Fifty railroads that changed the course of history

Review by Booklist Review

Railroads were the Internet of the nineteenth century, providing people with fast and convenient communication (and transportation!) between formerly disconnected places. From the Stockton and Darlington Railway to the Channel Tunnel, advances in railway engineering have tended to mirror larger changes in society as a whole. Author Laws has selected 50 railroads and presents brief (2-8 pages) histories that highlight the importance of each one. Coverage is international, with entries from every continent where railroads have been established. Entries are arranged in chronological order, ranging from 1804 to 2007. Some entries may be obvious (transcontinental railroads in the U.S. and Canada, high-speed rail in Japan); and some are more obscure (the ­Jerusalem to Jaffa Railway or the Semmering Railway in Austria). Although most railroads were chosen for inclusion based on advances in engineering and transportation, a few were selected because of their social impact (Southern Railway's influence on popular music, the Burma to Siam Railway as the model for the film Bridge over the River Kwai, Dutch Railways as they related to strikes and labor unrest, and the sobering impact of the rail spur leading to Auschwitz). Dates selected to represent entries are not always clear, such as the Channel Tunnel being listed in 2007, rather than its opening in 1994. Despite a few such oddities, this book will be popular with rail fans and history buffs, all of whom will argue the inclusion or exclusion of their own particular favorite railroads. This is a good choice for the circulating shelves of most public libraries.--Tyckoson, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Introduction

"When I closed my eyes this sensation of flying was quite delightful, and strange beyond description: yet strange as it was, I had a perfect sense of security, and not the slightest fear."
Actress and writer Fanny Kemble, opening of the Liverpool to Manchester railroad, 1838

Railroads have impacted on the lives of almost everyone on the planet. Since they arrived in the early 1800s, their steely sinews have threaded their way through history, nudging and elbowing it in unexpected directions.

Changing Landscapes and Passenger Travel
Railroads modernized the towns they touched and caused the downfall of the ones they left behind: they carried cargo into the most inaccessible places and transformed forever the traditional ways of life there. Trains brought a distinctive cacophony to the urban scene: station bells, bursts of steam, the scream of a whistle, carriage couplings clattering in rail yards, and the ring of the wheel-tapper's hammer checking for cracked steel.

The British monarch Queen Victoria was perfectly satisfied with this progress. On her first railroad journey, 18 miles (29 km) along the GWR or Great Western Railway to Buckingham Palace in 1842, she declared: "We arrived here yesterday morning, having come by the railroad from Windsor, in half an hour, free from dust and crowd and heat, and I am quite charmed with it." The Duke of Wellington, reflecting the sentiments of many of The Queen's citizens, had taken the opposite view. In 1830 he declared he saw "no reason to suppose these machines will ever force themselves into general use." While the railroads increased and multiplied, the anxieties of passengers remained much the same: Have I missed the train? Am I on the right platform? Is my luggage safe? Railroads undoubtably imposed themselves on the landscape. "There was probably more picturesqueness about the old method of traveling, for a stage coach harmonized better with the landscape than a puffing, smoking steam engine with its train of practical looking cars," wrote the regretful R. Richardson B.A. in Cassell's Family Magazine of 1875. He nevertheless acknowledged: "What we have lost in picturesqueness we have undoubtedly gained in convenience."

Making Tracks Across the Globe
With their speeding locomotives, luxury carriages and romantic boat trains, the railroads reached a zenith in the early twentieth century using the latest technology. Although the essential elements--train, tracks and rolling stock--were standard, idiosyncratic national characteristics were apparent from the start. The dominance of the railroad was complete, paving the way across the world with its routes and adopting country-specific structures, while two world wars battled on.

By the mid-twentieth century railroads were exhausted. Polluting, inefficient, uncomfortable, monopolistic and expensive, they had run out of favor. Their demise was accompanied, and exacerbated, by the rush for the road, a development that squandered dwindling natural resources and left a bill for everyone but the polluter to pay. Then in 1964 a streamlined train slid, like a vision from the future, into Tokyo station. Within a decade high-speed railroads and rapid transit systems were racing to change history again, leaving in their wake a charm of pleasant old lines and railroad memories. As railroad engineer George Stephenson's biographer Samuel Smiles put it in 1868: "Notwithstanding all the faults and imperfections that are alleged against railroads ... we think they must nevertheless be recognized as by far the most valuable means of communication ... that has yet been given to the world."

Excerpted from Fifty Railroads That Changed the Course of History by Bill Laws All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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