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Railway Posters is the story of train travel through the posters of American and European railway companies. The inventive graphics created by the poster artists convey the excitement and nostalgia that accompany today's perceptions of train travel; taking the reader on a journey from their first experience of trains as miniature sets in their family home to the necessity of train travel in their adult life.This large-format book showcases the beautiful posters in all their splendor as well as providing an historical commentary.Features posters by artists including Cassandre, Alesi, Dorival, Otto Ernst, Fix-Masseau, Villemot and Zenobel.
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Railway POSTERSThierry Favre
Ordering InformationISBN: 9781851496723
Actual size of book: 310 x 240mmPages: 184
UK Price: £25.00 US Price: $49.50
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27f North America accounted for a third of the world’s rail track at the beginningof the twentieth century, the regions of the world to which the railways had yet tobring their benefits were greatly interested. As time went on, many countries startedto acquire railway systems. In Europe, however, the First World War brought manyconstruction projects to a sudden halt.
The start of the twentieth century saw the first railway in Iraq, in 1902. In1915 it was Morocco’s turn to discover this new mode of transport with a line joiningOujda on the Algerian border with Marrakesh, passing through Fes, Rabat andCasablanca. This line was supplemented by a strategic network constructed by theFrench Army, to which the local population had no access.
Steam engines, the efficiency and reliability of which had been greatly improvedand which now transported both freight and passengers at greater speeds, totallydominated the train world. However, another form of locomotion was beginning tomake an appearance. Developed by the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, the heat enginewould quickly be adopted in shipping, in automobile transport for use in lorries, andfinally, some time later, in rail travel. The 1914–18 War gave the ‘diesel’ engine its firstwidespread application: it was fitted into locomotives built to carry arms andmunitions to the front. These military trains employed diesel engines rather than steamengines because it meant that they would be less visible to the enemy.
However, the steam train had not yet sung its last hurrah. Constantly improvedto cut down on running costs, it reigned virtually unchallenged in most countries ofEurope and throughout the world. Alongside the development of the heat engine andits application to rail travel, steam also faced the increasing use of electric engines. It isoften thought that this type of engine appeared after diesel, but this is not exactly true.In fact, trials were carried out in Britain as early as 1842, with a view to creating anelectric vehicle, and then five years later with the elaboration of a battery-drivencarriage invented by Farmer and Hall. Further attempts were made in the USA withthe construction of an electric wagon, but it was the German Siemens who came to beregarded as one of the early pioneers of the electric engine applied to the railways. Hisnarrow-gauge traction engine inaugurated a new era. Although it was met with greatscepticism, Siemens’ invention was exhibited in Berlin, Brussels and finally Paris in1880. Siemens used strong rather than weak currents, and his machine is consideredtoday to be the first genuine electric locomotive in the world.
The use of fixed generators and motors in industry also led to the developmentof the electric train. As research widened a variety of experimental machines wereproduced, like that created by Jean-Jacques Heilmann for the Compagnie de l’Ouestin France. Heilmann came up with a boiler and steam engine driven by a dynamofeeding into eight electric motors. This hybrid locomotive was christened ‘the ElectricRocket’. In the course of trials this curiously shaped engine achieved a top speed of108 km/hour.
In the USA, where train travel was growing apace, the idea of adapting electric
1900-1920The Apogee. The Train as a Factor ofDevelopment
I
Opening of the Simplon Tunnel, International Exhibition,Milan, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1905G. Ricordi & C., Milan193.7 X 95.3 cmCollection Alessandro Bellenda, Galerie L’IMAGE,Alassio – Italy
Modena Express, Umberto Tirelli, anonymous, c.1905Arti Grafiche Minarelli, Bologna99 X 69 cm Collection Alessandro Bellenda, Galerie L’IMAGE,Alassio – Italy
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Contents
7 Introduction
9 Railways in the 19th Century.
The Construction of Lines and Networks
in Europe and the USA
27 1900-1920 The Apogee.
The Train as a Factor of Development
53 1919-1929 The Period of Consolidation.
Happy Journeys!
73 1930-1945 The Difficult Years.
Necessary Restructuring and Evolution
115 1950-2005 The Renaissance of Rail.
Reconstruction and Modernization of the
European Networks
145
180
The Blue Bird, Anvers Brussels Paris,A. M. Cassandre, 1929Impr. L. Danel, Lille100 X 62 cm
26
9
1 9 T H C E N T U R Y
6
7hough a British invention, the railways originated in part in the fardierà vapeur (an early steam-driven carriage) created by the Frenchman Joseph Cugnot in1771. The Industrial Revolution in Britain in the nineteenth century stimulated thesearch for new ways of transporting large quantities of freight. It was from this needthat the first railways emerged. The first lines built for the transportation of coal wouldreplace the earlier wooden rails with ones made of steel. From these beginnings therailways would grow rapidly and contribute to the industrialization of Europe, beforespreading to other continents. Passenger railways also expanded exponentially, and inparticular facilitated contacts between politicians, diplomats and businessmen.
So the railways were born in Britain. It was Richard Trevithick who, in 1804,constructed what might be considered to be the world’s very first locomotive: a moreor less functional steam-driven machine that ran on wooden rails in Wales. He builta number of other machines, one of which, bearing the nickname ‘Catch Me WhoCan’, carried paying passengers on a small circuit enclosed by a wooden fence.
Trevithick’s inventions did not go unnnoticed. Other engineers like Blenkinsop,Blackett, Brunton or Hedley came up with different solutions – using cogwheels, forexample. In the USA, where there was greater enthusiasm for the railways than inold Europe, where the new invention initially encountered much suspicion and fear,the locomotive builders – converted former smelters and forges – greatly increasedproduction with the aim of making a fast fortune. Most of these locomotives,unfortunately, were rather makeshift contraptions – one used rifle barrels in place ofboiler pipes …
The Englishman George Stephenson worked on railway construction from asearly as 1815. Along with his son, Robert, he is famous for creating the locomotive‘the Rocket’, which came first in the Rainhill Trials run in 1829. Theirs was thelocomotive chosen to pull trains on the Liverpool–Manchester line. Two years earlier,in France, Marc Seguin had refined two Stephenson locomotives acquired for theLyon–St Étienne line by installing the tubular system that he employed in the boilersof steamboats plying the river Rhône. The Rocket made its creator the first greatrailway manufacturer.
In Europe, where industrialization was taking off, the technological advancescoming out of Britain opened up opportunities for a number of countries intent onfollowing the same path. A symbol of progress – and of decline for the barges,stagecoaches and horse-drawn carriages – the railways grew as rapidly in Europe asin the USA. In the Old World, Germany, Belgium, France and Italy were in theforefront of railway building. The companies involved made their money initiallyout of the transportation of freight, but, after a tentative start, passenger transportgrew to be just as important. However, the new invention got a hostile reception atfirst. Caricaturists like Daumier1 had a field day pillorying the railways in thenewspapers, and placed great emphasis on the dangers of train travel. It is true thatthird-class train travel was pretty Spartan; but the real problem was the trains’
Railways in the19th Century.The Construction of Linesand Networks in Europe andthe USA
T
Chemins de fer de l’Ouest, reduced-price journeys, PAL, 1897 108 X 76 cm
Compagnie des Wagons-Bars, Eugène Vavasseur, 1898Atelier Vavasseur, Bois-Colombes122 X 83 cm
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Midland Railway, the Best Route for Comfortable Travel andPicturesque Scenery, H. Gray, 1899
England & Scotland East Coast Route,anonymous, c.1895 100 X 63 cm
1 9 T H C E N T U R Y
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