifficult.However, thosemountainsand ravineswere obstacles for roadbuilding, too, and therefore railways were often thecheapest way of giving access to remote regions. At the time, parts of thecontinentwerehighlydeveloped,witheconomiesthatwereasaffluentasthosein Europe, and consequently railway building was equally rapid. This wasparticularly true of the most economically advanced South American state,Argentina,whichopeneditsfirstlinerelativelylatebutwouldeventuallyboastaremarkablenetworkof26,500miles–inthreedifferentgauges–justbeforetheonsetoftheSecondWorldWar,builtlargelywithBritishcapitalandequipment.Thecountry’snetworkwasmoreextensivethanthatof itsfar largerandmuchmore populous northern neighbour Brazil because Argentina’s rulers betterunderstoodthepotentialofthenewtechnology.Initially,theyusedtherailwaysto attract settlers to remote but fertile regions which then, in turn, stimulatedrapideconomicgrowthandfurtherexpansionoftherailsystem.TheArgentinesystemdevelopedwestwardsoutof theports,creatinganextensivenetwork inthe hinterlandprimarily for goods traffic.Given thatArgentina had the eighthlargestlandareaintheworldandyetitspopulationwasundertwomillionwhenthe first line opened, the rapid growth of the network was a remarkableachievement.

TheconcessiontobuildthefirstrailwaywaswonbyanEnglishman,WilliamBragge, and was built to the strange gauge of 5ft 6ins, the same as Indianrailways, reputedly because equipment destined for the subcontinent had beenacquired by Argentina. 4 The inaugural railway, between Buenos Aires andFlores twelve miles away, opened in August 1857 and was the start of what

wouldbecomethe7,400milesFerrocarrilOestedeBuenosAires(BuenosAiresWesternRailway).Thelengthoflinewasdoubledby1860but,despiteattractingconsiderablepatronage, therailwaysoonfell intofinancialdifficultiesandwastaken over by theBuenosAires government. That did not stop its expansion,with the railway reaching Chivilcoy, 100miles from the capital, in 1866 andbranch lines being quickly added. Cattle, the country’smain export, were themainstayofthefreightoperationsoftherailway,thoughitalsocarriedwineandgrain.

Threeotherlargecompanies,allBritish-controlledandusingthesamebroadgauge, soon emerged. In the north, a concessionwas granted to anAmerican,WilliamWheelwright,whohadbuilt the first line inChile, tocreatea railwaybetweenRosario, a port on the Paraná river, andCórdoba, a state capital 250milesaway,butthefinancecamefromBritain.Openedin1870,thepurposeoftheFerrocarrilCentralArgentino (CentralArgentineRailway)wasnotonly totransport goods to the port but also to encourage the settlement of the landbetween the two townswhich, though smallwith around 25,000 people each,were the two largest centres of population outsideBuenosAires. The railwayprovedsuccessful,carrying35,000passengersand35,500 tonsof freight in itsfirstyear,andattractedlargenumbersofsettlerstothepampas.Attheoppositeend of the country, the Gran Ferrocarril Sud (Great Southern Railway) wascreatedwiththeideaoflinkingthecapitalwithChascomús,seventy-fivemilesaway.NotonlywasthisrailwayreliantoncapitalfromBaringsBank,butitwasalsobuiltbyoneofthegreatBritishcontractors,SirSamuelPeto,who,helpedbyalocalfirm,laiddowntherailwaywithremarkablespeed,takingjusttwenty-onemonthstocompletethelinewhichopenedinDecember1865.Thatrailway,too,quicklybecameprofitablewithpatronagesoonbuildinguptoover500,000passengersperyear,whichallowedthecompanytopaygenerousdividendsof8percent.ThefourthmainrailcompanywastheBuenosAires&Pacificwhosefirstlinewascompletedin1888.Iteventuallybuiltupa3,200-milenetworkand,despiteitsname,neverreachedanywhereremotelyneartheocean.MuchofthisBritishcapitalwould remain in thecountry right through to theSecondWorldWar, earning generous dividends for the shareholders until competition frommotor transportbegan toeat intoprofits in the interwarperiod.By the timeofthe nationalization by Juan Perón in the aftermath of the SecondWorldWar,nearlytwothirdsoftherailwaywasstillownedbyBritishinterestsandatenthbytheFrench,withtherestalreadyinstatehands.

These early Argentinian railways had an instant effect on the economy,creating an economic boom based on agricultural production, notably cereals,sugar and wine which then, in turn, stimulated rapid growth of the network.

Beef, too, soon flourished thanks to the advent of refrigerated ships whichpermitted the meat to reach European markets in good condition and thuscommand a high price. The massive Vestey food empire, which included theBlue Star Line and the Argenta chain of butchers’ shops, depended on theArgentinian railways and their refrigerated trains to transport beef cheaply toEurope.Beefthenstimulatedaremarkableboomintherailways,fundedbothbystate and, largely British, private investment, much like those in Europe andAmerica,butratherlater.TheBritishlinestendedtofocusontheportswhiletherelatively unprofitable areas further from the sea were left to state enterprise.Even remote areas like Patagonia began to get railways and there wasconsiderableduplication.TherateofgrowthmatchedwhathadhappenedintherailwaymaniainBritain,butinacountrywherethepopulationwasstillamere3.4millionattheendofthe1880s.By1890,therewerealready6,000milesofrailwaybutthatroseto10,000attheturnofthecenturyanddoublethatbytheoutbreakoftheFirstWorldWar.

NowhereelseinCentralorSouthAmericacouldmatchsuchaphenomenalintensity of railways. Brazil, for example, with an area three times that ofArgentina,had24,500milesofrailwayatitspeakbetweenthewars,fewerthanArgentinaandbarely a tenthof the total reachedby theUS,whosemain landmass 5 is only slightly bigger. Brazil made many of the same mistakes asAustralia,which isnearly thesamesize,byfailing todevelop therailwayasanational, rather than a provincial, resource and therefore ending up with ahotchpotchofgaugesandadministrationswhichhamperedrailwaydevelopment.The problem, as in Australia, was that responsibility for granting the earlyrailway concessions lay with the provinces 6 rather than the Braziliangovernment. This led to the establishment of a series of railway systemswithdifferent gauges,many separated by large tracts of territorywithout any lineswhere the navigablewaterways remained themost efficient form of transport,andconsequentlynonationalnetworkeveremerged.Railwaydevelopmentwasconfined to the coastal areas and the immediate hinterland, with only a fewtentaclesstretchingfarinlandandnone,apartfromaconnectionwithUruguay,stretchingintothetencountrieswithwhichBrazilsharesaborder.Moreover,theBrazilian railways were largely developed to serve the needs of specificindustries, notably coffee in the south and sugar in the north, rather than toprovide themeans to travel round thecountry.Coffee, indeed,was thespur tothe creation ofmuch of the country’s rail network. Previously, the beans hadbeencarriedfromtheplantationstoportsbymuletrainsonprimitiveroadsandtracks that turned into quagmires in the rainy season, resulting in the loss of

much of the crop.Brazilian coffee production grew rapidly in themid-1800s,ensuringthecountryhadavirtualmonopolyontheproductatthetime,andtheneedtofindbetterformsoftransportstimulatedtheadoptionin1852ofthefirstlawtoallowthebuildingofrailways.

The inaugural Brazilian railway was promoted by Baron de Mauá, thecountry’srichestman,whowasinvolvedinvirtuallyeveryearlyrailwayprojectin the vast nation, but who, like many railway pioneers, died in poverty andobscurity. Mauá obtained a concession from the local province for a railwayfrom theport ofMauá in thebayofRiode Janeiro, toPetrópolis, dubbed theImperialcitybecause itwasasummerplaygroundfor theemperor,whohadasummerpalacebuiltthere,andhiscoterieofaristocraticfriends.Thefirstsectionof ten miles, built like Argentina’s first railway by the Englishman WilliamBragge,wascompleted inApril1854amidmuchcelebration.Thesignificanceoftheopeningintermsofthedemocratizationofsocietyandchangingthewaypeople lived was notmissed by the reporter for a business paper whowrote:‘The railwayalso invites thepoor, thehumble… to take a seat in the carriagenexttotheonewhichcarriestheprince,bothmovedbythesamelocomotive.’7The real revolution would come when they travelled in the same carriage!Moreover, inacountrywhichhadonly justemancipated itsslavesandnotyetembarked on industrialization, the railways were the first significant use ofadvancedtechnology,unlikethemoredevelopedcountrieswherevarioussteam-poweredmachineshadalreadybeencommonplacebeforethearrivaloftheironroad.Therailwayswereawayofalleviatingconcernsamongplantationownersaboutthefreeingoftheslavesasrailtechnologygreatlyreducedthedemandforlabourintransportingagriculturalproduce.

Again thechoiceofgauge seems tohavebeenhappenstance since the firstlocomotive, built by aManchester company, had originally been intended forIrelandbutwas sent toBrazil and consequentlywas intended foruseon a5ft3ins track. 8 Later, however, when the line became part of the LeopoldinaRailway,thetrackwaschangedtometregauge.ThelineterminatedatFragoso,atthefootoftheSerradoMar,amountainwalljustinlandfromtheoceanthatcutsoffthecoastfromtheplateauandwhichrises,attimes,to8,000feet.Andtheretheterminusremainedforthirtyyearsuntilarackrailwaywascarvedintothecliffs,finallyallowingtrainstoreachPetrópolis.

In themeantime othermore significant railwayswere being built inBrazilincluding,notably,alinethatwouldbreachtheSerradoMarwall,givingaccesstotheseafromthevasthinterlandwheremostoftheworld’scoffeewasbeinggrown.Better connectionswereurgentlyneededbetweenSantos, theprincipal

portusedtoshipcoffee,andSãoPaulo,thelargestcityinSouthAmerica,ontheplainabove.TheplantationownershadlongpressedforarailwayandhadevensubmittedaschemetotheubiquitousRobertStephensonin1839thathadcometonothing,notleastbecausetheBraziliangovernmentatthetimewasopposedtotheconceptofrailways.

Itwasnotuntil1856,afterfurtherpressurefromthecoffeeandsugargrowersintheregion,thataconcessionwasgrantedfortheSãoPauloRailway,9withtheever-activeBarondeMauáasoneofthepromoters.Thecapitalneededtobuildthe line inevitably came from Britain, as did the engineering expertise. Themountainwallwas only 2,700 feet high at that point but, coveredwith virginforestsanddottedwithseveralverticalcliffs,itpresentedaformidableobstacle.Advicewassoughtfromanexperiencedrailwayengineer,JamesBrunlees,whohad built the Ulverstone & Lancaster Railway through difficult terrain acrossMorecambeBay.Brunleessentayoungacolyte,DanielFox, tosurvey thesiteand after months spent climbing through the forest and up the crude paths –duringwhichyoungFox’sskinwassaidtohaveturnedwhitebecauseofthelackofsunlight–hefoundawaythrough.Thesolutionhesuggestedwastousecablehaulage on four sections with the steep grade of 1 in 10, separated by levellengthsof linewhichhoused thewindingengines thathauled the trainsup theincline.Theinclineshadthreerailswiththetrainsclimbinganddescendingthehillonadifferentpairinordertokeepthecablessafelyseparated,andonlythemiddlerailwasusedforbothascentanddescent.

ConstructionstartedinMay1860andeventheflatsectionfromSantostothefoot of the Serra posed considerable difficulties, with embankments beingrequired to raise the line above the swamps and a series of bridges needed tospan the rivers and the arm of the sea that makes Santos an island city. TheclimbingoftheSerra,throughvirginforestandgraniterock,withheavyrainfalland frequent landslips, is one of the heroic railways in this story that almostdefiesdescription.Notonlydidaverysteepmountainhave tobecrossed,buttherewere, too, the usual problems ofworking in a tropical climate inwhichdiseaseravagedtheworkforce.Heavyrainsin1862wreckedmuchoftheearlyearthworksandthereweretheusualcomplaintsaboutthecontractorwhose‘badservice’, according to the historian of the Brazilian railways, was ‘a constantfactor among theEnglishcontractorswhocame toBrazil to construct the firstrailways’.10Just tomakethingsworse,afterall thedifficultiesofconstructionhadbeenovercome,therewasanaccidentattheceremonymarkingtheopeningof the Santos to São Paulo section in September 1865 – reminiscent of thetragedy thatmarred the inauguration of the Liverpool&Manchester Railway

thirty-five years before when a prominent politician,William Huskisson, waskilled.This time, a locomotivederailedand fell intoaditch,killing thedriverand injuring several people, although fortunately the president of the provinceandotherVIPsintheopencarriagesescapedunscathed.

Despitethismishap,theeighty-seven-milelinetoJundiaí,beyondSãoPaulo,was completed in 1867 and was an immediate success, making substantialprofits for itspromotersbyattractingvastquantitiesof freightaswellas largenumbersofpassengers.Itmarkedthestartofaboominsimilarrailwaysservingthe coffee plantations and was such a success that the line up the Serra wasdoubled before the century was out to cater for the growing traffic. Theexpansion of coffee cultivation, which soon accounted formore than half thevalue of Brazilian exports, and railway construction went hand in handthroughout the southernprovinces aroundSãoPaulo, andby the1870s a full-blownrailwaymaniahaddevelopedtoservetheneedsoftheburgeoningcoffeeplantations.

AtthesametimeastheSãoPauloRailwaywasbeingbuilt,anotherlineuptheSerradoMarwasunderconstruction, thesecondsectionof theEstradadeFerroDomPedroII.ThisrailwayconnectedRiodeJaneirowiththeprovincesofMinas Gerais and São Paulo which, again, was vital to facilitate agriculturalexports,mainlycoffee.Thefirstsectionofrailwayonthecoastalplain,aforty-mile line between Rio and Belém (now called Japeri), had been competed in1858 and then the promoters had to face the task of climbing theSerra.TheychoseNorthAmerican,ratherthanBritish,engineerswhodecidedthatthecliffcould be climbed without the use of a rack railway but, instead, reduced thegradientstoamaximumof1.8percentthroughtheconstructionofthreemilesoftunnelstoensurethetrainscouldclimbtheslopeundertheirownsteam,thelongestofwhichwasamileandahalf longandtooksevenyears tobuild.Astestimonyto thevisionof theengineers, the line isstill inuse todaywithveryheavytraffic,includingtrainsthatweightwenty-fivetimesmorethanoriginallyenvisaged, and it remains themost efficient of the eight railwayswhichwereeventuallybuiltuptheSerra.

ThefactthattherailwaysinBrazilwereconfinedtoarelativelynarrowareadid not diminish their importance. While primarily intended for freight,passengers flocked on to them and communities grew up around the freightdepotswhichsoonturnedintobusystations.Thecompletionoftherailwayshadacurioussideeffect, thevirtualabandonmentof theoldroadsandmuletrackswhich were difficult to use and expensive to maintain. The railways quicklygainedamonopolypositionwiththeresult thatmanyvillagesandsmall townson those roads were abandoned. The monopoly was so entrenched that one

majorroad,theUnidão–Indùstria,wasevenrippeduptoallowtherailwaytobelaid on its bridges and much of its route. Roads, of course, would get theirrevengeinhundredsofplacesaroundtheworldwhentherailwayswouldsufferthe same fate in the twentieth century, with their bridges and embankmentshandedoverforusebymotortransport.11BecauseoftheprimitivenatureoftheexistingtransportsysteminBrazil,theimpactoftheironroadwas,accordingtothe historian of the Brazilian railways, ‘greater than in Europe or the UnitedStates, where many animal traction and stagecoach firms existed before therailways,andwhichwerethereforelesssensitivetothechanginghabits’.12

Thesymbiotic relationshipbetween railwaysanddevelopment is illustratedbythepatternofeconomicgrowthinBrazil.Newrailwayswereconcentratedincoffee areas since the capital was available from profits and the need waspressing, whereas few railways emerged in regions where sugar, once thecountry’smaincropbutbythetimeoftherailwayboomstrugglinginthefaceofcompetition,predominated.By1876,Brazilhad1,300milesofrailway,andoverhalfwaslocatedinthesoutherncoffeeregionsofRiodeJaneiroandSãoPaulowhereasthemainsugarregion,Pernambucointhenortheast,hadjust150miles,including those still under construction and, unlike those in the south, therailways there struggled to make an adequate return, discouraging expansion.Because sugar faced greater competition from abroadwhich kept down pricesandmeant itdidnotgeneratesufficientcapital toallowfor theconstructionofrailways. Sugar cane was bulkier, too, than coffee beans, and therefore moreexpensivetoputonrail,enablingthebargeswhichhadtraditionallybeenusedtocontinueoperatingprofitably.

In Cuba, by contrast, where no such waterborne transport was available,sugar did stimulate the creation of an extensive rail network.A narrow island800 miles long, Cuba was, as mentioned in Chapter 2, one of the earliestcountries in the world to have a railway and the first in the region. Sugarplantationownershadlongtriedtofindawayoftransportingtheirproducemorecheaply but there were no suitable rivers and the roads were too poor towithstand the tropicalclimate.Therefore thecountry soonbuiltupan intricatenetwork of railways almost entirely geared towards servicing the needs of thesugarindustry.AswithcoffeeinBrazil,itisanexamplewherethedevelopmentofboththeindustryandtherailwaysthemselvesaresointerlinkedthatwhileitisclear thatneitherwouldhavehappenedwithout theother, it isuncertainwhichwas thecatalyst for thegrowthofboth industries.The railwayswereessentialforturningsugarintoaproductthatcouldbeexportedworldwide,whileclearlytheywouldneverhavebeendevelopedwithouttheneedtoprovidetransportfor

thecrop.Atthetimeoftheopeningofitsfirstrailwayin1837,Cubawasblessedwith

just therightsetofcircumstancesforasignificantgrowthinsugarproduction:an abundant supply of fertile land, principally in the interior of the country,substantial capital accumulated by healthy profits from existing production, arising world demand and an ample supply of cheap imported labour, eitherslaves or very poorly paid indentured labourworking in appalling conditions.Theinaugurationofthefirstrailway,built toconnect therichvalleyofGüineswith the city ofHavana, immediately changedperceptionsof howagriculturalproduce could be transported since the railway offered amethod that was farquicker andmore economical than the carts on poor roads used previously.Aspate of railway building was promoted through a process that was almostidenticaleverytime,stimulatedbyagroupofplantationownersandmerchantsgetting together to promote a line in order to facilitate the export of theirproduce. Primarily, however, these local investors were not interested in therailwayenterpriseitselfbutratherconsideredhowtheselineswouldbenefittheirbusiness. By 1852, therewere nine companieswhich had built a total of 350milesof railway to serve the sugarmarket,but thepace slowedwhen,briefly,productionofthecropstagnated.Then,asoutputboomedagain,sodidrailwayconstruction, and the country embarked on a veritable railwaymaniawith themileagereachingatotalofjustunder800in1868whentherateofgrowthfellagainasaresultofeconomicdifficultiescaused,inevitably,byfallsinthepriceofsugar.

GiventhatCubawasanundevelopedcountrywithbarelyanyindustryotherthan sugar and was treated parsimoniously by its colonial power, Spain, theintensity of its railway network created by the 1860s was quite remarkable.Indeed,intermsofrailwayspersquarekilometre,itwasonlybetteredbyafewdevelopedEuropeannations,butunlikethesethepopulationbenefitedlittlefromtherailwaysystem.Thelineswerebuiltexclusivelytocarrysugarandeventheirintersectionsdidnotallowfortimelychangesbetweentrainsbecausejunctionsweredesignedprimarily toafford thesugarshippers theopportunity tochoosebetweenportsfortheexportoftheirproduce,andconsequentlytherewerelongdelaysinthespartanstationswhichwerenotevenblessedwithanypermanentstructure, let alonewaiting rooms. Passengers had to endure circuitous routes,too,asthelineswerelaidouttomaximizeaccesstothevariouslargeplantationsratherthantoprovidedirectlinksbetweenmajortowns,andjourneytimeswereconsequentlyslow,althoughstillmuchfasterthananyhorse-drawntransportonthe terrible roads.Whilesmall townsdidemergeat the junctions, theydidnotturnintomajorcentresofdevelopmentaswasthenormelsewhere.Nordidthe

railwaysstimulatethewidereconomicgrowthwhichtheybroughtintheirwakeinmoredevelopedcountriesbecauseof theirverylimitedfocusandtheuseofentirelyimportedtechnology,principallyfromtheUnitedStates.

Infact,theeconomiceffectoftherailwayswasquiteperverse.Byenablingthe plantation owners to continue to grow sugar profitably, they helpedperpetuatetheslavesystemwhichmightotherwisehavecollapsedasaresultofits economic inefficiency. Moreover, oddly, the railways exacerbated regionaldifferencesbetweenprosperousandpoorareas.ThatwasbecausetherailwaysinCuba were built to tap those boom areas with flourishing sugar estates; norailway promoter aimed to lay down a railway in the hope of kickstarting abackward region. Moreover, the government declined to provide any suchsubsidy in the less-developed regions, with the result that the railways weremainly concentrated in thewestern half of the island,while in the east just acoupleoflinesservedthefewsugarplantations.AsthehistoriansoftheCubanrailwaysput it, ‘Therailroaddevelopmentof thefirstdecadeslackedthelong-term perspective that would permit the growth of a national grid.’ 13 Despitemild support from the Spanish government, a plan to build an east–west linethroughthespineofthecountry,thatwouldhaveprovidedanefficienttransportnetwork for most of the population, was shelved because of the lack ofpromoters.Athrough-linewaseventuallybuiltearlyinthetwentiethcentury,buteventhenitbecamepartofthesugarrailwaynetworkasthecompanybuildingitimmediatelyplantedcanealongitspath.

Despite these shortcomings, the importanceof the railways inCuba shouldnot be underestimated as they were crucial to the development of the sugarindustry. In the thirty years after the construction of the first line, sugarproduction, which had already been the mainstay of the island’s economy,increased fivefold thanks to improved transportation.And the railways, ratherthanimprovementsinsugartechnology,werecrucialinstimulatingthatgrowth:‘TherailroadandnottheintroductionofsteamenginesinthesugarmillsisthefirstelementoftheIndustrialRevolutionthatcompletelyalteredtheproductiveconditionsofCuba.’14Mostly, too, therailwayswereprofitablebecause,apartfromtheoddexceptionwhere lineswereduplicated, theyhadamonopolyandwere able to charge high rates tomake up for the fact that their businesswasveryseasonalandthatitwasalmostexclusivelyoneway,takingproducetotheports and returning empty. The railwaysweremostly owned by the groups oflocalsugarplantationownerswhohadpromotedtheminthefirstplace,whichpartly explains their limited focus. It was only in the late nineteenth century,whentherailwaycompaniesfellintoeconomicdeclineasaresultofyetanother

collapseinthepriceofsugar,thattheyweretakenoverbyBritishinvestorswhountil then had only played aminor role in their development, and, to a lesserextent,byUScompanies.TheCubanrailwaynetworkatitspeakwasoneofthemost intensive in the world, encompassing 5,000 miles, half of which werestandardgauge lines principally to shift sugar out of theplantations, theotherhalfbeingnarrowgaugetrackswhichwereusedtohaulcaneontheplantationsthemselves.

AswellasCuba,severalothercountriesoftheCaribbeangiveaninterestinginsightintotheubiquityofrailwaysattheirpeakintheperiodrunninguptotheFirstWorldWar.Intuitively,mostoftheislandsseemtobeunpromisingterritoryforarailwaygiventheirsize,butneverthelessthemajoritydevelopednetworks.Sugar,again,wasthepredominantreasonfor theconstructionofmostof theserailsystems,withevensmallislandsdevelopingrailwaylinestotransportcaneto a port. For example, the tiny island of St Kitts built a thirty-mile railwayround nearly the whole coast, cutting off a peninsula, to link all the sugarplantations.TheevensmallerneighbouringislandofStCroixhadarailwayofabouttwelvemileslong,alsoservingthesugarindustry,whileattheotherendofthe scale, theDominicanRepublic,which shares the islandofHispaniolawithHaiti, built a remarkable series of sugar cane railways, extending over 1,000milesinallkindsofdifferentgauges,fromthetiny1ft10½instostandard.

OtherrailwaysintheCaribbeanservedavarietyofobscurepurposes:intheBahamas,amule-hauledrailwaywasbuiltinthe1860stotransportseasaltand,later,anotherwasconstructedforcarrying timber;Dominica, too,builtasmalltimberrailway,whileBermuda,inthe1920s,establishedatwenty-two-milelinesolely for the purpose of providing for passengers from the numerous visitingcruise ships; onTrinidad,where a 150-mile networkwas eventually built, therailway was initially created partly to serve the unique asphalt extractionindustry.

Apart fromCuba, the largestgeneral-purpose railway in theCaribbeanwasdeveloped in Jamaica, a substantial island 145miles long. TheBritish colonyopened its first railway as early as 1845, linking the capital, Kingston, withSpanishTownthirteenmilesaway.Oneofthefirstdrivers,IsaacTaylor,sufferedtheignominyofincurringtheisland’sfirstspeedingticketwhenhewasfined£2bytheJamaicaRailwayCompanyforhavingtakenhistrainupto40mph,twicethepermittedspeed,causingpanicamongthepassengers.TheinaugurallinewasthestartofanetworkwhichextendedacrosstheislandtoMontegoBayby1894,adistanceof112miles,andthenetworkeventuallyreachednearly200miles.Inaddition to freight such as bananas, coconuts, oranges and, inevitably, sugarcane, substantialnumbersofpassengerswerecarried, too.The islandalsohad

several freight railways created solely for the transport of minerals, notablybauxiteandalumina,fromminestoports.

Just as elsewhere, there were many projects in the Caribbean which werenevercompleted.PuertoRico,aSpanishcolonyuntil1898whenitwascededtotheUS, had ambitious plans to build a 283-mile coastal line round thewholeisland for passengers, but only 100 miles were ever completed on whichpainfullyslowserviceswereprovideduntiltherailway’sclosurein1957.

AsidefromBrazilandArgentina,itwasintheAndes,remarkably,thatmostofthesignificantLatinAmericanrailwaydevelopmentstookplace.Peru,Chileand Bolivia all built heroic railways which climbed to heights that wereundreamt of elsewhere in the world. Of the thirty-five lines which reached 2miles (10,560 feet) or more above sea level, all but two 15 were in SouthAmerica,mostlyinPeruorBolivia.TheseAndeanrailwayswerebuiltprimarilyto bring the mineral wealth in the mountains down to ports, but providedpassengerswiththemostspectacular,andoccasionallyperilous,railjourneysintheworld andwereusedby the strangest collectionof rail coaches, convertedbusesandautomobilesevertorunonrailwaytracks.

Aseriesofrailwayswasbuiltrunningtotheseafromthemountains,mostlyunconnectedwitheachother.Chile,acountry2,700mileslongandbarely100mileswide,didbuildanorth-southlinerunningaroundtwothirdsofitslength–inevitably not all in the same gauge – and spawning, eventually, thirty-fivebranches largely to service various mines, but elsewhere the lines ran almostexclusivelybetweentheseaandthemountainsonabroadlyeast–westaxis.Themost spectacular and ambitious railwayswere built in Peru and it wasHenryMeiggs, who had rescued the Santiago–Valparaiso scheme, Chile’s firstsignificantrailway(mentionedinChapter6),whowas thecrucial figure in theconstruction of these remarkable railways. Meiggs –DonEnrique as he wasknownlocally–hadaclose,andnotentirelyaboveboardrelationshipwiththePeruviangovernmentandwhenaschemetobuildalinedeepintotheAndeswasproposed,hewastheobviouscontractor.

Brian Fawcett, the author of the standard history on the railways of theAndes, argues that ‘besides the Central of Peru all other Andean systems arechild’splay’.16Whilethatmayhaveawhiffofarailfan’soverenthusiasm,itisunarguable that theconquestof thePeruvianAndeswasthemostambitiousofallthegreatrailwayprojects.ThefirstlineinPeru,liketheinauguralrailwayinsomany countries, linked the capital, Lima,with the port of Callao just ninemiles away. Extending this small section of the Central up the mountains toexploit themineralwealthwas a priority for the Peruvian government,which

hadfilleditscoffersonthebriefguanoboom.Meiggs’snotionwastofollowtheroute where the llamas went, perilous ledges carved into the sides of themountains.Theseoldpathsdid,indeed,offertheeasiestroutebuttheclimbupto thehighestpointof themain line,15,700feetabovesea levelat theGaleraTunnel100milesfromLima,wasrelentless.Thelinewasbuiltthroughaseriesofvalleyswhichwerewideandgentleat theirmouthsbutbecamesteeperandnarrowerattheheadwhereinvariablytheywouldgiveoutontoanothergorge.To bring the railway up these steep inclines,Meiggs usedmore than a dozenzigzagswithshortstraightsectionsattheendwherethetraincouldbeswitchedfromthe lower line to theupperone, thesamemethoddeveloped toclimb theGhatsfromBombaytwentyyearspreviously(seeChapter2).Itdidnotmakeforfast or indeed easy operation, especiallywhen the trainswere longer than thelevel sections at the end of each zig or zag, resulting in complicated shuntingmanoeuvres,butitwastheonlyfeasiblewaytobuildtherailwayatareasonablecost.Thelocomotivesalternativelypulledandpushedtheirloadsuptheincline,amanoeuvrewhichmeantthattherailjourneyaveragedbarely15mphbutthatwas still much faster than could be achieved on the old llama trails.Meiggs,however, built inclines thatwere just about gentle enough, 4.4 per cent, 17 toallow the locomotives to climbby simpleadhesion rather than racksor cableswhich he thought were too expensive and complex. The switchbacks offeredpassengersathrillworthyofthebestfairgroundrides,sincetheironlyprotectionwere flimsy buffers that would not prevent a runaway train plunging into theabyss.

Meiggs used American rolling stock, which was sooner adapted to theparticular circumstances of the Andes because English locomotives were notsufficientlyrobusttocopeeitherwiththesteepgradientsortheroughtrack.ThecivilengineeringmethodsandequipmentwerelargelyAmerican,too.AbridgebuiltbytheBritishfor£3,350sooncollapsedandwasreplacedbyanAmericanonewhichprovedserviceableanddurable,costingjust£2,000,weighinghalfasmuchandtakingjusteightdaystoerectcomparedwitheightweeks.Thegauge,however,wasthestandard4ft8½ins,remarkablyambitiousforarailwayinsuchdifficult topography as it made construction far more expensive, althougheventuallyfarcheapertooperategiventhegreaterloadsthatcouldbecarried.

Meiggsdied inmid-project,when the linehad reachedonly90miles fromthecoastandworkhadstopped,inevitablythroughlackofmoney.Thedeathtollofhisworkerswasnotoriouslyhigh,partlybecausemanywereChileansunusedtotheheightandwithnoimmunitytoavirulentlocaldisease,Oroyafever,thataffects the liver. Some estimates suggest as many as 10,000 workers died,principallyfromdisease,but,asever,noattemptwasmadetodeterminethetoll

accurately.Constructioncontinuedinfitsandstarts,haltedbyawarwithChileaswell

asa shortageofcash,but thePeruvianCorporation, aBritish-ownedcompanywhichtookovermuchofthecountry’srailnetworkin1890,wascontractedtocompletetheproject.Workrestartedthatyearbutwasnotcompleteduntil1908,thirty-eight years after the first sod had been ritually turned.After theGaleraTunnel,thehighestonanyrailwayintheworld,thelinedescendsintothehighvalleys but still remains above 10,000 feet formuch of its route. In the earlydaysof theline,passengersaccountedfor just6percentofrevenue,andwereseen as a burden by the rail managers because freight-only railways can beoperated far more cheaply with lower standards of maintenance. Moreover,goods do not complain of bumpy rides and are oblivious to the occasionalderailment, whereas passengers require emergency oxygen to be providedbecausemanyinvariablysufferfromaltitudesickness.

Despite Fawcett’s suggestion that the other railways in theAndeswere fareasier to build than the Central, therewere several otherswhose constructionstretched the limits of contemporary technology. As well as the transandine(describedinChapter6),therewastheSoutherninPeru,anotherstandardgaugerailwaywhichMeiggshadstartedbuildingsimultaneouslywiththeCentral,andwhich also became part of the PeruvianCorporation. It also rose swiftlywithamazingengineeringskill,butnotquiteas impressively,fromthePacificcoastfarintotheAndes.StartingatMollendoonthecoast,after100milesitreachedthecityofArequipaat7,500feet,thenclimbeduptoCruceroAlto,14,666feetabove sea level. One branchwas built to Puno on Lake Titicaca, the world’shighestnavigable lakeat12,500 feet above sea level,wherea ferryconnectedwiththemetregaugeBolivianrailwayatGuaquiwhilethemainlinecontinuedthroughCuzco,theIncacapital,eventuallydescendingintothewatershedoftheAmazonandterminatingatamere11,000feet.

Meanwhile, in Bolivia the huge complex of the Antofagasta Railway wasbeing created to exploit the nitrate wealth of the uninhabited southern areaborderingChileandthecopperandtinminesoftheinterior.ThefirstsectionoftheAntofagasta,builttoaremarkablynarrowgaugeofjust2ft6ins,wasinitiallyoperated by mules when it opened in 1873 but steam locomotives wereintroduced three years later and by the end of the decade the railway alreadystretched100miles away from the coast.TheAntofagastaRailway eventuallybuiltupintoaremarkablenetworkof1,821miles,includingamaintrunkroutethroughtheAndestoLaPaz,729milesfromthecoast,withvariousbranchestoservemines.ItstretcheddeepintoBolivia,PeruandevenlaterconnectedwiththeArgentinerailsystem.TheAntofagastawasbuilt,oddly,intwogauges:half

of its lengthused the tiny2ft6ins,while themainBoliviansectionwasmetregauge.Thelinehasnozigzagsorracksectionsasitrunsthroughslightlyeasierterritorybut, aswith theAustralian transcontinental, themainobstacle tobothconstructionandoperationwasthelackofwaterfortheinitialsectionreachingupfromtheChileanportofAntofagasta.Itcrossesadesertwhere,remarkably,itneverrains,whichmeanstherearenowatercourses,greatlyincreasingthecostofconstruction.Again,itwasBritishcapitalwhichfinancedmostofthebuildingof thelineafter therailwaycompany, theFerrocarrildeAntofagastaaBolivia,was floated on the British stock exchange in 1888. 18 Passengers were nevermore thananafterthought,althoughfora timediningandsleepingcarsranonthetiny2ft6inssection,and,aswellasnitrate,therailwaybecamevitalforthetransportofcopperandseveralotherminerals.Itwasnotuntil1928thatthefinal180milesinthedryregionsupfromthecoastwereconvertedtometregauge,amassiveenterprisegiventhelackofwater.

There are several contestants for the prize of theworld’s toughest railwayever built. While the Trans-Siberian or the Panama may seem like obviouswinners because of the sheer scale or difficulty of the enterprise, and theremarkably high lines in theAndes have to be considered, there is another inLatinAmericawhichshouldbeuponthepodiumsharingthechampagnepartlybecauseofthesheermadnessoftheproject.Brazil’smostremoterailwaywasanenterprisesofraughtandseeminglywithoutobviouspurposethatitisincrediblethatitwaseverundertaken,letalonestartedfivetimesbeforeitwascompleted.The230-mileMadeira–Mamorérailwaywasprobably themost isolated line intheworld and its story is particularly poignant because it took thirty years tocomplete, and soon after became virtually redundant due to a change in thepattern of the rubber industry, its principal purpose. The Madeira river isnavigablefromtheseaasfarasatowncalledPortoVelho,butaccesstoafurther1,000milesofnavigableriverupstreamintheAmazonjungleisobstructedbyaseries of rapids. When efforts to tame them through canalization provedunsuccessful, a companywas formed inLondon in1872 tobuild a railway tocircumventthisobstacle.Thefirstattempttobuildthelinefounderedsoonafterwork started and a subsequent expedition in 1874 also made no significantprogress,asthenavviessuccumbedtoeverythingfrommalariaandyellowfevertoattacksfromalligatorsandlocalIndiantribes.

A third attempt was made by an American contractor, P & T Collins ofPhiladelphia,whichmanagedtobuildfourmilesofmetre-gaugetrackandbringinanAmericanBaldwinlocomotivebefore itssupplysteamersankinastorm.Notonlydidthedisastercostthelivesoftheeightymenonboard,butthelossoftheshipcutoffthe1,000Americannavviesfromcivilizationandaroundathird

succumbedtostarvationordiseaseastheyleftthesitetomaketheirway2,000milesdownrivertoBelém.Afourtheffortinthissagawasmadein1883whenaBrazilianteamsurveyedtheroute,butthehaplesscrewhadtobeinvalidedoutafter they all fell ill.As thehistorianofSouthAmerican railwaysputs it, ‘fortwentyyearsthejunglegrewovertheBaldwinlocomotivebeforelocalpoliticaltroublesrevivedthelostcauseoftherailway.’19

It was because of the rubber boom at the turn of the century stimulated,ironically,bythedemandfor tyresfromrail’sgreatrival, themotorcar,whichmadetheprojectviableagain.BoliviahadcededsometerritorytoBrazilandincompensationwaspromisedanoutlettotheAtlanticOceanviatheriverandtheMadeira–Mamorérailway.Therailwaycompanywasreconstitutedin1907and,luredbythepromiseofhighwages,workerscamefromthePanamaCanalandtheWest Indies to build the line. Over 2,000, however, were to pay for theirdaringwiththeirlivesuntilafterfiveyearsthelinewascompletebetweenPortoVelho andGuajaráMirim.Amazingly, the old Baldwin enginewas recoveredfromthejungleandputintoservicealongwithanotherelevenlocomotivesfromthesamesupplier.

Almostas soonas the lineopened,however, rubber seeds smuggledoutofSouth America had been taken to Malaya where, with a similar climate,profitableplantationswere rapidlyestablished,knocking thebottomoutof themarket for rubber from inaccessible places like the deep Amazon wheretransportwould inevitablymake it farmore expensive.Aswell as the freighttrains,therewere,formanyyears,threeweeklypassengerservices,undertakinga journey that could never have been very pleasant in the heat since it tookbetweentwelveandeighteenhourstocoverthe230miles,andyeteventodayasmallpartofthelinehasbeenpreservedfortourists.

LikeArgentinaandBrazil, thebiggestcountry incentralAmerica,Mexico,hadarailwayboomwhichresultedinarapidexpansionofthesystem,fromjust400milesin1877to12,000milesbythestartoftheFirstWorldWar.Thespurwas a government law enacted by Porfirio Díaz, a despot but a modernizer,whichnotonlygavegeneroussubsidiestotheconstructionofrailwaysseenasavitalcatalystforeconomicdevelopment,butalsoprovideddraconianpowerstotherailwayconcessionairestoseizeland.ThefirstsignificantrailwayinMexicowasatranscontinentallinefromtheGulfofMexicotothePacificcompletedin1873anditssuccessspurredDíaztoofferconcessionsforcontractorstobuildahugenetwork,mostnotablya line running through the spineof thecountry tolinkMexicowiththeUnitedStates.

Elsewhere inCentralAmerica, the networksweremostly sparse andmanyweredesignedtoservetheneedsofasinglecrop,particularlybananasorsugar.

Theywerebuiltinawidevarietyofgaugeswhichprovedtobeamajorobstacletotheirdevelopment.MinorC.Keith,thenephewofHenryMeiggs,wantedtoblendthemintoacoherentnetworklinkingupmuchofCentralAmerica.Keithwasbotha railwaypioneer,whostruggled tobuildCostaRica’s first line,andlater a bananamagnate, the founder of theUnitedFruitCompany.His aimoftryingtocreateasystemoflinesthroughouttheregionwas,however,defeatedbythescaleofthetask,thedifficultyoftheterrainandthepoliticaldivisionsofthe region. The intensive network of lines in Honduras, for example, weredesigned solely with the banana crop in mind and did not even reach theprincipal city, Tegucigalpa, making it one of the few capitals in the worldwithoutarailway.Similarly,Guatemalabuiltupa500-mile3ftgaugenetwork,startingin1877,whichservedthebananaindustrybutdidnotconnectitsmajortowns–whileElSalvador,beginningslightly later,eventuallyhadaround300miles of railway that offered few useful services to local people. In commonwithmany of the Caribbean islands, the greatmajority of these networks arenow abandoned, though some special purpose railways survive to serve aparticularmineoranagriculturalproduct.

Back in Europe, railways were popping up in the most unlikely places. TheislandsoftheMediterraneanwereanotherstrangesettingforaseriesofintensiverailwaynetworks.TheSicilianrailnetworkwasaperfectexampleofarailwaysystem built with funds from the government, which saw it principally as asocialserviceandawayofstimulatingeconomicdevelopment,ratherthanasaviable enterprise. The first railways were initiated in the early 1860s by theSocietà Vittorio Emanuele which planned to build two lines running broadlynorthtosouthacrossthewholeisland,a totalofnearly400miles.Thespurtothe construction of lines in such an underpopulated and impoverished area asSicilywasthehopethatthereunificationofItalywouldstimulatethesamekindofeconomicdevelopment thathadfollowedtherecentCivilWarin theUnitedStates.

The Vittorio Emanuele had funds available for investment, having beenforcedtosellitsFrenchholdingstotheParis-Lyon-Mediterranée,aspartofthespoils ofwar after Piedmont,with the help ofNapoleon III, had defeated theAustriansinSavoy.Eagertokeepexpandingitsrailway,theVittorioEmanueletookupgenerousgovernmentsubsidiestoembarkonitsSicilianschemebuttheplanwas far too ambitious, even for the supposedly cash-rich company.Workstartedin1863butafterfiveyearsjustunder100mileshadbeencompletedandthecompanywentbroke,leaving,asever,thegovernmenttopickupthepieces.

Theslowprogresswaspartlyaresultofmalariawhichwasthenendemicontheislandanditsdebilitatingeffectswerenotunderstoodbythecompany.Attimes,in the summer,up to80percentof theworkforcewereabsentbecauseof thediseasewhosecause,atthetime,wasunknownandeventhosewhoturneduptoworkwere oftenweakened by its effects. After the takeover by the state, theinitialschemeswerecompletedby1872andanintensivenetwork,totallingover1,500miles,was completed by the FirstWorldWar, farmore than a sparselypopulatedislandlessthan200mileslongwouldeverneed.

Sardinia, thenextbiggest islandintheMediterranean,builtupanextensiverailway system far more quickly than Sicily, again with the help of generousstatesubsidies.It, too,wasamalarial islandwithstretchesonthewesternsidewhichweresolittlepopulatedbecauseofthediseasethatthenavyusedthemfortarget practice, andyet a standardgauge railway runningup the coast for 260miles,virtuallythewholelengthoftheislandfromCagliariinthesouthtoGolfoArancionthenortheastcoast,wasconstructedremarkablyquickly.Ittookjustadozen years, from the start of construction in 1863, to complete, even thoughtherewastheusualdelaycausedbylackofmoney.Thelinewhichwasprimarilyintended for passengers, though there was some freight, was built by anEnglishman,BenjaminPiercy,whodesignedhimselfamansionatMacomer,inthe centre of the island, 100 miles from Cagliari. The author of a history ofMediterranean railways likens it to ‘a Victorian country house of the 1880s[which]wouldblendwithoutremarkintostockbrokerSurreyor,betterstill,theoutskirts of Sheffield or Leeds’. 20 An extensive system of narrow gaugerailways which ran to nearly 1,000miles at its peak provided connections toeverycornerof the island, albeit at agrindingly slowpacebecause the terrainwasfrequentlymountainousandtherailwayswerebuiltcheaplyinordertokeepdowncosts.Thetrainonthe142-miletripbetweenCagliariandArbataxontheeast coast took twelvehourswhensteam-hauled, andevenwhen I travelled inthedieselrailcarthatoperatedonthelineinthe1990s,thetripwasstillaseven-hourhaul,punctuatedbystopsatremotehaltswhereshepherdsboardedfromarugged countryside without a house in sight, accompanied by the occasionalgoat.

Three other Mediterranean islands – Corsica, Cyprus and Majorca –developedmainlinerouteslinkingtheirmajortownsbut,withfewbranchlines,theirrailwayswereonamuchsmallerscale thanthoseof the twolargeItalianpossessions.MaltaonlymanagedasmallsuburbanrailwayinValletta,justsevenmiles long,which ran from 1883 to 1931 butwhich apparently provided ‘thetribulations offered [by] contemporary British railways [to] the season-ticket

holderofLondonorManchester’.21

TheFarEastwasalsosomethingofalatecomertotherailwayage.Byandlarge,therailwaysarrivedthereinthelastquarterofthenineteenthcentury,reaching,for example, Japan in 1872,China in 1883, and bothMalaya andVietnam in1885. Japan, which had only recently given up its centuries-long isolation,embracedrailwaysjusteighteenyearsafteritwasforciblyopenedupfollowingthe arrival of the American navy in 1853. The US mission had been led byCommodoreMatthewPerrywhobroughtwithhimamodelrailwaythatcausedasensationinasocietywhichpreviouslymadeverylittleuseofwheeledvehicles.Despite this American influence, it was the British who were responsible forboth the financing and the construction of the early lines. An Englishmanbearing the grand name of Horatio Nelson Lay raised £1m from the LondonmoneymarketstobuildthefirstlinebetweenTokyoandYokohama,andBritishengineerswere sentout toundertake the surveyandorganize theconstruction.Theyfounda land thatwas ill-suited to railwayconstructionsince thecountrywasmountainous,withlinesthreatenedbybothearthquakesandlandslidesandinevitablycostswerehigherthananticipated.

Nevertheless, the initial section of the linewas completed in 1872 and theimportance of the event can be gauged from the fact that at the openingceremony, inabreakwith tradition, theEmperorappeared for the first time infull state regalia in front of foreigners. As well as the difficult geologicalconditions, the progress on the railway was slowed first by the shortage ofgovernment money and then by a violent civil war which stopped all workbetween 1876 and 1882. Japan, though, was a very different place from thecountry it is today and the early train services reflected the pace of life of asociety that had been isolated from the rest of the world for many centuries.WhenthelinebetweenKobeandTokyowascompleted,trainstookaroundadaytotravel the350milesonaverywindytrack22witharoundfifty intermediatestops, giving an average speed of just 15 mph. As an early traveller, B.D.Timins, fondly described it, Japan through her railways offered a ‘new andsurprisingsensationtothejadedglobetrotter–thatofbeingunabletohurry’.23Forthepeasantsinthird-class,thelengthyjourneyhadtobeenduredinstiflinghotweatheronseatslackinganyupholstery,butinfirstclassTiminsfound‘theseats ran round all four sides of the carriage [with] in the centre a diminutivetable, upon which reposes a tea service properly furnished with all necessaryrequisites for brewing a cup of green tea à la Japonaise’. He loved, too, thebento lunchboxeson sale at every stationandwas sceptical that the Japanese

wouldeverseektochangethisgentlepaceoflife,explainingthatpeoplearrivedatthestationseveralhoursoreventhenightbeforethetrainwasdue,eschewingallnotionof‘speed,hasteorflurry’whichwereentirelyforeigntotheirnature.Ah,thepitfallsofprediction!

Despitethestutteringstart,andtheslowservice,theideaoftherailwayshadbeen sown and,with the government short of cash, several private companiessprungupinthe1890s.Bytheturnofthecentury,Japanwaswellonthewaytoobtainingtheheavilyusednetworkforwhichitisfamoustoday.Curiously,eventhoughmostof theearly locomotiveswereBritish, thegaugewas3ft6ins, thesizeusedinNewZealandandpartsofAustralia.

LikeJapan,Chinawasslowtotakeadvantageofthenewtechnology,largelybecause the development of the railways became bound up with nationalistpolitics.Atthetimeoftheopeningofthefirstrailway,partsofthecountrywereoccupied by European and Japanese ‘missions’ which were effectively anoccupyingforcethatunderminedtheweakChineseadministration.Itwastheseforeign interests that were keen on building railways in order to exploit thecountry’s resources but theyweremetwith fierce local resistance. Indeed, thevery issue of modernization was so fraught that the country’s first railwaybetweenShanghai24andtheportofWoosung,completedin1876,wasrippedupthefollowingyearbecausetheChineseadministrationwassoangeredthatithadbeenbuiltbyforeigninterests,despitethefactthattherailwaywashandedovertoChinainanefforttoencourageitsacceptance.Nowhereelseintheworlddidthe advent of the railways stimulate such controversy and opposition, but thatwas inevitable given that for centuries the country had been ruled by anisolationistandconservativeregimewithastrongxenophobicelementthathadresistedanykindofchange.ItwasasifeverypossibleargumentagainstrailwayconstructionthathadbeenraisedinothercountriescoalescedinChinatoslowdown the pace of expansion in a country whose size should have made it anaturalforearlydevelopment.

The oppositionwas led by high officials, themandarins,whose objectionschimed with popular feeling. In particular, would the railways displacethousands of coolies from existing jobs and cause unrest? The core Ludditeargument was elegantly put by one Chinese official, Chang Tzu-mu: ‘Thepeasantsinthefieldsofthesouth,theminersinthemountainsofthenorth,andthosewho haul the cars andman the boats – these numbermanymillions ofpeople. They bear the calluses of their struggle to survive. If machines aresuddenlyintroduced,theywilllosetheirlivelihood.Won’ttheyjointogethertocausedisturbances?’25Or,asanotherwriterput it, thousandsofpeoplewould

‘end up starving in the ditches [or] gather as outlaws in the forests’. 26 Theseofficials spoke with the awareness that several recent uprisings, notably themajesticallynamedRedTurbanRebellionof1854,hadbeenstartedbytransportworkers who lost their jobs as a result of changes in government policy ortechnicalinnovation.

Someobjectionswererootedinfearsofchange,suchastheofficialwhowasworried that ‘when one uses coal with such profligacy, coalfields soondisappear’.27Or the fear that railwaypropertywouldbea tempting target forthieves. However, there remained well-founded economic objections to thedevelopmentoftherailwaysinChinawhichstillstimulatedebatetoday.Giventhe widespread poverty, would the Chinese be able to afford the price of railtravel?Wouldtheconcentrationondevelopingrailwaysdamageothereffortstomodernizetheeconomy?Withtherailways’undoubtedneedforsubsidyandthedesireofforeigncompaniestotailortherailwaytotheirnarrowinterestsratherthannationalconsiderations, the fundamentalquestionofwhether the railwayswouldbegoodforChineseinterestsremainedlive.

As a result of these fears, the Chinese refused foreign investment in theirrailroads,resultinginlamentablyslowdevelopment.ThefirstlinebuiltafterthedestructionoftheWoosungwascompletedin1881,butforthenextdecadeandahalf littleprogresswasmadewithamere18milesperyearbeingcompleteduntil 1895. But with foreigners then being allowed back to invest and theChinese authorities realizing, following theBoxerRebellion at the turn of thecentury,thatrailwayscouldbeusedtocarrytroopsquicklyaroundthecountry,thepacehottedup.Arailwayboomdevelopedwith350milesbeingcompletedannually until the revolutionof 1911 and the outbreakof theFirstWorldWarslowedprogress.Themostpopulouscountryintheworldhad,atlast,embracedtherailwayagebutreluctantlysince,withatotalmileagein1911ofjust6,000miles. China was way behind other countries. As Nicholas Faith points out,China’smileagewas‘halfthefigureforIndia,[whichwas]smalleranditselfnotover-suppliedwithrailways’.28

NewZealandusedthesame3ft6insgaugeasJapanbutpresentsanunlikelycontrast.Foratimeithadmorerailwaymileageperheadthananyothercountry29andtherailwayswereusedbythegovernmentnotjustasawayofstimulatingeconomicdevelopmentorevenasawayofcementingthecountrytogether,butrather as themeans of creating the nation. New Zealand, a country of barely500,000people, includingthenativeMaoris,madeadesultoryandlatestart torailway construction with a few short lines comprising just forty-six milescompletedby1870.

Then a politician came up with a plan and kept to it. Julius Vogel, thecolonial secretary, published a scheme to reawaken the ‘colonizing spirit’ byembarkingonamassivepubliclydrivenprogrammeof railwayconstruction tofuse the colony’s far-flung and isolated settlements into a unified prosperousnation.Thecornerstoneofthisdevelopmentdrivewasacommitmenttobuildathousand miles of railway over the next nine years. They were to be builtcheaply, on theAmericanmodel using light rails,with low line speeds, sharpbendsandstiffgradients inorder tokeepcostsdowntoaminimum.Althoughsome of the earlier lines had been built to the generous Irish gauge, Vogelinsisted that the New Zealand system would be 3ft 6ins as a further way ofkeeping costs down. It was a project with a strong socialist and nationalistflavour.Vogelhoped that theconstruction, fundedbypublicborrowing,wouldcreateemploymentfortheindigenousMaoripopulation,stimulatingintegration,and thus spearhead a peacefulEuropean conquest of theMaori heartland.Thesettlersattractedbytherailwaywould,hehoped,soonoutnumbertheMaorisbuttherewasaninherentthreatinthispolicy,asVogellaterexpressed:‘ThePublicWorks Policy seemed to the Government the sole alternative to a war ofexterminationwiththenatives.’30

The programme was well-timed. With the British railway network almostcomplete, contractors and labourerswere looking forwork and thereforewerewillingtotraveltothefarendofthePacificinsearchofriches.Inevitablytherewere delays caused by all the usual problems – construction difficulties,manpowershortages,financeandindustrialdisputes–butwithinfiveyears316mileshadbeenbuiltandtheprogrammewasinfullswing.VogelhadkickstartedNewZealandintotherailwayageanditneverlookedback.NeillAtkinson,theauthorofthehistoryofNewZealand’srailways,explains:

In the 1870s, iron and steel rails welded cities and towns to theirhinterlands, connected farms, forests andmines tomarkets andports, andwidenedNewZealanders’ physical and cultural horizons.By establishingreliable overland communication between the original coastal ‘islands’ ofEuropean settlement and ‘opening up’ previously inaccessible inlanddistricts, railways promoted centralization and standardization and helpedforgeastraggleofdisparateprovincesintoamodernnation.31

Thiswasverymuchagovernmententerprise.Aremarkable48percentof the

government’sentirepublicworksprogrammewasspentonrailwayconstructionbetween1870and1929,morethanonroads, telegraphs, immigration, tourism,defence,miningandmuchelseputtogether.Therailwayswerenotexpectedtomakeaprofitastheywereperceivedasapublicenterpriseservingtheinterestsofthecountryasawhole.

It was, though, not all good news. The railways gave access to theMaoriheartland of the central North Island, hastening the destruction of theenvironment by transforming virgin forests intoBritish grasslands: ‘The chiefbeneficiariesoftherailrevolutionwerethePakeha[European]inhabitantsofthemain centres, the towns that flourished along the rail routes, and the freshlyopenedhinterlands.’ 32 For theMaoris, as for the Indians ofAmerica and theAborigines of Australia, the railways were an instrument that hastened thedestructionoftheirtraditionalwayoflife.

By theendof thecentury, then,apart fromlargeswathesofAfricaand theMiddleEast,afewislandsandtheoccasionallaggardlikeAlbania,therailwayswere ubiquitous. Every significant country had joined the railway age andwherever lines had been built, the changes they brought in their wake wereprofoundandirreversible,asweseeinthenextchapter.

CHANGINGTRAINS

Whileallsupposed‘goldenages’oftherailwayshadtheirflaws,atitsheighttherailnetworkwasacommandingandimpressivesystem.AlthoughmanywriterssuggestthegoldenagewasintheyearsbetweentheturnofthecenturyandthestartoftheFirstWorldWar,duringtheinterwarperiod,therailwayswerestill,forthemostpart,eitherexpandingorattheirpeakmileage.

The significance of the role of the railways in the First World War isimpossible to exaggerate. They were not only crucial for the mobilization oftroops, but during the conflict thousands ofmiles of temporary railwayswerecreated to move men and materiel, and they were the core of the logisticaloperationthroughoutthewarbothatthefrontandbehindit.ThemobilizationoftheGerman andRussian armies by rail was such a complicated business thatmany historians argue that once it was set inmotion, war became inevitable.Indeed,theextremelycomplexanddetailedplanshadbeenpreparedoveryearsbymilitaryofficerswhohadworkedoutaprecisescheduletodelivertroopstothe front over a two week period at the outbreak of war. The Germans hadprepared the Schlieffen Planwhichwas dependent on a rapidmobilization byrail set out in a sixteen-day timetable. The scheme envisaged the invasion ofFrancethroughBelgiumculminatinginadecisivedefeatoftheFrencharmyonthe Western Front before the Russian army could attack from the east. TheRussians, in turn, had a similar plan tomobilize andknew that once theyhadstarted to implement their plan, the Germanswould respond by sending theirtroops west. Tsar Nicholas II was aware of this domino effect, and after theassassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914,hesitatedbefore launching themobilizationplan.Heevencancelledhisordersonce,butfinallygavethego-ahead,effectivelystartingthewaramonthaftertheSarajevoincident.

In fact, the inevitabilityofwaroncemobilizationhad startedwasprobablymoretheresultoftheinflexiblemilitarymindthanareflectionofthereality.1Reversingthemilitarybuildupwouldhavebeendifficultbecauseoftheproblemoffindingfoodfirstfor thehorsesandthen, thoughlesspressing,for themen,butasJohnWestwood,thehistorianoftheroleofrailwaysinwar,says,‘armiesin trains are very easily handled and therewould have been little difficulty in

usingtherailwaytelegraphtostopalltrainsuntilfurthernotice’2andthusgiventherulerstheopportunitytonegotiateadiplomaticsolutiontotheSerbiancrisis.It was not, therefore, as conventional wisdom has it, that the war becameinevitable once the mobilization by rail had started, but rather, ‘the militarystaffs’convictionthatitwasimpossible’3tostop.

Iftheoutbreakofthewarcannotbeblamedontherailways,thereisnodoubtthataconflictonthescaleanddevastationoftheFirstWorldWarcouldnothavehappened without the railways replenishing supplies and troops at the front.Duringthesixteen-dayperiodwhentheSchlieffenPlanwasbeingimplemented,a train crossed theHohenzollern Bridge over the Rhine on average every tenminutesdayandnight.Ontheotherside,theFrenchmobilizationscheme,calledPlanXVII,successfullydeliveredamillionmenand400,000horsestothefrontwithintwoweeksofwarhavingbeendeclared.Thishighlightedamajormistakemadebybothsides,theemphasisontheuseofhorsesinanerawheremodernbattle tacticsandequipment,particularlymachineguns,madecavalries largelyredundant. The military seemed to have learnt little from the disaster of theCharge of the Light Brigade over sixty years before. The huge movement ofhorses by Germans, Russians and French slowed down the progress of theirarmies since a cavalry division of 4,000 men required as many trains as aninfantryforcefourtimesbigger.

Everycountryinvolvedinthewarrequisitionedallorpartofitsrailwaysformilitaryuse.BothFranceandRussia,forexample,splittheirrailwaysintotwo,withthoseinthewarzonecomingundermilitarycontrolandtherestremainingasbefore. InBritain, the railwayswere effectivelynationalized as soon as thewarbrokeoutandplacedunderthecontrolofaRailwayExecutiveCommitteeworking to the requirements of the war cabinet. The warmay not have beenfoughtonBritishterritory,buttheSouthEastern&ChathamRailwayextendeditsoperationsintoFranceandlaterthetrackandotherrailwayequipmentfromclosedbranchlineswasexportedwholesaletoFrancewhereitwasinstalledbytheBritishArmy’sRailwayOperatingDivision,whicheventuallybuiltup toaforce of 75,000men. Remarkably, even in the USA, where nationalization istaboo,therailwaysweretakenoverinallbutnamebythegovernmentundertheaegis of the newly created United States Railroad Administration. They werethenreorganizedundermilitaryimperativeswhichmadethemfarmoreefficient:theywereobligedtosendfreightbytheshortestroute,toacceptticketsbyrivalrailways and standardize their equipment, including locomotives. Thegovernmentevenbreacheditsownanti-trustlegislationinordertoimposeorderontherailways.

Sincetheimportanceofrailwayswasrecognizedbyallsides,anearlytacticof retreating armies was to destroy the tracks in the territory they vacated.Surprisingly,givensuchsabotagehadoccurredasfarbackastheAmericanCivilWar,theGermanshadreliedontheBelgiansleavingtheirrailwaysintactastheyfled the invasion of their country, but instead tunnels and bridges had beenblown up, delaying the German advance. Troops were often forced to marchthirtymiles ahead of the last remaining railhead while in contrast the Frenchmaintained rail supply lines right up to the front. This scenario would berepeated throughout the war. Whilst an advancing army would find that therailways had been destroyed by the retreating enemy, the supply lines of thedefenderswould remain intact. Indeed, as the defenders remained in position,narrowgaugerailwayswouldbebuiltrightuptotherangeoftheenemy’sgunstoreducetheneedforhorse-drawntransport.

TheFirstWorldWarwasuniquein that itbrokeoutataparticularstage intechnological development when railways were well established but motortransportstillinitsinfancyandaircraftwerelargelyconfinedtoreconnaissanceduties.Bygivingthedefendingsideaninbuiltadvantage,thisunfortunatetimingcontributed to the inertia of the war on the western frontmost of whichwasfoughtwithinaboundaryof justhalf adozenmiles.The railways reduced thelikelihood of decisive battles in another crucial way, too. Given that airreconnaissancewasavailable tobotharmies, theneed for railwaysupply linesmeant that surprise attacks became impossible. Once evidence of a militarybuildup such as the construction of new narrow gauge railways or intenserailway activity to create munitions dumps was spotted, the defending sidewould be able to prepare for the assault. The precise targets of offensiveoperationswerechosenwiththerailwaysituationinmindandthefirstsignofanoffensivemightwellbethefiringofthelargerail-mountedguns.AccordingtoWestwood, ‘not only did they [the attackers] try to launch their offensives inplaceswheretheirowntroopswerewellsuppliedwithstandard-gaugelines,butthey aimed their attacks at areas where the enemy’s railway communicationswereweakor,betterstill,couldeasilybecutatanearlystageoftheadvance’.4Andafterasuccessfuladvance,thefirsttroopstobesentinwouldbetherailwayengineers with the task of repairing the lines blown up by the retreatingdefenders.

Eveninthequietperiodsbetweenoffensives,therailwayswereinperpetualmotion.Thescaleofrailwayoperationneededtomaintainthetroopsatthefrontcanbegauged from the fact that at thebeginningof thewar itwascalculatedthat forevery100,000soldiers,a trainof fiftywagonswouldbeneededeverydaytobringinfoodforbothmenandhorses,ammunitionandothersupplies.By

the end of the war, as the battle tactics became more sophisticated, thisrequirementhadtripledtoaround150wagons.Thesuppliesbroughtinbythesetrainswould be deposited at a railhead andmostwere transferred to speciallybuiltnarrowgaugerailwaysthatbroughtsuppliesasnearaspossibletothefront.These narrow gauge railways, mostly 60 cms (just under 2ft) became anessential part of the war effort, of far greater importance than had beenanticipatedbythearmycommandersattheoutset.Forexample,attheheightoftheGermanVerdunoffensive,theFrenchhadasix-tracknarrowgaugerailwayto the front. Their freight wagons could carry around ten tons, enough totransport most loads, as well as troops including stretcher cases. They wereparticularlyusefulinwinterandinthelaterstagesofthewarwhenmanyaccessroadstothefrontbecameimpassable.Thetrackswerelaidwithincrediblespeedby the armies’ railway engineering corps and as a result, not surprisingly,derailments were frequent but easily remedied with the help of a few nearbysquaddies.Withnosignalling,operatingprocedureswereinformalandsowerethemaintenancearrangements:whenlocomotivesranoutofwater,theysuckedinanewsupplywithaflexiblepipe‘waterlifter’fromthenearestfloodedshellhole.

Theworstperforming railways in thewarwere thoseofTsaristRussiaandduringthe1917RevolutiontheRussiansystemalmostcollapsed.InbuildingtheTrans-Siberian,theRussianshadconcentratedtheirrailwayresourcesintheeast,leavingonlya sparsenetworkconnecting itwith the restofEurope.The linesleadingtothewesternbattlezoneswerethusimmediatelyoverloadedandtherewas constant tension between the railway administration and themilitarywithlittle clear direction from the incompetent tsarist regime. Supplies to the frontwere not prioritized and bottlenecks built up throughout the system, severelyweakeningthewareffort.ThecivilwarthatresultedfromtheRevolutionallbutwrecked the railways.Coal ranout and trainshad to runonnewlycut timber.(My father, aWhite Russian, who fled by rail fromKiev toOdessa after theOctober1917Revolution,recalledthathistrainhadtostopseveraltimeswhilethe able-bodied men were sent into the woods to cut down trees to fuel thelocomotiveandwasalsostabledinsidingsatvariouspointontheroutetoallowthrough armoured trains.) By 1921, two thirds of the stock of 19,000locomotives were rusting in yards and it took a decade for the victoriousCommuniststogetthesystemproperlyfunctioningagain.

TheinvolvementoftherailwaysinthewarwasnotconfinedtotheWesternfront.Mostfamously,LawrenceofArabia,5wagedacleverguerrillacampaignagainst the Turks in Arabia. 6 He led a group of irregular Arab soldiers in a

seriesofattacksontheHejazandMedinarailwayswiththeaimoftyingdownlargenumbersofTurkish troopswhowere thennotavailable to fightonotherfronts.

Passengernumbers in thecountries involvedin thewarsoared,eveninfar-offAmerica, resulting inmuchconflictbetweenmilitaryandcivilianusers. InFrancethiscausedseriousunrestaspermissionaires,soldiersonleave,floodedon to the railway toget away from the front.Oncegranted leave, the soldiersweresupposedtousespecialtrains,butthesewereinvariablyfullorcancelled,and,unwillingtowastepreciousleavewaitingattrainstations,theyfloodedonto normal service trains causing chaos. They expected the degree of respectaccordedtopeopleriskingtheirlivestosavetheircountryandwerenotaversetotippingoutall thecivilianpassengersinordertogethomequickly.Asthewarground on, the authorities, aware of this problem, gradually put onmore andmoreextraservicesandcreatedspecialstations,withamenitiessuchascinemas,canteensandinformationbooths,tocaterforthishugeflowofdesperatemenbutthe rowdy behaviour of the permissionaires continued to cause problemsthroughoutthewar.InRussia,thedisorderwasevenworsewithcountlessstoriesof soldiers, suddenly released from military discipline, smashing up coaches,throwingordinarypassengersoffthetrainandrobbingallandsundry.

The most famous rail passenger during the conflict was, of course, therevolutionary,Lenin,whohadbeenforcedintoexileinSwitzerlandbythetsar.InApril1917,theGermankaiser,keentosowchaosanddisorderinitsRussianenemy, allowed the revolutionary leader to travel from Switzerland throughGermany in a sealed train and eventually, via Stockholm and Helsinki, to StPetersburgwhereLenin, immediatelyonhisarrivalgaveaspeechthatsparkedoff the Bolshevik Revolution. Hemade use of the trains several times in theensuingmonths,atonepointfleeingbacktoFinlanddisguisedasafireman,butthekaiser’stacticprovedsuccessfulastheRussianarmycollapsedfollowingtheCommunistuprising.Itwas,ofcourse,notenoughtogivetheGermansvictoryin thewarwhich, fittingly,wasendedona railwaycoach.MaréchalFochhadbasedhimselfandhisstaffthroughoutthewarinthreerailwaycarriagesoftheOrientExpress,whichofcoursedidnotoperateinthewarthoughtheGermansattemptedtoruntheirownversion,andorderedanotherone,number2419,tobeequippedasanoffice,inwhichtheArmisticewassignedon11November1918.7

Despite the rapid development of motor transport during the war, therailwaysremaineddominantinitsaftermathandwerestillaboomingindustry.In 1920, therewere 645,000miles of railway around theworld, a figure thatwouldincreaseto785,000bytheoutbreakoftheSecondWorldWar.Ofcourse

the railwayswere beginning to face the competitionwhichwould, eventually,lead to their decline, but neither road transport nor aviation was sufficientlydeveloped to prevent the railways retaining their advantage on most types ofjourney throughout thisperiod.Thewar leftmanyof theworld’srailways inastate of disarray, short of equipment, overused and with a huge backlog ofmaintenance.EventhoughtheUnitedStatesRailroadAdministrationhadruntherailwaysfarmoreefficientlythantheprivatecompanies,and,incidentally,paidits workers generously, the railways were returned to full private control inMarch1920andAmericawentbacktoitstraditionalemphasizeoncompetitionrather thancooperationandunification.The lessonswereswiftlyforgottenandthe efficiencies lost, as the railways went back to their old bad habits withroundabout routes for freight, the proliferation of ticket offices and theconstruction of non-standard locomotives in small, and therefore expensive,batches.InBritain,however,thewardidpermanentlychangethestructureoftherailways, with all but someminor railways being consolidated into four largecompanies. In Canada, too, there was consolidation as the financial plight ofthreeof its largestrailwaysledto thecreationof thepubliclyownedCanadianNationalRailways.

In the countries where the conflict had taken place, not only had largesectionsof linebeendamagedbut thewhole systemshadbeenallowed to rundown,leavingenormousrepairbillsforwhichthestatemostlypickedupthetabeither directly, or indirectly, through subsidies. Inevitably, given thedisintegrationof theAustro-HungarianEmpireandGermany’s lossofsomeofits territory, after thewar therewas amajor restructuringof theEuropean railnetwork.Austriasufferedtheworst.BeforethewartheprivatelyownedrailwayhadbeenthethirdlargestsysteminEuropewith28,750milesandbythestartofthe Second World War, when the railways were taken over by the GermanReichsbahn,itwasastate-controllednetworkamountingtojust4,150miles.Theinflexibilityof railwaynetworkswashighlightedby theplight of theAustriansystem.Prior to thewar, theemphasishadbeenbroadlyonanorth–southaxiswith Vienna at the centre, but now the much diminished country was mostlysituatedonaeast–westaxiswhichwasill-servedbyitsexistingrailwaynetwork.

Germanyhad tohandover3,000milesof line toPoland–which its armyengineers had mostly converted from the wider Russian gauge in great hasteduring the war – as well as 1,200 in Alsace-Lorraine including the infamousMetzStation,andevenover100milestobothBelgiumandDenmark.TherumpoftheGermanrailways,whichwasstilldividedamongsevenstates,wasfinallyunified into one system, the government-owned Reichsbahn, fulfillingBismarck’s dream in circumstances that would have had him turning in his

grave.Indeed,theReichsbahnwasoneoftheprincipalvehiclesthroughwhichGerman reparations weremade. The various Allied nations claimed no fewerthan5,000locomotives,15,000coachesand135,000wagonsforthoselostintheconflict and these had to be delivered in perfect order. A team of Alliedinspectors ensured that theseweremanufactured to the latest design and eveninstituted special trials at sites near the border to put the locomotives throughtheir paces. Not surprisingly, the Reichsbahn started life in a state of virtualcollapsebutremarkablybythemid-1930sGermanywouldbeaworldleaderinrailwaytechnology,notablywithdieseltrains.

The spreadofbothdiesel and electric-powered trains really tookoff in theinterwarperiodbutelectrificationhaditsrootsinthenineteenthcentury.Electricpowerhadanumberofadvantages,beingcleaner,moreefficientandultimatelycheaper, once the technology had been properly developed. The firstdemonstrationofanelectrictrainhadtakenplaceinthe1840sbutthetechnicalbarrier toelectrificationwastheneedtofindwaysofconstructingenginesthatweresufficientlypowerfulandreliabletobeusedonthemainline.Bytheturnofthe century, Britain already had over 400 miles of electrified lines, mostlytramwaysbutalsothepioneeringLiverpoolOverheadRailway.ButprogressinBritainwasslowcomparedwithseveralEuropeancountries,notablyGermany,Switzerland where the preponderance of tunnels and steep inclines madeelectrificationparticularlydesirable,andeventheUSAusedelectricityonafewlinesaroundNewYorkbecause theauthorities insisted that steam locomotiveswereunsuitableforthetunnelsundertheHudsonriverintoNewYork.

Switzerland showed the huge advantage of electric traction on the StGotthard line where it was introduced in 1913. Whereas two steam enginesstruggled toclimbup thegradientspullinga200-ton loadat20mph, justoneelectric locomotivecoulddo the jobwitha300-ton trainat30mph.Thatyearthe Swiss also completedwhat is probably themost beautiful of the railwaysthrough theAlps, theLötschberg line (theBern–Lötschberg–Simplon) runningfromSpiezontheThunLakethroughtheBerneseOberlandtotheRhônevalley.Itwas built by private enterprise,with support from theCanton of Bern, andfrom the outset used a system of electrification that later became standardthroughout Switzerland. The trip along the fifty-mile line from the savage,desolateLonzaGorgethroughthesummittunnelandontotheverdantvalleyoftheRhôneisoneofthegreatrailwayjourneysoftheworldandinrecentyearsanewtunnelandraillinehasbeenbuiltaspartofthecountry’splantotakelorriesoffthealpineroads.

WiththesuccessoftheSwissadoptionofelectricity,aswellastheshortageof coal after the war and the increasing availability of hydroelectricity, both

France and Italy drew up ambitious programmes to electrify severalmainlineroutes.Frenchplanswerelargelyheldupbytechnicalproblemsandthecostofimplementation but Italy emerged from the interwar period with the greatestproportionofelectrifiedlinesamongEuropeancountries.ThedrivingforcewasthedictatorshipofBenitoMussoliniwhosawelectric trainsasepitomizingthemodernizing image to boost Italy’s standing in the world. As to whetherMussoliniactuallymadethetrainsrunontime,theevidenceisnotclearcut.AttheendoftheFirstWorldWar,theItalianrailwayswereinapoorstateandruleswereextremelylax.NaplestoMilan,thespineoftheItalianrailnetwork,tookseventeen hours and trains rarely maintained even that sluggish timetable.ImprovementshadstartedtobemadeevenbeforetheFascistscametopowerin1922butMussolini investedheavily in the railways.According to the railwayhistorian Geoffrey Freeman Allen, ‘under Mussolini the country’s intercitypassenger serviceswere transformednotonlybyacceleration,whichgenerallyhalvedtheendtoendtimesofthebesttrainsbutbymassiveexpansionoftrainfrequencies’.Thiswasachievednotonlybyelectrificationbuttheeliminationofcurves, the legacyof theoriginal railwaybuilders’ shortageofcapital,halvingthe timing between Naples and Milan to eight hours. The Italian railwaysintroducedfasterDiretissima trainsandMussolini’s reputationas themanwhomadethetrainsrunontimewasbasedonaspecialpresstripstagedinJuly1939,days before the outbreak of the war. A three-car electric unit travelled fromFlorencetoMilanatanaverageof102mphforthenear200-miletrip,despitealongsectionofgradientthroughtheApennines,aworldrecordthatwouldstanduntilthelaunchoftheJapanesehighspeedtrainaquarterofacenturylater(seeChapter13).Mussolinithereforebroughtaboutthesamekindofimprovementstotherailwaysthathadbeenintroducedearlierinothercountriesbutwhetherhistrains actually ran on time according to these new improved timetables isunclear.

Thealternativewayofmodernizing railwayswas tousediesel locomotivesorrailcarswhichhaveengineseither incompartmentsat theendofacoachorunderneath the floor.Earlyattempts tousepetrolweresoonsupplantedby theadoption of dieselswhich is farmore economical especially as the amount ofpowerrequiredincreases.Dieselengines–whichusecompressionratherthanasparktoignitethefuel–werefirstinventedbyaDrRudolfDieselin1897.Dueto technical difficulties, however, it was not until the 1920s that this type oftractionwasseriouslyconsideredasacheaperalternativetosteamlocomotives.In1932, theReichsbahnannouncedplanstouseanewhighspeeddiesel train,the Fliegende Hamburger (Flying Hamburger) service, between Berlin andHamburg, travelling at an average speed of 75mph for the 178-mile journey.

Thetrain,lookingratherlikeaZeppelinbecauseithadbeentestedinthewindtunnelsattheairshipworks,wasintroducedinMay1933anddemonstratedtheadvantagesofthenewtechnology.Itwasarevolutionarymomentinrailhistorysinceforthefirsttimethetrainwasrequiredtomaintainspeedsofover100mphin order to keep to the timetable. The interwar period is characterized bydictatorsusing the railways topromote themodernity and futuristic aspectsoftheir regimes and this train’s accelerated development was part of Hitler’spropagandaexercisetodemonstratethegreatnessofhis‘thousandyearReich’.Thesuccessof theservice led theReichsbahn to launchanevenfasterservicebetweenBerlin and Cologne two years later, averaging 82mph and a similarFliegendeFrankfurterservicesoonfollowed.

TheseGermanhighspeeddieselswerekilledoffbytheSecondWorldWaranddidnotreturntoservicebutsimilartrainsweredevelopedelsewhere.Itwasin the United States that they were most widely adopted, transforming long-distancetravelinthefaceofgrowingcompetitionandensuringthat,betweenthewars, America led the way in passenger rail travel. The Americans had alsoconducted a few experimentswith petrol railcars such as those operated from1922on theChicago,Burlington&Quincy,whichwere littlemore thanbusesonwheels,andtherathermoresophisticatedBlueBirdservice,athreecartrainrunning between the Twin Cities (St Paul and Minneapolis), and Rochester,Minnesota introduced in 1929 but it was diesel that was to revolutionize railtravelintheUS.

After theendof theFirstWorldWar, theAmericanrailroadshadcontinuedtheirpolicyofrunningprestigioustrainsontheirmainrouteswithbettertimingsand luxurious facilities. The most famous and illustrious was the New YorkCentral’sTwentiethCenturyLimited, launched,asbefits itsname, justafter thestart of the century in 1902 on the 960-mile route between New York andChicago.Thiswasluxuryofthehighestorderwithadozenstafftocaterforjustforty-twopeoplewhowerecomfortablyaccommodated in the inaugural train’sfivecarriages.Itwasnotcheap,aspassengershadtopayasupplement,buttheywere rewarded with a choice of sleeping accommodation ranging from theluxurioustothepalatial,agentleman’sclubcarwithwinebar,barber’sshopandasecretarytotakedownletters,andfortheladies,anobservationcarwheretheycould retire while their spouses discussed business. Dinner invariably startedwith oysters, then soup, a choice of fish, chicken, ribs of beef, or goose, andfinishedwithbothcheeseanddessert.TheTwentiethCenturyLimitedgave theworldtheexpression‘redcarpet’treatmentsinceatbothNewYorkandChicagothesolesofitspassengers’feetneverhadtotouchthepavingoftheplatformasacarpet, embossed with the company’s insignia, was rolled out just before the

trainarrived.Thetravellersweresoillustriousthattherailroad,eagertoboostitsreputation, issued their names to the daily press, rather in the same way thatsailinglistsoftransatlanticlinerswerepublishedbynewspapersonbothsidesoftheocean.

By the 1920s, theTwentiethCenturyLimited service had greatly expandedandafleetof122coachesandtwenty-fourlocomotiveswasallocatedsolelytotheCentury. At its peak in January 1929, just before the great Crash, sevenalmostidenticaltrainsleftfromChicagocarryingatotalof822passengers.Thisprestigiousservicewasavitalpartof theeconomicsof theNewYorkCentral,earningannualrevenuesof10milliondollarsandeverydaythepresidentofthecompany was handed a statement with all the details of the running of theCenturyincludingpassengernumbersandtimings.Forlessaffluentpassengers,there was its rival, the Pennsylvania Special, launched the same day by thePennsylvaniaRailroadwhichlaterbecametheBroadwayLimitedthatprovidedasimilar,thoughnotquiteasluxurious,servicecoveringthedistanceinthesametime,twentyhours.ThesetwotrainswouldcontesttheNewYork–Chicagoroutefor thenext fiftyyearsuntil airlinesmade inroads into their business after theSecondWorldWar.

OtherUSrailroadssoonemulatedthesetworivals,launchingsimilarservicessuch as, in 1911, the Santa Fe’s De Luxe, which was limited to just sixtypassengersandrequiredasupplementof$25(around£300intoday’smoney).ItleftChicagoat8p.m.onTuesdaynightandreachedLosAngelesat9a.m.onFriday, a sixty-one hour trip.All these trains sought to distinguish themselvesfrom their rivalswith a novel facility: theSantaFepresented everypassengerwith‘apigskinwalletembossedwiththetrain’stitleingiltandattheCalifornianborder pages would swarm aboard with corsages for each lady’; 8 the GreatNorthernOriental Limited’s unique selling point was a famous 5 p.m. ritualwhen a steward, bearing a silver tea service and followed by a retinue ofuniformed maids carrying sandwiches and patisseries (nothing as vulgar as‘pastries’),would travel down the lengthof the train; theFloridaEastCoast’sFloridaSpecial boasted a stringquartetwhichplayedamongpottedplants forpre-dinnerentertainmentandlaterfeaturedswimsuitmodellingtothedelightofthemalepassengers;theNorthCoastLimitedcarriedanelectricianspecificallytolookaftertheinnovatorylightbulbsandhadoneofthefirstobservationcars,afeaturethatwouldsoonbeuniversallyused;andtheSunshineSpecial,oneofthe few international trains in North America, which linked St Louis withMexicoCity,hadspecialloungesanddiningcarsinSpanishstyle,completewithall-American soda fountains. Most of these trains started as once per weekservices but soon built up to higher frequencies, like, for example, theSunset

Limited, which operated the 2,500-mile trip between New Orleans and SanFrancisco,takingseventy-twohours,andbecamedailyjustbeforetheoutbreakof theFirstWorldWar; north of the border, from1920 therewas the flagshiptrainofthenewlycreatedCanadianNationalRailways,runningthe2,900milesbetweenMontrealandVancouvertakingfourandahalfdays,whichintroducedan on-board radio service which as a by-product led to the creation of theCanadianBroadcastingCorporationsinceitrequiredtheestablishmentofelevenbroadcastingstationsalongtheroute.

For theiraffluentcustomers, the railroadsprovideda fantasticdoor todoorservice,asneatlydescribedbyAlbroMartin:

The affluent midwestern family whose son was leaving shortly for YaleCollegephoned the railwaydepot thedaybeforeandhad theexpressmancallinhisvanforthelad’strunksandsuitcases.Fatherhandedthemantherailroadticket,andhedulypunchedthesquareindicatingthatthetraveler’sbaggage – 150 pounds were allowed on a full fare ticket – had beencheckedtodestination.9

And thatdestinationwasnot the arrival station,but the student’s roomsat thecollege.All this, however, somewhat covered up the fact that these trains ranpretty slowly and theUS railroads, still largely in amonopoly position in the1920s,madelittleefforttoimprovetimings.Itwastheadventofdieseltractionin theearly1930s, togetherwith thebelated realization that themotorcar, thebusandtheaeroplanewerebeginningtochallengetheirhegemonythatspurredthem to improve these prestigious services. Buses had begun to eat into theintercity market in the eastern states and crucially, for the longer distances,aeroplanes were beginning to be seen as an alternative to the train. The firstscheduledcommercialdomesticflightintheUnitedStateswaslaunchedinApril1927 betweenBoston andNewYork, and others quickly followed suit.Whilediesel locomotiveshadbeen introducedbyvariousUS railroadsby the endofthe1920s,theywereconfinedtoshuntingandlightduties,asthepowerfuldieselengines were thought to be too heavy to be economic. The technicalbreakthrough was the development of a far more efficient engine by GeneralMotorsusingalloysthatgaveafarbetterpowertoweightratio.AttheChicagoFair of 1932, the new engine caught the eye of the boss of the Chicago,Burlington & Quincy Railroad who used it to revolutionize rail travel in

America. InMay1934,a streamlined traindubbed thePioneerZephyr ran the1,000-milejourneyfromDenvertoChicagoatarecord-breakingaveragespeedof justunder78mph, the sameperformanceas theGermandieselsbutoveramuch longer distance.Not onlywas the train far faster, but it was amazinglycheap to run as the fuel cost for the trip was reported to be just $16. TheinauguralZephyrwas only three cars long, and able to carry just seventy-twopassengers, but soon longer trainswere introduced. In a demonstration run, asimilar six car diesel smashed the coast to coast record in October 1934,travelling fromLosAngeles toNewYork in fifty-sevenhours,knockingmorethan fourteen hours off the previous recordwhichhad been set as far back as1906 – a gap which showed all too graphically that the railroads had notconsideredspeedinguptheirtimingstobeapriority.ItwentintoservicefortheUnionPacific as theCity ofPortland running betweenChicago and Portland,Oregonon thewestcoast, taking fortyhourscomparedwith fifty-eight for thefasteststeamservice.

Fromthesebeginnings,afamilyof‘Zephyrs’and‘Cities’emergedonthesetworailroadswithlongerandmorepowerfultrainssuchastheDenverZephyr,launched in 1936which had twelve cars offering an overnight sleeper servicebetweenChicagoandDenver.TheAtchisonTopeka&SantaFesoonjoinedinwith itsSuperChiefbetweenChicagoandLosAngeles,whichratheruniquelywasabletotravelonitsowntracksallthewayfortheforty-hourjourney,afullhalfadayfasterthantheprevioussteamservice.Andsoon.Americaenjoyedabriefheydayoftherailways,whichcontinuedthroughoutthewarbut,asweseeinthenextchapter,wouldbecutshortascompetitionintensifiedandthenationtook to planes and automobiles.As elsewhere, however,while thememoryofthese great trains remains, thanks partly to the companies’ advertising andPRcampaignswhich left a legacy of fabulous posters,most rail journeys both inAmerica and Europe remained a mundane experience on systems whoseperennialproblemwasunderinvestmentandafailuretomodernize.

Ominouslyfortherailways,evenwhilethesemodernlong-distanceintercityserviceswerebeingintroduced,whichtheUSrailroadssawasessentialfortheirsurvival, thenumberofpeopleusing the railroadswas falling. In1920 theUSrailnetworkcarried1.2bn10passengers,itsall-timepeak,andbythebottomofthe economic slump in 1933 that had already fallen by two thirds to just 435million.These figures exclude commuters, and there the declinewas not onlymoremarkedbutclosureswerebecomingcommonplacealmostas soonas theFirstWorldWarended.Therailwaysfailedtoforeseethiscollapseintrafficordomuchtodefendtheirinterests.Evenaslateas1916,aUSsuburbanrailwaymanagerdismissedthethreat,saying‘thefadofautomobileridingwillgradually

wearoffandtimewillsoonbeherewhenaverylargepartofthepeopleceasetothinkofautomobilerides’.11JusthowwronghewascanbedemonstratedbythefactthatAmerica’ssuburbannetworkof15,600mileslostallbut3,000milesintheinterwarperiod.Whiletherailroadcompanieswereblindtothechallengeofthecar, themajormotorcarmanufacturerswerefarcannierandevenplayedarole in this decline by encouraging towns to rip up their tramway systems tomake way for their products, as highlighted brilliantly in the 1988 filmWhoFramedRogerRabbit.

This decline made it all the more important for railways to respond byadopting modern methods. Yet, in this difficult transitional period for therailways, there were still doubts as to whether diesel or steam technologyrepresentedthefuture.Whiletheintroductionoftheearlydieselservicesprovedpopular, the romance of powerful steam engines remained enticing andtechnologicalimprovementsappearedtosuggestthatsteamstillrepresentedthefutureforrail.Certainlysteamengines,helpedbyimprovements,putupagoodfightbeforebeingoutdonebythetwosuperiorandmoreefficient technologiesof diesel and electric traction. Although various radical changes to the basicsteam engine were tried, such as the Russian locomotives which used acombination of both diesel and steam power, the future of the technologyseemedtoliemoreinattemptstorefineratherthanradicallychangetraditionaldesign.ThebestlocomotiveengineeroftheinterwarperiodwastheFrenchmanAndréChapelon,whoseincreasestotheflowofsteamthroughtheengineledtoimprovements in efficiency of up to 50 per cent. His effortswere not alwayswelcomedbytheengineeringestablishmentsincetheyexposedtheinadequaciesofhis rivals’ engines and consequentlyhis improvementswerenot adopted aswidelyastheyshouldhavebeen.

Themostvisibleexpressionofsteam’sadaptabilitywasthedevelopmentofmore powerful and, with the use of streamlining, elegant locomotives whichwereusedtohaulaseriesofprestigioustrainsdesignedtoimprovetheimageoftherailways.Modernsteammightseemlikeanoxymorontoday,butitwasverymuch a feature of the 1930s, in particular with the introduction of thesestreamlined locomotives. Theywere introduced in several countries, includingtheUS andAustralia, but itwas inBritain that their developmentmademostprogress. Itwas the rivalrybetween theLondon&NorthEasternRailwayandthe London,Midland& Scottish on the routes between London and Scotlandwhichstimulatedthecontest.Thetworivalshadlongtriedtooutdoeachotherby providing extra amenities on their prestigious flagship trains, the LNER’sFlyingScotsmanand theRoyalScot of theLMS.TheLMS introduced leathersetteesandarmchairs,butwassooneclipsedbytheLNERwithitsLouisXIV-

style armchairs and hand-painted decor which was later followed by ahairdressingsalon,headphonesetstolistentotheradioorrecordedmusichostedbytheworld’sfirstmobileDJandcinemacoachesshowingnewsreels,cartoonsandtraveloguesforasupplementofashilling(5p).Whentheprovisionoftheseluxuriesfailedtoattractfurtherpassengers,thecompaniesatlastresortedtotheidea of trying to improve timings on the route, which had not reducedmuchsincetheturnofthecenturyandtwoofthegreatsteamlocomotiveengineersoftheagewentheadtoheadintobattle.FortheLNER,NigelGresleyproducedanewclassoflocomotives,A3Pacifics,12whichranupto108mphinatestandin 1935 operated the highly successfulSilver Jubilee service between LondonandNewcastleinjustfourhours,sixtyminutesfewerthanpreviously.TheLMSrespondedwith thePrincessCoronationPacificsdevelopedbyWilliamStanierandwhichranbetweenLondonandGlasgowinjustsixandhalfhours,asavingof105minutes.Itwas,though,theLNERwhichtriumphedwithitsstreamlinedlocomotives, the A4 Pacifics, one of which, the Mallard, achieved theremarkablespeedof126mphonatestruninJuly1938.

InAmerica,therewasasimilarcontestwhichwasgivenaddedspiceastherewerethreeplayers,twosteamandonedieselcompetingforthelucrativetrafficbetweenChicago and the twin cities (Minneapolis and St Paul). TheChicagoNorthWesterntriggeredthebattleinJanuary1935bylaunchingits400,asteamtrainthatcoveredthe400milesin400minutes13whichrequiredconsiderableperiodsofrunningat100mph.TheBurlingtonrespondedwiththedieselTwinZephyr and theChicago,Milwaukee& St Paul Pacificwith the steam-hauledHiawatha.Althoughthetwosteamservicesreducedthepreviousbesttimesfortherun,itwastheZephyrwhichtriumphedandranthefastestservices,albeitbyonlyasmallmargin.InFrance,too,streamlinedlocomotiveswereusedtohaulthe fastest train of the 1930s, the Aérodynamique, which consisted of amaximumof just three carriages betweenParis andMarseille, undertaking the536-milejourneyinjusttenhours(today,thenon-stopTGVcoversthedistanceinunderthreehours!).

The 1930swere also the heyday of theOrientExpress serviceswhich hadbeenrestoredin1919andnowconsistedofavarietyoftrainsusingthatname.TherewastheSimplonOrientExpressrunningfromCalaisandParisthroughtoIstanbulviaMilan,Zagreb,BelgradeandSofia,withsomecoachesbeingroutedtoAthens;theplainOrientExpresswhichranfromParistoIstanbulbyamorenortherly route via Vienna and Bucharest; and theArlberg Orient Express toBudapestviaInnsbruckandVienna.Itwasafive-daydelayinasnowstormtoawestbound Orient Express at Çerkezköy in Turkey which inspired Agatha

Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Prestigious steam trains were notconfinedtoEurope.BytheoutbreakoftheSecondWorldWar, theCompagnieInternationaledesWagons-LitetduTourismewhichrantheOrientExpressandmanyPullmansinEurope,ownedastaggering2,260carsoperatinginmorethantwenty-fivecountriesrangingfromSenegal,toSyria,andjustbeforethewarthecompany even ran trains as far as Baghdad. For example, in Egypt, the trainbetweenCairoandLuxorwasnamedStarofEgypt in1929andprovidedwithPullmancarriagestoservethegrowingnumberoftouristsvisitingtheValleyoftheKings.

Whilesteamenginetechnologydidnotstandstill,thereisnodoubtthattoomanyoftheworld’srailwaysheldontotheirtraditionalformoftractionforfartoo long. Britain,whichmade little effort to adopt the new technologies,wasparticularly guilty of this. In 1933, the Great Western Railway began to rundieselrailcarsonlocalservicesandboththeLondonMidland&ScottishandtheLondon&NorthEasternRailwayelectrifiedafewsuburbanlines,butonlytheSouthern Railway made considerable progress between the wars, convertingmuchofitsnetworkinarollingprogrammeusingathirdrailsystem.NotrunkmainlineinBritainadoptedthefarmoreefficientoverheadelectrificationuntiltheWestCoastelectrificationinthe1960s.14

Inthemain,thoserailwayswhichconvertedearlydidsoasaresultofspecialcircumstances such as steep gradients, access to cheap fuel or electricity, or ashortageofcoalsincerailwaymanagersrarelytookalong-termstrategicview,failingtorealizethatchangewasinevitable.IntheAndes,forexample,thehighaltitude railways acquired a strange collection of converted petrol and dieselroadvehicleswhichwouldwindtheirwayupthemountainsmorelikeatrafficjam than a ‘train’. The transandine itself was partly electrified in the 1920sbecause of its steep gradients using electric locomotives imported fromSwitzerland. Wherever there was abundant cheap hydroelectricity, theeconomicsofelectrificationbecameoverwhelmingsuchasinSwedenwherethe280-mileLaplandRailwaywhich carried ironorewas electrified in1923, andtheStockholm–Gothenburg line followed suit twoyears later.Morocco then aFrench colony, was also a surprising early beneficiary of electrification. ThenorthAfricancountryhadcomelatetotherailwayssince,beforethewar,therehad only been a few military railways to provide transport for the ForeignLegion. This changed in 1922 when the French governor, Maréchal Lyautey,decided todevelop the infrastructureof theMaghrebandembarkedona rapidrailway building programme. Thanks to the cheap hydroelectricity availablefrom the Atlas Mountains, large parts of the network used electric traction,includingtheMarrakechExpressmadefamousbytheeponymous1969Crosby,

Stills&Nashsongbutactuallyapioneeringrailwayasitwasoneofthefirstintheworldtouseregenerativebraking–inotherwords,theelectricitygeneratedbythetrainsbrakingdownthe1in66hillscouldbeputbackaspowerintothesystem.Moroccothereforedevelopedfromscratchoneofthemostmodernrailnetworksintheworld.

Such examples only reinforce the point that in an ideal worldmanymorerailwayswouldhaveadoptedthenewformsoftractionfarfaster.Notonlywasthere inbuilt resistance to the change but also both diesel and electrictechnologieshaddisadvantagessince therailwayshadhugeamountsofcapitaltiedupinexistingtechnologiesandmakingthechangerequiredaleapoffaithsince it involvedmajor investmentata timewhentherailwayswerehaving tobattle against competition from othermodes for the first time in their history.Electrification has a particularly high initial cost because of the expense ofinstalling the lineside equipment and so, at first, was only advantageous incountrieswheretherewascheaphydroelectricity.Dieselusedoilwhichinmanycountrieswaslessavailablethancoal.IronicallyBritainwastobegratefulthatithadnotconvertedmorerailwaystodieselsince,intheSecondWorldWar,fuelwas scarce while home-produced coal was abundant. But that is hardly ajustificationfortheoriginalfailing,whichwasamissedopportunity,notjustinBritain but elsewhere. Steam locomotives were cheap to build and thoughmaintenancewasfrequentandquiteexpensive,thetechnologywaswellknownanddidn’trequirefabulouslyexpensiveworkshops.Anyoldshedwoulddo!ThegreatlocomotivesproducedbythelikesofGresleyandChapelonseemedtobethe prelude to evenmore improvements for steam technology but in fact theywere a dead end, because the unfortunate truth was that steam locomotivedevelopment had more or less reached its peak by the late 1930s.Motor carengineering,ontheotherhand,improvedrapidlyaftertheSecondWorldWarasenginesbecamemuchmorepowerfulandeconomic.Sodidaeroplanes.In1935theDC3carried twenty-onepassengersover1,000milesat165mph.By1965theDC9wascarrying120passengersover1,000miles at 565mphusing lessthanaquarterof the fuelperpassengerof theDC3. In retrospect itwas tragicthattherailwayskeptsteamtractionforsolong.

Hadmorerailwaysconvertedearliertomodernformsoftraction,theywouldhave provedmore viable andmany lines that eventually closed for economicreasonsmighthavebeensaved.Thiswasparticularlytrueofbranchlineswhereadieselrailcarcouldoperateatafractionofthecostofalittlesteamengine,andoffer a far better service since no shunting or turning round was necessarybecausetherewasadriver’scabatbothends.Hadthedieselrailcarbeenmoregenerally deployed earlier, and had the unions accepted driver-only operation

sooner,thensomelineswouldhaveremainedviableandpossiblynotbeenslatedforclosure.

Itwasnotonlydieselandelectricpoweredtrainsthatweredevelopedinthefruitfulperiodbetweenthewarswhichprovedtobea timeofexperimentationlike the early Victorian agewhen different types of railway, such as Brunel’svacuum railway, 15 had been tried and mostly failed. There were plenty ofrevolutionaryideasaround;somesounderthanothers.Thistimebothpropellerandrocket-poweredtrainsweredevelopedinGermanyandonatesttrackatraininventedbyFritzvonOpelusingasetoftwenty-fourrocketsreachedaspeedof157mph.Unfortunately,itleftthetracksonthesecondrunandcrashed,puttinga stop to further experiments since it had already attracted the opposition ofGeneralMotorswhich bought a controlling share in theOpel car company in1929.Apropeller train, theRailZeppelin, invented by FranzKruckebergwasrather more successful, with a trial run on the Hamburg–Berlin main line,averaging160mph,butreallythatwastoofastfortheconditionofthetracksorthe needs of the railway, and running at slower speeds was inefficient whichmadetheprojectunviable.InFrance,Bugatti,anamenormallyassociatedwithsports cars, developed a railcar in the 1930s running on a curiousmixture ofpetrol, alcohol and benzol, and these were successfully introduced on severallinesincludingParis–LyonandParis–Strasbourgandsurviveduntilwellafterthewar.

Although countries which had well-developed networks mostly stoppedbuildingnewlinesbytheoutbreakoftheFirstWorldWar,withtheexceptionoftheUnitedStateswhere thewesternstateswerestillexpandingtheirnetworks,therewasstillmuchgrowthelsewhereintheinterwarperiodandseveralmajorprojects were completed particularly in less developed countries. As the FirstWorld War was ending, a 640-mile-long metre gauge line was completedbetween Bangkok and Singapore, linking several of the then separate Malaystates. Many other Asian countries, which had mostly been late starters alsoexperiencedamajorgrowthofnewlinesinthisperiod,asdidwell-establishedrailways like those in India.TheBritishcolonialpower showeda readiness toinvestinthenowlargelynationalizedIndiansystemwhichcontinuedtoexpandrapidly in the interwar periodwith 4,500miles being completed in the 1920s,bringing the system up to 40,000 miles with a workforce of 800,000. In the1920s, a programme of electrification was begun with the conversion of theBombaysuburbanlinesandsoonextendedtoincludethesteepgradientsoftheWesternGhatsdescribedinChapter3.

In Australia, transport between New South Wales and Queensland wasgreatly improved with the construction of a new standard gauge section that

reducedjourneytimesbetweenSydneyandBrisbanefromtwenty-eighthourstoundersixteenhours.ItwasnotonlyMussoliniandHitler,amongthedictatorsoftheperiodwholovedgrandrailwayschemes.Stalinalsosawrailwaysasagreatmodernizing force and under his regime Russia continued an old imperialproject,theTurkestan–SiberiaRailway(theTurksib),a900-milebranchofftheTrans-Siberian intowhat is nowTurkmenistan,whichwas completed in 1930.He also, incidentally, reopened the Trans-Siberian to western tourists andbusinesstravellerswhohadbeenbannedsincetheCommunisttakeoverandhisgovernmentpaidforthelinetobedoubletrackedallthewaythroughtocaterforincreased traffic. Iran, another late starter, built one of the most ambitiousprojectsoftheinterwaryears,the865-mileTrans-IranianRailway,runningfromthe Caspian Sea through Teheran to the Persian Gulf. This was yet anotherheroicrailwayencounteringanewsetofengineeringchallengessuchasafailedattempt tocarvea tunnel througha saltdomeandahillmadeofpumice.Theline, started in 1927 at the instigation of yet another dictator,RezaShah, alsoadoptedthetechniqueoftheSwissrailwaysintheAlpsbyusingspiralscarvedin themountains to limit thegradients, though theywerestill steepat1 in36.Therailwayopened in1938, just in time toprovideavitalsupplyroute to theSovietUnionintheSecondWorldWar.InAfrica,asmentionedinChapter7,theBenguelaRailwayinsouth-westAfricawasfullyopenedin1932andtheCapetoCairoreacheditsapogee.

InBelgium,which had themost intensive rail network in theworld, therewasstillgrowthintheremarkabletramwaysystemthathaddevelopedalongsidevirtually every major road. It was run by a separate company from the mainBelgian railways, the SociétéNationale des Chemins de fer Vicinaux, and by1925extendedtonearly4,000kmsofmetregaugerailwaystilllargelyoperatedbysteamengines.ThesystemhadprovedinvaluableintheFirstWorldWarincarrying coal andwas heavily used in the Second, too, because petrol and oilwereinshortsupply.

Despitethisgrowthandthemodernizationinvariouspartsoftheworld,theinterwar period was a difficult one for the railways. The sheer scale of therailways, with the enormous fixed investment tied up in track, signalling,stationsandrollingstock,madetheminflexibleandthereforeslowtorespondtochange.Moreover,theywerehugeemployersoflabourandinmostcountriestheworkforcebecamestronglyunionized.Thiswashardlysurprisinggiventhattheworkerswereoftenpoorlytreated,havingtoworkverylonghoursforlittlepayand unionization was often won after a struggle with dyed-in-the-woolmanagements.Despite themanagements’ resistance, the nature of railways, inwhich disruptions were simple to cause and very expensive for the owners,

meant that unionization was easier for the workers to achieve than in otherindustries.Britain had experienced its first attempts at railway organization inthe1860sanditsfirstnationalstrikein1911,whichsucceededinimprovingtheworkers’conditions,albeitafterfurtherdisputes.

In1912,Spain,too,haditsfirstgeneralrailwaystrike,whichresultedinabigincrease in the workers’ wages and pension entitlements. Workers were –crucially–winningtherighttohaveshorterhours,greatlyincreasingthecostsofrunning railways which previously had depended on exploiting workers byimposingonthemunpaidovertime.InAmerica,thefirststrikehadbeenin1877onthepioneeringBaltimore&OhioandthePennsylvania,andasmentionedinChapter4therehadbeenaparticularlyhard-foughtstruggleagainstPullmanin1894.Bytheearlytwentiethcentury,theunionshadestablishedthemselvesasapowerful force,albeitnotalwayssuccessful, toopposemanagement’sattemptsto impose pay cuts and other damaging changes to their conditions, and bothBritain and the United States experienced railway strikes in the 1920s. Thepower of the unions, and restrictive practices which they adopted over suchmattersasmanning,limitedtheabilityoftherailwaystobeflexibleinthefaceofthegrowingcompetitionfromothermodesoftransport.

Giventhisgrowthandtheadoptionofnewtechnologies,whichinmanypartsof theworldoffered the railwaysanew leaseof life, itwouldbeamistake todatethebeginningofthedeclineoftherailwaystotheimmediateaftermathoftheFirstWorldWar.Ofcoursewiththecarandespeciallythelorrybeginningtomakeinroadstherewasextrapressureontheironroadsbutthesewerestilltimesofinnovation,growth,expansionandexcellenceinmanypartsoftheworld.AsO.S.Nockputsit,‘Itisremarkablethatfromtheverydepthsofthegreatslumpof the early 1930s there came some of the most enterprising and excitingdevelopmentsthathadbeenseenintheworldofrailwayssincethepioneerdaysof thenineteenth century.’ 16Aswehave seen, steam locomotivesweremuchimproved,timingsspeededupandnewtechnologieswerebeingdevelopedandintroduced.

The railways faced a further obstacle to progress, the traditional hostilityagainstthemfrombothpoliticiansandpeople,theresultoftheirlongperiodasmonopolists.Asaresult,therailwayswereoftencruellytreatedbytheretentionof burdensome regulation which had been imposed in a completely differenteconomicclimate.Unsympatheticpoliticiansturnedadeafeartotheirrequestsfor the rules to be relaxed in the face of competition from other modes oftransport. New Zealand offers a neat example of this. Obliged, like manyrailways, as a ‘commoncarrier’ to takeall freightofferedbycustomers,whentheDepressionofthe1930sstartedtobiteandroadtransportbecameviable,the

New Zealand railways started losing high value traffic to lorries while beingforcedtokeeponcarryingthecheapfreight.AsNeillAtkinson,thehistorianofthe New Zealand Railways, explains, the ‘farmers enjoyed generous railsubsidiesonlimeandfertilizer,butwhenitcametoshippingtheirproduceandothergoodsregardedNewZealandRailwaysasjustanotherbusinesscompetingfor traffic’. 17 To the government, the farmers appeared selfish and ungratefulsince,asAtkinsonsuggests,‘hadn’trailwaysopeneduptheirlandsandfosteredtheir export industries?’ 18 but expecting gratitude from the struggling farmerswashardlyrealistic.They,likeeveryoneelse,hadlongforgottenthecrucialroletherailwayshadplayedincreatingtheirprosperity.

Itwouldbethesameeverywhereelse.Therailwayswerenolongerseenasan asset but rather viewed like a halitosis-ridden guest at a party, a bit of anembarrassmentandstill,intheeyesofmany,apariah.InNewZealand,though,the railways were lucky, at least temporarily. The government was willing torescuethem,passinglegislationthatcontrolledandlicensedmotortransportandthe railway managed to respond by flattening out its rates. It was a rareexception.For themostpart,governmentswerenotwilling tobailout the railindustry and as a result, in the middle years of the twentieth century, acombinationofcompetitionandhostilityfromgovernmentshastenedthedeclinebecause memories of the big dominant monopolist companies outlasted thereality by several decades even though most major countries had, by now,nationalized their railways. The ability of the railways to compete wasweakeningalmostdailyasfirstthemotorcarandlatertheaeroplane,especiallyinAmerica, ate away at their income andyet governments sat on their hands,refusingtohelpeitherthroughderegulationormoredirectlythroughsubsidiesormodernizationprogrammes,until itwasfartoolate.First, though,therailwayshad another opportunity to shinewhen the SecondWorldWar broke out, andagaintheypassedthetestremarkablywell.

DECLINEBUTNOTFALL

In the quarter of a century between the two world wars, motor vehiclesestablished themselves as a convenient and flexible form of transport andconsequentlyitmighthavebeenassumedthattherailwaysweredestinedtoplayonlyaminorsupportiveroleintheSecondWorldWar.Nothingcouldbefurtherfromthetruth.Whiletherailwayscouldnotfunctioninthesamewaybecause,thankstothedevelopmentofaeroplanesandtanks,battleswerefarmoremobilethaninthe1914–18conflict,therailwayswerestillcrucialtoallthecombatants,including most surprisingly, the United States. Their ability to deliver vastquantities of supplies and men using far less fuel than the equivalent roadtransport was a crucial aspect of their value. Themilitary on both sides soonlearntthatinspiteofthesetechnologicaldevelopments,therailwaywasfarmoreefficientbothintermsoffuelandspacesinceasinglewagoncouldcarryover100troopsoraloadof50tonnes.AsaWarMinistryofficialwrote,ineverywar‘there comes a time when locomotives are more important than guns’. 1 Themajorcombatantsall rushedtoproducenewtypesof locomotive,paringdownexistingdesignstocreate‘austerity’enginesthatcouldbebuiltasquicklyandascheaply as possible. TheGermans, for example, produced the ‘Kriegslok’ thattook only 8,000 man hours to produce, just over a third of that normallyrequired,whilehundredsof‘MacArthurs’rolledofftheUSproductionlinesandthe British produced an Austerity locomotive based on an existing London,Midland&Scottishdesign.

The railways retained a vital role partly because they proved harder todestroy from the air than first assumed.Whilemajor stations andgoodsyardswere a relatively easy target for bombers andbridgeswere clearly vulnerable,thatthinstripoftrackcrossingvastswathesofthecountrysidewasnotsoeasytohit,whichiswhysabotagebypartisanseventuallywreakedmorepermanentdamageontheEuropeanrailnetworks thanaircraft.2 In fact randombombingproved more effective than targeted bombs according to JohnWestwood, thehistorianofwarandtherailways:‘Itissignificantthattheunaimedflyingbombof 1944was as likely to cause serious railway damage as the aimed bomb of1940.’3Keeping the railways operationalwas vital and engineers on all sides

becameincrediblyadeptatrestoringdamagedtrackswithremarkablehasteandconsequently the railways were rarely out of action for long periods. Evenbridges could be replaced quickly and, for example, on the night CoventryCathedralwasdestroyed,thelocalraillineswerehitinnofewerthan122places,buttheywereoperationalagainwithinaweek.

Just as in 1914, as soon aswar broke out inAugust 1939British railwaysweretakenundergovernmentcontrol.Theyfacedtwoearlytests:theevacuationthatsummerofchildrenintothecountrysideinanticipationoftheBlitzandthenthefollowingyear,muchmoreurgently,theremovaloftroopsfromtheChannelports after the disaster of Dunkirk. They were extremely successful in bothoperations and the Dunkirk evacuation was carried out so effectively thatWestwood suggests that perhaps far too much store was set by advancepreparation as railways, with experienced operators in charge, were far moreflexiblethanenvisaged:‘Thesudden,urgentandintensetrafficwhichpresenteditselfasBritishandAlliedtroopsarrivedattheChannelportsfromDunkirkwashandledsoadmirablythatitraisesthequestionofwhetherlong-termplanningofmilitary rail movements serves any real purpose.’ 4 So not only did all thatplanning in the FirstWorldWarmake conflict more likely, but it was also awasteoftimeandeffort!

Britain’srailwayscontinuedtohaveavitalrolethroughoutthewar,carryingrecordnumbersofpeopleandunprecedentedamountsoffreightincluding,foratime, guns on armoured trains that patrolled theChannel coast butwere firedonlyonce–inatestwhichcausedmayhemlocallybybreakingallthewindowsinhousesnearby.The railwayswereheavilyused andkept runningby skilledrailwaymanagersworkingcloselywith thearmyadministrators. Injunctions tocivilianstokeepofftherailwaystomakeroomforthemilitaryfellondeafearsastheyrushedofftotheseasideoruptoLondonateveryopportunity.

Incontrast, theGermanwareffortwashamperedsomewhatby thestrainedrelations between the Third Reich’s military managers in its Directorate ofTransportation and their Reichsbahn equivalents. According to GeoffreyFreemanAllen,‘RailwaymendenigratedthemilitaryofficialsasinterferingstaffofficersbasicallyignorantoftransportandtheDirectorate’sstructureasrigidlybureaucratic andmistrustful of initiative.’ 5 Allen then adds playfully that therailwaymanagers‘werenotbestpleased,either,todiscoverinthelateryearsofthewarthatwagonslabelledashigh-prioritywarsuppliesnotinfrequentlyborechampagne or other luxuries for the officers’ messes.’ This was not just agratuitouspieceofjingoismonAllen’spart.ThefailureofseniorNaziofficersto understand railway principles may well have had a deleterious effect on

German logistics that affected the running of the war: ‘railway operation,difficultinanycase,wasneedlesslydisturbedbythespecialtrainsinwhichNazidignitarieslikedtocruise.’6

DespiteHitler’ssupportforthedieselFlyers,whichstayedinsidingsbecauseof the shortage of fuel, hewas farmore enamouredwith roads and cars thantrains, having developed the concept ofmotorways (autobahnen) inwhich heinvestedheavily.Therailways,therefore,hadbeensomewhatneglectedandthishamperedtheinitialattackwhentheGermansagainwentthroughBelgiumintoFrance. As in 1914, the Belgians had sabotaged their mainline railways andwhile the Germans rushed westwards in their motorized transport,reinforcementswereslowtoarrivebecauseofthetransportdifficultiesandonlythe rapidsurrenderof theFrenchprevented theadvance troops frombeingcutoff.

TheFrenchmadeheavyuseoftheirrailwaysinthisearlyperiodofthewartobring troops to the front and, after their surrender, to evacuate people fleeingfromParis.TheGermansquicklytookovertheFrenchrailways,withthesamepersonnelbut supervisedbya fewGermanofficersandalsoexploited them tothe full, for bothmilitary traffic and the large quantities of buildingmaterialsneededtodefendtheChannelandAtlanticports.TheimportancetotheGermanoccupiersofkeepingthelinesfullyfunctioninggavetheFrenchrailwayworkersample opportunity for quiet sabotage. Itwas easy for paperwork to go astray,truckstobesenttothewrongdepot,coaltobethrownonthetrackandsoon.FrenchrailwayworkerswereoftenusedascouriersandspiesbytheResistanceandthemostfamousexploitwastheregularconcealmentofmessengersinthetenderwater tankof the locomotiveused tohaul the trainofPierreLaval, thecollaborationistprimeministerof‘FreeFrance’,betweenParisandVichy.Later,ofcourse,theFrenchrailwaymenwouldplayabigpartinhelpingtheResistancesabotagethesysteminanticipationoftheAlliedinvasion,anepisodefeaturedinseveralfilms.

Itwas,however,ontheeasternfrontwheretheGermanshadthemosttroublewiththerailways.Thelackofrailwaysinthewestof theSovietUnion,whichhad hampered the Russians in the First World War would, this time, benefitthem, becoming more of an obstacle for the invading Germans than thedefending Russians. The view that good railway transport tends to help thedefenderratherthantheattacker,borneoutbytheexperiencesin1914–18,wasreinforcedbytheRussians’defenceoftheirhomeland.TheSovietshadcausetobegratefulfortheTsar’sdecisionacenturybeforetoinsistonadifferentgaugefrom the standard one used by all theirEuropean neighbours precisely for thereason that proved prescient: protection against invaders. It worked. Having

invaded Poland in 1939, the Germans rather gave the game away about theireventual intention to attack Stalin, with whom they had signed a treaty, bychangingthetracksofthePolishrailwaysfromRussiantostandardgaugewithremarkablehaste.However,whentheGermanslaunchedtheirattackonStalininJune1941,theireffortstomaintainsuppliesintoRussiaweregreatlyhamperedby the need to tranship between trains at the frontier. They concentrated theirefforts on motor transport but the Russian roads were notoriously awful andaccording toWestwood: ‘inpracticemotor transport coulddo littlebetter thanhorses’.7TheRussiansleftverylittlerollingstockbehindandconsequentlytheGermans found themselves short of transport, with line capacity around onetenth of what was needed, which greatly slowed their advance towardsLeningrad(StPetersburg).TheGermanschangedthegaugeofhundredsofmilesof railway to help their invasion but only at a huge cost ofmanpowerwhichfurtherslowedtheirthrustintoRussia.Theseproblemsdelayed,possiblyfatally,theGermanattackonLeningrad.

TheRussians,fortheirpart,usedtheirrailwaystobesteffect,havinglearntfrom their failings in theFirstWorldWar andnowhelpedbyhaving a strongcentralized state.Hitlerhadexpected theRussian railways to collapse, as theyhad in the previouswar but, in fact, they performed creditably throughout theconflict.Despite the paucity of lines, in the early part of thewar the railwayswereusedtoevacuatefactoryplantandworkersfromthewestinthefaceoftheGermanadvance.Thesuccessfulfunctioningoftherailwayswashelpedbythefact that having moved everything eastwards in anticipation of the Germanattack,theRussianshadafarlargerstockoflocomotivesavailabletothemthantheGermanswhowerehinderedbytheirownenginesbeinglesswelladaptedtothe cold weather. The railways played a vital role in the defence of bothLeningrad and Moscow. A newly built orbital railway around Moscow wascrucial in allowing the defenders to move troops around the country withoutenteringthecapitalwhileinLeningrad–thesiteofthegreatestsiegeofthewar–thecitywasneverentirelyisolatedfromoutsidesuppliesthankstotherailway.Eventhoughlinesintothecitywerecutoff,motortransportranoverthefrozenLakeLadogatomeettrainsarrivingontheoppositeshore.

In theUnited States, the railroad companies, aware that therewas a lot ofmoney to be made in wartime, were keen to avoid being taken over by thegovernment, as had happened in the First World War, and consequentlycoordinated their efforts sowell that therewasnoquestionof a similarmove.With a shortage of car tyres, and petrol rationing in force, the number ofpassengerscarriedby therailways,whichhadbeendecliningsince thestartofthe Depression a decade before, soared, doubling from pre-war levels. The

railwayswere still themainwayof travelling longdistance accounting for allbut3percentoftravelbyservicemenandwomenduringthewar.Eventhoughthefrontwas thousandsofmilesaway, theadaptabilityof therailroadsprovedcrucial. According to Geoffrey Freeman Allen, ‘when U-boats frustrated thenormaloilsupplyofEasternseaboardcitiesbytankerfromtheGulfportsinthesouth, the railroads, until then negligibly involved in this traffic, somehowrustledupthetankwagonsandimprovisedtrainworkingtocope’.8Incarryingthe unprecedented amount of freight, the railroads were helped by theimprovements in efficiency over the past quarter of a century and theirmanagements’readinesstocooperateinordertowardoffanythreatofafederalgovernment takeover. As a result, the railroads had a very profitable war,although as soon as it ended, the decline in passenger numbers, which hadalreadybeenmarkedinthe1930s,resumed.

TherailwaysareindeliblyassociatedwithtwooftheworstatrocitiesoftheSecondWorldWar,mostinfamously,thetransportationofmillionsofJewsandother ‘undesirables’ such as Romanies and homosexuals to death camps inPolandandwhatisnowBelarus.Thevictimsweretransportedinunimaginablyinhumaneconditionsinfreightcarsthatwerestiflinginthesummerandfreezingin the winter, with many dying even before they reached the camps. Theindustrialscaleofthisethniccleansingwouldhavebeenimpossiblewithouttherailways, given the enormous numbers involved and the shortage of fuel forotherformsoftransport.

The other great railway-relatedwar crimewas committed by the JapaneseusingforcedlabourtobuildtheThailand–BurmaRailway.The260-milerailwaywasintendedasasupplylineforthemovementofJapanesetroopsandmaterielto theBurmafrontand for theplanned invasionof India.A totalofa250,000menwereforced toworkon therailway,mostofwhomwere localpeoplebutthere were also 60,000 British troops captured when the Japanese overranSingapore. The line linking the Thai and Burmese railway systems was builtsimultaneously from both ends, Thanbyuzayat in Burma and Nong Pladuk inThailand,andwascompleted in just sixteenmonths.Theappallingconditions,disease, starvation rations, lack of sanitation and the brutal behaviour of theJapaneseandKoreanoverseerstookanenormoustollwithover100,000workersperishing,includingover13,000prisoners.Thedeathratewasparticularlyhighin the final threemonthsas theJapaneseweredesperate tocomplete theworkand the starvingmenwere forced to do hardmanual labour around the clockwith reports of some being forced to work for sixty-two out of seventy-twohours.Whenopened, the line immediately formed a vital part of the Japanesewar effort as the Burma front became a critical supply line when they lost

controloftheSouthChinaSea.Afterthewar,theBurmarailwaysoonfellintodisuseandwasabandoned,withasmallsectionbeingreopenedin1957bytheThaigovernment.

Inmoremodernconflicts, therailwaysnolongerhavemuchofarolesinceotherformsoftransporthavetakenover.AftertheSecondWorldWar,however,therewasonelasttheatre,theKoreanWar,inwhichtherailwaysplayedavitalpart. InAugust1951, theAmericans launched‘OperationStrangle’against theNorthKoreanrailwayshopingtoobligethemtousemotortransportratherthantrainstocarrytheirsupplies.Evenbythen,despitemuchtechnicalimprovementsince 1945, the bombs were not sufficiently accurate and little damage wascauseddespitehugeeffortsonthepartoftheUnitedStatesAirForce.Moreover,when the track or bridges were hit, the North Koreans became so adept atrepairing the damage that the operation was abandoned as futile. A secondattempt, ‘Operation Saturate’, launched the following yearmet with a similarfate.TheNorthKoreanskepttheirrailwaysrunningthroughoutthewarbutthatwasreallythelasttimethatrailwaysplayedasignificantroleinwartime.BytheoutbreakoftheVietnamWar,alternativetransportsystemswereusedandmoresophisticated weaponry, able to better target railways and their structures,becameavailable,changingthenatureofhowwarswerefought.

The SecondWorldWar left many parts of the European railway networkwrecked almost beyond redemption. Even in Britain, where damage wasrelatively slight, the railways had been so overused and under-maintained thatthey were in a parlous state. While railway nationalization was an idea firstespoused by the political Left, the Depression of the 1930s had made publicownershipofrailwaysinEuropeapragmaticnecessitybecausemostpoliticiansaccepted that theywereavitalpartof thenation’s infrastructurewhichneededstate support to survive. Britain’s nationalization following the election of aLabour government in the aftermath of thewar can be seen, therefore, not somuch as a politically motivated whim but part of a Europe-wide trend.Government intervention was essential since only the state could afford themassive repair bill. InHolland, for example, where all themajor bridges hadbeenblownupinadvanceoftheGermaninvasion,therailsystemhadquicklybeenrepairedandwasveryheavilypatronizedthroughoutthewar.Inanefforttohasten the end of the war, the Dutch railway workers went on strike and inrevenge the Germans wantonly destroyed most of the system when defeatbecameinevitable,blowingupallthemajorbridgesagainbutthistimeensuringthat even the piers were destroyed. Stations, locomotives and carriages weredestroyed, although oddly the Germans left behind some of their own rollingstockwhichhelpedtorestartservices.MoneythroughtheMarshallPlan,thebig

American aid scheme to reconstruct Europe, enabled the Dutch railways torecoverrelativelyquickly.TheMarshallPlanfundswerealsousedtoreconstructthewreckedrailwaysinotherpartsofEuropeandseveralusedtheopportunitytoembarkonlargescaleelectrificationplans.

Britaindidnotuse itsMarshallPlanmoneyfor therailwaysand itwasnotuntil1955thatthegovernmentadoptedamodernizationplanwhichpromisedanendtosteamlocomotiveproduction.NothingexpressesthedesperateattemptbyBritaintoretainsteamlocomotivesinthefaceofoverwhelmingevidencefromabroadmore than the opening of the country’s first national testing centre forsteamlocomotives inOctober1948,barely twentyyearsbefore the lastBritishsteamenginewouldbepensionedoff.

While on the continent the pace of change was faster, electric or dieselservicesremainedaminorityandtravellinginEuropeantrainsinthe1950swaslargelyadismalexperience.Therailwayshadbeenpatchedup,andmoneyspenton basics, but there was little modernization and Bryan Morgan, touring inFrance,West Germany and Italy at the time was distinctly unimpressed. 9 InFrance despite being one ‘qui se passione pour’ the French lines, Morganconcluded that ‘for practical purposes they are the most inadequate of anyimportant country’. The ‘ruthlessly inflexible’ train services were designedentirely around Paris with expresses leaving at 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., aimed atallowingpeopleadaytriptoorfromthecapital,butofferinglittleforotherrailpassengerswhowere likely to endup at junctionswhere ‘littlemoves save inrelation to a once-daily event’. The planners, he concluded, had succeeded in‘immobilizingthecountry’andhewasfarmoreimpressedwithItalywhich‘notonlyhastrainsinabigway;itbelievesintrains’.Whilelargelysatisfiedwiththeservice,Morganwasmostdismayedbythe‘deplorable’habitofbookingofficesopening only fiveminutes before a train is due ‘which is all right at a sleepySpanish halt but idiotic when handling several thousand passengers daily’especiallyashealways foundhimselfbehind thesamewoman, ‘awarwidow,remarried to the victim of an industrial accident, having fifteen children andvisiblyexpectinganother,goingonherannualholidayandwithabrotherinlawworking on the railways’. Consequently she was ‘entitled to a 95 per centdiscountbut isholdingout for100percentand isprepared toargue thepointuntilwehaveallmissedtheexpress’.Whilepraisingthenumberofservices,hehadgreatdifficultyinfindingatimetableandwasappalledatthehugequantitiesof people and luggage using the trains. West Germany, he reckoned was the‘finestofthemajornationalrailwaysofEurope’despite‘itsunpunctualitiesanditsdeplorablebranch-linestock’.

The railways, therefore,were fair game for the competition, and inevitably

theylostout.Themotormanufacturers,too,hadsufferedinthewarandfortherest of the 1940s they were not in a position to increase output sufficientlyrapidly toposemuchofa threat to the railways.But thenas theeconomiesofEurope and theUnitedStates recovered andmoved away from awar footing,theyunleasheda torrentofcarsonto themarketwhich, togetherwithmassiveroadbuildingprogrammes,underminedtheeconomicsoftherailwaysandshrunktheir market share. West Germany, for example, which had just 2.4 millionmotorvehiclesin1950morethantripledthatnumberintheensuingdecadeandby1970had a parc of 16.8million. In 1950,DeutscheBahn, the state-ownednewrailorganization,had37.5percentofthetotalpassengertransportmarket,morethaneitherbusesorprivatecars,butwithintwentyyearsthathadfallentojust7.8per cent and themotor carhad81per cent. 10While thiswas amoremarkeddeclinethaninneighbouringcountries,theresultoftheGermanshavinga particularly buoyant vehicle manufacturing sector stimulated by a nationalpassion for fast cars, all western European railways suffered similarly in thisperiod.Freight,too,disappearedfromtherailwaysatanalarmingrateascheaplorries, able to carry ever bigger loads, proliferated. The railways becamecompetitiveonlyforthecarriageoflow-valueheavyitemssuchasaggregatesorcoal,andindustrialproductslikesteel.IntheEast,behindtheIronCurtain,thepicture was very different because the Communist authorities discouragedindividual car use and the railways remained heavily used, though mostlystarved of adequate investment for modernization. In East Germany, forexample,aslateasthe1970s,therailwayswerestillcarryingtwothirdsofthecountry’s long-distance freight, in order to keep expensive oil imports boughtwithhardcurrencytoaminimum.

With the loss of much of their traffic, it was inevitable that the WesternEuropean railways would start to close lines and drastically reduce staffinglevels.Brancheshadstartedclosinginmanycountriessincethe1930s,but thepaceacceleratedgreatlyoncecarsstartedrollingontotheimprovedroadsinthe1950sand1960sinhugenumbers.Theinflexibilityoftherailwayswasprovingagreatburden,asstationsandwholelineshadtobeshut.InBritaintherewasthe infamous Beeching report published in 1963 which led to the closure of4,000milesofrailway,aquarterofthetotal,and3,000stations,whileinFrancemostoftheDepartmentallinesbuiltaftertheclamouringoflocalinterestsinthe1870swereclosedinthe1940and1950s.

Therewere,however,someheroicattemptstoresisttheonslaughtfromcars,lorriesandplanes.Gradually,afterthechaosoftheimmediateaftermathofthewar, railway administrations across Europe began to understand that theaffluence which spawned the motor car also offered them opportunities to

provideanewkindofservice.Ratherthanexpectingpassengerstomakedowiththe slow and dirty steam-hauled trainswhich differed little from their pre-warpredecessors,themoreforwardthinkingrailwaymanagersrealizedthatabetterstandardofservicewasexpectedbytheirnowmoreaffluentpassengers.

In themid-1950s, inspired by the creation of theEuropeanCoal and SteelCommunity,whichwas theprecursorof theCommonMarket, theheadof theDutch railways, F.Q. den Hollander, suggested a network of Trans-EuropExpresses linking the major centres on the European mainland which wouldallow business travellers to reach their destination fast enough to do a day’sworkandreturnthesameevening.Fearingthatcompetitionfromairlineswouldtake away this lucrative business, seven railways, including those of France,ItalyandGermany,combined tocreatea seriesof international first-classonlytrains intended to provide a genuine alternative to flying. Travelling oninternational trains had, until then, been a slow and cumbersome experience,requiring lengthystopsat frontiers forcustomsand immigrationproceduresaswell as changes of locomotive and drivers. The restrictive practices of railunionswouldresultindetailed‘safety’checks,rightdowntothelastlightbulb,beforetrainscouldproceed,makingtheservicestakefarlongerthannecessaryandthuscompletelyuncompetitiveagainsttheairlines.

Hollander’sconceptwastocreateapan-Europeanrailwaywhichwouldusethesamefleetofluxurioustrainsacrossthecontinentandhaveitsowndedicatedstaff tocreateamoresuperiorservice thannormallyprovidedby therailways.This would have been a genuine alternative to the large European airlinecompaniesbyofferinga farwider rangeof journeysbut itwasan idea too farbefore its time. The grander aspects of the concept were thwarted as theindividualrailwayadministrations,allstate-owned,werenotreadytocedetheirindependence and the eventual scheme was a watered-down version ofHollander’sdream.Hisplans to includemeals in the ticketprice, likeairlines,andhavespecialportersateverystationwererejectedbuttherailwaysdidagreea common ticketing and reservation system that represented a radicalimprovement in previous arrangements, although even today booking cross-borderjourneysisnotalwayspossibleonEuropeanrailways.

A network of half a dozen Trans-Europ Expresses was launched in June1957, connecting, for example, Paris with Amsterdam and Frankfurt withZürich,andquicklygrewtoencompassseventy-threeEuropeancities.Thetrainswere initially all-diesel, though later some electric trainswere included in thenetwork,andseveralrailwaysdevelopedspeciallydesignedtrains,runningatupto 200 km/h (124 mph) for these services. All the trains were branded withtraditional-sounding railway names such as Rheingold, Etoile du Nord and

Mediolanum and were based around a series of hubs such as Frankfurt andBasle,ratherlikeairlines.Whiletheydidretainasignificantnumberofbusinesstravellerswhowouldotherwisehaveflown, theywerefightinganuphillbattleparticularlyforjourneyslongerthanacoupleofhundredmilesuntil,asweseein the final chapter, the railways responded by creating high speed trains ondedicated trackswhichgreatly reduced journey times.MostWesternEuropeannations soon signed up to the TEE concept andwhile the standard of servicevaried between countries – the best was reputed to be the Swiss trains – allprovidedmealsandmodernarmchair-styleseating.However,theseearlydieseltrains were not as well sprung as the coaches hauled by steam locomotivesgiving a somewhat bumpy ride. Nevertheless, the concept became so popularthat itexpandedto includeseveraldomesticservicesbut in the1970s theTEEnetworkstartedtobephasedoutandwasreplacedbyEuroCitytrainsofferingbothfirst-andsecond-classaccommodation.Today,asimilarconcept,Railteam,hasbeendevelopedforaEurope-widenetworkofhighspeedtrainservices(seenextchapter).

TheprestigetrainsintheUnitedStatescontinuedrunningafterthewar,andwereevenimprovedwiththeadditionofobservationcars.Aswehaveseen,theywerenotanewidea,havingfirstbeenusedbytheCanadianPacificinthe1890sbut they had subsequently been forgotten andwere not resurrected until 1944afteraGeneralMotorsexecutivewassoimpressedbyhisviewfromthecabona trip through the Rockies that he thought passengers would enjoy a similarexperience towhileaway the long journeys in theWest.Since railroads in theUnitedStatesmostlyhavefarmoregenerousheightrestrictions(sometimesupto20ft),therewerenoinsuperabletechnicalobstacles.Rivalrailroadsrushedtoaddobservationcars to their trains inaneffort to retain theirdwindling trafficandone,theBaltimore&Ohio,wasevendaftenoughtofitasearchlightontoitsobservationcarsinamisguidedefforttogiveitspassengerssomethingtoseethroughthenight!Moresuccessfully,severalcompaniesintroduced‘vistadome’trainswhich had an upper deck for premium fare payers, often using them toservemeals, rather like those restaurants at the top of communication towers.The domeliners, as theywere known,were a valiant effort by the railroads topostponetheinevitableandforatimeitworked.ThemostfamousofthemwastheCaliforniaZephyrwhichranbetweenChicagoandSanFrancisco,andwascarefullytimedtoensurethatittraversedthebestsceneryindaytime.ThiswasnolongertraintraveldesignedmerelytogetpeoplefromAtoB,butratherthejourney was being sold as a land cruise, which clearly suggested that therailroads were beginning to lose the serious business traveller. The Zephyrflourished in the 1950s and early 1960s, often being full and booked well in

advance,butby1969itwasreportedtobelosing$2mannuallyandtheservicewaswithdrawn,althoughthenamewasretainedbyAmtrak,thesubsidizedstate-ownedrailway.

The collapse of passenger traffic on theUS railroadswas faster andmoresustainedthananywhereelse:whilein1930,75percentofpassengertrafficwasby rail, that figure had declined to just 7 per cent in 1970 andmost of thosejourneys were short commuting trips in the few densely built-up cities likeChicagoandNewYorkwhichhadretainedtheirsuburbanrailnetworks.Whiletheobviousreasonforthedeclinewasgrowingcompetitionfrombothcarsandaeroplanes,therewasamorefundamentalonethatgoestothesoulofAmericansociety.Therewasalmostavenaldesire torid thecountryof therailways,notleast because their history of abuse and corruption was all too recent in thecollectivememoryandtherailroadcompanieswerestillintenselydisliked.Theverycollectivityofrailways,andtheirdependenceonfixedtimetablesthatlimitsanindividual’sright tochoosewhentotravel,wereatoddswiththeAmericanway of life. The railroad companies, too, contributed to a lemming-likecollectivesuicidebyresistingtheoffersofstateaidfromgovernmentbecause,intheirAmericanway,theywerereluctanttorelinquishtheircommercialfreedom.They had, of course, forgotten that they mostly owed their very existence tosubsidiesfromgovernmentalbeithiddenintheformofroutesurveysundertakenfreebythearmyandlandgrantsandtheybarelyputupafightwhentheUnitedStatesPostOfficewithdrewitslucrativecontractstosendthemailbyrailwhichhad longbeenahiddensubsidy to thepassenger railroads.Then therewas theproblemof high costs.Railwaymanagers had over the years agreed to labourpractices thatwere inflexible butwhichwere fine in the days of plentywhenrailroadscouldmeet theexpense fromtheirmonopolyprofits.Nowthesehighcostswereamillstoneandimpossibletonegotiateaway,especiallyassomewereenshrined in regulation. By the 1960s bankruptcies were becomingcommonplace while other railroads, including those fierce old rivals, thePennsylvaniaandNewYorkCentral,mergedtostaveoffthatfate.

PassengertrainsintheUnitedStatesonlysurvivedthankstothecreationofthegovernment-supportedAmtrakin1970whenthegreatfreeenterprisenationof theworldwas forced to nationalize its passenger rail services.Amtrak hasbeenproppedupbyhugeamountsofgovernmentsubsidyeversincethenlargelybecause self-interested local politicians ensured the survival of long-distancetrainswhichretainedmanyoftheillustrioustraditionalnames,eventhoughfewpeopleeverusedthem.Asaresultofthispoliticalfeather-bedding,Amtrakhasbeenabasketcaseformuchofitsexistenceandabarriertothedevelopmentofasensible system of passenger railways. Instead of focusing on a few viable

services,particularlyinthenorth-eastcorridor,Amtrakhasbeenobligedbytheporkbarrelpoliticstoruncompletelyunviableservices,usuallyonceperweek,whichoperate at very slow speeds and are frequently late because in the longsingletracksectionspriorityisgiventofreighttrains,whicharethemainstayofthe US railroads since they are highly profitable. The transport of goodsremained profitable and once the railroads were relieved of their passengerservices,theycouldconcentrateontheirfreightoperationswhichhaveremaineda vital part ofAmerican industry. Freight loadings declined, too, in the 1970sbut, as we shall see in the next chapter, were revived in the 1980s followingderegulation.

There was an odd beneficiary from the rapid decline of the Americanpassenger trains. The now nationalizedMexican railways, which had sufferedperennially from underinvestment, obtained large numbers of excellentAmericanpassengercoaches,manynearlynew.ThisstockfounditswayontotheMexicanrailwayswhichwereabletolaunchaseriesofexcellentpassengerservicesfromthecapitalwithnamessuchasElRegiomontanotoMonterrey,theAguilaAztecatoNuevoLaredoandElTapatiotoGuadalajarawhichwasnamedafterthelocaldancinggirls.

It was not only in Europe and America that luxury trains were beingdevelopedat the same timeas rail servicesgenerallyweredeclining. InSouthAfrica,theotherBlueTrain–nottheonethatgoesbetweenCalaisandtheCôted’Azur–waslaunchedin1946.Therehadbeenatraditionofluxuryserviceonthe1,000-milejourneybetweenCapeTownandPretoriastretchingbackto1903.TheUnionLimitedboastedshowerbaths,anobservationloungeandcontinuousvalet service, but in 1946 it was transformed into the Blue Train with air-conditioned train sets built by theBritishMetropolitanCammell company.Bythe1970s,withnewrollingstockthatincludedthreebaths,thiswasthelastofthegreatluxurytrainsintheworld,harkingbacktotheolddayswhenservantswere cheap and railways offered unparalleled standards. The epitomewas thesumptuous lead coach designed for no more than six passengers, the kind ofaccommodation provided elsewhere for royalty. It included a three-room suitefortwo,befittingfirstclassonacruiseliner,andtherestoftheaccommodationon the sixteen-coach train was equally opulent, with a staff of twenty-eightministering to just107passengers for theday-long journey.GeoffreyFreemanAllen,whodevotesawholechaptertotheBlueTraininhisbookLuxuryTrainswithoutevermentioning thatat the time inapartheidSouthAfrica itwasonlyavailabletowhitepeople,didnotdoubtthatitwas‘themostluxurioustraininthe modern age’. 11 It survives today as a service aimed at tourists, takingtwenty-seven hours, nearly four hours longer than in the 1970s, to cover the

routebutstillretainingmanyofitsluxuriousfeatures.InAustraliatherewerebelatedattemptstoresisttheonslaughtfromaviation

by improving long-distance train services. Thanks to the construction of asectionofnewlineandgaugeconversion, itbecamepossible in1970to travelthe 2,500 miles between Perth and Sydney in considerable luxury withoutchangingtrains.TheIndianPacific ranfourdaysaweekandtooknearlythreedays but passengers enjoyed excellent standards of comfort which almostmatchedthoseoftheBlueTrain.Most importantly,giventhat the traincrossedthedesertwith,asmentionedpreviously,theworld’slongestsectionofstraighttrackacrosstheNullarborPlainwheretemperaturescouldreach60°C,ithadthemost modern form of air conditioning. Oddly enough, in other respects theAustralian railwayswereslow tocatchon tomodern travellingneedswith thetraditionofmealstopsfor long-distance journeyscontinuinginto the1970sontheQueenslandRailwaysservicesbetweenBrisbaneandCairns,thelasttrainsintheworldtodoso.

NewZealandwasoneofthecountrieswheretherailwaylostitscentralplacein its economymost rapidly.Givenhow the railwayshadvirtually created thenation,thesharpnessofthedeclinewascruelontherailways.Fromapeakof15million long-distance passengers at the height of the war in 1944, when therailwayswere,aselsewhere,effectivelytheonlywaytotravelbecauseofpetrolrationing, the number fell to under 5 million within a decade. And that wasbeforetheairlinesstartedseriouslyeatingawayattheremainder.Inresponsetothat threat, New Zealand Railways tried to retain its business passengers andattracttouristsontoitslong-distanceservicesbyintroducingmorecomfortabletrains with names likeBlue Streak and Silver Fern on the North Islandmaintrunkroute.Themost illustriouswastheSilverStarovernightservicebetweenAuckland and Wellington launched in 1971 using Japanese-built trains andsportingbowtie-wearingstewardsandashoeshineservice.Successfulatfirst,itonlysurvivedeightyearsassparselypopulatedNewZealand,withitsrelativelyslowtrainsandlongdistances,provedeasymeatfortheairlinesandtheirshortjourneytimes,despitefaresthatwerethreeorfourtimesdearerthanthoseoftherailways.Thecountrylost1,000milesofbranchlines,nearlyathirdofthetotalmileage,andfewerthan100ofthe1,350stationssurvived,althoughadmittedlymanyofthesehadbeenlittlemorethanawoodenshackbearingthestationnamedesignedtosheltertheonefamilywithafarmnearby.However,morepositively,NewZealandRailwaysenjoyedgrowthontheirsuburbanlines,atrendthatwasmirrored elsewhere as road congestion in built-up areas reached intolerablelevels.

Thedecline in trafficon railwaysacross theworldcoincided, too,with the

needfor investment.Sincemost lineshadbeenbuilt in thenineteenthcentury,theequipmentwasinurgentneedofrefurbishmentortotalrenewal.Moreover,steam technologywasbecoming increasinglyuneconomic andunacceptable topassengers and railways were consequently faced with the choice ofmodernizingorclosing.Hadrailwaysbeenabletomuddlethroughwithageingengines and carriages, thenmany linesmight have remained viable.However,thatoptionwasnotopentorailwaysexceptinEasternEuropewherepassengerswere presentedwith little choice given that individual car ownershipwas notavailabletothemasses.Elsewhere,dissatisfactionwithstandardsofserviceonlyprecipitatedtherushtousetheroads.Dieselswereseenasthecheapalternativebut the haste to convert from steam locomotives contributed, in severalcountries,totherapiddeclineofrailtransportandsomerailwaysscrappedtheirsteam locomotives far too readily. While diesel did offer savings on runningcosts,theywereexpensivetobuyandmanysteamlocomotiveswerewrittenoffneedlesslyearlyespeciallyasthecostofcoalwasfarmorestablethanthatofoil.

In theUnitedStates,conversion todieselwas remarkably fastand theonlymajorrailroadstillusingsteaminthemid-1950swasthecoal-haulingNorfolk&Western Railroad. In Britain, after a slow start, a rush towards dieselizationstimulatedbytheModernizationPlanof1955sawtheintroductionofnofewerthan fifty different types of diesel locomotive,many poorly designed, and therapidscrappingof relativelynewsteamengines.Thanks to itsstrongdomesticmarket,theUnitedStateshadbecometheworld’sleaderinrailtechnologyasaresultofthedevelopmentofpowerfulandefficientdieselenginesbyitsleadingcompanies, and its export business flourished thanks to aggressive marketingcampaigns.However,asWestwoodargues,‘inmanycasesthediesellocomotivewas oversold. Whereas in American conditions it usually had substantialoperating and economic advantages over steam, this was not necessarily trueeverywhere.’ 12 Therefore, oddly, a technology that should have been rail’ssalvation contributed, in several countries, to its decline. In the ThirdWorld,many railways, whose governments were induced by sales talk from GeneralMotorsandotherUSlocomotivemanufacturerstobuydiesels,foundthemselveswith expensive kit that they did not have the skills ormoney tomaintain andmany dieselswere soon leftmouldering in sidings. LatinAmerican countries,inducedtobuyUSdieselstendedtoconverttheirrailwaystooquicklywhileincontrast, France and Germany, which both made sure that they had time todevelop their own home-grown locomotives, took a more considered and,arguably,sensibleapproach.SouthAfricaandAustraliawerealsoamongthosewhointroduceddieselsmoregradually.

Electrificationwaspotentiallyabetteroption thandiesel,offeringacleaner

andmoreefficient technologysince itdoesnot involvecarryingheavyfuelonboard.Certainly,asweseeinthenextchapter,itsuseonhighspeedraillineshascontributedtotheirsuccess.Butagain,whenrailwayswerefacedwiththeneedto modernize, electrification was an expensive option requiring considerableinitial expenditure. Many railways were not courageous enough to make thenecessaryinvestmentandlostout,butthosethatdidinvariablyfoundthattherewas a ‘sparks effect’,with faster, cleaner andmore reliable services attractingpassengers back on to the railways. In the United States, the huge domesticdiesel locomotive industry and the availability of cheap oil left electrificationconfinedtosuburbanservicesandafewlinesontheeasternseaboard,apartfromthe odd failed experiment on longer routes. Instead, it was the French whobecametheworldleadersindevelopingelectricrailwaytechnologyandstraightafter the war its state-owned railway, SNCF, began a rolling programme ofelectrifying all itsmain lines using overheadwires and a 25,000 volt system,whichisnowwidelyregardedasthemostsuitable.ThesamesystemwasusedinIndia which embarked on an extensive electrification programme on its mainlinesandeveninEnglandontheWestCoastMainLinewherethefirstsectionofline was converted in 1966. Throughout Europe, however, a variety of typeshavebeenemployedwhichmakesoperatingacrossfrontiersdifficultasiteitherinvolves a change of locomotive or the installation of several systems, anexpensiveandwastefulprocess.

Foratimeinthe1960sandearly1970s,itseemedasifrailtravelmighthavehaditsday.Whoneededtrainswhentheyhadcarsabletoofferadoortodoorservice at little cost in an ageof seemingly endless cheapoil?Orwhenbusescoulddothesamejourneymorequicklyforalowerfareandtruckscouldtakevirtually any load anywhere? Certainly in the United States and Canada, thatlogicprevailedandpassengerservicesallbutdisappeared.Elsewhere,too,withthe underinvested trains suffering fromdeteriorating performance, at the sametime as bus journeys were speeded up on newly opened motorways, theeconomics of the railways put their very survival at risk. For example, in the1970s, it became possible to take a bus between Brazil’s biggest cities, SãoPauloandRiode Janeiro in sixandahalfhourswitha tenminute frequency,while the train,with just ahandful ofdaily services, tookninehours, anhourlonger than before because the track had deteriorated. In several countries inLatin America and Africa such as Guatemala, Honduras and Guinea thepassenger railways, often state owned and run unimaginatively, could notwithstandtheimpactofthecompetitionfromroadanddisappearedcompletely.Latin America, in particular, but to a lesser extent every other continent, islitteredwithredundantrailwayswhichcouldstillserveausefulpurposeifthey

had not been allowed to deteriorate and die through lack of will andunderstandinginthisperiod.Elsewhereitwaswarwhichshutdowntherailwaysorrestricted theirdevelopment. InseveralpartsofAfricaand theMiddleEast,suchasAngolaandLebanon,therailwayswereclosedasaresultofaconflict,whileinIran,anambitiousplanfora10,000kmexpansionoftherailwayswasbroughttoahaltbytheoverthrowoftheShahin1979.

Even in these bad times, however, there were a few countries, principallyCommunist,whichkeptfaithwith therailways.China, inparticular,where thesystem,asnotedalready,wasfarsmallerthanthesizeofthecountrywarranted,maintained a continuous programme of growth throughout the postwar years.China’srailwayshadbeenbadlydamagedinthewar,andwiththeupheavalthatwouldleadtotheCommunisttakeoverin1949,progressinrebuildingthemhadinitially been slow.However, onceMao’s regime came to power, the railwayswereseenasatransportpriorityforthePeople’sRepublicofChinawhichkeptonbuildingrailwaysasifthemotorcarhadneverbeeninvented.Themileageoftrackmorethandoubledinthetwenty-fiveyearsafterthewar,reachingaround30,000 miles by 1980, despite the political and economic upheavals of the1960s.Indeed,Chinawasbelatedlyundergoingarailwayrevolutionanditwasby far thepostwarworld leader in levelsof investment, both for creatingnewlines and modernizing its existing railways. These extensions to the systemincluded the kind of heroic engineering feats which had been undertakenelsewhere in the world up to a century before, such as the crossing of theYangtze riverwith a bridge over a third of amile long completed in 1969 atNanking,andtheconqueringofmajormountainrangesinsouth-eastChinawithtwo new railways. Further north, the 1,200-mile Lanxin railway betweenLanzhou andUrumqiwas completed in 1962 and extended to theKazakhstanborderin1982.Onceafewconnectionsacrossbordershadbeenmade,thiswassupposed to be part of what the Chinese have called the second Eurasiancontinentalbridge,arevivaloftheoldsilkroute,linkingChinawithRotterdamin theNetherlands by a rail line far shorter than theTrans-Siberian andmuchquickerthantheseavoyage.Unfortunately,despitevariousannouncements,theconcepthasneverbeenproperlydeveloped,notleastbecauseofthecustomsandregulatorydifficultiesoftransportingcontainersontherailwaysofhalfadozencountries.

The Chinese investment programme on their existing railways includedelectrifyingseveralroutesanddoublingthetrackonmanymainlinestoincreasecapacity. Despite these improvements, China retained steam longer than anyother country in the world and built the last steam locomotive factory in the1970s. Stations toowere upgraded.Beijing obtained an entirely new station –

builtinjusttwelvemonthswithadozenplatforms–buttherewasapaucityoftrains for such an enormous city. In 1978, from thismagnificent new station,therewerejustfifty-eightdailydepartures,atinynumberforapopulationof4millionwhodidnothaveaccess toprivate cars andwithnocompetition fromlong-distancebusesordomesticairservices.Nowondertherewasalwayschaosatholidaytimeswhenticketsweremuchsoughtafteratpeaktimes.Thewaitinghordes could, however, enjoy ‘The East is Red’ chimes from the huge clocktower with a pagoda-style roof. Train travel was slow, too, with the fastestaveraging barely 45 mph as the frequent freight trains took precedence overpassenger services. Even the shift towards encouraging private cars, whichbeganinthe1990s,hasnotstoppedtheChinesefrompouringmoneyintotheirrailwaysandopeningupmorelinessuchastheTibetrailway,completedin2006(seenextchapter),themostrecentexampleofanimperialrailway.

Russia,whichhadtheworld’slargestunifiedsystem,investedheavilyinitsrailwaysaftertheyhadbeenwreckedinthewar.TheTrans-Siberian,whichhadnot been damaged,was electrified in stages, as, by themid-1950s,were largesectionsoftherestofRussianrailwayssincetheSovietswerekeentopromoteamodernizing image for their railways. Indeed, the railways were used as apropagandatoolbytheRussians,whoopenedametrosysteminLeningrad(nowSt Petersburg) in 1955 thatwas almost as grand as the one inMoscow (builtbetween the wars) with its famous chandeliers. The busiest line, the newlyelectrified route between Moscow and Leningrad, boasted the Aurora, whichtook just five hours for the journey, an impressive average of 80mph. Therewere other relatively fast express services running to distant republics such asAzerbaijanandKazakhstan,thenpartoftheSovietUnionbutasever,awayfromthemainlines,serviceswereprettygrim.DespitetheColdWar,fromtheearly1960s through services, made possible by gauge change machinery at thefrontier,ranfromMoscowtoWesterncapitalssuchasParisandVienna(called,rather light-heartedly, theChopin), as well as to other Eastern-bloc countriessuchasCzechoslovakiaandRomania.In1963,aservicewaslaunchedbetweenMoscowandtheHookofHolland,ajourneywhichtooktwoandahalfdaysforthe1,600miles,whichconnecteddirectlywiththeferrytoHarwich.

WhiletheselargeCommunistcountrieswerebuildinguptheirrailways,thesmallest, Albania, became the last significant European country to join therailway age, opening its first line in 1947. It was, though, not only in theCommunist countries that railways were being opened – or indeed reopened.Freight lines continued to be built in several parts of the world, notably inAustralia,CameroonandBrazil,mostlywith the traditionalfunctionof linkingthehinterlandwithaport.Despitethis,inthe1960s,forthefirsttimesincetheir

invention, theworld’smileage of railwayswent down, from 903,000miles in1960to886,000in1975.13Yet theywerebeginning tocomeback in fashion.The turningpointcamewith thefirstoilpriceshockof1973,whichpromptedthe inital rethink of the notion that the railway was an invention that hadoutlasted its usefulness. Transport planners not only realized that the era ofcheap oilmight be finite but as they saw roads in towns and cities graduallyseizing up with traffic they learnt that the car was not the panacea they hadpreviouslythought.Asmasscarownershipspreadaroundtheglobe,thevalueofrailserviceswasbeginningtoberecognizedoncemore.Moreover,therailwayshadembarkedonaprojecttoregainsomeofthatlosttrafficanditwasbeginningtobearfruit.Theeraofthehigh-speedline,atrainservicefitforthetwenty-firstcentury,hadarrived.

RAILWAYRENAISSANCE

When theworld’s firsthighspeed lineopened in theautumnof1964betweenTokyoandOsaka,itisnoexaggerationtosaythataneweraoftraintravelhadbegun. The line had been long in gestation; construction of a new 100 mphrailwaybetweenthetwocitieshadbeenstartedinthe1930s,buttheschemewasabandonedatthestartofthePacificWarin1941.Theimpetustocreateanewline after thewar came from the severeovercrowdingon theold routewhich,despite electrification and modern signalling, could not take any extra trains.Japaniseminentlysuitedforrailwayinvestmentbecauseits125millionpeopleareconcentrated in largecities, typically100milesapart,on thecoastalplainsmaking it a railway planners’ dream. Post-war Japan,withAmerican aid,wasboomingandthenumberofpassengersbetweenthemajorcitieswasincreasingrapidly.Theold320-milerailwaybetweenTokyoandOsakawasthecountry’smostheavilyusedlineaccountingforastaggeringquarterofboththepassengerand freight traffic carried by Japanese National Railways, the state-ownedrailway,whileitconstitutedjust3percentofitsmileage.

JapaneseNationalRailwaysdecidedthatratherthanattemptingtoquadrupletheexistingtracks, itwouldbuildanewroutethatwouldallowfaster trainstorunonacompletelyseparatealignment.Thus,theconceptof‘highspeed’lineswasborn, aimedatnotonlyenablingpassengers to travel fasterbut, crucially,alsoboostingcapacitydramaticallybyprovidinganentirelynewrailwayroute,unclutteredby local servicesor freight trains,whichallows formore intensiveusagebecausethenumberoftrainsalinecanaccommodateisgreatlyreducediftheyrunatdifferentspeeds.

Inordertoensuretheline–dubbedShinkansenwhichmeansliterally‘newtrunkline’buthasnowcometosignifyahighspeedline–waskeptcompletelyseparatefromtherestofthenetwork,itwasbuilttothestandard4ft8½insgaugeincontrasttothe3ft6insusedelsewhereontheJapanesesystem.TheTokaido(Tokyo–Osaka)Shinkansen established the template for future high speed lineprojects:thereweretobededicatedtracks,nosharpcurves,1nolevelcrossings,in-cab signalling (in otherwords, no signals outside the train for the driver toread)andaverylimitednumberofstations.Theyareeffectivelythemotorwaysoftherailways,withfewjunctionsandstops,butfortunatelywithnoequivalent

ofservicestations.WorkontheTokaidoShinkansen,fundedbytheWorldBank,startedinApril1959andtookfiveyears,withthefirsttrainsrunningintimeforthe Olympics which were held in October to avoid the full summer heat.Construction was a major engineering feat since, unlike the old nineteenth-centuryJapaneselines,theShinkansenwasbuiltwithasfewcurvesaspossible,thus requiring the construction of countless bridges and viaducts, whichaccountedforathirdofthemileage.Mostoftheintermediatestationstoo,wereputon loopsoff themain running line to allow trains to stopwithout slowingdownthosebehind.

Inevitably the project cost nearly double the original estimate but met thedeadlineofservingtheOlympics.Thetrainsoperatedinitiallyat125mph,slowfor today’s high speed services, but nevertheless slashed the journey timebetween the twocities from6hrs40mins to just3hrs10mins.While the trainsran smoothly and reliably, there were unexpected problems, notably the paincausedtopeople’searsbythehighairpressurecreatedwhentwotrainscrossedinoneofthenumeroustunnelswhichcomprisedatotalofforty-fivemilesoftheroute.Thepowerfulaircurrentsgeneratedinthesetunnelcrossingstended,too,to blow the water up from toilet bowls, much to the hapless user’sembarrassment. As a result the trains, which were already fitted with airconditioningandtriple-glazedwindows,hadtobepressurized,anexpensiveandtechnicallydifficultrequirement.

Earache andmisbehaving toilets did not deter the passengers.Within threemonths,11millionpeoplehadtravelledonthelineanditonlytookthreeyearsfor the first 100 million to be carried. As a result, the Shinkansen was soongeneratingsubstantialprofits,eventakingintoaccountinterestpaymentsonthecost of construction and this success led to the publication of a plan for anetworkof4,500milesofhighspeedlinetobecompletedby1985.Thatprovedfartoooptimistic.Workwasstartedontwonewlinesin1971buttheexpansionplans became surprisingly controversial despite the success of the firstShinkansen. The proliferation of viaducts and bridges on the Tokaido lineguaranteed that the noise from the frequent trains travelling at twomiles perminutewasspreadfarandwideandtherailwaywasobligedtomakeexpensiveinfrastructure changes, pushing up the cost of construction. Concrete bridgesratherthansteelbecamethenormandwhereverthelinepassedthroughabuilt-uparea,wallshad tobebuilt tocontain thenoise from thewheels.Even thenopponentswerenotsatisfiedandwhilethisproblemhasbeenparticularlyacutein densely populated Japan, other countrieswhich have built high speed lineshave encountered similar opposition. In a world wheremotorways criss-crossbothurbanandruralsettingswith impunity,newrailwaysseemtogeneratefar

more opposition than appears warranted by their limited impact on theenvironment. It is as if the old suspicions and dislike of the railways arereignitedbytheirexpansionplans.InBritain,forexample,twomotorwayswerebuiltthroughKentinthe1960s2buttheChannelTunnelRailLinkgeneratedafarmorevocalcampaignbylocalresidents.

Japan, too, was hit by the oil crisis of 1973–4 which, while helping therailways by pushing up the cost of fuel, also had a negative effect as theconsequent recession reduced thepassengernumbers.Plans for thehigh speednetworkwere scaled back but, nevertheless, not only have half a dozen lines,amountingtonearly2,200milesbeenbuilt,butserviceshavebeenacceleratedsothattoday’sfastestShinkansentrainstravelat300km/h(186mph)–thesameasmost European high speed services – and there are plans for further speedincreases. The Shinkansen has proved to be a tremendous boon for Japan’seconomy.Aneconomist,bemoaningthelossofpassengerservicesintheUnitedStates,wrote:

High-speed rail has played an impressive part in reducing transportationcosts in Japan and limiting the nation’s oil imports. The InternationalInstitute forAppliedSystemsAnalysis found theShinkansen tobenearlythreetimesmoreproductivethanaircraftservingthesamerouteintermsoflabor efficiency, five times more effective in terms of capital costs onequipment,andeighttimesmoreeffectiveintermsofenergyconsumed.3

Yet,despite thesuccessof theShinkansen, itwasoveradecadebeforeanyother railwaywould rival Japan’s achievement.Therewaswidespread interestacrosstheworldinimprovingthespeedofexpresstrainsfromtheirponderousaverageof60–70mphasthiswasseenastheonlyroutetothesalvationoftherailways. At the time the motorways were relatively congestion-free and carscould easily average the same speed as the express trains of the day,with theaddedadvantageofprovidingadoortodoorservice.

Severalcountries,includinginterestinglytheUnitedStates,wereconsideringhigh speed rail projects but building new railways is inevitably expensive,requiringgovernmentsubsidyand long-termcommitment.Therewas, too,stilldoubt about whether railways would remain a viable technology given theubiquity of motor vehicles and, as we have seen, new rail projects wereinvariably controversial. Initially, too, European railways sought to improve

timings on their existing lines by electrification and by the expansion of theTrans Europ Express network, rather than stretch to the expense of buildingdedicated high speed tracks. In Germany, for example, Deutsche BahnintroducedadailytrainrunningbetweenMunichandAugsburgthatreached125mphin1965.

It was hardly surprising that it was the French who would be the first tocommitthemselvestotheideasincetheyhadlongbeeninterestedinhighspeedtrains,giventhattheygavetheworldtheterm‘express’.Asfarbackas1955,theFrenchhadcapturedtheworldspeedrecordwithanelectrictrainthatranat206mph but that trial nearly resulted in disaster because the force of the trainrunningsofastbuckledthetrack,demonstratingthathighspeedrailrequiredafar more sophisticated level of technology than conventional lines, or lignesclassiques as the French call them. Both track and trains need substantialimprovement and investment for high speed running. The French had thetechnology available and started to build a high speed line between Paris andLyonin1976.AsinJapan,thespurwasnotonlythedesiretorunathighspeedbutalso theneed toboostcapacity.TheoldParis-Lyon-Mediterranée linehad,despiteelectrification, filledupandalthough ithad four tracks inmostplaces,the two track sections would have been prohibitively expensive to double.Therefore in late 1976, work started on the Paris–Sud Est Ligne à GrandeVitesse4(LGV),thefirsthighspeedlineinEurope.

The French TGV was, though, more than that. It was a political projectdesignedtoboosttheimageofl’Hexagonetotheoutsideworld,asLordAdonis,theBritishtransportminister,putitin2009:‘notjustatrainbutavisionofthefuture and a means to bring it about, a force for national integration andregenerationandasourceofintensenationalpride’.5Theconceptwasslightlydifferent from the Japanese version. Whereas the Shinkansen was a totallyseparatelinenecessitatedbyitsdifferentgauge,theFrenchtrainsranintoParisGare de Lyon on tracks they shared with conventional trains. Therefore thededicatedLGVveered off from the old tracks in theParisian suburbs, greatlyreducingthecostofconstructionasthefinalstagesofanewrouteintoamajorcity are always themost expensive, while onlymarginally increasing journeytimes.TheuniformityofgaugehastheadvantageofallowingtheTGVtogooffits own dedicated tracks to serve many destinations which do not have bigenoughpopulationstowarrantahighspeedlinebutwhichstillbenefitfromthefasterjourneytimes.WorkprogressedrelativelysmoothlyandtheSudEstwasfullyopenbySeptember1983.

The Sud Est linewas designed to have amaximum running speed of 300

km/h(186mph)althoughinpracticethetrainsonlyoperatedat270km/h(168mph).Nevertheless,thatwasfastenoughtoobliteratethemarketforairservicesbetween Paris and Lyon and to convince the French that they had hit upon awinner. The TGV has, like the Shinkansen, been both a technical andcommercial success, attracting millions of passengers on to the railways andhelpingFranceretainamajorroleinworldrailwaytechnologythroughAlstom,theFrenchdesignerandmanufactureroftheTGVtrainsets.Overthenextthirtyyears,linesradiatingoutofParisonallfourcardinalpoints6havebeenbuilt,thelatest,Est,completedin2007withalinespeedof320km/h(200mph).Itisnowpossible,forexample,totravelalmostthewholelengthofFrance,the487milesbetweenParisandMarseilleinthreehours,thelongestnon-stoprailjourneyintheworld.Serviceshaveprovedsopopular thatonmany routesduplex trains,withupperand lowerdecks,areoperatedand thereareevenhighspeedpostaltrainsrunningatnightforLaPoste.

Other countries have followed suit. In Germany, there was again a ratherdifferent concept. Instead of having entirely separate routes, the Germansdecided on a mix and match approach of building sections of new lineinterspersedwithrunningonconventionaltrackforitsICE(InterCityExpress)trainswhich can run at amaximumof 300 km/h (186mph) on the dedicatedsections.There isnowanextensivenetworkof ICEtrains,manyofwhichrunintoneighbouringcountriessuchasFrance,DenmarkandHolland.Italy,too,hasjoined thehigh speedclubbybuildinga line running through the spineof thecountry, linking Turin and Milan with Rome and Naples, and uniquely isallowingprivateoperatorstorunonit.7Theservices,likethoseinFrance,willrunformostofthejourneyondedicatedhighspeedtrack,builtforlongstretchesparalleltoItaly’smainA1motorwaywherethetrainswillrunatmorethantwicethespeedofthecars,apermanentdemonstrationofthesuperiorityofrail.

In contrast, Spain, whose conventional trains operate on 5ft 6ins gauge,decidedtorunitshighspeedAVE(AltaVelocidadEspañola)trainsonstandardgauge,partlybecause the technologywas imported fromFrance andGermanyandthusallowingthesamecomponentstobeused.Thefirsthighspeedlinewasbuilt between Madrid and Seville to coincide with Expo 92 and its successstimulated the adoption of a hugely ambitious plan for the biggest high speednetwork in Europe.Already by the end of 2008 Spainwas close tomatchingFrancewith just under 1,000miles of high speed line on theway to having a10,000km(6,250mile)networkby2020,whichwouldensurethat90percentofSpaniardslivewithinfiftykilometresofastationservedbyhighspeedtrains.China,though,dwarfsevenSpaininambition.In2008,China,whichopenedits

firsthighspeedlinein2003,onlyhad345milesinoperationbutsometentimesthatmileagewaseitherunderconstructionordefinitelyplannedandisexpectedto overtake Japan as the world leader in the mid-2010s. Elsewhere in Asia,TaiwanandSouthKoreaalreadyhavehighspeedservicesrunningondedicatedlines, using Japanese and French technology respectively, and SouthKorea isalreadyconstructinganextension.

Overall,theworldhadjustover10,000kmsofhighspeedlinebytheendof2008andtherewerearoundafurther5,000kmsunderconstruction.Itrepresentsanewrailwayboom,notquiteonthescaleofthefirstintermsofitsimpact,buta fantastic affirmation of the iron road.Wherever they have been introduced,highspeedlineshaveprovedpopular,thoughnotalwaysmeetingtheoptimisticexpectationsput forwardbyover-eagerpromotersof theprojects.Mostly, too,theyhaveprovedprofitable,thoughnotnecessarilywheninterestpaymentsaretaken into account – Eurostar, for example, linking London with Paris andBrussels through the Channel Tunnel has a particularly high cost base, andthereforehasnotreachedanywherenearbreakeven–but,crucially,asisalwaysthe case with railways, they deliver major economic benefits that cannot becaptured through the fare box.On the cost side, there have been considerableoverruns on several projects as technical difficulties have emerged. The newSouth high speed line in the Netherlands, for example, has been beset withdifficultiesandwasmorethantwoyearslateinopening.

IncompatibilitybetweenthedifferingEuropeansystemshasalsoaddedtothecostsofprojects,butoveralltheinvestmentinhighspeedrailhasdemonstratedthat rail can be a popular alternative to travelling either by air or road whileoffering environmental benefits. As climate change rises inexorably up thepolitical agenda, the environmentally friendly aspects of rail travel have beenemphasizedbygovernmentsandrailwayorganizations,somethingtheydidnotalwaysdosufficientlyinthepast.Indeed,untilthe1990s,railwaysdidnotpaysufficient attention to environmental considerations and were rather profligatewith energy, introducing ever heavier trains with little regard for fuelconsumption. Now, with the advent of regenerative braking (which puts thepower used in braking back into the electricity grid) and far more efficientengines,therailindustryisabletobefarmoreenvironmentallyfriendlywhichhas become a political imperative. The Eurostar service, which is mostlypowered by nuclear-generated electricity, boasts of zero carbon emissions, aclaim which is not entirely sustainable but at least demonstrates purposefulintent.

One of the great achievements of high speed train travel is its superlativesafety record. At the time of writing, in spring 2009, there have been no

passenger fatalities on high speed services running on dedicated lines 8 aftercarrying billions of passengers. Extremely high standards of safety have beendesignedinasanintegralpartoftheserailways.TheJapaneselineshaveensuredtheirhighspeedlinescanresisttheimpactofanearthquakeand,despiteseveralserioustremors,therehasbeenonlyonederailmentthroughouttheShinkansen’shistory. Themost serious incident in France involved a derailment caused bysubsidence resulting fromFirstWorldWar trenches,but therewereno seriousinjuries.

Predictably,itisthetwobastionsofprivatelybuiltrailways,theUnitedStatesandtheUK,wherethestatehashadleastinvolvement,thathavemissedoutonthehighspeedrevolution.Thatisnocoincidence.Highspeedlinesrequiremajorcommitment from the state as the private sector is unable to fund suchmajorschemes without subsidy and government support. Both countries haveembarked on high speed projects. In North America the private railroads andlaterAmtrak tried tospeedup their trainsusinghighspeed technologybut thevarious trialsboth in theUSandCanadaallendedinfailureoronly lastedforbriefperiodsbecauseoftechnicalproblemsandtheunwillingnessofpoliticianstopayfortheinvestmentrequired.

Eventoday,theUnitedStateshasstillfailedtobuildahighspeedlinedespiteoperatingitsflagshiphighspeedtiltingAcelatrainsinthenorth-easterncorridorwhich aredesigned tobe capableof 200mphbut are in fact restricted to135mph and much less than that on most of the route. Acela provides a patchyservicehinderedbylevelcrossings,thelackofadedicatedhighspeedtrackandvarious speed restrictions, which mean the trains take three and a half hoursbetweenNewYorkandBoston,averagingonly86mph.Thishasprovedgoodenoughtograbasubstantialpartoftheairlinemarketbutnottowipeitout,ashaseffectivelyhappenedbetweenParisandLyonorMadridandSeville,whichareservedbyefficienthighspeedlines.

Of major developed economies, 9 only in the United States has intercitypassenger rail travel becomeentirelymarginal.Today,Amtrak still serves 500stationsbutboastsamere28millionpassengersperyear,barelytendaysworthinfarsmallercountrieslikeBritainorFrance.However,thismightchangeinthenextdecade.OnelectiondayinNovember2008,Californiavotersvotedyestoaproposition to build a 650-mile high speed network running initially betweenLosAngelesandSanFranciscoatspeedsupto220mph,andlaterstretchingupto Sacramento and down to San Diego, but there is no definite timetable forconstruction. Similar schemes in Texas and Florida have previously hit thebuffersbutwiththearrivalofBarackObamaintheWhiteHouse,therecouldbe

majorinvestmentintheUSsystemoverthenextfewyearsforthefirsttimeinageneration.

America, though, does have a buoyant freight sector which has enjoyed asustained renaissance since it was deregulated in 1980 by the Staggers Act.Legislation stretching back to 1887 which had prevented the railways fromsettingtheirownpricesandforcedthemtoofferthesameratestoeveryshipperwasabolished.TheAct,whichactuallyshouldhavebeenpassedseveraldecadesbefore,gavetherailroadscommercialfreedombutalsoensuredthattheycouldnot unreasonably block access to key junctions for rival companies. Over thenextdecade,ratesandcostswerehalved,reversingthelong-termdeclineoftheUS railfreight business: new lines have opened and defunct ones reopened,maintaining the position of the United States as the world’s biggest railwaynetwork with over 155,000 miles of track. The Act also helped improve theeconomicsofwhatarecalledshortlines,or‘MomandPoprailroads’,whicharemostlybranch lines thatcarryfreight for relativelyshortdistances.Freedfromanyregulatorycontrols,andexpensive labouragreements,andoftensupportedbythelocalstategovernment,500suchshortlineshaveflourished.Theyareauniquely American phenomenon as successful branch lines which thrive incountrieswhose governments are traditionally supportive of railways, such asSwitzerlandandGermany,tendtoprovidepassengerservicessubsidizedbylocalorregionalgovernmentwithlittlefreighttraffic.

Britain,too,haslostoutbynotchoosingtoadopthighspeedtechnologyondedicated lines. Instead, British Railways went down a different route in theearly 1980s by developing the Advanced Passenger Train, an electric traindesignedtogofasteronconventionallinesbytiltingatcurves,ratherlikehowamotorcyclist leans into bends. The tilting enabled the train to go 50 per centfasteroncurvesandtheoreticallyitwasdesignedtoreach155mph,thoughanyspeeds above 125mphwould have required a different method of signalling.Unfortunately, the combination of trying to introduce the train into passengerservice too early and hostile press coverage caused the abandonment of thescheme, probably just at thepointwhen itmight haveovercome the technicaldifficulties. Ironically, the Swiss and Italians perfected the tilting concept andtodaytrainsusingthat technology,called‘Pendolino’after their Italianorigins,run onBritain’sWestCoast line. Instead, in the 1980s,BritishRail chose theconfusinglynamedbuthighlysuccessfuldiesel125HighSpeedTrainsthatrunat 125 mph, but have to share the tracks with other services on what is,effectively,anupdatedVictorianrailway.TheonlydedicatedhighspeedlineinBritain is the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, renamed High Speed One, runningbetweenLondonStPancrasandtheChannelTunnel.Thissixty-seven-mileline

usedforEurostaranddomesticKentcommuterserviceswill,fortheforeseeablefuture,betheonlysuchlineintheUnitedKingdomastherearenodefiniteplanstobuildanyothers.10

Elsewhere, high speed trains are spreading around the world. As well asnumerous extensions being constructed in countries with existing high speedlinessuchasFrance,SpainandSouthKorea,schemesarebeingmootedorbuiltinplaces as far afield asArgentina,Ukraine andTurkey.Havingahigh speedlineisbecomingemblematicforanationinthewaythatowninganairlineusedto be. No French or Japanese tourist brochure would be complete without apicture of their high speed trains and the photograph of Japan’s Shinkansenrunning pastMount Fuji is one of theworld’smost used images.Motorwaysneverreceivesuchagoodpress!

It is not only high speed lines that are being built. New railways, mostlyeitherforfreightorsuburbanservicesarebeingpromotedindozensofcountries.ItisinChina,alreadythepost-warstarinrailwaydevelopment,wherethemostinvestmentistakingplace.InOctober2008,theChinesegovernmentapproveda£200-billion railway investment plan envisaging a 50 per cent increase in thecountry’snetworkto75,000milesby2020.Chinaisalsobuildingmetrosystemsorsuburbanlinesinseveralcitiesandraildevelopmentisseenasakeypartofthe country’s economic strategy, though itmust be said thousands ofmiles ofmotorwayarealsoonthestocks.

Indeed, metro systems are a key component of railway growth. There arealreadywelloverahundredcitieswithmetrosystemsaroundtheworldandnewones, aswell as extensions and extra lines, are being built on every inhabitedcontinent.Metrosystems,bothundergroundandelevated,arepoppingupinthemost unexpected places, ranging from relatively small cities with populationsfewer than one million, such as Lausanne in Switzerland or Bielefeld inGermany to big megalopolises like Mexico City or Shanghai, as well ascountless little-knownmedium-sized cities such as Brescia (Italy),Maracaibo(Venezuela)andBursa(Turkey).Dubai,aplacewhichhasbecomegridlockedbytheavailabilityofcheappetrolandissynonymouswiththecar,isalsoopeninganewmetrosystem.

New railway lines are also popping up, some in strange locations. Todaythereisprobablymoreinvestmentinrailwaysthanatanytimeintheirhistory.Forexample,GaboninWestAfricaopeneditsfirstlineof420milesin1987,aprojectthathadbeenmootedfordecadesandisusedprincipallytotransportore,but also carries passengers. In Brazil, the 250-mile Ferronorte Railwaycompleted in 2001 haulsmassive trainswith ninetywagons each holding 120tonsofgrain,andfurtherexpansionplansareenvisaged.Largeschemessuchas

the Ghan, the transcontinental north–south railway in Australia intended forfreightandtheremarkablelineuptoTibethavebeencompletedinthetwenty-firstcentury.Elsewhererailwaysarebeingextended,modernized,electrifiedanddoubledorquadrupled.InSaudiArabiaamassiveprojecthasbeenlaunchedtobuilda‘landbridge’,a900-milerailwaycuttingacross thewholecountryfromtheGulftotheRedSeatoavoidhavingtoshipfreightaroundthecoastandtocarrypilgrims.Togetherwithacoupleofotherproposedschemes,thelandbridgeproject will double Saudi Arabia’s existing railway network. Further ahead, aplantobuildarailwaythroughIrantolinkEuropewiththeIndiansubcontinentisalsobeingplanned.Notsurprisingly,asaresultofallthisactivity,therailwaysarebigbusinessandgettingbigger.Arailwaytradeexhibition,InnotransheldinBerlin in 2008, was spread over fifteen halls and had over 1,600 exhibitors,nearlytentimesmorethanin1996.

The railways have turned the corner from the dark days of the 1950s and1960swhenitwasthoughttheywouldloseanyrelevancetothemodernworld.What the Anglo-French railway writer Clive Lamming has called‘ferropessimisme’ 11 – the notion that the decline and marginalization of theworld’s railway systems were inevitable – is dead. Old alignments are beingconsideredforreopening,andcountlessarticlesarewrittenbemoaningtheshort-sightednessofthosewhocloseddownrailwaysinthepost-warbonfireoflines.Thenotionthatrailwayshadtobespeededupinordertosurvivenolongerholdsas congestion has slowed road traffic, and the comforts of relaxed rail travelhavebecomemorewidely appreciated. In away, a slow rail journey canbe abetter experience than a fast one. The great rail journeys of the world,highlighted in a seriesof booksof that name, 12 are experienced onmountainrailways, tortuous branch lines and rickety old routes that have somehowsurvivedintothetwenty-firstcentury.

The railways have proved farmore durable thanmanyother contemporaryinventions.Theyhaveseenoffrivaltechnologies,suchasatmosphericrailwaysand monorails – which never fulfilled their early promise – and stymied thedevelopment of newer ideas such as maglev. It was always likely that therailways would survive into the twenty-first century as, even in their darkestdays,theywerecarryingbillionsofpassengersannually,butthereweredoubtersabout their ability to survive. Richard Hope, the veteran British writer onrailways, recalls that ‘back in 1957, while doing my National Service in theRoyalAirForce,oneofmyfellowofficersannounced that thepassenger trainwasdoomed. I took issueandbethim£10 that thirtyyearshence therewouldstillbetwodailytrainsbetweenLondonandYork.’13Infacttherearemorethan

thirtydirectdailyservicesineachdirectiontoday.Railways have survived and flourished in unlikely places. It is not only in

denselypopulatedareasthattheyarestillavitalpartofanation’sinfrastructure.ManyoftheAndeanrailways,forexample,stilloperateeithercateringforheavyfreight flowsor tourists, such as themagnificent line up to theMachuPicchuruinsinPeru.Otherremotelinesremainalifelineforremotecommunities,suchas the far less famous but remarkable 100-mile Fianarantsoa Côte Est line inMadagascar,runningupfromthecoasttotheisland’shighplateau.Thejourneytakeseighttotenhoursasthetrainsbarelyeverreach20mphbut,giventhelackofroadsinthearea,thelineprovidesnotonlyafantasticscenicviewfortouristsbutalsoalifelineforthelocalcommunity.

TheFrenchrailwayshaveshown,too,thatlinesthatareoffthebeatentrackcan flourish with investment. The Mont Blanc railway, which celebrated its100thanniversaryin2008,14 isafabulouslittlerailwaywithperilousviaductsover torrents and steep gradients which explains why it was one of the earlyelectrified lines. In thepast suchbrancheswouldhavebeen allowed towitherawayanddie,butnowwithinvestmentbothfromSNCF,theFrenchstate-ownedrailwaycompany,andlocalgovernment,ithasflourishedandboastsnewtrainsand improved track.As a result, numbers of passengers have soared relievinglocalroadsofcongestion.Ofcoursethisrequirespublicmoneyassuchrailwayscannotmakea financial returnon the investment,but theexpenditurepays foritselfinmanyotherways.

Yet, the railways are rarely accorded the credit they deserve. They get anunfairlyhostilepressaspassengersseemtodemandtheimpossibleofthem,andyettolerateallthefaultsofroadtransportoraviation.TheyareanAuntSallyfornewspaper editors, criticized for the slightest delay and always accused ofinefficiency.Thesmallestaccidentisblownupoutofallproportioneventhough– or perhaps because – they are the safest form of transport, and their safetyrecord has improved immeasurably in recent times thanks to technology andbettermanagement.15

This bad press has left the railways vulnerable to unfair treatment bypoliticianswhosewhimshave frequently led to long termdamage,suchas theoverenthusiastic cutting back of the railways in Britain in the 1960s. Morerecently, the fashion for privatization has wreaked havoc on various railwaysacross the world, resulting in some countries, such as Argentina, virtuallyabandoning passenger services. In Europe, a basic failure to understand theworkingsofrailwayshasledtheEuropeanUniontoenforcerulesseparatingtheinfrastructurefromtheoperations,inordertoallow‘openaccess’tothetracks.

Thiswasdesigned to freeup themarket for rail transport and tobreakup thestate-owned monopolies, but these laudable aims have created a hugebureaucracy, a bonanza for expensive consultants, lawyers and regulators,complex working arrangements and greatly added costs to operations. 16Certainly,thepoliticianshavedonetherailwaysnofavourswiththeirtinkering,butasthisbookhasshown,railwaysthroughouttheirhistoryhavebeensubjecttopoliticians’whims.

Therailwaysmayhaveadiminishedroleasatransportprovider,buttheyarestill a vital component of the world’s economy. They have survived partlybecauseofthewaytheysofundamentallychangedthewaywelive.Theyhelpedto create the cities and the working patterns which now depend on theircontinued existence. Sure, the car and even the aeroplane have taken away alargechunkoftheirmarket,butwithouttherailwaysmanycitieswouldgrindtoahalt.Thedaysof thegeneral purpose railwaycarrying everythinghave longgone but by concentrating on the things they dowell, they have found a newpurpose with burgeoning high speed rail networks, heavy freight lines andmetros.With the new emphasis on the environment, and a recognition of thecomfortsofrailtravel–contrastforexample,theabilityoftramstogetpeopleout of their cars comparedwith the failure of buses to do so – rail’s role andimportance will continue to grow. Their success is based on a fundamentalscientificfactoutlinedbyGeoffreyFreemanAllen:‘Steelwheelrollingonsteelrailachievesthemostfrictionlessmovement–shortoflevitation–yetdevised;asaresult,a traincanmovemoretonnageperunitof traction,perunitoffuelconsumedandperstaffinvolvedinthetransitthananyothermedium.’17

Railtravelatitsbestisunbeatable.TheadvantagesoftraintravelinmoderntrainsissetoutinhischaracteristiceccentricwaybytheGermanauthorErwinBerghausdescribing the trans-Europeantrainsof the1950sbutstillverymuchapplicabletoday:

When one sees a streamlined diesel set tearing along the track, one caneasilyimaginewingsbeneaththelongunbrokenexpanseofwindows,andthegeneralimpressionissimilartothatofanultra-modernjetplane.Whenoneisseatedinthecomfortofamodernexpress,onemaybeexcusedforcomparingtherelativemeritsofroadandrailtravel.Whatdoesthemanatthewheelofhiscarsee,hiseyes,ears,handsandfeelalloccupied in thedriving.Hisholidaybeginswhenhereacheshisdestination.Fortherailwaypassengeritbeginsontheplatform.18

Sadly, the railwayshavenot alwaysnotmade sufficient effort to exploit theseadvantages. The railways were partly architects of their own demise by notresponding to change sufficiently quickly and not innovating fast enough.InternationaltravelinEuropehasneverbeensufficientlydeveloped,despitetheTransEuropExpresses,ascross-borderticketshavebeendifficulttoobtainandtechnicaldifferenceshavestillmadeitimpossibleformanytrainstorunthroughborderswithoutchanginglocomotive.Sincethe1990s,theEuropeanUnionhasbeentryingtoremedythisthroughtheadoptionofsharedtechnicalstandardsbutitisanextremelylengthyprocess.IfitwerepossibleforasinglelocomotivetotravelthroughEasternEuropebetweenSwedenandItaly,itwouldrequireoveradozen aerials to deal with the various safety and signalling systems. Onlyrecently have the European railways created a joint pan-European agency,Railteam, to do what the airlines have done for decades, coordinating theirmarketingefforttocreateseamlesstravelacrossfrontiersevenwhenachangeoftrainisrequired,andevennowRailteamonlydealswithhighspeedtrains,notconventional services. Further afield, a train travelling on the longest possiblecontinuous journey by rail, 10,600miles betweenAlgeciras in southern Spainand Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam would, according to Clive Lamming, 19requirefourchangesofgauge.

Itwouldbecomforting toargue that the railwaysbroughtonlygood to theworld. Certainly, they were the most important invention of the secondmillennium,transportingtheIndustrialRevolutionfromafewhotspotstolargeparts of the world. Theywere a democratizing force, too, allowing people totravelinanunprecedentedway,openinguptheireyestotheworld,bothliterallyand figuratively. They relieved many of tedious and hard labour, and spreadeconomicdevelopmenteverywhere.

But,aswehaveseen,therewerealsonegatives.Inmanypartsoftheworld,they contributed to environmental degradation. Their tracks wrecked manypristinelandscapesevenif,today,weviewthesesamelinesratherromantically.In particular, their use for military purposes was quickly exploited bygovernments,bothtoputdownrebellionsandtowagewar.AsJohnWestwoodputs it, ‘It was rail transport that sustained the mass armies and the massparticipationofmodernwarfare.Totalwarwasaproductoftherailwayage,andwithout the railways would have been impossible.’ 20Without them, too, themostevilcrimeofthetwentiethcentury,theindustrializedmurderofmillionsofpeople in the Holocaust would not have been possible. On balance however,there is no doubt that the railways deserve to be celebrated with enthusiasm.They spread civilization around the world, creating the opportunities for

unprecedentedgrowth.Withoutthem,wemightbeahundredyearsfurtherbackintermsofeconomicwealthandindustrialdevelopment.

There are numerous reasons why railways have not only survived, butflourished. In most countries with a sophisticated and modern rail network,passenger numbers are increasing driven by both pull and push factors. Railtravel inmoderntrainsismoreattractiveandpleasant thananyothermeansoftravel.With access to the Internet becoming possible onmany services, trainjourneyscanbeseenasproductivetimeinawaythatotherformsoftravelcannever be. With the Internet, too, buying tickets has become easier andinformationonservicesfarmorereadilyavailable.Meanwhilecongestioninthesky and at airports and endless traffic jams in towns and motorways havecombinedtomakepeoplelooktorailasabetterwayoftravelling.Ineconomicterms, too, as fuel prices rise, pushing up the cost of both road transport andaviation, trains will attract even more custom. More recently, a crucial extrareasonhascomeintotheequation,ensuringthattherailwayshavearosyfuture.Trainsarefarmoreenvironmentallyfriendlythanothermodesandwillbecomemoresoasrailwayorganizationsrealizethisisacrucialpartoftheargumenttoconvincegovernmentstoinvestinthem.

Railwaysmayhavelostouttothecarandthelorry,andinAmericaandotherbig countries, to the aeroplane.But the fact that they survived andnow thriveshowstheirresilienceandflexibility.Trainsmaybeofthepast,buttheyarestillthefuture.Theywillimprove,notjustonhighspeedlines,butelsewheretooastechnologymakesthemmoreefficient,comfortableandfaster.Andthereistheratherdeliciousprospectthattheymightconceivablyoutlivethecar.Itmaybeafanciful idea, but then not even Stephenson realized quitewhat an impact hisLiverpool&ManchesterRailwaywouldhave.Whileinmostplacestoday,rail’smodalshareof travel is tinycomparedwithroadtransport, thatsituationcouldeasily change.All thispersonalizedmobilityhasnotnecessarilydelivered anyoverallbenefittosociety.AretheChinesebetteroffnowwiththeirtrafficjamsandringroads than theywere twentyyearsagowhenbicyclesandbuseswerethe dominant form of urban transport, and trains took them between cities?Wouldithavebeenbetteriftransporttechnologyhadatrophiedattheturnofthecenturyandthecarhadnevercometodominatetheworld?Witheverytownorvillage within a few miles of a station or a tram stop, and buses for shorterjourneys,afarmorerationalsystemoftransportandlandusewouldhavebeendeveloped. Imagine aworldwithout car parks,motorways or service stations.Sure,theremighthavebeeneight-orten-trackrailwaysconnectingmajorcitieswithhuge terminiandmassivebusstationsateachend,but it isanalternativevision thathasmanyattractions.Thinkof all thosedelightful townsandcities

not blighted by the permanent gridlock that affects them today.And all thosehorrible housing estates, accessible only by car, that would never have beenbuilt.We all know that the oil will run out at some point and as it starts tobecome too expensive and governments recognize it should be rationedcarefully,trainsmayregaintheirplaceatthecentreofthetransportsystem.Nowthere’saprospecttowarmtheheart.

http://www.trainweb.org/panama/history1.html

http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk.