The City and the Railway in the World from the Nineteenth Century to the Present 2021059622, 2021059623, 9781472449610, 9781032069630, 9781003204749

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The City and the Railway in the World from the Nineteenth Century to the Present

This volume explores the relationship between cities and railways over three centuries. Despite their nearly 200-year existence, The City and the Railway in the World shows that urban railways are still politically and historically important to the modern world. Since its inception, cities have played a significant role in the railway system; cities were among the main reasons for building such efficient but lavish and costly modes of transport for persons, goods, and information. They also influenced the technological appearance of railways as these have had to meet particular demands for transport in urban areas. In 25 essays, this volume demonstrates that the relationship between the city and the railway is one of the most publicly debated themes in the context of daily lives in growing urban settings, as well as in the second urbanisation of the global South with migration from rural to urban landscapes. The volume’s broad geographical range includes discussions of railway networks, railway stations, and urban rails in countries such as India, Japan, England, Belgium, Romania, Nigeria, the USA, and Mexico. The City and the Railway in the World will be a useful tool for scholars interested in the history of transport, travel, and urban change. Ralf Roth is Professor of Modern History at the Historische Seminar, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He has published several books and numerous articles on the social and cultural history of cities, transport, and communication networks. Paul Van Heesvelde is a historian (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) who specialises in war and transportation. He is a former Special PhD fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His publications include Destination le Front. Les Chemins de fer en Belgique pendant la Grande Guerre (2014) and chapters in books on transport history.

Routledge Studies in Modern History

The Body in the Anglosphere, 1880–1920 “Well Sexed Womanhood,” “Finer Natives,” and “Very White Men” Robert W. Thurston The Barsden Memoirs (1799–1816) An Australian Transnational Adolescence Grant Rodwell Terrorism The Power and Weakness of Fear Juan Romero Sinology During the Cold War Michael Brose and Antonina Łuszczykiewicz South Korea’s Origins and Early Relations with the United States The Lynchpin of Hegemonic Power Hyeonji Cha and Hyun Jin Kim Intervention and Disarmament In a Culturally Diverse World Philip Towle The City and the Railway in the World from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Edited by Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde Displaced Persons, Resettlement and the Legacies of War From War Zones to New Homes Jessica Stroja For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Routledge-Research-in-Modern-History/book-series/MODHIST

The City and the Railway in the World from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Edited by Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde

First published 2023 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Roth, Ralf, editor. | Heesvelde, Paul van, editor. Title: The city and the railway in the world from the nineteenth century to the present / edited by Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde. Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge studies in modern history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021059622 (print) | LCCN 2021059623 (ebook) | ISBN 9781472449610 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032069630 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003204749 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Railroads—Social aspects—History. | Electric railroads—History. | Urban transportation—History. | Urbanization—History. Classification: LCC HE1041 .C58 2022 (print) | LCC HE1041 (ebook) | DDC 385.09—dc23/eng/20220104 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059622 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059623 ISBN: 978-1-4724-4961-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-06963-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-20474-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749 Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

List of figures List of tables List of contributors Preface List of abbreviations

Introduction

ix xiii xiv xx xxi

1

R A L F RO T H A N D PAU L VA N H E E S V E L DE

PART I

Some General Assumptions on the Topic

7

1 The City and the Railway in the World: Looking Back Over Two Centuries

9

R A L F RO T H

PART II

Cities in a Wider Context: The Role of National and Continental Railway Networks in the Development of Cities

121

2 Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets: Chicago’s Perilous Transition From Frontier Town to Industrial City

123

TED R. MITCHELL

3 A Comparative Study of the Impact of Railway Stations on Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns in the Kura District of Kano Emirate SH E H U T I JJA N I Y USU F

133

vi Contents 4 Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West, 1865–1925

144

H . RO GE R GR A N T

5 Bombay and its Hinterland(s): Railways and the Making of Colonial Western India, 1853–c.1900

155

I A N JOH N S T ON E K E R R

PART III

The Railway Station: New Entrance to the City and Its Multiple Meanings

169

6 Inventing the Future. Early Railway Station Planning and Mechelen’s ‘Central Station’, 1835–1845

171

PAU L VA N H E E S V E L DE

7 Railways in Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot

186

M A RT I N KV I Z DA

8 Putting a Station in Its Place: 30th Street Station and Its Relationship to Philadelphia’s Urban Fabric

201

A L BE RT J. C H U R E L L A

9 ‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways: The Opening Ceremonies of Railway Stations in Nineteenth-Century Bucharest

214

O C TAV I A N O. SI LV E S T RU

10 The Railways and the City in the History of Indian Political Practice

229

L I SA M I T C H E L L

11 Save Haydarpaşa: A Train Station as Object of Conflicting Visions of the Past

241

M A LT E F U H R M A N N

12 The Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico: A Pending Issue

256

MÓN ICA S OL ÓR Z A NO GI L

PART IV

Urban Rails and How They Affected, and Still Affect, the City

271

13 Private Railways as Urban Developers in Japan

273

OL I V E R M AY E R A N D A N T HON Y ROBI N S

Contents  vii 14 The Unfinished Dream of ‘Workplace and Dwelling Proximity’: Development of Private Railway Companies and Areas on Railway Lines in Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Areas

288

SH U IC H I TA K A SH I M A

15 Creation of the Railway Culture Through Marketing and Consumption: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo

307

NOBU H I RO YA NAGI H A R A

16 From Viaducts to Vandalism: The London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840

322

ALEX WERNER

17 The B&O Railroad and the Changing Use of Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, 1829–1865

334

DAV I D H . S C H L E Y

18 Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve in Belgium’s Splintered Body

346

M IC H E L I N E N I L SE N

19 Birth of a Commuter Society: Workingmens’ Trains in Belgium, 1870–1914

359

D ONA L D W E BE R

20 Can We Find Historical Evidence of the Existence of Wider Benefits From Urban Rail Projects? The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway

374

JOH N D OD G S ON

21 The Experience and Image of American Elevated Railways: Rapid Transit Infrastructure in the Urban Consciousness

390

G OR D ON BE N E DIC T H A N SE N

PART V

Railways in Troubled Waters and Their Return at the End of the Twentieth Century

403

22 The German Federal Railway (Deutsche Bundesbahn) and the Process of Suburbanisation After 1945

405

C H R I S T OPH E R M. KOPPE R

viii Contents 23 Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities: Urban Mobility Agenda and City Renewals

416

M A S SI MO MOR AGL IO

24 A Symbiotic Relationship: The Delhi Metro Rail and the National Capital Region

438

A N U PA M A M A N N

25 Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict: The Case of the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project in India

457

R A M AC H A N DR A I A H C H IGU RU PAT I

Index

473

Figures

1.1 Wissower Klinken, Chalk Cliff on Rügen near Sassnitz. Painting by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818 1.2 Wartburg with Monk and Nun. Sketch by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 1807 1.3 Development of the French Railway Network in 1842, 1850, and 1860 1.4 Development of the German Railway Network in 1842, 1849, and 1864 1.5 Travel Times by Railways from Marseille to Regions in all of Europe in 1910, 1970, 1997, and 2010 1.6 Map of Railways in Berlin in 1896 1.7 Shunter and Switchmen at the Track Yard of Bischofsheim, together with a Shunting Locomotive in front of the Railway Station, 1867 1.8 Locomotive Shed for 24 Steam Locomotives, Built in 1902, in Present Derelict Appearance, 2018 1.9 A D-Zug Entering the Railway Ferry in Sassnitz, 1910 1.10 The Ferry Port in 1934 1.11 Ground Nut Pyramids in Kano, Nigeria in the 1960s 1.12 Map of the Trans-Siberian Railway 1.13 Station of Taiga, 1901 1.14 Prisoners at an Amur Cart Road Camp, between 1908 and 1913 1.15 Railway Station Novosibirsk, 2003 1.16 A Train passing the Tanna Viaduct near Bombay in 1855 1.17 Entrance of the Main Station in Frankfurt am Main, Present Design 1.18 The Stettiner Station, later North Station in Berlin, 1875 1.19 Interior of the Galerie des Machines of the World Fair in Paris, 1880 1.20 Interior of the Frankfurt Central Station in 1888 1.21 Frankfurt’s Main Station, Viewed from a Skyscraper in the Banking Quarter, 2012

10 11 12 15 18 19 20 22 23 23 24 29 29 30 31 32 35 35 36 37 37

x Figures 1.22 Entrance at 30th Street of the Dual Railway Station of the Pennsylvanian Rail Road in Philadelphia, 2014 1.23 Sketch of the Main Station of the Pennsylvanian Railroad, 1910 1.24 Model of the Berlin Main Station in the basement of the station June 2017 by Karle Horn 1.25 Castle Dwasieden near Sassnitz. Home of the Privateer and Railway Entrepreneur Adolph von Hansemann 1.26 Hamburger Station in Berlin, around 1850 1.27 Iași Railway Station, Opened in 1870, ca. 1900 1.28 Crowd Greets Gandhi as He Exits a Train at a Station 1.29 Haydarpaşa Station, Aerial View from 2011 1.30 Typical Railway Station, Built with Brick Stones, and Open Shed in Atequiza, Jalisco 1.31 Proposal for a City and Ring Railway in Berlin by Hermann Schwabe, 1873 1.32 Matsuya Department Store 1.33 Greater London Plan, Railways from 1944 1.34 Development of Tokyo Metropolitan Area and Its Transport Network between 1910 and 1993 1.35 Tama Toshi Monorail Tokyo Japan, Opened in 1998 1.36 The Metropolitan Railway Opened in 1863 with BroadGauge Locomotive 1.37 Construction of the Metropolitan Railway, 1861 1.38 Aerial View of the Grounds and Buildings of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Held on Chicago’s Lakefront in 1893. Lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1892 1.39 The Grand Facade of Union Station, Washington, D.C., by Daniel H. Burnham 1.40 International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt am Main, 1891 1.41 Contemporary Image Showing the Entrance to the Exhibition Site with Arches and Electrically Powered Waterfall 1.42 Set-Up of the Sculptural Group Atlas Bearing the Terrestrial Globe from Gustav Herold, 2014 1.43 Three Electric Streetcars Were Introduced to Montgomery in 1886 1.44 Sketch of an Electric Elevated Train Running through Friedrichstraße in Berlin by Siemens AG, 1880 1.45 View from Station Nollendorfplatz to the Entrance of the Underground Station Wittenbergplatz of the Elevated Train in Berlin, Today’s Line U2 1.46 Ideal City and Its Network of S-Trains, 1912 1.47 ALWEG Railway in Turin, 1961 1.48 Net of an ALWEG Railway in Frankfurt, 1959 (not realised)

39 40 41 44 45 46 47 48 50 51 53 57 58 59 63 63 67 67 69 70 71 72 72 76 78 84 85

Figures  xi 1.49 Hoch- und Untergrundbahn in Hamburg am Mönkedamm, 1912 87 1.50 Construction of the U-train at Wandsbeker Marktstrasse, 1961 88 1.51 Delhi Metro Rail, 2010 92 1.52 Raidurg Metro Station near Raheja Mindspace, 2017 93 3.1 Map of Nigerian Railways from 1901 to 1964 (The Trading Firms and the Groundnut Trade) 137 4.1 Typical T-Town Layout 149 4.2 Modified T-Town Layout for Roaring Springs, Texas 150 5.1 Railway map of India, 1931 156 6.1 Planning-Application Map of 1835 176 6.2 Mechelen’s Central Station Building 176 6.3 Drawing of the Ground Plan of the First Railway Station in Mechelen – 1840 181 7.1 Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1830 to 1860 189 7.2 Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1860 to 1870 192 7.3 Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1870 to 1970 194 7.4 Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1980 to 2000 195 7.5 Stations and Railways in the City of Prague after 2010 197 8.1 One of the Two Main Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Stations in the City, Broad Street Station 203 8.2 The Second of the Two Main Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Stations in the City, 30th Street Station 206 9.1 Romanian Railway Network at the End of 1872 217 9.2 Filaret Railway Station in 1872 220 11.1 A Passenger Ferry Calling at Haydarpaşa (Before the Fire) 245 11.2 Passengers Disembarking from a Ferry at Haydarpaşa Walking Up the Marble Staircase, Malte Fuhrmann, 2006 245 12.1 Guadalajara Station Project of 1911 262 12.2 North View of the Guadalajara Station in 1929 263 12.3 San Marcos Station Abandoned 265 13.1 Urban Railways in Central Tokyo and Southwest Kanto 276 13.2 Urban Railways in Osaka and the Neighbouring Area 277 14.1 Railway Networks in Greater Tokyo (1940) 290 14.2 Land Readjustment Areas in Greater Tokyo in the Pre-War Period 293 14.3 Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association and Its Branches 295 14.4 The Capital Region and Its Basic Plan in 1960 299 14.5 Tama New Town and Tama Den-en Toshi 300 15.1 Personification of the Express Train of the Odakyū Line (drawn by Tomohito Megumi) 316 16.1 Cover of the Penny Magazine with a Motif of the Viaduct of the LGR, 1836 326

xii Figures 16.2 Spa Road Station, 1836. Earliest known Depiction of a London Railway Station. Watercolour by Robert Schnebbelie 17.1 Map of Baltimore, 1853 18.1 Frédéric Bruneel. Project for the Brussels Junction, 1893 19.1 State Railway Network (Daily Worker Passes sold in 1906) 19.2 State Railway Network (Total Number of Worker Passes sold in 1906) 20.1 LOR Rail Journeys from 1890 to 1960 21.1 Above the Frankford El in Northeast Philadelphia, 2009 21.2 Below the Frankford El in Northeast Philadelphia, 2009 23.1 Light Rail in the Early 1980s, as Urban Transport Solution 23.2 Light Rail as a Flag Bearer of Modernity 23.3 Light Rail as a Valuable Traffic Solution 23.4 Light Rail as Environment-Friendly Device 23.5 Light Rail as Customer-Friendly Device 23.6 Light Rail as Facilitator of a Relaxed Journey 24.1 The Map Shows the Major Urban Areas, Rural Villages, Existing and Proposed MRTS, and Proposed RRTS. It Does Not Include Districts Incorporated in the NCR in 2013 25.1 A Collage of Some of the Titles of Media Coverage of the Issues Raised by CBPTH

330 335 347 364 365 377 391 391 422 425 426 427 430 431 441 463

Tables

3.1 Passenger Traffic at Madobi and Kwankwaso Railway Stations, c.1939 136 3.2 List of Trading Firms in Madobi and Kwankwaso Trading Layouts, c.1924–1940s 138 6.1 Budget for Equipment of Railway Stations and Stops 1840 178 6.2 Brick and Wooden Traveller Accommodations in Railway Stations 1840 179 7.1 Czech and German Names of Towns 191 14.1 Number of Suburban Subdivided Housing Lots (1914–1936) 290 14.2 Suburban Trains and Land Readjustment Associations along the Railways 294 14.3 Land Owned by Tokyu Corporations and Its Forerunners within the Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association (in Squaremetres) 296 18.1 Passengers in Total and with Regular Fare (1913–1960) 351 18.2 Passengers with Reduced Fare and Passes (1933–1960) 352 18.3 Passengers with Workers’ Passes (1932–1960) 353 20.1 Financial Returns of the LOR from 1893 to 1953 378 20.2 Social Returns of the LOR 1893–1953 381 20.3 Social Returns with Agglomeration of the LOR 1893–1953 385

Contributors

Ramachandraiah Chigurupati is Professor of Geography at Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, India. His publications include High-Tech Urban Spaces: Asian and European Perspectives (with Guus van Westen and Sheela Prasad) (Manohar, New Delhi, 2008), and articles in Environment and Urbanization, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Economic and Political Weekly. He had Visiting Fellowships at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, MSH, Paris, University of Bordeaux-3, France, and Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He had extensively critiqued the Hyderabad Metro Rail project. He is currently working on Mobility and Streets with respect to Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and contestations on land pooling and master planning in the new mega ‘greenfield’ capital of Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh. Albert J. Churella is Associate Professor of History at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Georgia. His publications include From Steam to Diesel: Managerial Customs and Organizational Capabilities in the Twentieth-Century American Locomotive Industry (Princeton 1998) and The Pennsylvania Railroad: Volume 1, Building an Empire, 1846–1917 (Philadelphia 2013), as well as articles in the Business History Review and Enterprise & Society. He is currently working on the second and final volume of the complete history of the Pennsylvania Railroad, between 1881 and 1901 the world’s largest private corporation. John Dodgson retired as Head of NERA Economic Consulting’s European Transport and Postal Group in 2007. He was previously Reader in Economics at the University of Liverpool, where he was specialised in microeconomic analysis and transport economics. He has consulted and published extensively on railway economics, and has advised the UK Department for Transport, Crossrail, the European Commission, the Office of Rail Regulation, the former Strategic Rail Authority, and Transport for London on railway matters. Since retiring, his research has concentrated on economic history both of railways and of the English economy in the late seventeenth century. He is currently preparing the section on railways for the revised series of volumes on British Historical Statistics.

Contributors  xv Malte Fuhrmann is a research fellow at the Orient-Institut Istanbul. His research interests include urban history of Eastern Mediterranean port cities, European-Ottoman Relations, and postcolonial and transnational theory. He has published Der Traum vom deutschen Orient. Zwei deutsche Kolonien im Osmanischen Reich 1851–1918 (Imagining a German Orient: Two German Colonies in the Ottoman Empire, 1851–1918), Frankfurt (M.): Campus 2006, based on his dissertation at Freie Universität Berlin. He has also edited together with Ulrike Freitag, Nora Lafi, and Florian Riedler The City in the Ottoman Empire: Migration and the Making of Urban Modernity, London: Routledge 2011; together with Vangelis Kechriotis Mediterranean Historical Review 24 (2009/2): The Late Ottoman Port Cities: Subjectivity, Urbanity, and Conflicting Orders; and together with Lars Amenda Comparativ 17 (2007/2): Hafenstädte – Mobilität, Migration, Globalisierung (Port Cities: Mobility, Migration, Globalisation).) H. Roger Grant is the Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor of History at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. He is the author or editor of 28 books, mostly on railroad topics. His latest work, Railroads and the American People, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press, and he is completing a book-length study of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Rail Road, which will also be published by Indiana University Press. Grant serves as president of the Lexington Group in Transportation History. Gordon Benedict Hansen  is a Transportation Planner at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates in San Francisco, California. He holds a Master’s in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ian Johnstone Kerr is a Senior Scholar at the University of Manitoba, Canada, and a Professorial Research Associate in the Department of History, SOAS, University of London. His single-authored or edited books include Building the Railways of the Raj, 1850–1900 (Oxford, 1995; paper 1997); Railways in Modern India (Oxford, 2001; paper 2005); 27 Down. New Departures in Indian Railway Studies (Orient Longmans, 2007); Engines of Change. The Railroads That Made India (Praeger, 2007; rev. Indian ed., Orient Blackswan, 2012); and with John Hurd, India’s Railway History. A Research Handbook (Brill, 2012). Christopher M. Kopper  is Professor of Economic and Business History at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. He has published several books on the history of banking in the twentieth-century Germany, a textbook on German Transport History (Handel und Verkehr im 20. Jahrhundert, München 2002) and a monography on the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the German railroad policy after 1945 (Die Bahn im Wirtschaftswunder, Frankfurt/Main 2007). Martin Kvizda  is Associate Professor of Economic Policy at Masaryk University in Prague and a director of the Institute for Transport Economics,

xvi Contributors Geography, and Policy (http://www.itregep.eu), Brno, Czech Republic. He is a leader of several research projects on rail economics and history. His recent publications include Czech Military Railways – History and a Comparative Analysis of the Czech Railway Network’s Efficiency (In: R. Roth and H. Jacolin, Eastern European Railways in Transition – Nineteenth to Twenty-first Centuries, Surrey 2013); Out of Prague: A Week-Long Intermodal Shift from Air to Rail Transport after Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull Erupted in 2010 (together with D. Seidenglanz, Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 37, 2014); Open Access Passenger Rail Competition in the Czech Republic (together with Z. Tomeš, M. Jandová and V. Rederer, Transport Policy, vol. 47, 2016); and Czechoslovak Light Rail - Legacy of Socialist Urbanism or Opportunity for the Future? (together with D. Seidenglanz, T. Nigrin, Z. Tomeš and J. Dujka, Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 54, 2016). Anupama Mann  is an independent scholar with an interest in architecture and planning. She received her doctorate in policy, planning and development studies from the University of Southern California, Sol Price School of Public Policy. Her dissertation ‘A Megaproject Matrix: Ideology, Discourse, and Regulation in the Delhi Metro Rail’ was awarded the 2009 Gill-Chin Lim Award for the Best Dissertation on International Planning by the Global Planning Educators Interest Group (GPEIG) with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP). She has co-authored with Tridib Banerjee an article ‘Institutions and Megaprojects: the Case of Delhi Metro Rail’ in Environment and Urbanization Asia and a series of articles on the Delhi Metro and Metros in India for Oxford Analytica. She is currently principal at a multidisciplinary firm in Los Angeles. Oliver Mayer, M.A., is a Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at the Aichi University of Education in Kariya (near Nagoya), Japan. Born in Essen (Germany) in 1968, he studied Japanese, Geography, and Economics at Ruhr-University Bochum, graduating in 1998. After working at the Department of Geography at Bochum for three years, he moved to his current position in 2001. His main subjects of research are German language and literature, and urban transportation. Lisa Mitchell  is Associate Professor of Anthropology and History in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book, Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India: The Making of a Mother Tongue (Indiana University Press 2009 and Permanent Black 2010), was awarded the Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr. prize in the Indian Humanities by the American Institute of Indian Studies. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Trusteesʼ Council of Penn Women for her research on the Social and Political History of the Indian Railway Station. She is currently completing a book on Public Space and Political Protest in the History of Indian Democracy that focuses

Contributors  xvii centrally on the ways that road and railway spaces function as critical nodes within larger communicative networks to make possible the communication of political messages. Ted R. Mitchell  is Assistant Professor of History at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, USA. He is currently revising his first manuscript, Connecting a Nation, Dividing a City: Chicago, Railroads, and the Transition to the Industrial Era, for publication. Massimo Moraglio, PhD, is a Marie Curie fellow at the Berlin Institute of Technology TU-Berlin, Center for Technology and Society. Besides many essays and book chapters, his publication includes the volume Storia delle prime autostrade italiane (1922–1943). Modernizzazione, affari e propaganda (Trauben 2007) and the bilingual book Inventare gli spostamenti. Storia e immagini dell’autostrada Torino-Savona/Inventing Movement. History and Images of the A6 Motorway (Allemandi 2006). Currently he is working on the light rail revival in the European context and the new use of urban public space. Micheline Nilsen, a native of Southern Belgium, is an urban historian who focuses on the impact of evolutionary forces on cities. She was trained in art history at the University of Pennsylvania and holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Delaware. She is the author of Railways and the Western European Capitals: Studies of Implantation in London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008 and of Architecture in Nineteenth-century Photographs: Essays on Reading a Collection, published by Ashgate in 2011. She was guest curator for two exhibits of nineteenthcentury photographs of architecture in 2008 and 2010 at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana. She is Associate Professor of Art History at Indiana University, South Bend. Anthony Robins,  B.A., M.A., is a Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at the Aichi University of Education in Kariya (near Nagoya), Japan, where he has been teaching since 2000. Born in London (Great Britain) in 1959, he studied English and History at York University, graduating in 1980. Since gaining his teaching certificate and master’s degree in Applied Linguistics, he has taught at two technological universities before taking up his present position. His main subjects of research are information technology in language teaching and transportation history. Ralf Roth is Professor of Modern History at the Historische Seminar, GoetheUniversity in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His numerous articles published in German, American, British, and Spanish journals are focused on the social and cultural history of cities and communication networks. After his research on the development of urban elites, he completed a project about the impact of the railways on German society from 1800 to 1914. He published Städte im europäischen Raum. Verkehr, Kommunikation und Urbanität im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 2009), together

xviii Contributors with Karl Schlögel, Neue Wege in ein neues Europa. Geschichte und Verkehr im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main 2009), and special issue of the Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte on the topic Weltverkehr und Weltgeschichte (nr. 2, 2011) and Europäisch-Asiatische Verkehrsbeziehungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (nr. 2, 2018). He has recently published books together with Henry Jacolin on Eastern European Railways in Transition (Surrey 2013) and together with Colin Divall on From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015). Recently his study on the Frankfurt elite in the twentieth century appeared under the title 100 Jahre (Frankfurt am Main 2019). David H. Schley  is Assistant Professor of History at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is currently revising a manuscript on the relationship between the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and the city of Baltimore in the nineteenth century tentatively titled Making the Capitalist City: Railroads and Urban Space in Baltimore, 1827–1877. Octavian O. Silvestru received a BA in History from the University of Bucharest and an M.A. in Central European History from Central European University, Budapest. He is currently enrolled in the Doctoral Program of the History Department at Central European University and is conducting research on the impact of railway constructions on nation- and state-building in nineteenth-century Romania. Mónica Solórzano Gil is an architect with master’s and doctoral studies in architecture, research, and conservation of cultural heritage. With her doctoral thesis ‘Rescate y Conservación de estaciones de ferrocarril en Jalisco, Mexico’ (Rescue and Conservation of Train Stations in Jalisco, Mexico), she received an honorable mention from the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) and a triennial Architecture Award given by the Association of Architects of Jalisco. In ITESO, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara (Jesuit University of Guadalajara), she is a research professor and coordinates since 2009 a Professional Application Project on conservation of urban landscapes and sites, and among others, the project to recuperate railway heritage in disuse and the creation of the Master Plan ‘Via Verde del Mariachi’. Currently, she is developing the Master Plan ‘Via Verde de Chapala’ with the same criteria. Currently, she is coordinating the Master’s Degree in Sustainable Urban and Public Space, and the Master’s Degree in Projects and Sustainable Building at ITESO, Jesuit University of Guadalajara. Shuichi Takashima is a Professor in the faculty of economics at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. He received his doctoral degree in economics from the University of Tokyo in 2007. His major research field is economic history of Japan with a focus on urban history in the twentieth century. He published recently ʻLand Readjustment in Precincts and Local Communitiesʼ (Toshi Kinko no Kouchi-seiri to Chiiki-shakai) in 2013.

Contributors  xix Shehu Tijjani Yusuf  is an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of History, Bayero University, Kano. Some of his recent publications includes ʻTowards a new approach to Nigeriaʼs railway History: the rural and Agricultural Alternativesʼ, in Saheed Aderinto and Paul Osifodunrin, ed., The Third Waves of Historical Scholarship in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ayodeji Olukoju (Cambridge Scholars 2012), 207–223; ‘Stealing from the Railways: Blacksmiths, Colonialism and Innovation in Northern Nigeria’, in Jan-Bart Gewald, Andre Leliveld, and Iva Pesa, eds., Transforming Innovations in Africa: Explorative Studies on Appropriation in African Societies (Leiden 2012), 275–96; ‘The Incidences of Theft of Railway Metals in Colonial Northern Nigeria’, Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences, 24, 2, 2011, 1–23; and The Impact of the railway on Kano Emirate, c. 1903–1960s: The Case of Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns (Lambert 2010). Yusuf is currently researching on the history of the impact of railroads on Northern Nigeria, c 1908–1970s. Paul Van Heesvelde is a historian and PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB). His publications include Destination le Front. Les chemins de fer en Belgique pendant la Grande Guerre (Racine, 2014). He published articles in Revue d’Histoire des Chemins de fer and in Ferrum. He is currently working on a new book on railway station buffets and is finishing his PhD on Railways, Logistics, and Warfare in Belgium from 1830 to 1918. Donald Weber  is a post-doctoral researcher in Social History at AmsabInstitute of Social History and Ghent University, Belgium. His publications include Inside Outside: Past and Future of the Anti-globalization Movement (Ghent 2005), All Is Politics: Fifty Years of Mobility History in Belgium (Neuchatel 2009), and Road against Rail: The Debate on Transport Policy in Belgium, 1920–1940 (Oxford 2011). His doctoral thesis dealt with the history of automobility in Belgium 1896–1940 (Ghent 2010). Alex Werner is the head of the History Collections Department at the Museum of London. He has curated many exhibitions and displays at the museum including the London Bodies (1998) and the World City galleries (2001). He is the co-author and editor of several books, including Dockland Life: A Pictorial History of London’s Docks 1860–2000 (Edinburgh 2000), Jack the Ripper and the East End (London 2008), and Dickens’s Victorian London (London 2011). Nobuhiro Yanagihara (M.A.)  is a Junior Associate Professor at the Department of European Civilization, Faculty of the Humanities, Tokai University (Kanagawa, Japan). He studies the contemporary history of Germany and Japan, especially about the history of military technology (Bombing war) and society. He also writes articles about the history of products as a free journalist.

Preface

The idea of this anthology was first presented at the Fourth International Conference on Railway History organised by the International Railway History Association (IRHA) in Mechelen, Belgium, ten years ago. The conference was an inspiring platform for the discussion of several topics that led over time to the series of articles collected in this anthology. Additional articles were acquired specifically for the particular topic of this book and others are the result of research projects organised by editor Ralf Roth or by colleagues contributing to this anthology. All articles are based on the latest research on the history of railways and urban history, and all have been extensively rewritten and enlarged for inclusion in this book. We are very grateful to the authors, who come from Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, for having answered our questions and for the fruitful dialogues about their work. The result is an inspiring book that broadens our view of the past and deepens our understanding of how modern transport systems came to be what they are today. It gathers information from continental Europe, the British Isles, India, Japan, Mexico, and the United States of America. We believe that some breakthroughs in comparative social, political, and railway history may result from what is still a first step in a very promising field. We wish to thank Routledge publishers and Robert Langnam for accepting the book in Routledge’s Modern History series and for their patient help. This book would not have reached its level of quality without the engaged, competent, and critical proofreading of Dana Moss. Some authors are from non-English-speaking countries and expressed their ideas in a foreign language. We therefore thank Margriet Lacy and Thomas Clark for their professional editing of all these texts. Sinntal, Germany, and Brussels, Belgium February 2022 Ralf Roth Paul Van Heesvelde

Abbreviations

AGT AHAK ANMT APLM APSRTC ASCT B&O B&S BB&CIR BCA BCR BEB BERy BJP BOT BWB CBA CBD CBPTH CC CCR ČD CEC CEO CFAO CIAM CO CONACULTA CORDIS CP

Automated Guideway Transit Arewa House Archives, Kaduna Archives nationales du monde du travail (National Labour Archives) Archives du Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation Archivio Storico della Città di Torino Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway Baltimore City Archives Benefit-Cost Ratio Buschtěhrader Eisenbahn Boston Elevated Railway Company Bharatiya Janata Party Build Operate Transfer Böhmische Westbahn Cost-Benefit Analysis Central Business Districts Citizens for a Better Public Transportation in Hyderabad City Council Records City Commissioners’ Records České dráhy Chief Executive Councillor Chief Executive Officer Compagnie Francaise de l’Afrique Occidentale Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne Colonial Office Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes Community Research and Development Information Service Chicago City Council Proceedings Files

xxii Abbreviations CPCB CPI CPM ČSD DfT DMA DMRC DPRs EC EEC El ERRAC EU FERRONALES FNM GBO GCURR GDP GDR GHMC GIPR GoAP GPC GVA HMDA HML HMR HUDA I&M IMMRTS INTACH IOC IRBTS JBS JGR JNNURM JNR JR JR-East JRCC JTERC KFJB KSHCB L&T

Central Pollution Control Board Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (Marxist) Československé státní dráhy UK Department for Transport Delhi Metropolitan Area Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Detailed Project Reports European Commission European Economic Community Elevated railway European Rail Research Advisory Council European Union Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (National Railway of Mexico) Compañía Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México G.B. Ollivant Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Gross Domestic Product German Democratic Republic Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Great Indian Peninsula Railway Government of Andhra Pradesh Garrett Papers Collection Gross Value Added Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE. Hyderabad Metro Rail Hyderabad Urban Development Authority Illinois & Michigan Canal Integrated Multi-Modal Rapid Transit System Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage International Olympic Committee Integrated Rail cum Bus Transit System Jubilee Bus Station Japan Government Railways Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission Japan National Railways Japan Railways East Japan Railway Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation Japan Transport Economic Research Center Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Bahn Kano State History and Culture Bureau Larsen & Toubro Limited

Abbreviations  xxiii LBR LGR LOR LYR MB MBTA MCH MDHB MFSE MIF MMTS MNFM MoA MoEF MP MRTS MyP NAK NAPM NCR NCRPB NDC NGO NMVB NPC NPV NStB NWR ÖNWB PIL PPP PRR PWB QC RER RNA RPI RRTS SCT SEPTA SMR SNCB SNCF SNP

London & Birmingham Railway London & Greenwich Railway Liverpool Overhead Railway Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Minute Book Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Philadelphia’s Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated Ministry of Interior Fund Multi-Modal Transit System Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos Memorandum of Agreement Ministry of Environment and Forests Member of Parliament Mass Rapid Transit System Mayor’s Papers National Archives, Kaduna National Alliance of Peoples Movements National Capital Region National Capital Region Planning Board National Development Council Non-Governmental Organisation Nationale Maatschappij van Belgische Spoorwegen National Population Commission Net Present Value Nördliche Staatsbahn Niles’ Weekly Register Österreichische Nordwestbahn Litigation Public Interest Litigation Public-Private Partnership Pennsylvania Railroad Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Queen’s Counsel Réseau Express Régional Romanian National Archives British Retail Price Index Regional Rail Transport System Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Southern Mahratta Railway Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges Société nationale des chemins de fer français Secretariat of Northern Province

xxiv Abbreviations StEG TCDD TFP TKPE TOD UAC UIC UITP UK ULI UPA USA VAL WGBH WPA

Kaiserlich-Königliche Privilegierte Österreichische Staatseisenbahngesellschaft Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları (State Railways of the Turkish Republic) Total Factor Productivity Turnau-Kralup-Prager Eisenbahn Transit-oriented development United African Company Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer (International Union of Railways) International Association of Public Transport United Kingdom Urban Land Institute United Progressive Alliance United States of America Véhicule Automatique Léger Western Great Blue Hill (Public Television Station in Boston, Massachusetts) Works Progress Administration Index Numbers

Introduction Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde

The main topic of the present volume is the relationship of cities and railways, or better, the impacts of both sides on each other. In general, the effects railways have had, and still have, on cities dominate. But this does not mean that cities did not have any influence on railways. On the contrary, cities have been playing an important role in the railway system right from the beginning. Above all, cities were among the main reasons for building such efficient but lavish and costly modes of transport for persons, goods, and information. Furthermore, cities have influenced the technological appearance of railways as these have had to meet particular demands for transport in urban areas. Yet, after the nearly 200-year existence of railways, the topic of this book is still not only of historical interest. No, the relationship that has now lasted for ten generations is also a lively political affair in one of the most publicly debated themes in the context of our daily lives in permanently growing urban environments, and, of course far more dramatically, in what we call the second urbanisation in the global South, with gigantic streams of migrants from rural to urban landscapes. The automobile alone will not be able to meet these challenges, particularly in times of climate change. In a previous volume Ralf Roth wrote about the triumphal march of motorisation that broke through some 100 years ago, or 100 years after the invention of the railway system: When we wake up in the morning, have breakfast and leave home for work, in many cases we drive a car to our office or place of work. But in many cases we alternatively walk a short distance to the next bus or train station to use public transport which can be a bus, a tram or a regional train. In some case it could also be a combination of a short ride with car to the railway station and then a commuter ride into the city where we can pursue daily affairs. This commuter traffic is only one piece of a complex puzzle of land transport with two big backbone networks: rails and roads. Their relationship changed tremendously in the nineteenth century from roads to rails and then again in the twentieth century in the opposite direction, from rails to roads.1 DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-1

2  Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde This outcome seemed to be an unchangeable relationship which would last until the invention of unknown new modes of transport. In the volume we quoted from, we argued that in the 1960s nobody would have bet a penny on railways as a most promising means of transportation for the future. Especially the relationship between railways and cities seemed to be as outdated as a bowler hat. Motorisation was the inspiring term around which circled a lot of exciting visions and scenarios for the creation of an infrastructure that would solve the transport problems of the modern city, not only in the second half of the twentieth century but also in the decades after the millennium. This dream of endless capabilities by the use of automobiles and by ever expandable networks of roads did only last a few decades. When, before the 1970s, railway networks were scaled down and a lot of measures were taken to abolish or, at a minimum, reduce their importance, we can consider a remarkable turn in the downward trend of urban railways afterwards.2 This affected both long-distance railway networks connecting cities with each other and city-railway systems such as regional trains, U- and S-trains, or trams. As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, but also because of increasing difficulties associated with the expansion of road networks inside and outside of cities (e.g., more traffic jams and insufficient numbers of parking spaces), the automobile started to cause more problems in the city than it solved. This was why more and more city planners again put the revitalisation, modernisation, and expansion of urban railway networks on their agenda. Europe and Japan, which had conserved a lot of urban railway infrastructure, delivered the model and the US followed with a delay of circa a decade. Today’s reality is that we must obey this tendency of a renaissance of urban rail all over the world. Especially the urban environment of larger cities or the megalopolises or big-city agglomerations spreading out in the most recent decades cannot develop without the comfort of rail transport. The future needs to take a look back to the roots of our current railways in a wide spectre, reaching from trams to high-speed trains, and reconsider the multiple aspects of the relationship between city and railway in the past. This is what this book is about.

Some Thoughts on the Topic of Cities and Railways in History The first question that arose is: what are the main problems of this research field? Seventeen years ago, Marie-Noëlle Polino and Ralf Roth published a volume, entitled The City and the Railway in Europe, that also focused on the theme of the present volume. There both wrote about the relationship between cities and railways: ‘The mobility’ which increased since the nineteenth century ‘caused tremendous changes in the departure and arrival points in both villages and cities. This is of great importance especially for the hubs of the railway network. That is why it is so important to bridge the wide gap that existed between railway and urban history’. At that times we were

Introduction  3 optimistic that ‘well-documented case studies’ would allow us ‘to make comparisons of the ways that railways have impacted modern cities and in which ways they have developed along with them’.3 Inspired by the theoretical and methodological framework developed by John R. Kellett and others, such as Jack Simmons and Horst Matzerath for example, we asked a multitude of further questions: What role did railway networks play and continue to play for cities? What side effects do the infrastructure and points of access to this system have inside the city? Beyond their influence on topography, what part in the evolution of the city is determined by railways? What can be said about the economic, social, political, and cultural consequences of railways in cities and what role do they play in the preservation of this heritage? 4 The book was a successful comparison between cities in Europe and the role of railways in their development. But many aspects were underrepresented or were not taken into consideration. Moreover, the relationship was geographically limited to Europe. This is why we were looking for a broader scope and attempted to include a wider range of topics and to touch more on political and cultural side effects of the relationship between cities and railways. We also expanded our research field from examples in Europe to both Americas, Asia, and Africa, i.e. to the global space. For such a project we needed clear and well-developed theses to serve as orientation and inner cohesion of the book: What are the main aspects concerning the relationship of cities and railways in all urban agglomerations of the world that were growing as a consequence of increasing industrialisation and migration from rural areas into cities, transnational and even transcontinental migration? The vision at the beginning of the railway age, the role of cities in the railway network, and vice versa the role of railways inside the city had to be included. Authors had to consider and outline the metamorphosis of railways for urban purposes. Moreover, we wanted to pay attention to the rise and decline of the above-mentioned relationship as a result of the influence of motorisation, individual mobility by motor cars, and the role of urban railways in present urban agglomerations or mega cities of the world. Last but not least, we had to address the dynamics of this multiplicity of dimensions of the relationship between cities and railways which unfolded parallel to the development of the system, including a long series of technical and organisational innovations and improvements making possible what was not at the beginning. Seventeen dimensions or aspects of relevance for this book have been highlighted and are discussed in five separate parts: Part one includes some general assumptions on the topic. Part two frames the relationship of cities and railways in a wider context and pays attention to the role of national and continental railway networks. This includes: (1) the beginnings: the system consisting of single lines between two or a

4  Ralf Roth and Paul Van Heesvelde handful of cities, (2) the linkage: lines being connected with other lines, to create networks, (3) advantages of the speeding up of transport of goods and of passenger travel, which served as forces to make cities eager to become a hub in a network, (4) the particularity of hubs or the multiplicity of advantages when several lines crossed the city, (5) railways as founder or creator of new cities, (6) metamorphoses – the power of railways to transform cities in type and size, and (7) hinterland: cities reaching out into the region by rail. Part three focuses on the railway station as a new entrance to the city and its multiple meanings. This includes four articles on the topic: (8) the station as a place for arrivals and departures, a meeting point and a marketplace, an entrance and a representative monument, a symbol of modernity and power, or a place of memories and heritage of a vanished past, (9) problems of location and relocation of stations surrounded by growing cities and metropolises, (10) stations as cultural and political monuments: representative events, platforms for political demonstrations, and symbol of historical memory, and (11) stations as places of heritage of the industrial age. Part four examines questions of how urban rails affected, and still affect, the city. This includes aspects such as: (12) commuter traffic and railways as a land developer, (13) metamorphoses: the demand for new types of railways for growing urban landscapes, and (14) visions of electrified urban railway transport. Part five addresses the increasing number of crises for railways, how the system came into troubled waters and found a way out, i.e. the revival at the end of the twentieth century. This includes: (15) the return of competition, increasing motorisation, and displacements of all types of railways, (16) sustained urbanisation in the global North and the second urbanisation in the global South, exhausted road capacities and the new attractiveness of railways in urban environments, and (17) living in a time witnessing a renaissance of railways and the return of railways in metropolises and city agglomerations. These dimensions formed, and still form, an interactive complexity which is not easy to comprehend in all its facets and difficult to handle. This is why some experiences with the German particularities of this relationship may shed more light on the multitude of relations and repercussions. This will be discussed in the first chapter about some general assumptions on ‘Cities and Railways in the World’ and then the book continuous in a cornucopia of plenty aspects and details in 24 contributions as described above.

Notes 1 Ralf Roth, ‘Preface’, in Ralf Roth and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015), xxi. 2 Ibid. 3 Ralf Roth, Introduction: ‘The City and the Railway in Europe’, in Ralf Roth and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003), xxxiii–xliv.

Introduction  5 4 Roth, Introduction, ibid. On the theoretical background see John R. Kellett in The Impact of Railways on Victorian Cities, or Jack Simmons in The Railway in Town and Country. For Germany Horst Matzerath made some critical remarks about the deficit of urban railway studies in his anthology, Stadt und Verkehr im Industriezeitalter (City and Traffic in the Age of Industrialisation). In this volume he presented a mosaic of interesting contributions about the history of railways in Ulm, Konstanz, Stuttgart, Berlin, and a few cities in Saxony. It also picks up the subject of our volume, ‘The City and the Railway’. One of the most important issues dismissed in many of the contributions was how railways changed from being city developers into obstacles for city planning. Another issue concerned the different systems of railways for urban traffic. Something similar can be said about the scholarly work of Elfi Bendikat, Öffentliche Nahverkehrspolitik in Berlin und Paris (Berlin 2013), which highlighted the role of inner-urban traffic in the development of these two metropolises and compared them in an ambitious study. See John R. Kellett, The Impact of Railways on Victorian Cities (London and Henley 1979), and Jack Simmons, The Railway in Town and Country, 1830–1914 (London 1986). For Germany, see Horst Matzerath, ed., Stadt und Verkehr im Industriezeitalter (Cologne 1996), my study: Ralf Roth, Die Herrschaft über Raum und Zeit. Der Einfluß der Eisenbahn auf die deutsche Gesellschaft 1800 bis 1914. Habil, unpublished ms. (Frankfurt am Main 2003), and Ralf Roth, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn. Die Herrschaft über Raum und Zeit 1800–1914 (Ostfildern 2005).

Literature Bendikat, Elfi, Öffentliche Nahverkehrspolitik in Berlin und Paris (Berlin 2013). Kellett, John R., The Impact of Railways on Victorian Cities (London and Henley 1979). Matzerath, Horst, Stadt und Verkehr im Industriezeitalter (City and Traffic in the Age of Industrialisation). (Cologne 1996). Roth, Ralf, Die Herrschaft über Raum und Zeit. Der Einfluß der Eisenbahn auf die deutsche Gesellschaft 1800 bis 1914. Habil, unpubl. ms. (Frankfurt am Main 2003). Roth, Ralf, ‘Introduction: The City and the Railway in Europe’, in Ralf Roth and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003), xxiii–xliv. Roth, Ralf, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn. Die Herrschaft über Raum und Zeit 1800–1914 (Ostfildern 2005). Roth, Ralf, ‘Preface’, in Ralf Roth and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015), xxi. Simmons, Jack, The Railway in Town and Country, 1830–1914 (London 1986).

Part I

Some General Assumptions on the Topic

1 The City and the Railway in the World Looking Back Over Two Centuries Ralf Roth Let’s go back to the beginnings and have a look at the decades before and immediately after operation of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway started, not without wide attention and public debates all across the continents of Europe and the Americas. In the German debate on the construction of the first railway lines, which took place in the 1820s and 1830s, many memoranda included visionary outlooks and foresaw flourishing cities in a modern civic society. Surprisingly, they indeed envisaged very clearly many aspects of future developments.1 A lot of projects promoted shrinking costs for transport and economic progress of trade cities or the role of labour migration in rapidly growing industrial towns.2 Considering the vision of a European network, some anticipated gigantic market places based on networks of cities in different regions, as for example in southern Germany, where the routes from harbour cities on the shores of the North Sea to southern Italy or from France to Eastern Europe would cross, including flashbacks to the middle ages when these cities in effect were pearls on a string that reached via Venice out to the coast of the Levant and on to the silk road and to the empires and kingdoms of China, India, and Japan.3 It is remarkable that the central focus of these memoranda was above all on trade cities, which in particular were seen as main beneficiaries of a railway network. Indeed, most German committees for the establishment of railways flourished in trade cities. And it was there that they successfully acquired capital for investments in construction of the net. Some memoranda drew sketches of the growth of industrial cities in the Ruhr region and anticipated the rise of Germany’s heart of heavy industry, furnaces, and coal mines in the period of the German Empire and later on up to the 1890s (Figures 1.1 and 1.2).4 But all in all, the visionary’s fantasy was more focused on cities that attracted tourists and on spas than on industrial towns, and in this context, some memoranda drew sketches of mass tourism directed to cultural attractions or beautiful landscapes to which middle-class citizens increasingly paid attention as an outcome of the Romantic movement. The Rhine valley, for example, became an early tourist attraction, followed a bit later by the coasts in the north and those of the Baltic Sea, with islands such as DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-3

10  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.1 Wissower Klinken, Chalk Cliff on Rügen near Sassnitz. Painting by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818.5 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Sylt or Rügen, the latter one admired by the famous painter Casper David Friedrich, for example in his painting Kreidefelsen auf Rügen (Chalk Cliffs on Rügen). Another attraction was more of cultural or political interest. The Wartburg was seen as such a spot, in memory of the Reformation and Martin Luther’s stay there during his conflict with both the church

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  11

Figure 1.2 Wartburg with Monk and Nun. Sketch by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 1807.6 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

and the Emperor. When the railway arrived in Sassnitz in 1890 and in Eisenach already in 1847, both connections with the network served indeed other purposes besides tourist travels and impacted therefore widely on the development of small villages into mid-sized cities based on the tourism industries and more. In the opinion of railway enthusiasts and in their visions about the future railway age, trade cities, industrial towns, tourist-oriented cities, and spas all would benefit from the construction of railway lines. This means that, right in the beginning, before the first line was built, the initiators of railways had relatively clear ideas about what they enthusiastically were voting for, and that one of the main components in their reasoning was the relation between city and railway.7

Beginnings and First Networks That Affected Cities Construction of the first lines occurred in most cases not according to a master plan for the creation of a national net. Belgium is an exception in this respect. Independently and separately from each other, many dozens of committees in various cities developed single projects of lines which connected two cities or more with each other. This was characteristic for most countries in Europe. Every country had its own start: the Stockton–Darlington Railway of 1825 in the United Kingdom or the fully developed Liverpool–Manchester Railway of 1830. The positive experiences with the first lines in England encouraged many people in numerous cities on the European continent to follow the example of these four British cities. Speedy construction on the continent followed soon: the line from Antwerp to Brussels via Mechelen in Belgium, the one from Lyon to Saint-Étienne in France that started in a shorter part of

12  Ralf Roth the line to move coal in 1828, similarly to the case of the Stockton–Darlington line, and not to forget, the line from Nuremberg to Fürth in Germany, opened in 1835 with a length of only six kilometres. In many cases, citizens took the initiative to solve, above all, problems caused by the increasing transport of goods, and in most cases, it was these people who collected the necessary funds, rather than the state, which in most cases only guaranteed a certain percentage of interest for the shareholders (Figures 1.3 and 1.4).8

Figure 1.3 Development of the French Railway Network in 1842, 1850, and 1860.9 Source: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  13

Figure 1.3 (Continued).

14  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.3 (Continued).

One can easily understand the importance of linking these single lines to national networks with cities as hubs when looking at the development of the French and German railway nets. The former was built by several powerful companies and received state support, and there were numerous exceptions from and additions to an imaginary national plan. In 1842, there were just three single lines in the surroundings of Paris, Strasbourg, and Lyon. It took nearly two decades until a dozen single lines formed a first network in northern France and around Paris, and then another decade before we can speak of a national railway network. In Germany, no national plan existed because of the lack of a central state. Germany at this time was a loose union of 37 independent states and four city-republics. All 41 entities followed their own railway policy. In states such as Bavaria or the Palatinate, the state was in charge of the financing, planning, and construction

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  15 of the company, and afterwards of its operation. But most states could not afford railway construction because of high debts that had resulted from the period of the Napoleonic Wars in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This was the case in the most powerful state, Prussia. Therefore, private initiatives, organised in committees, substituted for the economically paralysed state. As was the case in France, there were in the beginning only single lines in the German case as well. It was only by the time of the revolution of 1848 that one could speak of a network for the northern parts of the German Union, which became connected with southern nets in the 1860s. However, both nets, like every railway network in the world, included the possibility of trans-border connections, which could turn national networks into international ones that were limited only by the coastlines of each continent. Europe and Asia, though, as well as both Americas were connected

Figure 1.4 Development of the German Railway Network in 1842, 1849, and 1864. Source: Ernst Kühn, Die historische Entwicklung des Deutschen und Deutsch-Oesterreichischen Eisenbahn-Netzes vom Jahre 1838 bis einschließlich 1881 (Berlin 1882), maps 1842, 1850, and 1864.

16  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.4  (Continued).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  17

Figure 1.4 (Continued).

by land, which would even make transcontinental railway rides possible – a tempting perspective.10 The clear advantages that railways provided, such as less energy consumption, cheap transport of goods, and speedy travel for passengers, not to speak of their role in spreading news via rapid transport of letters, newspapers, and very early the use of telegraphs, provoked numerous public debates, but also made it a necessity for cities to become linked with these rapidly growing transport lines and regional nets. A few dates marking this ongoing transport revolution may contribute to a better understanding.11 There was a radical shift in the efficiency of transport and travel in three parallel developments. First, there was a jump in the average speed from significantly less than 10 (on sandy trails only 2 or 3) kilometres per hour for freight and a maximum of 20 kilometres per hour for passenger travel to a speed of 40 kilometres per hour for both, right in the early 1830s. This speed increased in only four decades to 100 kilometres per hour. The second

18  Ralf Roth development was an additional jump in transport capacity. Right from the beginning, the six trains of the Liverpool–Manchester Railway were the equivalent of 2,400 freight carriages, and instead of 2,400 coach men only a dozen locomotive drivers were needed. The third development was energy consumption. Stephenson’s locomotive of 1829 was a substitute for 21 horses with steam power that was generated by a package of coal, a substitute which rapidly increased to several hundred horses per locomotive (feeding the animals would have required several hundred hectares of meadows). Thus, transport and travel costs dropped, while transport volumes and passenger numbers were skyrocketing. But above all, speed meant saving time for all transport processes or, vice versa, an enormous increase in distances that could be served in equal time with the additional result of shrinking time-space relations. From a particular location, i.e. a city, distances reachable in a given amount of time increased or, vice versa, space contracted. The graphical demonstration of all of this is still impressive.12 Therefore, planning new routes was in many cases accompanied by fierce competition among cities to become connected. It was a matter of to be or not to be (Figure 1.5). Many who were engaged in establishing the new mode of transport, argued this way and debated the advantages of such a shift in the “geographical”

Figure 1.5 Travel Times by Railways from Marseille to Regions in all of Europe in 1910, 1970, 1997, and 2010.13 Photo: Klaus Spiekermann.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  19 position. All cities would become connected with the whole world, i.e. with the most important cities in Europe, and a big and general relativism of the geographical position would take place. And it was predicted that “the disadvantages of a certain geographical position would vanish”.14 But this was only one side of the medal. Cities were rapidly divided into two classes: those which failed to get the advantages and those which achieved the goal and became part of the net. Only the latter could fully realise the promises made for the mobility of citizens, the distribution of goods, and speedy communication (Figures 1.6 and 1.7).15 Another consequence of the net was that every city could consider itself as the centre of the web – or felt the need to become one.16 In most cases, it was not easy to become a hub. But when a city was successful in attracting several lines and becoming a railway hub, the advantages multiplied. In general, capitals had the best chances. That can be observed in the most impressive examples of the railway infrastructures of London, Paris, or Berlin (for the latter, see Figure 1.6), where a dozen or more lines crossed. But a smaller and not so important city could also be successful in its efforts to become a hub. For Germany, we can mention Frankfurt am Main as a crossing in the centre of the country and as a location where today half a dozen main lines from north to south and from west to east continue to arrive and depart.17

Figure 1.6 Map of Railways in Berlin in 1896. Source: Berlin und seine Eisenbahnen. 1846–1896. Ed. b. Königlich-preußischen Ministers für Öffentliche Arbeiten, 2 vols. (Berlin 1896), vol. 1, 134.

20  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.7 Shunter and Switchmen at the Track Yard of Bischofsheim, together with a Shunting Locomotive in front of the Railway Station, 1867.21 Photo: Creative Commons (Mainz Stadtarchiv), Wikimedia.

Together with the arrival of railways in a city, its development gained additional momentum and of course its importance. This is impressively described in the chapter ‘Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets: Chicago’s Perilous Transition from Frontier Town to Industrial City’ by Ted Mitchell about the meteoric rise of Chicago. In 1848, the city was only a bustling frontier settlement with no more than 20,000 inhabitants. The situation changed in the 1860s when Chicago became an industrial city, and already in the 1870s, after only one or two decades, the population skyrocketed to more than 300,000. Mitchell argues that the intensive development of a railway network during this period reaching out from Chicago had the concomitant effect that the metropolis developed into one of the most important railway hubs in the United States (see Figure 1.7).18 Both maps show how, between 1870 and 1890, the number of railroad tracks in the United States tripled. They sped up transportation more than anyone could have imagined a century before. Trains brought products made in the factories of the East and Midwest to the rest of the country and carried farm produce and livestock to urban markets.19 As a spider within its net, Chicago was placed in the middle of these streams of transportation, travel, and migration. As we can learn from the example of Chicago’s rise and transformation resulting from the impact of railways, such accelerated developments were not limited to the bigger cities. Initiatives might start in very small locations and we have to take into consideration that tiny localities could also

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  21 achieve substantial influence after the arrival of railways and with them new chances of a different kind when people had the courage to seize the opportunity. Just a few examples may illustrate this point. The farming village of Bischofsheim was located at the confluence of the Main and Rhine rivers in Germany. In 1858, the railway arrived when the Hessische Ludwigsbahn built a railway station there as part of the line from Mainz via Darmstadt to Aschaffenburg, the so-called Rhein-Main-Eisenbahn (Rhine-Main Railway).20 The locomotive shed in Bischofsheim was among the biggest in the RhineMain region. It was built in 1902 together with the reconstruction of the railway station (see Figure 1.7). The railway catapulted the tiny farming village into the age of industrialisation and it became a town that provided specific services to the growing industry in its neighbourhood, which included big automotive plants in Rüsselsheim (Opel) and Frankfurt (Adler Manufacturing), chemical industry in the region between Wiesbaden and Hanau, and the important engineering and electrotechnical industry of Frankfurt am Main. In the direct vicinity of farming houses and a predominantly agricultural landscape, a gigantic railway infrastructure of a shunting station was developed, making the village an important place for industry in the RhineMain region. “The marshalling yard”, including 34 tracks and 41 kilometres of rails covering an area of 37 hectares for the shunting of freight trains in the Rhine-Main region, a water tower, and a locomotive shed for 23 steam engines “was built to its current size between 1900 and 1904. The infrastructure was at this time the second biggest of southern Germany”.22 Several hundred shunters and switchmen worked there and today it is still the biggest one for the region between Mannheim and Cologne after the freight depot in Frankfurt was closed some two decades ago (1996). But today, service runs more or less as an automatic operation. Therefore, only a few employees are still working there, the buildings, locomotive sheds, and depots are not necessary anymore and are exposed to increasing decay (see Figure 1.8). Another example might be the fishing village of Sassnitz on Rügen, which attracted romantically inclined middle-class people who had read various railway stories. The village was home to only to a few dozen families before, in 1890, the railway arrived at this location, which was the most northern cap of Germany and located near white cliffs of pure chalk (see Figure 1.1). From this time onwards the silent and unknown village developed into one of the most fashionable seaside resorts on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It was called a Kaiserbad because the Emperor’s family once had spent a summer there. Actually, Emperor Wilhelm II had not visited Sassnitz for a vacation but was there for the opening ceremony of a railway ferry to Sweden in 1907. This ferry became of strategic importance when it served as the infrastructural foundation of the military cooperation between Germany and Sweden since 1910. This alliance had been formed in response to the de facto triple alliance of Great Britain, Russia, and France after the conclusion of the St. Petersburg treaty between Great Britain and Russia in 1907, clarifying their interests

22  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.8 Locomotive Shed for 24 Steam Locomotives, Built in 1902, in Present Derelict Appearance, 2018. Photo: Manfred Strehlow.

in Asia along a border of 10,000 kilometres. In World War One, the ferry was irreplaceable as a means to bring supplies to Germany.23 The same could be said about the Bagdad Railway and Germany’s alliance with the Ottoman Empire. Both alliances, as well as Sweden’s complaisant neutrality, allowed a military blockade of Russia by Germany and therefore separated the Tsarist Empire from its allies during World War One. The blockades in the Baltic Sea and at the Bosporus contributed to Russia’s breakdown and defeat, which began with the February Revolution in 1917. This demise of one of Europe’s greatest powers was accelerated by Germany’s army headquarters, which allowed the “infection” of their wartime enemy with revolutionary Bolsheviks, who were encouraged to travel back home to Russia from their exile in Switzerland. Lenin and his comrades gladly took the train to Scandinavia and travelled via Sassnitz (12 April 1917) and Trelleborg to Sweden, then went on to Finland and crossed the border in the direction of St. Petersburg on 16 April 1917. Stefan Zweig later noted in his famous Sternstunden der Menschheit (Great Moments of Mankind): Millions of devastating projectiles have been fired in this World War, the most forceful, the mightiest, the farthest carrying bullets, developed by engineers. But no shot was more far reaching and decided more about the fate of many in modern history than this train that – loaded with the most dangerous, and most purposeful revolutionaries of the century – from the border of Switzerland zoomed over Germany in this moment, to land in Petersburg and to burst the order of time.24

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  23

Figure 1.9 A D-Zug Entering the Railway Ferry in Sassnitz, 1910. Photo: Courtesy of the author.

Figure 1.10 The Ferry Port in 1934. Photo: Courtesy of the author.

24  Ralf Roth Six months after this train had arrived at Sassnitz and was loaded onto a ferry to Sweden, Russia turned upside down during the October Revolution, opening the way for Germany’s government and military general staff to conclude the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk in March 1918 with harsh conditions for Russia. This outcome impressively underlines the strategic importance of the northern line of Berlin and the rail ferry to Sweden, and of course catapulted the former fishing village into a respectable tourist city and gateway to Scandinavia for trade and military purposes. Transformation of cities by railways is neither a German nor a European particularity. It is a phenomenon that can be observed all over the world. Our anthology includes an example from Africa, which was authored by Shehu Tijjani Yusuf, an expert in this field. In his chapter, ‘A Comparative Study of the Impact of Railway Stations on Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns in the Kura District of Kano Emirate’, he demonstrates how both villages were affected by the railway after 1900 (Figure 1.11). A Nigerian source summarises: In the period between 1956 and 1967, however, groundnut became one of Nigeria’s most valuable export crops and a major source of foreign exchange. At that point in time, groundnut, including its cake and oil, accounted for about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s total export earnings, before extensively oil got exploited.25 Deliberately the author directs the attention not to the centres of colonial Nigeria but to smaller villages in the north, a poor region that was conquered by British troops in 1903. The British colonial administration

Figure 1.11 Ground Nut Pyramids in Kano, Nigeria in the 1960s. Photo: Creative Common, Nigerian Nostalgia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  25 expected this region to become a producer of cotton for the empire’s textile industry at home, for example in Manchester, where the British railways had started seven decades before they touched on Nigeria’s north and built for their imperialistic ambitions a railway line from Baro, a port at the River Niger, to Kano, the administrative centre of both villages studied here. But the colonialist’s plan did not work. Instead of cotton, the farmers turned to planting groundnuts and made this crop the most important export product of Nigeria for a long time. However, both villages flourished because of the increase of transport capacity and reduction of transport time to Kano, from a day-long trip to 20 minutes, and especially Madobi developed into a city, in size and as a centre of groundnut trade, with many socio-cultural side effects that resulted from the growing number of jobs and people. This made Madobi and Kwangwaso comparable to the German farming and fishing villages of Bischofsheim and Sassnitz, and of course to numerous other villages all over the world. Although these four locations were separated by thousands of kilometres, located on two different continents, and in very different climate zones, they followed – as hundreds of thousands in the world did – a common pattern enabled by the arrival of railways.26 While cities or, more exactly, their administrations and of course their inhabitants, engaged in becoming part of the net, the railway network for its part, i.e. railway companies, their boards, administrations, and employees, together with state authorities and very often with large entrepreneurs worked as initiators of the creation of new cities. What happened only occasionally in western Europe – for example in the Ruhr region, where once Germany’s heavy industry, furnaces, and coalmines were located – became in the United States a phenomenon that characterised the entire Midwest of this continent.27 Roger Grant is the author who acquaints us with this aspect of the relation between railways and cities. In his contribution ‘Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West, 1865–1925’, he presents the results of his long-term research on railways and urban growth in the United States. Convincingly, he analyses the positive and negative impact of the rails on the non-metropolitan development in the trans-Chicago West. His chapter is directly related to that of Ted Mitchell in this volume and he has managed to provide for the first time – in a systematic fashion – an overview of this complex topic. In his contribution, he unfolds the fascinating story of how the railway industry exerted a profound impact on the American urban landscape, spawning thousands of villages, towns, and cities, created “railroad towns”, and had a stimulating effect on most existing communities. He explores in depth the evolution of Cincinnati, where railways ensured growth, sustained and strengthened commercial hegemonies, and redirected the flow of goods from a largely north-south axis to an east-west direction. Grant draws a great panorama and gives us an impression of what it means to speak about the impact of railways on cities, as Kellett once named this relationship. The United States colonised not only the Midwest of the continent, but the Union served also as a model for other regions in the world. The Tsarist

26  Ralf Roth Empire’s government was deeply impressed by the way in which the Americans colonised their vast regions, and drew parallels to its own hardly populated, vast regions in the Asian East and Siberia. The beginnings were very similar: explorers’ expedition systematically drew first sketches of endless landscapes and their particularities, and of course mapped the great territories of America’s West and the Russian East. First settlers appeared in Siberia in the eighteenth century and the state encouraged people from eastern European regions ruled at that time by the Ottoman Empire, such as Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, and also Germans, to colonise the wilderness. This tiny stream was swelling with the end of serfdom in Russia, which was part of the reforms of 1861. Settlers were recruited from day-labourers and seasonal workers who failed to earn enough for a life in a city. Nevertheless, this stream amounted to only a drop in the ocean for the endless expanses of Siberia, while in North America several hundred thousand people, or even millions, disembarked each year and were, with great efficiency, carted off by railways from the eastern coast to the Midwest, as Mitchell and Grant analyse in their contributions. This had an inevitable impact on state officials in Russia, 150 years ago, who started dreaming of similar transport infrastructure for the Tsarist Empire.28 They not only had dreams and visions alongside the gigantic American experiment but also realised the construction of the longest railway line in the world, which stretched to no less than 9,288 kilometres. Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891. The railway was opened for business in 1904 and connected Europe with the Russian Pacific Coast in the Far East. Settlement was not the only reason for this gigantic construction project. Initially, the Trans-Siberian Railway was intended to serve the expansion of Russian influence in East Asia. Finnish merchants also developed ambitious plans for the use of such a line for intercontinental transport of commercial goods. They hoped their country would become a hub between the western world and East Asia in the early 1870s.29 But 30 years later, efforts promoting a broad use of this transcontinental line for commercial goods transport had not stimulated any extraordinary business. The reason was a rude awakening: the carriage charges were considerably higher than the costs of sea freight through the Suez Canal, which had been in service for four decades at this time.30 This was the first difference from the six transcontinental lines crossing the North-American continent in an east-west direction. But in other respect as well the single line crossing parts of Europe and the northern part of the Asian continent failed to have the dynamic and far-reaching effects railways had in the United States and remained far behind the American model.31 The reasons were multiple but the result was explicit and obvious. The Transib case demonstrates the limits of infrastructure, especially those which played a key role in the relationship of cities and railways. Infrastructure for communication or transportation is in principle able to direct a stream of information, goods or of migrants and settlers to locations where information

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  27 or goods will be used for certain purposes or where immigrants can unfold fruitful activities. But railways’ capacity to transport a stream of migrants is limited, and at any rate, the volume was in this case not large enough to affect a landscape of cities similar to what Grant has described for the American Midwest. Infrastructure for transportation can set free potentials, but there must be something to be freed. Moreover, the strong economic impact of skyrocketing volumes of trade all over the North-American continent was a second difference in favour of the American model. While in the nineteenth century, 50–60 million migrants from Europe migrated to the United States, there were no comparable streams of settlers from Europe’s west to the Russian east.32 Nevertheless, many villages and even cities developed of course alongside the Trans-Siberian Railway, but they grew slowly and it took a century to accomplish what happened in the United States in one or two decades, as Mitchell impressively has described in his chapter. This distinction between both countries was not limited to the lack of immigration from other parts of the world. In the Russian case, it had additional inherent causes which lead us deep into the social and political fabric of the Tsarist Empire. Because there was no significant immigration to Russia from outside, settlers for Siberia and other regions in the Far East could only be recruited from the Tsarist Empire’s own resources, i.e. from the Russian population itself. But this was only an opportunity if there was a part of the population that could be set free. This, in turn, depended on economic relations, demographic development, and political freedoms, for example, the important freedom of movement. All three preconditions for a shift of a larger segment of the Russian population from west to east were met only in very limited ways. The economy of the Tsarist Empire was built on agrarian production for the country’s own use and for export to industrialised countries of western Europe. This export was relevant for the thin layer of wealthy people ‒ generally speaking, aristocrats, upper bureaucrats, wholesalers ‒ and for the Tsarist state and its imperial ambitions. This system was shattered by the loss of the Crimean War in the middle of the nineteenth century and made some changes necessary. In addition to reforms in the system of higher education, the legal system, and of course the military sector, serfdom was formally abolished in 1861. But fear of social destabilisation led only to half-hearted reforms, and restrictions regarding free labour and free soil continued for nearly five decades. This was why various forms of freedom necessary to the development of Russia’s resources were only attained in a sluggish and half-hearted way. Patriarchy and the system of the Obtschina, i.e. communal land property which was redistributed every year, were hindering the process of freeing up people for settlement in the Far East. Thus, there was no significant migration to the east during the construction of the Transib. And when the Trans-Siberian Railway reached Manchuria and the Pacific Coast one decade later, there had been no substantial change in the migration pattern either. It took a second statewide crisis to make some progress in liberal reforms, namely the defeat

28  Ralf Roth in the war against Japan about conflicting interests in Manchuria. Although the Transib had been finished in 1904, Russia was not able to mobilise its military forces to withstand Japan’s imperialistic ambitions in the region. This shocked the Tsarist state visibly during the revolution of 1905. The first liberal reforms were made and included a constitution and a parliament, the Duma, largely designed and influenced by Sergei Yulyevich Witte. But the most important reform by far was initiated by Pyotr Stolypin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) in 1906. The Stolypin reforms were a series of changes in imperial Russia’s agricultural sector. Most, if not all, of these reforms were based on recommendations from a committee known as the “Needs of Agricultural Industry Special Conference”, which was held in Russia between 1901 and 1903. Many items of the reform agenda developed there were realised three years later by Stolypin, a conservative and a supporter of the monarchy, who acted not in order to promote liberal ideas but out of a sense of urgency to stabilise society by reconciling the agrarian population with the state.34 He carried through reforms regarding private land ownership. Moreover, he created an educational programme and the possibility to borrow money for investments in agrarian production. This was accompanied by the establishment of cooperatives for common marketing of the products and for common purchase and use of machines to increase productivity. The goal was to create a farming middle class and to break revolutionary tendencies among the population in the countryside. The second goal of his reforms was an extension of the cultivation areas beyond the Ural in Siberia. The result of his reforms was that for the first time a greater number of people was set free for migration. To accelerate this process the Russian railway introduced the so-called Stolypin-Wagons to carry farmers from the west to the east. In only six years, no less than 2.8 million people migrated to Siberia and the Middle East.35 The effects were positive: trade with wood, coal, and agrarian products increased. In 1910, Siberia produced a surplus of three million tons of grain and corn. Besides butter, wheat, wood, and coal, gold gained in importance. Foreign investments in mining, trade, railways, and manufacturing started to accompany the first signs of an economic growth. Vice versa, Siberia imported agricultural machinery for ten million dollars in 1911. Nevertheless, this was not comparable with the economic rise in the Midwest of the United States. In 1908, Siberia produced only 3 per cent of the value of the Russian industrial production with only 1 per cent of the labour force (Figures 1.12 and 1.13). After World War One, the revolution, and the end of civil war the giant infrastructure of the Transib and the colonised areas in the Far East gained momentum. The industrial development accelerated with the first five-year plan of 1929. Cities, power plants, and industrial enterprises were plucked out of thin air. What seemed to be a great jump forward and seemed to follow the dynamic in North America, 70 years earlier, was built upon

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  29

Figure 1.12 Map of the Trans-Siberian Railway.33 Graphic: Creative Commons, Map data (c) OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia.

Figure 1.13 Station of Taiga, 1901. Source: Ministerium der Wegekommunikationen, ed., Wegweiser auf der Grossen Sibirischen Eisenbahn (St. Petersburg 1901), 315.

30  Ralf Roth violence, abolishment of freedom of soil and freedom of labour, and their replacement by forced labour and forced migration. Already in the Tsarist Empire banishment to Siberia had been a penalty for political opponents. This was expanded, first by the Bolsheviks and again during Stalin’s rule. Millions of forced labourers were transported by the Transib to Siberia, its villages, and cities. This was the framework for the development of Russia’s city landscape in the hardly populated regions of the Asian parts of the country (Figure 1.14 and 1.15).38 The example of Novosibirsk might illustrate the particular situation of city and railway alongside the Trans-Siberian Railway. Novosibirsk was founded in 1893 on the Ob River, as a crossing point of the future Trans-Siberian Railway. Originally named Novonikolayevsk, it grew over time into a major transport, commercial, and industrial hub. In brief terms this means: in the 1890s Novosibirsk was only a little town of 8,000 inhabitants founded in close connection with the construction of Russia’s transcontinental railway. Although it served as an administrative centre for a vast region, the city needed 30 years to increase its size to 100,000 people. Chicago needed only one decade to exceed 300,000. At the beginning of the 1920s, the city was ravaged by the Russian civil war but recovered during the early Soviet period, and received its present name in 1926. From this year onward, the city quadrupled in only 13 years to more than 400,000 inhabitants in 1939.

Figure 1.14 Prisoners at an Amur Cart Road Camp, between 1908 and 1913. Russian prisoners awaiting inspection before going to work at the western building section (at the 165th verst) of the Amur Railway, early 20th century.36 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  31

Figure 1.15 Railway Station Novosibirsk, 2003.37 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

This was in the midst of terror, repression, deadly violence, the extinction of the so-called Kulaks, and the Holodomor mainly in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine that accompanied the forced industrialisation of the Soviet Union up to the outbreak of World War Two. Under Stalin, Novosibirsk became one of the largest industrial centres of Siberia, but also a main spot in the Gulag system. The city was also the home of forced labour camps for the intelligentsia called sharashka.39 Following the outbreak of World War Two, the city hosted many factories relocated from European Russia. During wartime and afterwards the city doubled to nearly 900,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 1960s. But in the Brezhnev era, it needed six decades to double in size again to the current metropolis of 1.6 million people.40 Thus, in Russia’s East railways also had an impact as creator of a landscape of cities – as the initiators of the 1880s had envisaged. But the process unfolded only in slow motion because of many social and political restrictions. The next dimension we should pay attention to was, and is, the role of railways in the development of what is called the city’s hinterland. In other words, we can describe this as making products and productivity of the surrounding region available for further processing or for consumption – either raw materials for or goods from factories or foodstuff from the agriculture in neighbouring areas. Ian Kerr contributes to our anthology with ‘Bombay and Its Hinterland(s): Railways and the Making of Colonial Western India, 1853–c. 1900’. He chose the example of Bombay not by accident, but

32  Ralf Roth to demonstrate what it meant when a city became connected with a wider region and made use of inherent advantages and possibilities – and not to forget: what this meant for the interests of the British colonial administration, respectively the whole empire. The growth of the steam vessels and the expansion of the British territories during the 1840s needed a better connection of the harbour with its hinterlands to develop a region (Figure 1.16). This is why Bombay was chosen as starting point of the so-called Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR), planned since the middle of the 1840s for the most part [to] traverse rich and fertile districts, and accommodate among others the large and important towns of Poonah, Nassuek, Aurungabad, Ahmednuggur, Sholapoor, Nagpoor, Oomrawutty, and Hyderabad, affording increased facility for the export of cotton, sugar, silk, opium, gum, dyewoods, spices, and for the import of salt, manufactured and other goods.42 The first stretch, from Bombay to Thana, officially opened in 1853. In India, the colonists were successful and achieved what Nigeria’s farmers later

Figure 1.16 A Train passing the Tanna Viaduct near Bombay in 1855.41 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  33 opposed. Indian cotton went to the British homeland for textile production, while opium was exported to China in exchange for tea, which also went to Britain. China eventually became the big loser in all of this: it ended up with a big drug problem and lost its status as a great power in Asia. Thus, the line in India was built to serve colonial interests, i.e. in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, they “ate up the country”.43 But after World War Two, the colonial heritage turned into one of India’s most important future assets and backbones of today’s railway infrastructure.44 Ian Kerr describes at least four major phases in the process of the development of the Indian railway network: (1) the expansion associated with the growth of the GIPR north-east and south-east, (2) the connection of Bombay with Gujerat in 1864, (3) the development of a more dense network of harbour lines in the 1890s, and last but not least (4) the intensified integration of the “near hinterland” together with the suburbanisation of Bombay, which was facilitated by the growth of a network of commuter lines. The consequences were far-reaching for India. The eight examples, and some more mentioned besides Chicago and Novosibirsk, Bischofsheim and Sassnitz, or Madobi and Kwankwaso, or the city landscapes in the American Midwest, and the beginning of the region around Bombay to become today’s megalopolis of Mumbai, all impressively give insight into the importance of railway networks for the cities involved. The American, German, Nigerian, Russian, and Indian examples line up like a string of pearls and uncover common structures all over the globe. This is what the first part of the book is about.

The Railway Station: New Entrance to the City and Its Multiple Meanings The second part continues within the same topic but directs our attention to what is called the arrival and departure point of every railway infrastructure: the station for passenger and/or good transport. Railway infrastructure includes not only locomotives, freight wagons and passenger cars, rails, the net of lines, repair shops, administration buildings, facilities for the supply of energy to be transformed into motion – first coal, then diesel and electricity – and a lot of depots of different kinds. Railways have also special locations for arrival and departure: the railway station for passenger travel or as goods stations or freight yards. In the beginning, this was in most cases at the end of the tracks, but soon it became a specific place, shaped by functionality and to provide service and comfort. There exists, of course, a functionality for the acts of arrival and departure of goods and people. One would mention above all a roof for dry entering and leaving or loading and reloading of trains during rainy or windy weather. But this was not the one and only factor that determined the appearance of what we call a railway station. Probably more than functionality, representation reflected by the exterior shape of such buildings was a factor. Representation – maybe as a means to impress the

34  Ralf Roth public in the struggle among competing companies, or to work as status symbol to express might and power of state railways – played an important role, especially for the second generation of station buildings that were erected in many European cities as of the 1860s. Furthermore, one should not underestimate the wish of city administrations and citizens to invest in an impressive monument that would serve as a spectacular and particular “visiting card” of, or a billet d’entrée into, the city. For all these reasons stations were carefully shaped in their architectural appearance. Thus, architects – besides engineers and economists – played a prominent role in this part of the system, especially at the height of the railway age. The introduction of a railway system contributed in general to urbanisation and growth of the city population, and stations were therefore without doubt important catalysts in this process. There is a lot of literature about the railway station from an architectural, engineering, and art-historical perspective. Especially in bigger cities, great amounts of money were spent on the design of the railway station. The newest innovations by engineers to achieve unknown dimensions in the size of the building were also exploited immediately. In many cases, the station became a symbol for modernity, strength, success, and wealth as well as a representative asset of capitals and metropolises, or in the case of medium-sized cities, a means to underline their particularities. Architects – over time more and more the best of them – were checking the whole register of forms to symbolise important characteristics, such as gateway (entrance), foresightedness of the company (tower), its power (size), importance (historical achievements of advanced civilisations, as for example the imitation of large barrel vaults of Roman bathes and, in general, forms and symbols from villa and castle architecture, i.e. from residences of the elite, the wealthy and powerful (Figure 1.17)).45 Frankfurt’s main station, opened in 1888, is a good example of the design of the front of the entrance hall as an imaginary gate, which is framed by two small towers. The tower as symbol was part of many railway stations in other cities, especially in the capital, Berlin. Another example may be the front of the entrance hall of the Stettiner station. As in Frankfurt, this entrance was designed in the form of a big gate, which was also framed by two towers (Figure 1.18). In other respect as well, the dominant theme was that size mattered. We find an impressive example in support of this thesis in the competition between the capital of Germany, Berlin, and the banking and trade city of Frankfurt am Main in the 1880s, in the second decade of the German Empire. In the same year that the highly admired Anhalter station in Berlin was opened, a mid-sized provincial city, only 13 years after it had been incorporated in the Prussian state, took up the challenge to compete with the capital of both Prussia and Germany, a metropolis of European importance, to become number one in the ranking of impressive railway station buildings in Germany and beyond. The mandate to the architects was unequivocal: “It is valid”, the magistrate wrote in his invitation to tender of the design

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  35

Figure 1.17 Entrance of the Main Station in Frankfurt am Main, Present Design.46 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Figure 1.18 The Stettiner Station, later North Station in Berlin, 1875. Source: Berlin und seine Eisenbahnen 1846–1896, 2 vols. (Berlin 1896), vol. 1, 180f.

36  Ralf Roth competition, “to create something unique, so to speak, to find the type of a central station, which should exceed all existing station buildings (…) by its mighty dimensions”.47 The station’s appearance was left up to the architects, but it had to be the biggest. The background of this statement was that there had been a race for the most impressive railway station in Europe between London, Paris, and Berlin since the 1860s. This competition accelerated when engineers made progress in the construction of gigantic halls, such as the galeries des machines at the world fairs in Paris of 1867, 1878, and 1889.48 This allowed the people of the small city of Frankfurt to win the race by making use of a lot of innovations in the modern construction of halls. The combination of stone, steel, glass, and engineering know-how made it possible to erect Europe’s biggest railway station between 1880 and 1888.49 This title could be held until 1915. Then Frankfurt was surpassed by what to this day is one of the mightiest railway stations in the world, the main station of Leipzig, which has a front side nearly double as long as the Frankfurt station. The building was opened in the middle of a war that is known as the first and last railway war in history (Figures 1.19–1.21).50 The station is a striking topic in the relationship between cities and railways. We were successful in collecting several chapters about this for our anthology: from Paul Van Heesvelde, co-editor of this volume, about the station of Mechelen in Belgium, from Martin Kvizda about stations in Prague and Brünn in the Czech Republic, and from Albert Churella on Philadelphia’s station, followed by Octavian O. Silvestru’s chapter on the importance of opening

Figure 1.19 Interior of the Galerie des Machines of the World Fair in Paris, 1880.51 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  37

Figure 1.20 Interior of the Frankfurt Central Station in 1888. Photo: Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt.

Figure 1.21 Frankfurt’s Main Station, Viewed from a Skyscraper in the Banking Quarter, 2012.52 Photo: Creative Commons (Thomas Wolf), Wikimedia.

ceremonies of railway stations using the example of Bucharest. From Lisa Mitchell and Malte Fuhrmann, we learn about stations as platforms for political activities or a political conflict about historical identity and the importance of the Haydarpaşa railway station in Istanbul. Mónica Solórzano Gil makes us familiar with the meaning of industrial heritage and the struggle for the preservation of railway stations as part of the industrial memory of Mexico.

38  Ralf Roth First, Heesvelde’s chapter on the planning of the station in Mechelen, right at the beginning of the railway age, refers to “Inventing the Future” and covers the first decade, from 1835 to 1845. The author analyses a railway station that was the first one, not just in Belgium but on the whole European continent, and directs our attention to some shortcomings at the beginning of these early years. The first stations strongly depended on maintenance requirements for the rolling stock, rather than on the demand for transportation, and they could not contribute to sound city planning. Moreover, travellers’ accommodations were kept too small, due to an underestimated travel demand, and this would remain an issue for railway companies and city administrations for many more decades. Each time the ever bigger terminus was expected to last a generation or more, rapidly growing traffic would exhaust the station’s capacity much faster. The second contribution in this part is by Martin Kvizda. He discusses two questions: first, the distinction between cities with a system of up to a dozen railway stations and cities with, besides some secondary stations, only one main or central station, and, second, the question of the best location of a railway station inside the urban space. The advantages of a main station are clear, in the sense that the inconvenience of transfers from one station to another across a busy city might be avoided or reduced. He discusses this in depth using the example of Prague, where the local administration attempted to rebuild the railways of the Czech capital in order to unite all local stations into one main station but failed. The case of Prague shows the city at the halfway mark: the network was strengthened only here and there after mergers of independent railways and their nationalisation; several terminal stations were abandoned, but one unifying central station is still missing. This outcome stands in opposition to a second Czech city, Brünn, where the reconstruction was successful. Brünn has a central station, built a hundred years ago, and the author draws the conclusion that coordination and planning of metropolitan railway networks could probably avoid additional resources for costly reconstructions in the future. The examples of Mechelen in Belgium and Prague in the Czech Republic showing the difficulties to build a railway station in the middle of the city landscape are definitely not a particularity of Europe’s cities. Albert J. Churella presents to us a similar example from the US metropolis of Philadelphia and entitled his chapter, not by accident, ‘Putting a Station in Its Place: 30th Street Station and Its Relationship to Philadelphia’s Urban Fabric’. His piece gives an impression of how cities were impacted by the arrival of the railway. In Philadelphia, this happened in 1846 when the Pennsylvanian Railroad (PRR) extended its network around New York. But other companies did the same and competition started when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached out to Philadelphia, followed by other New York companies. Competition touched a sore spot of a disadvantageous location of its main railway station. “During the 1880s, however, PRR officials responded to changes in the urban fabric by moving passenger operations east

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  39 of the Schuylkill River and back into the centre of the city”. But limited capacities of this station collided with fast-growing branches of the network and therefore a speedy increase of traffic at the station. It took the company several decades to remedy the shortcomings of the first station’s location. The totally reconstructed passenger station could not be opened until 1933. However, with this new station, the company achieved an easier operation of the railroad and the connection with the commuter station of the underground network proved to be another great advantage. The service on different levels allowed a more efficient management of the stream of travellers and commuters and therefore an increase of mobility in the whole city without disruption of the urban fabric. For two decades, railroads efficiently served the demands of the citizens. But the 1950s witnessed the decline of the PRR because of increased competition with automobiles and airplanes. The company attempted to solve resulting financial problems by selling real estate at the surface and relocating its service into the underground, a measure that eventually was widely used in the United States and decades later was copied in Europe (Figures 1.22 and 1.23). What we have learned so far is that a railway station had to be reconstructed from time to time. This ritual lasted for about six generations. But then, in the 1950s and 1960s, i.e. decades of economic prosperity, growing wealth, and mass motorisation, the decline of railways began in the western world. We did not only observe a standstill in construction and

Figure 1.22 Entrance at 30th Street of the Dual Railway Station of the Pennsylvanian Rail Road in Philadelphia, 2014. Source: Courtesy of the author.

40  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.23 Sketch of the Main Station of the Pennsylvanian Railroad, 1910. Source: Paul Wittig, Die Weltstädte und der elektrische Schnellverkehr: Nach d. Vortrag im Berliner Architekten-Verein am 13. März 1909 (Berlin 1909), 398.

reconstruction but also decay, line closures, shrinking networks and closure of stations, and saw railway stations become spots of social decline. This ended when access to the key energy sources for motorisation, gas, and diesel, was stopped, or at least made difficult, by oil-producing countries. At the time of the oil crisis, costs of energy and fuel exploded. Public transport regained its attractiveness and with it a different kind of rail transport. Many countries with state railways started programmes of reform or discharged railways from state service in hopes of revitalisation by privatisation. One aspect in these attempts to make railways a modern and attractive travel and transport system again was, and is, of course, reconstruction and modernisation of railway stations. In 1994, when Deutsche Bahn AG (DBAG) in Germany, the product of unification of Deutsche Bundesbahn of the Federal Republic of Germany and Deutsche Reichsbahn of the former German Democratic Republic, started realising the ambitious reform project that should lead to privatisation, the board of DBAG asked the Bund Deutscher Architekten (Union of Germany Architects) for a conceptual study about a programme for the modernisation of all important railway stations in Germany. With visionary impetus, the architects entitled this study ‘Renaissance der Bahnhöfe – die Stadt im 21. Jahrhundert’ (Renaissance of the Railway Stations – the City in the Twenty-First Century). It included a lot of projects in order to rebuild big railway stations for much-needed living space inside the cities. This is why

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  41 they picked up the model of what American railway companies had attempted more than 100 years before and again at the beginning of the railway crisis, i.e. they shifted the service under the surface so that the regained real estate could be sold and help solve financial problems (Figure 1.24). Just like a century before, they took advantage of numerous innovations to reconstruct with high efficiency and to construct amazing worlds of different kinds of services for travel on several levels. The new main station of Berlin mentioned in the chapter by Martin Kvizda was one of these projects and has been in service with great success for over a decade. Some similarities between the project study for Berlin’s new main station from 1994, realised 12 years later, and the sketch for the new main station of the Pennsylvanian Railroad from 1910 cannot be ignored. What worked well for some 100 years sparked a lot of protests ten years ago against a follow-up project of Berlin’s main station. The name of the project, ‘Stuttgart 21’, does not only refer to a railway but also to an urban development project in a medium-sized city in Germany. It is part of the high-speed line from Stuttgart to Augsburg and the main line through Europe from Paris to Vienna within the framework of the Trans-European Networks. At its core

Figure 1.24 Model of the Berlin Main Station in the basement of the station June 2017 by Karle Horn Photo: Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

42  Ralf Roth is a total reconstruction of the old main station from the interwar period, a remodelling of no fewer than 57 kilometres of new railway tracks, including some 30 kilometres of tunnels and 25 kilometres of high-speed tracks. The project was officially announced in April 1994. But construction work only began in February 2010. Since then this second project has been seriously delayed for several years because of a protest campaign by citizens who have engaged in heated debates on a broad range of issues, including the relative costs and benefits, geological and environmental concerns, as well as performance issues. The campaigners have successfully organised public debates and mass demonstrations, and have forced state officials as well as the board of DBAG to invest additional billions of euros in numerous changes in the planning. In March 2013, total costs were officially estimated at 6.5 billion euros, the previous estimate being 4.5 billion euros in 2009. Today more than 8 billion euros is likely. Probably more important is the delay itself. Instead of 2019, the start of operations is currently expected in late 2025, more than 30 years after the project’s initial start.53 This delay of several decades and the unknown date of the project’s completion not only mean that the station will be turned into a multiyear construction site, but the planned new city quarter, with its calmer traffic and appeal to young families, now also has an uncertain future. The direction of the protest is strange. In the past, protesters claimed to improve a project by making urban living better, with less noise, lower emission levels, less dirt, and so on. But the protesters against Stuttgart 21 are hindering the construction of a noise-reduced city quarter, criticise the tunnelling as too costly, i.e. plead for the conservation of the noisy tracks in the heart of the city. Instead of arguing for an attractive environment for children, they are more interested in making sure that construction does not disturb the Juchtenkäfer (hermit beetle) in some trees in the Schlosspark, in the station’s neighbourhood, and have effectuated a stop at the construction site – tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.54 Yet, in many cases in the past, once construction problems had been solved and the infrastructure was functional for many decades, the station became part of a city’s identity – and was woven into the pattern of memories as a location of city affairs. The station was a place where things happened: not only arrivals and departures, but also special events, demonstrations, attacks, special places in wartime and revolutions, jubilees, receptions, arrivals of famous people, and so on. These patterns are fascinating and they differ from country to country and from city to city. We have gathered four examples of such political and cultural events in combination with railway stations. Octavian O. Silvestru picks up the aspect of exploitation by state politicians of the infrastructural monument as the most visible part of the whole transport system and entitled his chapter ‘“Capital Politics” through Railways: The Opening Ceremonies of Railway Stations in Nineteenth-Century Bucharest’. Lisa Mitchell continues with ‘The Railways and the City in the History of Indian Political Practice’ and Malte Fuhrmann considers the opposite topic of Silvestru’s contribution, i.e. the decision to end a station’s service. Last but

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  43 not least, Mónica Solórzano Gil analyses the preservation of old railway stations in Mexico and the wish to maintain them as heritage of the process of industrialisation in Latin America. Silvestru begins with demands for a railway-building project in the 1860s that ended up in a financial scandal and strong public opposition to this project. The background had been a national movement that opposed the foreign dynasty of the Prussian House of Hohenzollern, i.e. Karl Eitel Friedrich zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who as elected prince Carol I had headed the principality of Romania since 1866. Later, when Romania became independent in 1878 and was no longer part of the Ottoman Empire, he was proclaimed King Carol I and ruled up to the outbreak of World War One. However, the national opposition had gathered a lot of critical opinions on the Hohenzollern rule, including criticism of Carol I’s railway policy. It was no coincidence that the king favoured Prussian aristocrats who made a lot of foreign investments in Romania’s infrastructure, and that he engaged a Prussian for the construction of a national railway network. This criticism of the state’s railway policy escalated when the entrepreneur, the Prussian railway king Bethel Henry Strousberg, went into bankruptcy. Strousberg had been keen to build a railway network in an eastern European country that did not yet have an orderly road network. The political aspects of the project, as well as the economic crises in Europe in the aftermath of the German-French war of 1870–1871, were responsible for a severe delay in revenues from finished parts of the Romanian railway network ‒ revenues that were necessary to finance the ongoing construction and, presumably of greater importance, to pay interest to the, in most cases foreign, shareholders. Increasing construction costs and decreasing revenues led to a financial breakdown of Strousberg’s railway trust with far-reaching consequences, not only for Romania but also for the German railway system. Many railway projects in Germany and other countries of Europe came to a standstill and some failed, accompanied by stormy public debates, both in Germany, especially Prussia, and in Romania. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the breakdown of the Strousberg trust the German railway system was step by step “nationalised”. As a particularity of the German Empire this take-over of private railway companies by the state was not realised by the central government, but by provincial governments of the Empire, the so-called Länder. These Länder were considerably independent states because Germany was still a union of 25 member states.55 But there were other winners besides the states. The German DiscontoGesellschaft, i.e. the precursor of Deutsche Bank, bought what remained of Strousberg’s empire, refurbished it, and ran for some years a remarkable part of the German network before it was nationalised for the benefit of the Prussian state at the end of the 1870s. One of the main actors in this profitable business was the owner of the Disconto-Gesellschaft, Adolph von Hansemann, a well-known railway entrepreneur. From the profits he received from the reorganisation of Strousberg’s railways he bought real estate in

44  Ralf Roth Sassnitz on the island of Rügen and had the architect Friedrich Hitzig build the castle of Dwasieden (Figures 1.25 and 1.26).56 The appearance of the castle included, not by accident, some typical elements of railway stations in Berlin – for example, the two towers that framed the entrance. Especially the Hamburger Station seems to be the architectural model that Hitzig had chosen for Hansemann’s castle. This would make sense because Hansemann had a special relationship with the Hamburg station. It was built in the 1840s and was the terminus for the line from Berlin to Hamburg. Adolph von Hansemann was a member of the board of the Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahngesellschaft. This company obtained a concession for the construction of the Lehrter Railway from Berlin to Lehrte in 1867. Four years later the Lehrter station (precursor of Berlin’s main station) was opened in the direct vicinity of the Hamburg station. In 1879 both companies were nationalised by the Prussian state and united in 1884. Therefore, the Hamburg station went out of business. Two decades later the station was renovated to become the home of the Kgl. Bau- und Verkehrsmuseum (Imperial Museum for Construction and Traffic), which opened in 1906. “During World War Two, the building sustained severe damage”. After the subsequent division of Germany into GDR and FDR, “it

Figure 1.25 Castle Dwasieden near Sassnitz. Home of the Privateer and Railway Entrepreneur Adolph von Hansemann.57 Photo: Creative Commons, Architecture Museum of Technical University Berlin.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  45

Figure 1.26 Hamburger Station in Berlin, around 1850.58 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

remained unused for decades, located as it was in the no-man’s land between East and West Berlin”. It was not until 1984, i.e. 100 years after the station had gone out of business, that the Hamburg station was taken over by the administration of West Berlin’s Senate and was partially restored to coincide with the city’s 750-year anniversary (in 1988). The Bahnhof premiered the exhibition ‘Journey to Berlin’ in 1987, marking the first time it had been used as a museum in over forty years. One year later, the Senate transferred oversight of the building to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The collection of the Museum for Construction and Traffic formed the basic material of the planned Technical Museum in Berlin, today’s Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Technical Museum).59 The building of the former Hamburg station was reopened “years later, after lengthy reconstruction”, in 1996 as a museum of contemporary art that exhibits “works of the Nationalgalerie Collection and the Marx Collection”.60 The appearance of this station had once inspired Hansemann and the architect for his castle near Sassnitz. Moreover, the entrepreneur and castle owner Hansemann was also the initiator of an extension of the Northern Railway from Berlin to Stralsund up to Sassnitz and he was even more involved in the construction of a fishing harbour in Sassnitz. Both initiatives were preconditions for the project of the railway ferry to Sweden mentioned above. This way, the economic turmoil in Romania was linked with Lenin’s travels, when he was on his way to turn Russia upside down. But let’s go back to Romania. Opened in 1870, the Grand Railway Station first connected Iași to Chernivtsi in Bukovina, Austria-Hungary and,

46  Ralf Roth two years later, to Bucharest. Silvestru is right to pay attention to the consequences of political opposition to further commitment to railway construction in Romania. One result was that the central authorities were forced to adopt an elaborate strategy of legitimacy regarding their railway policy. The author explores in this respect the logic and effects of the ceremonies occasioned by the inauguration of Bucharest’s railway stations, built between 1869 and 1872 (Figure 1.27). The analysis includes the attitudes of individual actors ‒ state authorities as well as officials of railway companies ‒ involved in the opening ceremonies, their elaborate speeches, and quasi-ritual practices. He concludes that the central authorities exploited the railway inaugurations for national interests, thus attempting to stabilise the political system and to re-legitimise the role of the state and its investments in modernity. Lisa Mitchell continues the analysis of the political meanings of a building for infrastructural purposes and the use of transport infrastructure in general, but with a totally different example from another continent and country. In India, railway stations provided crucial forums for national leaders to mobilise popular support for the anti-colonial movement during the first half of the twentieth century. Instead of being exploited by ruling authorities as in Romania in the 1870s, in the Indian case stations served the interest of the opposition for many decades in the twentieth century.

Figure 1.27 Iași Railway Station, Opened in 1870, ca. 1900.61 Source: Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  47

Figure 1.28 Crowd Greets Gandhi as He Exits a Train at a Station.62 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Political leaders travelled from station to station, giving public addresses to crowds that gathered there. This tradition has continued in the post-colonial era of the Republic of India. Until today, railway stations are being used as sites for political gatherings, demonstrations, and public protests against the government (Figures 1.28). There are other rituals of political demonstrations connected with railway infrastructures, such as disrupting railways by “train-wrecking”, the ubiquitous “rail roko” [train halting], and mass ticketless travel to political rallies. All these forms, though largely unacknowledged, play a role in recognitions of collective identities and collective desires, and in the fundamental workings of democracy within India.63 Mitchell’s fascinating chapter about the relationship of railways, railway stations, and urban politics can be read as a pendant to Malte Fuhrmann’s research on the political meaning of a Turkish railway station in Istanbul, the traditions of which go back to the Ottoman Empire. He offers another aspect in the relationship between urban railways and politics: Haydarpaşa station is a railway station in Istanbul. Until 2012 the station was a major intercity, regional and commuter rail hub as well as the busiest railway station in Turkey. Haydarpaşa, along with Sirkeci station (on the other side of the Bosporus), are Istanbul’s two intercity and commuter railway terminals.65

48  Ralf Roth The transfer from one station to the other worked either via the Galata bridge over the Bosporus or via sea ferries. In ‘Save Haydarpaşa: A Train Station as Object of Conflicting Visions of the Past’, Fuhrmann begins – in contrast to Silvestru – with the end of service at this station (Figure 1.29). From 2013 to 2018 all train service to the station was step by step suspended due to the rehabilitation of an existing line for the new Marmara commuter rail line. Not by accident, the decision caused civic opposition similar to what Silvestru describes for the 1870s in Romania and Mitchell for the decades before and after World War Two in India. But contrary to both, Fuhrmann analyses a conflict neither in nor before a station but about the station itself, its history, constructed identities, and their revisions, all in all, discourses revolving around the Haydarpaşa’s ideological content and outlook on urban aesthetics. Fuhrmann is of the opinion that all views fall short of a critical historical analysis because of their reluctance or inadequacy to look back to the national and imperialistic background for the establishment of the station as one mosaic stone that led to the construction of the Bagdad Railway by the German Empire that reached out to the Middle East before and during World War One. That also opens, as in Silvestru’s contribution, a parallel with the seaside resort of Sassnitz and the Swedish harbour station in Trelleborg: railway stations were of strategic importance. This is an often underestimated facet of railway infrastructure. The line Sassnitz-Trelleborg and Haydarpaşa-Sirkeci both served as tracheas for the German Empire that enabled it to withstand the Axis, i.e. four mighty powers, and their blockage for the long duration of

Figure 1.29 Haydarpaşa Station, Aerial View from 2011.64 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  49 four years. There are other remarkable aspects in this relationship. Railway stations played, in general, important roles in the build-up at the beginning of a war, as well as in the transport of soldiers and supplies during a war. And this aspect was one of the main reasons for many reconstructions of the system of railway stations in German cities after the experiences of chaos and line blockages during the war with France in 1870–1871. While the initial build-up worked well, the transport of supplies during the war did not.66 As a consequence, railway administrations and state officials invested a lot into making the railway network and especially its hubs more accessible to military transport in the 40 years that peace lasted. One of these innovations was the concept of the central or main station, and another one was the ring railway line connecting all stations of a city with each other – both concepts were impressively realised in many German cities but there were two cities that, more so than any other, should be taken as models for this decade-long reconstruction of the railway network: Frankfurt and Berlin, leading on the one side – as mentioned – to the biggest railway station in Europe and on the other to one of the most efficient railway structures of the world (see Figures 1.20, 1.21, and 1.6).67 Fuhrmann delivers an in-depth study and uncovers a multitude of ideological and international cultural aspects that were connected with a monument of stone, steel, and glass. While the topics of Silvestru, Mitchel, and Fuhrmann circle around the political implications of railway stations, as reflected for example by a decision to open or close its services or to use stations as platforms for political demonstrations, Mónica Solórzano Gil touches upon another aspect of city and railway and asks the question of heritage and how to conserve the memories fixed in certain infrastructure, especially in the halls and buildings of a railway station. She has entitled her contribution ‘The Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico: A Pending Issue’ and is of the opinion that “it is necessary to preserve the testimony left in the railway stations even when the process of transformation of the railway system has left them in disuse, and with this, the great majority are left, spoilt and relegated”. She proposes to regard the conservation of railway stations as part of Mexico’s industrial heritage, considering the importance of the historical, artistic, symbolic, and cultural characteristics of these buildings and their infrastructure, and to integrate these elements into the communities where they are located, for which we have striking examples all over the world. Her chapter is a valuable piece in this part of the book (Figure 1.30).

Urban Rails and How They Affected, and Still Affect, the City The other side of this medal was the widening of the city via railways that explored and developed new housing areas. Surprisingly, this was one of the first topics in the public debates about the introduction of railway lines in Germany and can be found in many memoranda from the 1820s and 1830s. A closer look at the German case might shed more light on this. Numerous

50  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.30 Typical Railway Station, Built with Brick Stones, and Open Shed in Atequiza, Jalisco.68 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

memoranda published at the beginning of the railway age in Germany foresaw remarkable aspects of the relationship between cities and railways. Railways would allow more people to migrate from the countryside into cities and cities therefore would grow. It was logical to discuss the structural changes of such a development. Some of the memoranda predicted metropolises while others envisaged railway lines to be built in the region around cities leading to new spaces for settlement, which later was called “suburbanisation”.69 “Alongside the railway lines”, some railway enthusiasts wrote, “cities would stretch out long arms of new suburbs”.70 Many railway proponents agreed with these claims and advocated a far-reaching decentralisation of cities that would be enabled and should be supported by railways. Railways would make possible the escape from noisy and densely populated city centres to quiet and healthy rural environments with fresh air and clean water.71 These visions of residences in separate communities on the outskirts of expanding cities became a reality within the historically short duration of only two or three decades. But more things happened besides the establishment of such villa colonies for wealthy people. The expansion of the city received its main impulse from permanent immigration from the nearby countryside and from densely populated regions at greater distances. As railways lowered the barriers of costly mobility, cities became more and more attractive. Permanent and increasing immigration,

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  51 what we call urbanisation, was the direct outcome. The case of the German capital, Berlin, can serve as a model for the interior dynamics of these processes. There, permanent and increasing immigration was one of the reasons why a lack of housing led to additional social problems.72 That is why housing reformers and philanthropists called not only for public engagement and groundbreaking housing reform, but also developed numerous detailed proposals that should solve the alarming situation. Among them, we find proposals for a railway structure from the heart of the city to the periphery. In the case of Berlin, this led within a few years to the construction of particular urban railway infrastructures (Figure 1.31). These reformers ‒ among them for example a member of Berlin’s magistracy, Hermann Schwabe, who was also a member of the board of the Niederschlesisch-Märkischen Eisenbahn ‒ did not only have experience in the railway business but had intensively studied the English city railways, especially the Metropolitan Railway in London.73 Schwabe referred in strong and assertive terms to the social and political consequences of unlimited growth of cities caused by immigration and complained about the bad living conditions for the poor. He therefore demanded the development of vast areas for

Figure 1.31 Proposal for a City and Ring Railway in Berlin by Hermann Schwabe, 1873. Source: Hermann Schwabe, Berliner Südwestbahn und Centralbahn. Beleuchtet vom Standpunkt der Wohnungsfrage und der industriellen Gesellschaft (Berlin 1873), 34–35.

52  Ralf Roth housing at the periphery of the city of Berlin.74 This resulted in a petition of the Berlin magistrate to the Prussian ministry of trade, industry, and public work, which included the idea of a railway ring around Berlin with a diameter of ten kilometres and a connection to the city centre.75 He did this at the same time that the ministry for trade and construction conducted a detailed review of the railway system and its military efficiency, as mentioned above. Schwabe’s goal was to realise the demand of housing reformers for healthy and cheap housing for all social classes, for a minimum of 200,000 households or 1,000,000 people. Moreover, the magistrate asked for housing areas for workers that would be equipped “with all amenities of rural living and all pleasure of mother nature”.76 Although this specific project did not receive support from other actors in this game, a similar Ring and City Railway was later built, which rapidly developed into the most important backbone of Berlin’s internal transport infrastructure. The Ring and City Railway was also the starting point for further railway lines to suburbs at greater distances from Berlin. These trains to suburbia were the third element of the urban railway system of Berlin. It contributed to a tremendous structural change of Berlin with numerous construction and reconstruction areas (see Figure 1.6).77 City transformation as in this short sketch of German cities is also the topic of several contributions to this volume. First to be mentioned are the co-authors Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins, who provided a chapter about ‘Private Railways as Urban Developer in Japan’. Then follows the chapter ‘The Unfinished Dream of “Workplace and Dwelling Proximity”: Development of Private Railway Companies and Areas on Railway Lines in Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Areas’ authored by Shuichi Takashima. Last but not least, we complete this Japanese session with Nobuhiro Yanagihara’s contribution ‘Creation of the Railway Culture through Marketing and Consumption: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo’. The ambitious analysis of all three contributors shows how extraordinary visions failed, but railways nevertheless contributed to economic and urban growth not only in the western world but also in Asia, which is represented by Japan in this volume. The reason is that this country was one of the first in the Asian world to introduce railways, in the 1870s. Already in the interwar period and after World War Two it appeared as an actor in the field of impressive railway systems for the urban space, and this is what all three chapters are about. From Mayer and Robins, we learn that in Japan railways were one of the driving forces in expanding cities into the suburbs. As in the Anglo-Saxon world (but in contrast to continental Europe), railways were private companies. Especially between 1910 and 1930, they extended their networks in the surrounding regions of bigger cities and opened up new suburban areas. To provide service to a continuously growing number of passengers, private railways seized opportunities and built, for example, many department stores in the direct neighbourhood of their inner-urban lines. Examples are the Mitsukoshi or the Matsuya Department Store. They

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  53 also added leisure facilities in some suburbs to attract additional passengers for a ride to the outskirts of the city (Figures 1.32). But the most important activity related to urban development was the construction of large suburban housing estates that had to be connected with the city by railways. The Tokyo Metropolitan Area railway met these challenges. The 29 kilometres of the first railway line in Japan, from Shimbashi to Yokohama, grew into a network that consisted of 1,325 kilometres of government railways’ lines and of 4,674 kilometres of private lines around 1900. Six years later 17 private railway companies were nationalised. But the state failed to allocate money for the extension of the network. This is why only a few years later a second railway construction boom was started by private railway companies that lasted from 1910 to the mid-1930s. In two decades these companies successfully established a lot of branch lines, many of them electrified for use in urban and regional environments. In addition, the development of private railways gave impetus to the expansion of Tokyo’s suburbs. As a result, Tokyo and its surrounding districts developed more rapidly than other parts of the country, and that is what Mayer and Robins have taken a closer look at. In 1880, only 27 kilometres of railways offered service in Tokyo, at the time a metropolis of one million inhabitants. Two decades later, the network had been extended nearly tenfold. This was the work of private companies that widened the urban net from a length of a bit more than 560 kilometres in 1920 to a net of 1,242 kilometres 15 years later, which increased the mobility of a population of more than two million people.

Figure 1.32 Matsuya Department Store. Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

54  Ralf Roth The service of these suburban and regional trains was supplemented by private companies operating horse-drawn carriages on rails since the 1880s and then, 20 years later, by private tramway lines, the first one from Shimbashi to Shinagawa in 1903. Only three years later three tramway companies were unified into Tokyo Railway (Tokyo Tetsudo). As in Europe, the city government wanted to take over control and municipalised the private tramways, bringing them together in a publicly owned company in 1911. Haruya Hirooka concluded: “Trams formed the backbone of Tokyo’s transit system from the 1910s to the 1950s. Ridership was high, and the network extended in many directions”.78 Our author Takashima directly continues the string of arguments presented by Mayer and Robin. He compares, in the context of these great visions about planning entire urban landscapes, the garden cities in Great Britain with the Japanese examples and shows many similarities between both countries, such as the development of residential areas undertaken by private companies. But Tokyo’s expansion was, step by step, critically viewed and led to a big shift in urban planning after World War Two. The city administration attempted to gain back control over the expansion of the metropolis by planning large greenbelts alongside the borders of “Greater Tokyo”. Indeed, these ideals were inherited by the National Capital Region Improvement Law of 1958.79 One most interesting aspect of this is the fact that Tokyo’s city administration and the government picked up very similar ideas which also sparked a lot of interest on the other side of the world. There, during the war, Patrick Abercrombie developed extraordinary concepts to limit the urban sprawl or to direct it into a more sustainable direction. Realisation of the Greater London Plan of 1944 was expected to take place once the war was over. The actual outcome was, as in Tokyo, a plan for the whole region of London and its surrounding. This plan had a forerunner, the so-called County of London Plan, which had been developed by John Henry Forshaw and Abercrombie in 1943. Both concepts were convincing examples of urban planning by taking a lot of aspects into consideration. This provided a very good foundation for the reconstruction of a wide and heterogeneous region after World War Two. London had the opportunity to correct the failings of the unplanned expansion of the metropolis into its surrounding areas during the earlier decades of forced industrialisation and urbanisation. Abercrombie took the opportunity that was presented not by free will but by the war. Aerial warfare, the so-called German Blitz, had destroyed large areas of the city, particularly the central core. More than two million homes were seriously damaged or destroyed by air attacks. Vast destroyed areas had to be rebuilt according to consistent principles and this was described in the Greater London Plan, which took into consideration five main issues: (1) Rapid population growth was expected after many people had been evacuated during the war. (2) The plan envisaged three main areas for new housing construction, i.e. areas damaged by the air raids, the suburban ring, and ‒ this was new ‒ new satellite towns independent from the densely populated areas of the metropolis. (3) Industrial or trade employment opportunities should be created

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  55 in proximity to dwellings, and – this was probably of greatest importance – manufacturing industries should be relocated away from the dense inner city into “new towns”, which were also seen as settlements for a labour force that would work in these industries. (4) Everywhere in the new housing areas, the aspect of recreation received a lot of attention and was seen as an essential part of life. This is why particular significance was given to the development of a “green belt” for leisure time, relaxation, sports activities – or just only, as Hermann Schwabe had put it seven decades before in his memoranda for land development around Berlin: to live “with all amenities of rural living and all amenities of mother nature”.81 Last but not least, it was Abercrombie who created interesting concepts for transport in London’s landscapes. This is the aspect which is of interest to the topic of our volume. Although motorisation started to play an important role and was paid attention to with a series of main arterial and ring roads, Abercrombie’s plan offered above all an integrated approach for rail transit in the metropolitan region of London. The railway network there should be separated into passenger and commercial networks and be privately owned, and its operations should not be hindered by legislation.82 Although the Greater London Plan of 1944 included a far-reaching vision, it shared the fate of many plans: its implementation was not fully realised. The economic climate in Britain did not develop in the way many urban planners had expected and in the end, there was not enough money for all the major infrastructure developments proposed by Abercrombie. Yet, the Greater London Plan was extremely successful in creating an optimistic outlook for the people of London, providing hope for the return of a time of peace and wealth. There are striking similarities between the experiences of the British administration with the capital region of Greater London and the experiences of the Japanese government with the capital region of Tokyo. Not very different from the goals of the Greater London Plan, the National Capital Region Development Plan approved in 1958, came 14 years after the British plan. The main goal, very close to the Greater London Plan, was to prevent, within the urban territory of the capital, any further concentration of industrial plants and residential settlements by means of a policy of decentralization, with the aim of containing the problem of traffic congestion. Inside the regional territory three main areas were identified (…): existing urban area, a large greenbelt and a peripheral zone.83 As in London, so-called new towns should play a key role towards a radical decentralisation of housing and settlement within integrated belts of agricultural land around the major cities. This was directly borrowed from Patrick Abercrombie’s Greater London Plan.84 Similar to the English experience, the urban plan for the development of Tokyo was led by the hope to put the impressive and fast growth of the capital under control. Motorisation was taken into consideration, but railways should play a key role in this agglomeration of cities around the metropolis. However, as in London, the ambitious project

56  Ralf Roth failed because of “the lack of concrete legal measures to enforce provisions for the plan and (because) active local opposition of landowners and governments condemned the plan to failure, especially the greenbelt proposal”.85 Although in neither case the big plan was used for the reconstruction of city landscapes, both London and Tokyo developed not without but with growing networks of urban railways, as foreseen by Abercrombie and the Japanese urban planners. Moreover, the examples of London and Tokyo show how heavily railways impacted on metropolises both in the interwar period and after World War Two, and how city administrations, urban planning, and of course public policy about shaping the urban environment followed the same pattern as the initiators of railways had envisaged more than 100 years before, and which had been realised only some decades later in more or less all larger cities in Europe and North America before the dawn of motorisation. Cities and metropolises reached out far into the surrounding areas and railways allowed people to settle far away from the inner city without losing employment there or in any other part of the urban landscape. Nobuhiro Yanagihara is the third author who contributes with a chapter about the particularities of the impact of railways on cities in Japan. In ‘Creation of the Railway Culture through Marketing and Consumption: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo’, he deals with the consequences of what has been the focus of Mayer, Robin, and Takashima, i.e. an urban landscape step by step structured by railways, and he asks what cultural implications resulted from the massive impact of railways on such a vast space known today as one of the biggest megalopolises in the world. In an overview that reaches out to the beginnings of the railways in Japan, he draws a panorama of the long lines of development and directs our attention to the capital and the regions surrounding the growing metropolis. In a thorough fashion, he integrates economic development and the opportunity provided by the Olympic Games of 1964 for the extension of infrastructure, especially with regard to transport and the network of urban and regional railways (Figures 1.33 and 1.34). Yanagihara uses in particular the example of the planned new town of Tama, draws a sketch of its development, describes the construction of both shopping and recreational centres as places for tourism, and emphasises not only the railways’ role in commuting but also for tourism and other purposes. He then goes into detail about the role of culture in the acceptance of railways that helped organise this large area. “I have”, he writes, argued that Japanese railway networks were created by the symbolised sightseeing areas, shopping places, and characteristic figures, even including Tennō, all of which was intended to stimulate the imagination of Japanese travellers and consumers when the railways were constructed physically.87 One example might be advertising and customer service for the sections of the Tama Toshi Monorail that were opened in 1998 and 2000. The monorail trains

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  57

Figure 1.33 Greater London Plan, Railways from 1944. Source: Patrick Abercrombie, Greater London Plan (London 1944), Attachment Railways.

operated by the Tokyo Tama Intercity Monorail Co., Ltd. offer service on a 16-kilometre-long line in western Tokyo. They carry passengers between the suburban cities of Higashiyamato and Tama via Tachikawa, Hino, and Hachiōji in 36 minutes. For the first section, Tachikawa-Kita, Tachikawa-Minami, and Tama-Center stations are the most important stations, enabling transfer at Tachikawa to JR East’s Chūō Main Line. Remarkable is the company’s customer magazine’s effort to maintain contact with its passengers: users become

58  Ralf Roth

Figure 1.34 Development of Tokyo Metropolitan Area and Its Transport Network between 1910 and 1993.80 Map: East Japan Railway Culture Foundation.

part of a certain regional railway culture intermingled with commuters, tourists, and others (Figure 1.35). All three chapters contribute to an understanding of the role of railways in such a gigantic urban structure that was developed in the course of a century, and all three direct our attention to numerous consequences, one of which was the rapid growth of commuter traffic: a challenge with many aspects that needed to be addressed.

Commuter Transport or the Widening of the Labour Market The connection from city centres to the region or to wider areas at a greater distance from the core of metropolises was, in addition to the role of railways inside the city, a key role of urban railways. The development of large

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  59

Figure 1.35 Tama Toshi Monorail Tokyo Japan, Opened in 1998.86 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

areas on the outskirts of cities and urban agglomerations was in many cases intended to provide tenement housing for the masses and ­comfortable and expensive housing for the well-to-do. This aspect opens the door to the subject of commuter transport from city centres to suburbs or to rural regions beyond the outskirts. The question of commuter transport with a wide spectre of implications finds attention in three contributions to this volume. The first one is from Donald Weber and deals with the ‘Birth of a Commuter Society: Workingmen’s Trains in Belgium, 1870–1914’. This is followed by a second chapter, from Micheline Nilsen, entitled ‘Brusselʼs Jonction as the Heart Valve in the Belgium’s Splintered Body’, which addresses a particular aspect of commuter traffic in Belgium’s capital, Brussels. The third piece is from John Dodgson, who focuses on the question of measuring a surplus effect, initiated by commuter transport, for a region’s economy. In the ‘Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway’, he raises the question: ‘Can We Find Historical Evidence of the Existence of Wider ­Benefits from Urban Rail Projects?’ The cases of Belgium ‒ especially Brussels ‒ and Liverpool deliver a rich panorama of effects, problems, and social implications of suburban and regional rail service for urban environments and can of course be observed not only in Belgium, but also in Europe’s broader landscape of cities (both on the continent and in the special cases of British cities), in both Americas, and in Asia. The topic covers the whole period of 200 years, and in the present relations of cities and railways all over the world, we can find thousands and thousands of examples of railway commuter transport between cities

60  Ralf Roth and urban as well as rural environments, despite motorisation and individual mobility, which have been continuing for a whole century. But although we have 290 million automobiles just in Europe (2017) or nearly 1.3 billion in the world (2020), we also have millions of commuters all over the world who travel by trains. The origins go back 150 years and we can find examples in all larger cities of Europe. Elfi Bendikat, for example, analysed the topic with the example of Paris. Up to the outbreak of World War One, there were two special tariffs for workers and for the socially weak in general. There were passes with which one could buy cheaper tickets in the morning and evening. These special tariffs were offered for regional trains as well as for metro, trams, and buses. Nevertheless, before 1890 many could not afford even the cheaper ticket prices. But increasing wages and decreasing costs for the urban railway infrastructure encouraged the administration to give in to the political demands of the socialist faction in the municipal parliament. Therefore, together with the price cuts, we can observe a widening of the social strata of the ridership. Another problem which permanently caused criticism, protests, and petitions to the municipality was the insufficient connections from some suburbs to the city. Even members of the city’s parliament publicly criticised the “inertie des pouvoirs publics et (…) la mauvaise volonté des compagnies de chemin de fer”.88 In Berlin, too, the Prussian railway administration introduced special tariffs for the socially weak and for workers in the form of monthly tickets, workmen’s weekly tickets, or special cards for pupils and students. Over time the prices for monthly or weekly tickets were lowered up to the year 1894. Thereafter the system was, together with a significant price cut, simplified according to a zoning model and included different classes of comfort and tariffs. The special tariff in the form of workmen’s weekly tickets was very successful. As a result of all these measures, traffic grew considerably. All in all, just in the year 1895 the Prussian railways could sell around 75 million tickets for inner-urban transport on the Ring and City Railway, while 15 years later the number had increased to 157 million. If one were to add the number of passengers of suburban trains, the figure would jump to an impressive 252 million tickets sold in 1910.89 Considering these decade-long discussions and political struggles in Paris and Berlin we get a relatively clear picture of the importance of the question of workmen’s trains or workmen’s tariffs. Weber picks up exactly this topic, stresses the particularity of an early introduction of special trains on  the Belgian railways in the 1870s that ran in the morning and in the evening and that carried thousands of labourers from the countryside to the factories in big cities. This was enabled by cheap tariffs and the introduction of weekly passes for labourers, and was rapidly accepted. Weber claims that around 1900 one out of five Belgian industrial workers was using the workers pass. Contrary to Germany, this mosaic stone of social reform was supported by the state and eventually, the whole country participated in this impulse for an increase in mass mobility and, thus, Belgium was reshaped

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  61 into one large labour market. This had far-reaching consequences because unskilled workers from the countryside also took these trains. They came to the city’s labour market without giving up their homes in tiny villages at some distance from the city. But this also led to increased competition between urban labourers and workers from the countryside, whose living costs were lower than those in urban areas. Because of dropping levels of organisation in the trade unions, wages did not develop as they could have without cheap labour from the countryside. At the same time, though, these commuters came into contact with the ideas, the comfort, and fashions of urban life. They listened to socialist propaganda on the way back home, which in Weber’s opinion had the opposite effect of initial political intentions, i.e. measures to protect and preserve a rural lifestyle led over time to the emergence of the modern-day middle-class commuter lifestyle “in his or her suburban kitchen garden”. This is a good proof of the saying that every medal has two sides. However, the introduction of special workmen’s trains and increasing streams of commuters in the urban fabric of Belgium caused some backlashes on the railway net and this is what the chapter of Micheline Nilsen is about. She writes at first glance about a simple construction measure, a tunnel planned to work as a junction between two different places for railway arrivals in Brussels. But then we learn that it was not only built to connect the separate networks of the northern and southern railways, which arrived in different parts of the city, and to make the railway system more efficient, but also to overcome a barrier between two different ethnic regions of the country. Indeed, the border between the francophone population and Flemish people runs very close to Brussels’ south, and this is why the construction of the junction was a project that caused some public attention, which turned into protest when the construction led to the demolition of no fewer than 1,000 buildings. When the tunnel was opened, it brought significant improvements in the efficiency of the national railway network in general, for urban transport, and for commuters. The easy transfer from the northern to the southern net in Brussels encouraged many workers to travel from all parts of Belgium to work in the capital without moving to the city. So, the junction brought a serious slowdown of migration thanks to the increased efficiency of Brussels’ urban net for commuting. There is a third chapter on this topic in our volume, by John Dodgson, who is looking for a solid calculation of the economic outcome of commuting. He raises the question of how to measure it to justify investments into the urban railway system. Moreover, he wonders whether there are benefits to the wider urban economy or benefits from the widening of labour markets, which are not measured in a conventional cost-benefit appraisal. Using the example of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, which ran along the docks in Liverpool, and having analysed lots of data on passenger numbers, revenues, operating costs, timetable information, information on competing tram and bus services, local press reports in the early years of the railway,

62  Ralf Roth and so on, he is able to estimate the financial returns from the project and the conventional cost-benefit returns incorporating user benefits and benefits from reductions in congestion. In the end, he not only draws some concluding remarks but reflects critically on whether such ex post evaluation is likely to be able to shed light on the tricky question of urban rail projects. This differentiation is necessary because commuter traffic and commuters were only one source for the relationship between railways and cities. Commuter transport and even more railways inside the urban sphere implied some particularities in service that had to be taken into account. The urban space was densely populated and in cities, there were other transport means, especially those that were based on the road networks, that competed successfully with railways. Road and rails each have their own particularities, their own advantages, and a different pattern of disadvantages. Another dimension that has to be taken into consideration for the valuation of inner-urban rail transport in the last 150 years is the process of urbanisation and the rapid increase in the number of inhabitants, which on a large scale caused the size of typical cities for pedestrians with a diameter of two or three kilometres to shift to much bigger sizes of five, ten, or more kilometres. The new dimension required the introduction of facilities for public transport in growing city spaces and this impacted also on the technical structure and functionality of railways.

The Urban Rail – An Innovation of the Transatlantic World Thus, the relationship between cities and railways was not only stimulated by the continental and national networks. Its regional and local structures also contributed to the development of railways inside the city, i.e. what we can call urban rail. The demand for means of public transport first developed in European metropolises. In fast-growing big cities such as London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, the distances between housing areas and workplaces, shopping quarters, public or cultural institutions, and recreational areas rapidly increased. The inauguration of public transport facilities was often stimulated by world fairs, which we already mentioned in the context of the creation of big halls and their engineering that impacted on the construction of railway stations.90 Systems for public transport in London and Paris were not only remarkably enlarged in conjunction with the world fairs, but from then on, they continued to develop. After the middle of the nineteenth century, London possessed a multitude of different transport systems, which included coaches and horse buses as well as railways which ran on large viaducts deep into the city centre (Figures 1.36 and 1.37). London had numerous head stations and gigantic rail yards and other workshops for equipment, such as repair shops and storehouses, which covered sometimes as much as 5 per cent of the whole city area. The railways widened their service for commuter transport to the suburbs and invested

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  63

Figure 1.36 The Metropolitan Railway Opened in 1863 with Broad-Gauge Locomotive.91 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Figure 1.37 Construction of the Metropolitan Railway, 1861.92 An engraving from the Illustrated London News showing the initial construction stages of London’s Metropolitan Railway at Kings Cross in 1861. Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

64  Ralf Roth therefore in new lines.93 But the density of buildings in many inner-city quarters was hindering railway construction. This was why in London three railway companies felt encouraged to develop underground railways and to that effect founded the Metropolitan Railway Company (MCR) in 1863. This company built the first underground line in the world, which went from Farrington to the main stations of Kings Cross and Paddington. The company used gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. On the opening day, the trains carried as many as 38,000 passengers. This was only possible by borrowing trains from other railways. Other companies followed. The Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) opened five years later, offering service from South Kensington to Westminster as part of a plan for an underground “inner circle” connecting London’s main-line stations. This was the beginning of the Circle Line, which connected many suburbs in the west with the city centre.94 Paris and Berlin also had had several railway lines since the 1830s. But these lines did not offer special services for suburbs. Even the circle line of Paris built in the 1850s was used almost exclusively for goods transport. But despite its immense growth, the London railway network did not offer sufficient and comfortable transport services for all areas because the distances between the railway stations were too long and since 1846 the city centre had been closed for railways. Other metropolises faced similar problems and this offered enough opportunities for a growing market of alternative transport means, such as horse omnibuses. In London, they served approximately one-fifth of all transports inside the city around 1900.95 The service inside Paris or from the city to the suburbs was served by the Compagnie Générale des Omnibus, which had a monopoly on all passenger transports inside the city walls. The Compagnie developed a highly efficient system of public services which transported twice as many commuters as the London omnibus companies.96 As in London and Paris, several omnibus companies were founded in the 1860s in Berlin as well. Among them was the biggest of all, the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus AG. And as in Paris and London, the Berlin magistracy supported horse trams which offered services from the city centre to the periphery.97 But these new systems did not have sufficient transport capacities for the rapidly growing demand that resulted from the great migration to Berlin. There was especially not enough transport capacity from the city centres to the outskirts, where enough land would have been available for the city’s expansion and for housing for all these poor migrants. Thus, there was inside the cities a need for railways with particular specifications, and the development of such types of railways is one of the most spectacular facets of the relationship between cities and railways. We have two striking examples of this special pattern in our volume which address these particularities and are then followed by a series of chapters that will make us familiar with specific types of urban railways. First Alex Werner discusses one of the first inner-urban railways of London and entitled his chapter ‘From Viaducts to

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  65 Vandalism – The London and Greenwich Railway (1834–1840)’. He focuses on the cultural and material impact of the building and opening of the London and Greenwich Railway (LGR). The construction and operation of the new railway was something new and attracted the curiosity of Londoners as well as foreign visitors. But the impact of the new railway line must also be measured against the city’s other new infrastructure, like the enormous new docks, canals, commercial buildings, bridges, and factories. The LGR fit in with its impressive viaduct, passing over and above old burial sites, clearing away slums, and stretching out boldly across the landscape. The new service was accompanied, though, by a lot of public debates. Werner discusses these penetrations into the city by railways, which were not always welcomed as protests and complaints show. In ‘The B&O Railroad and the Changing Use of Streets in Baltimore, Maryland 1829–1865’, David H. Schley adds a second example, on a different continent. Historians have documented the ways in which nineteenth-century rail lines quickened communications and bound once-distant places together. But railways in urban centres also annihilated space. This ambivalence is shown by Schley with the example of Baltimore, the birthplace of American railroading, He discusses controversial efforts to gain ground in the inner city by the pioneering Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O), which Churella mentioned in his contribution about the PRR. The trains of the B&O conflicted soon with street traffic. Also, the smoke and noise that steam locomotives added to the urban environment did not meet with the approval of citizens. Numerous conflicts demonstrated the railroad was a new type of technology that could not simply be overlaid on existing urban infrastructure. From the first urban track construction in 1828 to the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the B&O’s street tracks were the fulcrum for the ongoing debate about the appropriate uses of transport facilities in urban space. Schley uncovers convincingly that the relationship between cities and railways did not only open opportunities and perspectives; they also became a burden. Numerous conflicts between citizens and the railway system speak for themselves and at the end of the nineteenth century, the problems could no longer be ignored.

Urban Railways in Conflict with Other Transport Facilities of Cities and the Demand for a New Type of Railway Most German cities developed more rapidly than most other cities in Europe and were spreading into the wide areas of their former rural surroundings. This was why railway stations that had been built at the periphery or on the outskirts at the beginning of the railway age, became, together with the entire railway infrastructure, embedded by the city. Moreover, railways cut off the city landscape, separated neighbourhoods and city quarters. They crossed streets and were gradually hindering road transport. One must not forget emissions, such as smoke and noise, which caused conflicts with the

66  Ralf Roth affected citizens.98 But more than noise, the public debated the railways’ interference with street traffic. The rails, especially the rail yards in the neighbourhood of main stations and stations for goods transport, cut off the networks of streets. All proposals to avoid exactly this situation vanished in conflicting debates between state departments, magistracies, the public, and railway companies and did not get the chance to solve or diminish the problem in a convincing way. These contra-productive facets of railway transport made Chancellor Bismarck, in a meeting with the architect of the new Anhalter station in Berlin, Franz Heinrich Schwechten, confess: “These railways, they only hinder traffic!”99 Of course, the debate in Germany focused on the example of Berlin. But it was not Berlin alone where city and railways arrived at a conflicting partnership. Together, the railway companies established a large infrastructure for goods transport, including large rail yards and numerous rail lines intertwined with many smaller ones, and, thus, company railways imposed themselves on the city structure and cut off space in a number of populated areas.100 The most important suggestions for change and for the development of railways which should adapt better to the difficult conditions of life inside cities came from the United Kingdom, with ideas of new types of cities, as for example Howard’s Garden Cities, and from North America, with new ideas for railways that should be integrated more modestly into the urban fabric, as stated by the City Beautiful Movement as desirable goals.101 As a manifesto of such goals, one can take the World Fair of 1893, which was held on Chicago’s lakefront. The railway hall was seen as an example of how a railway station could be integrated into the fabric of a city, and it was no coincidence that, a bit later, the initiator of the movement designed Washington’s main station, Union Station.102 But in the end, it was the trains, rather than the stations, that caused the conflicts at this time, and in this respect, the World Fair in Chicago was of greater interest as designs for a front façade (Figures 1.38 and 1.39). As mentioned, together with the growth of cities the distances in big agglomerations increased, and together with growing distances some ­disadvantages of the old steam-driven locomotives, which could not easily be changed, came to light. The above-mentioned horse buses and horse tramways did not allow a speedy crossing of the new city landscape and limited themselves to service inside the city centre or to connections between certain city quarters. Against the background of increasing criticism about the insufficient capacity of horse railways and horse buses, an intensive search started for alternative urban transport means for urban environments.103 However, at the end of the nineteenth century, city planners, engineers, city administrations, locomotive manufacturers, and of course the electrotechnical industry were looking for possibilities of a metamorphosis of railways to make them compatible with the new dimensions of cities. We know about very early experiments with electric trains already in the

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  67

Figure 1.38 Aerial View of the Grounds and Buildings of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Held on Chicago’s Lakefront in 1893. Lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1892. Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., neg. no. LC-USZC2-3394).

Figure 1.39 The Grand Facade of Union Station, Washington, D.C., by Daniel H. Burnham. Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., reproduction no. LC-DIG-det-4a20012).

68  Ralf Roth dawn of the railway age in the 1840s.104 But the question of energy supply was not convincingly solved before the 1860s when Werner von Siemens invented a machine transforming motion into electricity, the dynamo or generator, which could serve as the complementary machine to the electric motor. But how could a moving system based on electro motors be fed with electric energy in sufficient quantities which needed to be transported via wires? This was not only a question of technical solutions for the connection between wires of an electricity network and machines but more a question of transport of electricity over vast distances. Direct current, which was seen as the best form to propel electric motors, is not able to surmount longer distances in a cable for physical reasons. This disadvantage could be avoided by using alternating current. There was broad public debate about the different forms of electricity: the war of the currents, sometimes called battle of the currents, was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting being marketed by Thomas Edison’s company. In 1886, the Edison system was faced with new competition: an alternating current system developed by George Westinghouse’s company that used transformers to step down from a high voltage so AC could be used for indoor lighting.105 But what was needed was not only a mastery of alternating current but a demonstration of the potential of this form of electric power. This demonstration took indeed place and is known as the “Frankfurter Systemstreit” (Frankfurt System Dispute). The location selected for the demonstration was the International Electric Exhibition, held in Frankfurt three years after the opening of the city’s main station in 1891 on the former track field of the three former railway stations.107 We learn from a Wikipedia article some details of both technical and railway-historical interest. This extraordinary exhibition was held between 16 May and 19 October (…) in Frankfurt am Main. The exhibition featured the first long distance transmission of highpower, three-phase electric current, which was generated 175 kilometres away at Lauffen am Neckar. As a result of this successful field trial, three-phase current became established for electrical transmission networks throughout the world. (…) And it was in Frankfurt that the ‘second industrial revolution’ began to emerge – a revolution that would bring about fundamental changes similar to those created 100 years previously by the introduction of the steam engine to the world of work. In 1891, the German electrical industry was ready to demonstrate its capabilities to the world at the International Electrotechnical Exhibition.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  69 (…). Prompted by the Paris ‘Exposition Universelle’ (World Fair) of 1889, Leopold Sonnemann, publisher of the Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper (and as well chairman of the democratic party as principal of the ­municipal parliament, RR), interested the Electrotechnical Society in the idea of an exhibition. The Society expressed an interest and started preparations in the same year. (…) Frankfurt had an urgent problem to solve. The construction of a central power station had been under discussion in the city’s political and technical committees since 1886 (…). However, agreement had still to be reached over the type of current (…). It fell to the exhibition to demonstrate a commercially viable method for the transmission of electricity (…) from Lauffen am Neckar to Frankfurt. This took centre stage at the exhibition and was evidenced in the large three-section entrance gate. The central section took the form of an arch bearing the inscription ‘Power Transmission Lauffen–Frankfurt 175 kilometres’. (…) The entire entrance was illuminated with 1000 light bulbs and an electrically powered waterfall provided a further attraction. With 1,200,000 visitors from all over the world, the exhibition was an out-and-out success. (…) As far as Germany was concerned, the International Electrotechnical Exhibition settled once and for all the question of the most economical means of transmitting electrical energy. (…) The Frankfurt city council constructed its own power station near the harbour; yet another was built by a private company in the suburb of Bockenheim (Figures 1.40 and 1.41).108

Figure 1.40 International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt am Main, 1891. Photo: Creative Commons (Horst Ziegenfusz), Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Inv. C12181.

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Figure 1.41 Contemporary Image Showing the Entrance to the Exhibition Site with Arches and Electrically Powered Waterfall.106 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

The exhibition’s location was opposite the front of this new railway station of European significance. Its main topic and purpose – electricity as universal energy ‒ was directly mirrored in the set of symbols included in the station’s exterior. Electricity was not only seen as the new energy of the twentieth century but also as a form of energy that was closely related to railways. The Frankfurt main station’s entrance hall was therefore deliberately adorned with a group of sculptures, each of which was full of symbols and meanings. It was Gustav Herold who created this monument for the top of the entrance hall between 1885 and 1886. The group shows Atlas and two deities symbolising Steam and Electricity. Doing so, he picked up the particular way of industrialisation in Frankfurt, which became a kind of today’s Silicon Valley for the electrical industry of Germany at this time. One organiser of the exhibition was the Elektrotechnische Gesellschaft (Electrotechnical Society), which was founded in Frankfurt in 1881 with the aim of promoting electricity. AEG and Siemens & Halske also were present in Frankfurt.110 The six-metre-high sculptural group on Europe’s biggest railway station was a symbol and had a particular ­meaning for inner-urban transport at the end of the nineteenth century. Smoke and noise could be avoided by the use of electricity for the traction power of railways (Figure 1.42).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  71

Figure 1.42 Set-Up of the Sculptural Group Atlas Bearing the Terrestrial Globe from Gustav Herold, 2014.109 Source: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

As soon as the question of supply with electricity was solved by transport of alternating current over long distances, electrified tramways were rapidly introduced in many cities all over the world. The system itself was already developed in the decade before the exhibition. The innovation has no certain place of origin. It is rather rooted in many places in the transatlantic world and was developed as an exchange between different regions between Europe and North America. However, in more recent publications an electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg is presented as “the world’s first tramway”, which was opened by Fyodor Pirotsky as early as 1875. But it seemed that this facility was far from being ready for permanent use by the public. In Germany, it was Werner von Siemens who was most interested in electrified railways and who presented his first suggestions in the late 1860s already. His experiments also led to the first tramway line in Germany. The company Siemens & Halske introduced a tramway not only for the Berlin Industrial Exposition in 1879 but also for public permanent service in Gross-Lichterfelde, at this time an independent town near Berlin and later a city quarter of Berlin. For the construction, Werner von Siemens had personally contacted the Russian inventor Pirotsky. It was opened two years after the exhibition in Berlin. In 1883 electric tramways were also opened for business in Great Britain, at the seaside of Brighton, and in Mödling and Hinterbrühl near Vienna in Austria. Numerous cities in Europe followed soon in the late 1880s and 1890s (Figures 1.43 and 1.44). Early electrified railways were not exclusive to Europe but were at the same time developed in North America. We can mention systems in Toronto, in

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Figure 1.43 Three Electric Streetcars Were Introduced to Montgomery in 1886.111 Source: Public Domain Wikimedia.

Figure 1.44 Sketch of an Electric Elevated Train Running through Friedrichstraße in Berlin by Siemens AG, 1880. Source: Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz – bpk.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  73 Canada, developed by John Joseph Wright as early as 1883 and introduced in 1892. In the United States, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the World Cotton Centennial World’s Fair in New Orleans in 1884 but did not convince the public. So, it was in Cleveland where the first commercial installation of an electric streetcar was built in the same year. Four years later trams operated in Richmond on the Richmond Union Passenger Railway built by Frank J. Sprague, who invented numerous innovations making the trams an efficient transport system for the urban space. Sprague was a naval officer and inventor who contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His contributions were especially important in promoting urban development by increasing the size cities could reasonably attain – through better transportation. He became known as the ʻFather of Electric Tractionʼ.112 Tramways were the first manifestation of a metamorphosis of railways in urban environments. They were successfully introduced in European and North-American cities by making use of existing networks of horse railways, which had been established since the 1860s. Tramways achieved measurable progress in speed and transport capacity and they avoided a lot of other disadvantages of the old steam railways. They had no emission of smoke and were much quieter than steam engines. They could accelerate very fast and also slow down quickly, which was important for short intervals of stations inside the city centre, and they were lighter than the old trains and could therefore be integrated into the street system more easily than the old railways. The city was not negatively affected by this means of transport. Enthusiastically city planners wrote that trams were “compatible with the relations in cities and form with them an interwoven element of the modern age”.113 In a relatively short time, they replaced the systems of horse tramways and buses.114

From Tramways to Elevated Trains, Speed Trains, and Undergrounds Many cities could solve their transport problems caused by a growing population with tramways. But what worked very well in medium-sized cities was not sufficient for metropolises such as London, Paris, or Berlin, not to speak of American cities or today’s giant cities in Asia and elsewhere in the world. It soon became clear that electrified tramways could not meet all demands, especially those of capacity and speed. The more powerful steam-propelled railways were in principle meant to speedily cover great distances and to carry large numbers of people. But they were unable to quickly make stops at short intervals inside the densely populated areas. The steam engines were too slow in their start-up and required large distances to slow down, their infrastructure required a lot of space and there were – as mentioned – numerous complaints about smoke, grime, and noise. There was another disadvantage. One could not ignore that together with the spread of tramways the conflict between streets and rails reappeared.115 Against the background

74  Ralf Roth of increasing criticism about noisy and crowded living conditions in big urban environments and growing dissatisfaction with smoky railways rushing through urban areas, the demand for speedier and larger “tramways” became more urgent. It became clear that for metropolises such as London and Paris, or Chicago and New York, or Berlin and Vienna, it was necessary to increase the speed and capacity of electrical railways and, together with the separation of “their tracks from street level” they should be “built (…) below or above the streets. This was why electrical speed railways were constructed as elevated trains or undergrounds.”116 This form of railway was – like the tramways – developed into a functional system in an exchange of scientific and engineering knowledge between several global centres in the transatlantic world. Practical experiences not only derived from European capitals but also from the big metropolises of the United States. The cities’ administrations there pragmatically managed the problems of urban transport and built elevated train systems in the grit patterns of streets. The earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway on a brick viaduct of 878 arches, built between 1836 and 1838. Alex Werner made us familiar with it. The first four kilometres of the London and Blackwall Railway were also built on a viaduct, in 1840. But many other plans were never realised. After a break of nearly two decades, elevated railways continued to be introduced in US cities and achieved some popularity. One of the first promoters in Europe was again Werner von Siemens. Inspired by the London underground railway of 1863, he proposed the first plan for an elevated train driven by electric power in the late 1860s and experimented with model trains in the 1870s.117 But he failed to get a construction permit from the Prussian state. So, experiments took mostly place in American cities. One could mention the New York West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, which for some years, from the end of the 1860s, operated with cable cars. Another example is the Manhattan Railway opened for business in 1875 or the Boston Elevated Railway and South Side Elevated Railroad of Chicago opened in 1891 and 1892.118 In the case of the latter, at first, a steam locomotive pulled four wooden coaches and carried more than a couple of dozen people. Over the next years, service was extended.119 More or less all American-city authorities ignored aesthetic reservations as well as noise emissions for all the people living in the direct neighbourhood of the new lines. Therefore, what had been enthusiastically welcomed at first glance, sparked many public debates and much criticism once construction was finished and the iron skeleton paved its way through American metropolises. This is the topic of our author Gordon Benedict Hansen in his chapter ‘The Experience and Image of American Elevated Railways: Rapid Transit Infrastructure in the Urban Consciousness’. Hansen delivers a solidly researched and convincingly described history of the introduction of electric traction in the United States from 1892 up to the 1920s. He focuses thereby on the elevated railways and on problems that this type of

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  75 urban rails caused in the densely populated inner districts of big cities and metropolises. He mentions above all the noise of these trains running in street valleys which were walled by high buildings and passed apartments at a distance of only a few metres. This led also to sunlight blockage and both issues caused a lot of commotion, public protests, and demands for a change of this system. Nevertheless, this type of railways formed from the 1890s onwards in many cases the backbone of transport in many larger cities, because of their economic benefit, relatively low construction costs, and efficiency. Hansen presents a lively picture of their use in American cities. One reason for their popularity was the success and worldwide attention the elevated train received at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park in Chicago. The system there was a breakthrough for electrified systems of elevated trains. Only a few months before, the first “L”, the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, began its service in June 1892. What had been viewed both enthusiastically and critically in the cities of the United States, had been presented at the 1893 World Fair in Chicago as a milestone for the breakthrough of railways in the urban fabric. This was only two years after the exhibition in Frankfurt, which had opened the door to serving powerful electricity over long distances. And now, only a short time later, a huge international audience actually became acquainted with the concept of electric speed trains for urban use for the first time. The Berlin delegation to the World Fair also came back with an enthusiastic account and praised this type of railway, which was immediately propagated by Siemens AG.120 Setting up a branch company, the Hochbahngesellschaft (Elevated Train Company), was the next step towards breaking through with a particular metamorphosis of railways. Furthermore, the government gave the green light for planning and building a line that would cross Berlin in an east-west direction. But the system of elevated trains did not receive enthusiastic approval from Berlin’s citizens. In many other metropolises of Europe municipal authorities and citizens also remained reluctant to accept the American model. Instead of leading electric speed railways above the twisty roads of European city centres, planners escaped into the underground in densely settled city quarters. As mentioned above, the model had been delivered by London’s Metropolitan Railway Company, which already had developed an underground train in the early 1860s. But heavy smoke and dirt hindered the distribution of the system.121 Electricity was adopted as a promising way out. Indeed, Sprague’s innovations allowed a big leap forward in the development of the modern subway train. Following the improvement, developed by Sprague, of an overhead “trolley” system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across the world.”122 The first electric underground line, the City and South London line, was finished in 1890, one year before the Boston elevated railway, two years before the introduction of Chicago’s “L”, and three years before the World Fair in the same city. But the expansion of this line into a network of lines that covered important parts of London areas could not be finished until

76  Ralf Roth 1900 because of the tremendous cost.123 Yet, London railway companies and the city administration did have an impact on the discussions about the reorganisation of the internal transport system of Paris in advance of the World Fair of 1900 and laid the groundwork for the decision to construct a “Métro”, i.e. an underground railway.124 Also, the London transport authority developed a counter-draft for an urban railway for metropolises. The consequences were far-reaching. Contrary to the American discussions which remained ambivalent with pros and cons about the elevated system, authorities in most European metropolises decided against elevated trains and favoured underground systems. This was also the case in Berlin, although the magistrate and the government had agreed to provide Siemens with a permit for an elevated railway. But the Hochbahngesellschaft could not finish an elevated train network and was forced to shift to an underground railway after serious citizen protests against the ugliness and noise of these trains in their neighbourhood had gathered more and more support for the demand to go underground. This is why up to today the underground line “U2” starts in the eastern part of the city as an elevated train and disappears via a ramp at the Nollendorfplatz into a tunnel (Figure 1.45).126 The electric underground railways did not only solve the problem of passage, over large distances, across the urban landscape of metropolises and city agglomerations; additional benefits were that they did not conflict with street

Figure 1.45 View from Station Nollendorfplatz to the Entrance of the Underground Station Wittenbergplatz of the Elevated Train in Berlin, Today’s Line U2.125 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  77 traffic, they did not separate city quarters, and they also contributed to ­finding a solution to aesthetic and environmental problems that railways caused in the fabric of the modern city. “Separated from the disruption of road transport, more convincing in speed than tramways, and more flexible and more integrated than steam railways, the electric high-speed railway developed rapidly into an indispensable transport system for big cities”.127 Undergrounds were de facto invisible at the surface. Furthermore, the whole infrastructure could not be seen, except for some entrances to stations. Vice versa, the passenger did not get any impression of the city landscape. It was a serious attempt to minimise the conflicting relationship between cities and railways. This is why they were seen as the transport medium of the new century.

Metropolises and Electric High-Speed Railways: A Vision at the Turn of the Century Together with speed trains totally new city dimensions seemed close to realisation, because these trains enabled cities to have a diameter of 25 kilometres and an area of 500 square kilometres for settlement and housing construction, which was 25 times larger than a city for pedestrians. This was exciting news for companies involved in land and housing development, for banks, and for transport companies.128 Moreover, social reformers and politicians from liberal as well as social-democratic sides also accepted the widening of city space by a modern transport infrastructure as a promising approach to solving the housing problems of the time. Thus, on the foundation of speed railways visions of even bigger cities were flourishing. In 1912, the city and transport planner Gustav Schimpff summarised all main characteristics of such a giant city and created the concept of an ideal city with a dense transport system of urban speed railways.129 Schimpff’s chapter on an ideal city published in the Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen (Journal of Railway Matters) included a radial system of S-train lines that connected all kinds of city quarters and institutions at the periphery with the city centre. The number of stops increased in the densely populated areas and the lines formed a grit pattern of a total of ten lines in the city centre, i.e. the business district. In this way, he managed to distract the dense traffic in the city centre to the edge of the city (Figure 1.46).130 All in all, his proposal touched on real problems of the urban transport system in Berlin. Very similarly to the discussion about the Ring and City Railway in the 1870s, again the search for cheap land for housing development in a healthy environment stimulated strategic considerations on the transport system of a rapidly growing metropolis. To quote an example from the debate in Berlin at this time: Our urgent problems forced us to develop cheap land for healthy and spacious house building. But this one can find now more or less only in the outer suburban areas, outside the area of influence (Bannkreis) of the existing building code (…) and outside the region of high priced land.131

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Figure 1.46 Ideal City and Its Network of S-Trains, 1912. Source: Gustav Schimpff, ‘Wirtschaftliche Betrachtungen über Stadt- und Vorortbahnen’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen 35, 1912, 597–643, 849–873, 1167–1201, 1456–1482 and Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen 36, 1913, 20–53, 383–416, here vol. 35, attachment, plate I.

On the fundament of the metamorphosis of the railway to electric urban speed railways even more gigantic visions of a reconstruction of big cities than in the 1870s were growing. The initiators of these visions were not the magistrates or reformers of living conditions and housing as before, but entrepreneurs. When we direct our attention again to Berlin, we find for example Werner von Siemens or Emil Rathenau from the Siemens or AEG trust, or banks such as the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, or the Berlin Handelsgesellschaft, as well as terrain companies engaged in the discussion about ‘Greater Berlin’ around 1910. City planners, engineers of the electric trust, and certain departments of the big German banks projected a radial system of speed train lines on the model of American cities that would enable people to travel in a diameter of 30–40 kilometres within half an hour from the periphery to the city centre. The realisation of these plans would have turned the whole region upside down and would have developed

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  79 housing and living areas for no less than ten or twelve million people.132 The debate and its consequences show the dynamics caused by a new type of railway at the beginning of the twentieth century. One could say the planners courageously faced the problems of the time – and they failed in a grandiose way for two reasons: First, their visions were essentially based on statistical projections of a demographic tendency similar to the decades before. But the figures about immigration to Berlin dramatically dropped in the years before World War One and the vision of a Berlin with ten million inhabitants vanished already before, and at any rate during the war and its aftermath. More or less all German cities stagnated from then on during the entire twentieth century, while American cities continued to grow because of the ongoing immigration and were often developing into metropolises with several million inhabitants at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was why they were considered particularly dynamic and modern for a long time.133 Second, probably of greater importance than the demographic shift, one must consider the beginning of competition with road transport, which returned at this time together with the beginning of motorisation after several decades of clear dominance of the iron transport infrastructure that was based on railways.134 This is why we jump from part four to five.

Railways in Troubled Waters and Their Return after the End of the Twentieth Century: The Motor Car Revolution At the beginning of the twentieth century, the electrified means of mass traffic, such as tramways, undergrounds, and S-trains, helped free up the streets and created space for a new, noisy, and smellier piece of equipment, the motor car. The new century developed and brought with it a tremendous increase in motor traffic and the reduction of railway networks all over the western world. Moreover, there was not only the displacement of the railway as the key transport facility but also a diminishing role for public transport.135 The triumphant march of motorisation after World War Two was caused by many factors and had many consequences. The advantages are apparent: motor cars are flexible, both in public and in private use. They do not require a time schedule that must be adhered to. Individual planning of travel and transport is easy. Moreover, such travel is efficient and direct in its door-to-door service, both for persons and for freight, without transfers or having to reload goods (if there is enough space for a parking lot). The consequence was again a complete reconstruction of cities. The railway city stretches out along railway lines, mostly in a radial pattern. Therefore, cities and metropolises were growing in the form of stars. This implied growing landmasses between the radials that were not connected with the arteries of transport, which in fact meant increasing discomfort with regard to mobility for the people living there. These spaces with little attractiveness for developers could easily be developed with the help of dense networks

80  Ralf Roth of roads and mobility based on automobiles.136 This was why the urban spread accelerated with the automobile much more than in the railway age and touched also upon regions that had been somewhat isolated. This phenomenon with enormous side effects upon our social and cultural lifestyle was, decades ago, described by Lewis Mumford and referred to by him as “suburbia”.137 It is due to the proliferation of millions of commuters that the volume of traffic has increased so tremendously in recent years. Therefore, it can be safely said that car traffic is the main perpetrator responsible for the more negative phenomena occurring in our modern-day cities. Nearly two decades ago I wrote about this in the introduction of the City and Railways in Europe volume: Although personal mobility does have clear advantages, there is a growing feeling that its advantages are quickly being outweighed by its disadvantages. One disadvantage is that when cars are not being driven they take up valuable public urban space. This means that a vast amount of public space is not available for other uses. Secondly, the permanent stream of motor cars cuts cities and towns up into a thousand little pieces that block the routes of pedestrians. As a result of the increasing devastation of public space, people have been forced back into smaller pedestrian precincts. This growing emphasis on improving and enlarging the traffic system has meant a serious reduction of the space available for pedestrians. The motor car pollutes the air one breathes. It causes noise. It diminishes the quality of life for every resident.138 Indeed, while in the past several decades the advantages have always more or less outweighed the disadvantages, nowadays the number of complaints about noise and motor car emissions in all major cities is on the rise.139 But above all, motor traffic and road infrastructure no longer can provide maximum efficiency and have reached the limits of the road system’s capacity in many countries of the western world, especially in the ultra-dense networks which served as the glue for communication and mobility in large areas of metropolises and city agglomerations. Clear signs of this are frequent slowdowns, numerous traffic jams, and a less comfortable stop-and-go traffic flow. While this was an exception in former decades, this plague is developing more and more into the new normal way of a ride to and from city centres. This is why the next logical question to be asked is: will the so-called motor car society (Automobilgesellschaft) probably survive only for a relatively short time?140 Will these problems give birth to a renaissance in rail construction in cities? All in all, the motor car society stretches now over six or seven decades, which is a brief period in the history of urbanisation. Motor traffic is currently the predominant mode of transportation. It started in the western world, continued then in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc after 1990, and stretched out to many city agglomerations of the so-called developing world in the dawn of the new millennium. What once started so

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  81 successfully in the last century has become a growing burden in the densely populated metropolises or city agglomerations in Europe and both Americas nowadays. Un- or less restricted private vehicle traffic collides more and more with the limited capacity of streets. Motorisation and the immense increase in mobility by the motor car have come to an end or are in a crisis because of the limited capacities of the road system. The older terms of traffic jam, Stau, or embouteillage of the nineteenth century are being used once again as this phenomenon has become widespread throughout societies in the modern world. But the problem of rapidly shrinking efficiency of road transport is even bigger. It does not only touch upon European and North-American metropolises; it also affects, or will affect, metropolises in Asia and Africa, and ultimately all urban agglomerations in the whole world in the near future. In the last four decades, mankind has doubled. On every continent, people have been migrating to big cities and metropolises. Another striking development is that of people making their way by air from anywhere in the world to the centres of the global economy. These gigantic streams of migration are extremely mobile and transcontinental – some two- or three-hundred million at the moment.141 Growing city agglomerations, metropolises, or megalopolises seem to be the most likely form that urban living will take throughout the entire world. If we follow projections on the future of cities, it appears that what we are experiencing at the moment is only the beginning of a second phase of urbanisation.142 Indeed, the ‘State of World Population’, published in 2007 by the UN has carefully examined the demographic consequences and the progress of urbanisation worldwide. In it, studies compared similarities and differences of the first stage of urbanisation with the second one. The authors wrote: The first urbanization wave took place in North America and Europe over two centuries, from 1750 to 1950: an increase from 10 to 52 per cent urban and from 15 to 423 million urbanites. In the second wave of urbanization, in the less developed regions, the number of urbanites will go from 309 million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2030. In those 80 years, these countries will change from 18 per cent to some 56 per cent urban. At the beginning of the 20th century, the now developed regions had more than twice as many urban dwellers as the less developed (150 million to 70 million). Despite much lower levels of urbanization, the developing countries now have 2.6 times as many urban dwellers as the developed regions (2.3 billion to 0.9 billion). This gap will widen quickly in the next few decades. At the world level, the 20th century saw an increase from 220 million urbanites in 1900 to 2.84 billion in 2000. The present century will match this absolute.143 Moreover, they were of the opinion that there is a “second wave” of demographic, economic and urban transitions, which they envisaged as much

82  Ralf Roth bigger and much faster than the first one we are familiar with. This first wave of demographic transitions, industrialisation, and urbanisation covers a period from ca. the middle of the eighteenth up to the middle of the twentieth century and was concentrated on Europe and North America and spread from there all over the world. It took two centuries, was therefore rather gradual, and included some hundred million people. But after World War Two and the end of colonisation the less developed regions were included in the process of industrialisation and have since experienced the same transition that had begun in the metropolises more than 250 years ago. Mortality has fallen rapidly, fertility declines as well but does not compensate for those who live longer in ever greater numbers. This is why all populations in these regions are growing and contributing to the dramatic increase of the global population. This dynamic directly drives the speed and scale of urbanisation in the global south, which today is far greater than in the past. Urban environments – houses, infrastructure, power, water, sanitation, roads and rails, commercial and productive facilities, schools, hospitals, administrations, shopping centres, factories – have to be developed more rapidly than in cities anywhere during the first wave of urbanisation. Two further conditions accentuate the second wave. In the past, overseas migrations relieved pressure on European cities. Many of those migrants, especially to the Americas, settled in new agricultural lands that fed the new cities. Restrictions on international migration today make it a minor factor in world urbanization. Finally, the speed and size of the second wave are enhanced by improvements in medical and public health technology, which quickly reduce mortality and enable people to manage their own fertility. Developing and adapting forms of political, social and economic organization to meet the needs of the new urban world is a much greater challenge.144 But the account did not only refer to the current situation. The authors attempted to describe the ongoing development up to 2030 and they summarised: In 2008, the world reaches an invisible but momentous milestone: For the first time in history, more than half of its human population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to swell to almost 5 billion.145 Then the towns and cities of the developing world will make up 80 per cent of urban humanity.146 At the end of this account, the authors of the study drew conclusions with regard to some desirable reforms in a global perspective. There they did not envisage any easing of the burdens of growing megalopolises by decentralisation but demanded greater efficiency in urban structures. They emphasised the importance of consistent methods of city planning and investments in mobility in these extremely densely populated

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  83 city landscapes. Their demand did not only refer to investment in streets but also in all types of rail systems. The anti-urban policies common in the developing world during the last quarter-century misapprehend both the challenges and the opportunities of urban growth. (…). For humankind to benefit from the urban transition, its leaders must first accept it as both inevitable and important for development. They must recognize the right of the poor to what the city has to offer and the city’s potential to benefit from what the poor have to bring. Rather than attempting in vain to prevent urban expansion, planners must objectively examine the available policy options for addressing it and building on its possibilities. (…) Cities must look urgently to the future. The projected expansion of the urban population in Asia and Africa, from 1.7 to 3.4 billion over a period of only 30 years, and the reduced level of available resources, stress the need for a more imaginative but pragmatic response. (…). Decisions taken today in cities across the developing world will shape not only their own destinies but the social and environmental future of humankind.147

The Return of Railways in Urban Agglomerations of the World What the United Nations Organisation emphasised for the near future is a solution which only a few European cities discovered some decades ago: strengthening public transport and paying attention again to rail-based transport systems. The example of some German cities might accentuate this a bit. Maybe the German city of Frankfurt am Main can serve as an example. Surprisingly enough, at the end of the 1950s Frankfurt’s city officials envisaged Turin as a model to solve the increasing problem of road congestions because of rapidly increasing motorisation. While the American kind of individual mass transport caused very directly and immediately a decline of public transport in urban areas, the same development led, surprisingly, to an expansion of public transport in some German cities. The reason becomes clearer when we take a closer look at the Frankfurt case. The city was in some respect a forerunner of new urban rail projects in Germany which should complement still existing dense nets of tramways. In a book published in 1998 Hans-Reiner Müller-Raemisch, who was responsible for urban planning and development in Frankfurt’s magistrate in the 1950s, i.e. at the beginning of mass mobility by automobiles, described the situation at that time as follows: At the end of the 1950s the situation in the streets of the city became unbearable during rush hour. Congestions at all crossings, the streets were blocked and buses and streetcars which should bring more people to their workplaces than individual cars, were stuck in the middle of the general traffic jam.148

84  Ralf Roth This happened even though the city administration of Frankfurt had created a dense tramway system after the International Electrotechnical Exhibition of 1891. Already in the 1930s plans had been developed for tunnelling some lines in the densely built city centre. The plan could not be realised because the project was seen as too costly, especially since it was the time of a worldwide financial crisis. But after World War Two, the problem of traffic jams increased with accelerating motorisation, and therefore the idea reappeared. In the late 1950s, it was seriously discussed again, although the costs were calculated to be up to 20 or 30 million Deutsche Mark per kilometre. In this context, the project of an elevated train system on the model of the Turin experimental train system was also proposed at this time.149 The so-called Alwegbahn, a monorail system which had been realised in Turin in 1959, had some advantages, above all lower construction costs, when compared with a U-train system (Figures 1.47 and 1.48).150 Single lines were built in Italy, but especially in the Asia-Pacific region, for example in Kuala Lumpur and in Tokyo in, amongst other places, the suburb of Tama, about which Nobuhiro Yanagihara has written in this volume. The project sparked a lot of interest and public attention but failed to be realised in Frankfurt or in other German cities for several reasons. Its implementation (e.g., construction of stations) was not easy and Frankfurt’s street system was too narrow and winding for such a project.153 Following the cancellation of the Alwegbahn project, the city of Frankfurt decided to

Figure 1.47 ALWEG Railway in Turin, 1961.151 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  85

Figure 1.48 Net of an ALWEG Railway in Frankfurt, 1959 (not realised).152 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

pursue a variation of a U-train system, which was widely discussed in many German cities at this time and seen as a solution to the problem of finding more space in the streets for the automobile. The system was called Unterpflasterstraßenbahn, (Under Surface Tramway). The idea was to run this system underground only in the inner city. In the outer areas, the trains were to be used more or less as normal street cars but in separate lanes in the middle of the streets. One argument was that the old streetcar wagons could stay in use in such a project.154 The idea became part of the Generalverkehrsplan (General Transport Plan) of the city of Frankfurt in 1961, the city parliament agreed in 1962, and construction work could start with great success in the following years.155 While in many cities of the western world urban railways stood under pressure and many failed to survive, Frankfurt expanded its rail infrastructure at the height of motorisation – a remarkable investment in the future. But this was not the end of the story. While the U-train project was planned and realised by the city administration, the Deutsche Bundesbahn

86  Ralf Roth (Federal German Railway) was not involved. But shortly after Frankfurt had decided to build the U-train and as the system was under construction, the state railway became also interested in the expansion of its S-train lines in the urban area of Frankfurt, and suddenly preferred a tunnel solution in the inner centre of the city. The result was the project of a huge tunnel from the eastern to the western side of the city.156 This was why a city of only 600,000 inhabitants at the time ended up with two U-train systems. But it was only with these investments in public rail transport that it was possible to generate one million workplaces, i.e. 1.4 per inhabitant.157 As a result of this development, the city grew in a vertical direction and developed a skyline with the greatest density of skyscrapers in Europe. City planner Müller-Raemisch concluded: The economic success in the further development of the city confirmed the decision to construct an U-train system. Without such an efficient transport facility attracting many large and financially strong companies in such a small urban environment would have been impossible. Surveys confirmed that most of the employees working in the business and banking district made use of public transport and in this way diminished car density.158 Frankfurt was not the only example of a positive relationship between city and railways in times of motorisation. Christopher M. Kopper contributes to this volume with ‘The German Federal Railway (Deutsche Bundesbahn) and the Process of Suburbanisation after 1945’ and demonstrates also that at the height of motorisation railways could expand their service in urban environments. He states that suburbanisation in Europe followed different patterns from those in the United States. During the whole period up to the end of the twentieth century, public transport always played an essential part in the modal split. The Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB), the successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, in the Federal Republic of Germany as of 1949 took over several hundred kilometres of S-train systems in different larger cities in the western parts of the former Reich. An opportunity to make use of these urban railways opened up together with the growing number of commuters in the city agglomerations of Germany, which is often only seen as a consequence of developments in the post-world war period. But Kopper argues that the process of suburbanisation developed much earlier and can be observed already around 1900. Every larger city of Germany is proof of this argument.159 Kopper takes Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin and the development of their S-train networks as examples. Especially Hamburg has a remarkable tradition of S- and U-trains, going back to the beginning of the twentieth century. After years of intense public debates and thorough evaluation of the experiences in Berlin, Hamburg’s city administration awarded a contract for an elevated and underground railway to the Hochbahngesellschaft

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  87 of Siemens but in cooperation with AEG, both seated in Berlin since 1906. Just a few months later the first stretch was completed, on 7 October 1906. Five years later the Hamburger Hochbahn Aktiengesellschaft (HHA) was founded. Its first project was the construction of a U-train section for the whole system, including a ring structure of elevated and U-train sections which was opened for business on 15 February 1912 (Figures 1.49 and 1.50). The mayor of Hamburg, Johann Heinrich Burchard, gave the inaugural speech and stated: The supervisory board of the Hochbahn AG (Elevated Train Joint Stock Company), whose chairman would prove his well-known talent for organization here as well, includes three representatives of Hamburg’s public interest sector. Also, the gigantic project of an elevated train with its palladium (Palladium) of the universal power of electricity will be supported by the favour of our population. It is an old observation that every new transport opportunity increases the number of transport ­seekers. The elevated railway has been created for all Hamburgers; it should benefit all, not in the least the large population of workers who can make use of every line for 10 Pfennig before seven o’clock in the morning, and can go back to the most remote city quarters for the same price at any time. (…) In testimony of which we raise our glasses and shout ‘Hurrah for the builders of the elevated railway who prepared this feast’.161

Figure 1.49 Hoch- und Untergrundbahn in Hamburg am Mönkedamm, 1912. Photo: Courtesy of the author.

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Figure 1.50 Construction of the U-train at Wandsbeker Marktstrasse, 1961.160 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

After Berlin and its surrounding area of Greater Berlin, Hamburg became the second German city with rapid urban railways under its surface. The Hamburg system is, contrary to Berlin, largely either elevated or in tunnels and not much at street level, which is with extra lanes the case in the capital.162

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  89 The 1950s and 1960s witnessed a serious modernisation especially of railways in urban environments. The state railway introduced modern carriages, replaced steam with diesel and electricity, and accepted the competition with automobile and road transport. DB’s administration and board were aware that sooner or later commuters would “buy cars and (would) make a choice between their car and public transport”. But the structures of narrow and winding streets in many German cities were on the side of the railways. Kopper writes: “The major downtown streets and traffic arteries were increasingly clogged during the main hours of traffic, slowing down buses and streetcars”. It was exactly this point that forced city administrations to look for alternative solutions – as shown by the example of Frankfurt presented above. Kopper does not address the Frankfurt case but focuses on Hamburg, which extended its already existing underground railways as part of the S-train system in the 1960s. Munich seized the opportunity to get additional funding for infrastructure in advance of the Olympic Games in 1972 and also started the construction of an underground railway system. This was only a few months before something happened that would change everything. The world encyclopedia Wikipedia writes: The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations perceived as supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The initial nations targeted were Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States with the embargo also later extended to Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa. By the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen nearly 300 per cent, from 3 Dollars per barrel to nearly 12 Dollars globally; US prices were significantly higher. The embargo caused an oil crisis, or ‘shock’, with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and the global economy. It was later called the ‘first oil shock’, followed by the 1979 oil crisis, termed the ‘second oil shock’.163 The “shock” had far-reaching consequences for the whole system of mobility that had been established after World War Two, and the vision that road transport with automobiles would replace rail transport and individual mobility would displace public transport vanished. This paved the way for a return of railways – especially in urban environments. What are the consequences of all of this? There could be an extremely high density of living space, or a further spreading outward into the surrounding region, or both. In any case, this new dynamic in urbanisation in the near future will require new means of efficient and rational transport systems for cities. The capacity of these new systems of transport has to be high and, in addition, quieter and almost emission-free. They must also be so well constructed as to minimally encroach upon the already limited city

90  Ralf Roth space in which 80 per cent of the world’s population will live. It is precisely because of this current situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century that the question of efficient traffic systems in such densely populated living spheres and the role of railways as linking networks in and between cities re-appear. The requirements for the urban future demand that we re-examine the urban past with its nineteenth-century densely constructed cities in a new light. It is from there that fruitful theoretical discussions can harvest a richness of practical experiences about the current problem of how to solve traffic problems in a more and more crowded world. Some years ago, I wrote at the beginning of a volume mentioned above about the relationship of rails and roads: “Meanwhile, this renaissance of rail transport in urban areas has spread across Europe. In many countries, local and regional public rail transport has increased in the last 30 years. Since the start of the new millennium many cities have experienced a comeback of streetcars and trams and also of U- and S-trains. But it is not only Europe that rediscovered the efficiency of urban rail systems. Metropolises in the USA and in Asia have made large-scale investments in urban rail systems, too. Remarkable is the change in the United States – the motherland of motorisation! Since the oil crisis of 1973 there has been a slow rethinking among American city planners and clear signs for a renaissance of public rail transport”, which was not as easy as in Europe. Because “after six or seven decades of intense motorisation the technology of urban rails had not only stagnated but had totally disappeared. For the planning of the modern streetcar or other urban rail systems in Los Angeles the authorities had to import know-how from Sweden and Western Germany. Similar problems appeared with S- or U-trains. Urban planners had to rediscover technologies that were lost during motorisation”.164 But despite these technological and financial problems almost all larger cities were forced to increase systems of public rail transport – even in Chicago, the forerunner of motorisation.165 This demonstrates that also in times of mass motorisation there is a need for balanced public transport on rail, such as streetcars, U-, S- and regional trains.166 Massimo Moraglio’s chapter ‘Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities: Urban Mobility Agenda and City Renewals’ argues in the same direction. He also considers a rediscovery of trams and demonstrates this with the examples of Melbourne and Florence, two cities on opposite sides of the globe, and then turns to the United States. He focuses on social aspects in public debates for a shift in urban traffic and on criticism with regard to the automobile’s massive impact in the form of pollution and congestions that can lead to a destruction of urban space, which Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford had written about as well. He also sees increasing demands for more influence on the part of users in shaping urban transport, not only

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  91 addressing speed but also ecological questions, such as energy consumption and more user-friendly trains. But more could have been done is the conclusion at the end of the chapter, because light rail has not reached sufficiently large numbers of people willing to switch away from the traditional individual automobile. Perhaps the author is a bit too pessimistic here and too much focused on trams. A closer look at the entire development and construction of numerous systems of S-trains or underground as well as elevated railways might deliver a broader panorama of the trends in the ongoing development. Japanese city planners who speak of the “rebirth of trams” seem more optimistic about this topic.167 In other parts of the world, the direction of development is clearly visible. For this, we go back to Asia and the vast territories of India with gigantic megalopolises such as Delhi or Hyderabad. We have gathered chapters from Anupama Mann and Ramachandraiah Chigurupati, who present the same message about the necessity of spacious, speedy, comfortable, and modern urban rails for the mobility of ten, twenty, or more millions of people, i.e. the children of the dramatic second wave of urbanisation. So, it is fortunate to get the expertise of Anupama Mann, who writes about ‘A Symbiotic Relationship: The Delhi Metro Rail and the National Capital Region’. The chapter is a study of the historical development of the Delhi metro rail and the National Capital Region in India. It traces the history of the Delhi Metro rail as conceived in the Five-year Centralized Plans, and analyses National Development Council meetings in the context of the objectives of the state and central governments to develop the National Capital Region. They persisted as India moved from a centralised to a market economy, though the narrative necessitating them shifted from one of decongesting Delhi and developing discrete satellite towns to absorb the influx of urban migrants to providing better connectivity between Delhi and its surrounding areas for economic growth. Despite the changing pattern of growth of the National Capital Region from planned to entrepreneurial, the metro rail as a viable and inexpensive public mass transport option endures and raises the question of why there is a shift towards financially non-profitable but publicly beneficial rail transport projects in the development of mega-regions (Figure 1.51). We have learned from many chapters collected in this volume: there is no development without planning by companies or administrations, public debates, political struggles, collision of interests of different actors, and massive conflicts with protesters leading to the demand that users participate in shaping the means for their mobility. Ramachandraiah Chigurupati makes us familiar with such a conflict in ‘Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict: The Case of the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project’. He begins with traffic problems in all Indian cities which have increased in the twenty-first century. The solution seemed to be Mass Rapid Transport Systems (MRTS). First the Delhi Metro and Underground sparked a lot of interest and attention. When its first stretches were opened in 2002, the project was to be followed

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Figure 1.51 Delhi Metro Rail, 2010. Photo: Courtesy of the author.

soon by a similar project for Hyderabad. But instead, the city opted for an elevated train, as in Chicago or Tokyo West, and was looking to get it realised in a Public-Private Partnership project. Soon many objections were raised in public debates, which rapidly led to massive protests. The question of expropriation sparked strong opposition and the envisaged large-scale demolition did not meet with much approval. Many expected damages of historic heritage sites and lines running through densely populated city quarters would emit a lot of noise. Moreover, already in an early stage of the project financial costs escalated and many complained about the lack of transparency. Therefore, the protesters presented alternatives that would create a less conflicting system, petitioned parliament, and went to court to stop the ongoing construction and to replace parts of the network with undergrounds. They questioned the legal basis of Hyderabad Metro Rail and argued about the character of the planned railway, which in the concession was called a tramway. The protesters achieved some success in court but failed to get their objections supported by any significant political party. The Hyderabad Metro has been serving the city of Hyderabad, Telangana, India since 2017. It is the second-longest operational metro network in India after the Delhi Metro (285 stations) with 57 stations, and it is being funded by a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), with the state government holding a minority equity stake. A 30-kilometre stretch was inaugurated on 28 November 2017. It is estimated to have cost 2.6 billion dollars. As of February 2020, about 490,000 people have been using the Metro per day. Trains are

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  93

Figure 1.52 Raidurg Metro Station near Raheja Mindspace, 2017168 Photo: Creative Commons, Wikimedia.

crowded during the morning and evening rush hours. A ladies-only coach was introduced on all trains on 7 May 2018 (Figure 1.52).169 As the numerous examples collected in this volume show, there is a clear renaissance of rail transport in urban environments. All in all, experts predict an increase in rail transport in the near future: in exact figures, from 7.3 to 8.3 per cent by 2025.170 Meanwhile, investors have also taken notice and are planning investments in infrastructure of no less than 80,000 billion dollars for the next two decades, or 6,000 billion dollars in the next three years. Infrastructure means “electricity and water supply, modern streets and modern railway systems up to undergrounds”. These enormous sums speak for themselves.171 Can we therefore, I asked seven years ago, speak of a shift back from roads to rails at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a reversal of what happened at the beginning of the twentieth century? This is not very likely. Most transportation experts see a continuation of car mobility for the foreseeable future. But the question probably is wrong, and we ask it because we are looking too closely at the aspect of competition and underestimating the fact of the interdependence of the two networks. The facts are very clear: the rail network developed successfully as an answer to the limited capacity of road services in the nineteenth century, but it only broadened the transport market and did not generally replace road transport. The increase in the importance of road transportation in the twentieth century was the answer to the limitations of rail transport, for example, its unsuitability for cargo freight

94  Ralf Roth or door-to-door service. But rail transport did not vanish in the twentieth century any more than road transport vanished in the nineteenth century when railways revolutionised the transportation of goods and human mobility with far-reaching consequences.172 Obviously, there is not only room for both kinds of transport but also the insight that cities need railways in times of critical energy consumption of fossil energy sources. In the twentieth century, the technology of railways was adapted to the use of electrical power. Now the motor car has to do the same.173

Notes 1 See Ralf Roth, ‘Die Eisenbahn verändert die Stadt – die Stadt verändert die Eisenbahn’, in Wolfgang Kos and Günter Dinhobl, eds., Grosser Bahnhof. Wien und die weite Welt. Ausstellungskatalog (Vienna 2006), 36–42. 2 See Friedrich Harkort, Die Eisenbahn von Minden nach Cöln. Ed. by Wolfgang Köllmann (ND Hagen 1961), 5, and F(riedrich) Glünder, Kurze Darstellung einiger der wichtigsten Verhältnisse bei Eisenbahnen mit besonderer Beziehung auf solche Anlagen zwischen Hamburg, Bremen und Hannover (Hannover 1834), 26. 3 See Ludwig Newhouse, Vorschlag zur Herstellung einer Eisenbahn im Großherzogtum Baden von Mannheim bis Basel und an den Bodensee (Karlsruhe 1833), 138, or Friedrich List, Memoire die Eisenbahn von Mannheim nach Basel ­betreffend (without place of publication 1835), 1, and David Hansemann, Die Eisenbahnen und deren Aktionäre in ihrem Verhältnis zum Staat (Leipzig and Halle 1837), 35. On the hope to become a commercial centre of European scale see Johannes Scharrer, Deutschlands erste Eisenbahn mit Dampfkraft oder Verhandlungen der Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in Nürnberg. Von ihrer Entstehung bis zur Vollendung der Bahn (Nuremberg 1836), 8. On the importance of remembering the silk-road trade see Ralf Roth, ‘Transportkorridore zwischen Europa und dem Mittleren wie Fernen Osten: Große Visionen und ernüchternde ­Realität’, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 18, 2, 2017, 81–114. 4 Harkort, Eisenbahn, 9–12. 5 See Art. Wissower_Klinken, https://de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Wissower_Klinken#/ media/Datei:Caspar_ David_Friedrich’s_Chalk_Cliffs_on_Rügen.jpg (retrieved 25 July 2020). 6 See Art. Wartburg, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/a/ac/ Johann_Wolfgang_Goethe%2C_Wartburg_mit_Mönch_und_Nonne%2C_ 14.12.1807.jpg (both retrieved 24 July 2020). 7 Roth, Ralf, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn. Die Herrschaft über Raum und Zeit 1800–1914 (Ostfildern 2005), 37–49, esp. 40–44. 8 Ibid., 28–36, and 71–80. 9 See Art. History of rail transport in France, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Histo-ry_of_rail_transport_in_France#/media/File_France1860railways.png (retrieved 20 July 2020, 1842 and 1850 adjusted by the author). 10 The question as to why railway connections between Europe and Asia were so weak is discussed in more detail in the special issue of Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 18, 2017. See my contribution there: Roth, ‘Transportkorridore’, 81– 114. The topic will also be discussed in a forthcoming volume: Ralf Roth, Irene Anastasiadou, and Henry Jacolin, eds., Rail Routes from the Baghdad Railway to the New Silk Road (19th to 21st Centuries) – Utopian Dreams, Past Achievements and Future Prospects for Rail Transport between Europe and the Middle and Far East (forthcoming 2024). 11 Philip S. Bagwell, The Transport Revolution 1770–1985 (Abbington 1988).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  95 12 See Ralf Roth, ‘Allgemeine Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Verkehr und Geschichte’, in Ralf Roth and Karl Schlögel, eds., Neue Wege in ein neues Europa. Geschichte und Verkehr im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main and New York 2009), 47–64, here 49–51. 13 See Klaus Spiekermann, ‘Visualisierung von Eisenbahnreisezeiten. Ein interaktives Computerprogramm’. Abschlussbericht des gleichnamigen Projekts für das Verkehrshaus in Luzern (Dortmund 1999), 22. 14 Newhouse, Vorschlag, 80 u. 126, u. Ueber Eisenbahnen auf Staatsrechnungen von einem patriotischen Eisenbahn-Actionär, 2 vols. (Darmstadt 1836), 44. 15 See Hans Allekotte, Carl Josef Meyer als Eisenbahnunternehmer in Mitteldeutschland um die Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts (Steinheim 1931), 20, and in the background G. Fleck, ‘Die ersten Eisenbahnen von Berlin nach dem Westen der Monarchie. Ihre Begründung und ihre Entwicklung bis zum Jahre 1854’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 18, 1895, 1–39, 261–291, 454–497, 693–730, and 732–739. 16 On the example of Frankfurt see Peter Orth, Die Kleinstaaterei im Rhein-Main Gebiet und die Eisenbahnpolitik 1830–1866 (Limburg a. d. Lahn 1938), 31–32. 17 See Roth, Das Jahrhundert, 161–170. 18 For more about Chicago and the role of its railways see William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis. Chicago and the Great West (Chicago 1992). 19 Quoted from Art. Railroads Built in the Late 1800s, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/tracking-growth-us/ (retrieved 16 July 2020). 20 See Heinz Schomann, Denkmaltopographie Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen. Eisenbahn in Hessen. 3 vols. Ed. by Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen (Stuttgart 2005), vol. 2.1, 236f. 21 See Art. Bahnhof Mainz-Bischofsheim, https://de.wiki-pedia.org/wiki/Bahnhof_ Mainz-Bischofsheim#/media/Datei:Bahnhof_Bischofsheim_1867.jpg (retrieved 8 July 2020). 22 Art. Industriegeschichte in Bischofsheim. Route der Industriekultur RheinMain, http://www.krfrm.de/projekte/route-der-industriekultur/interaktive-karte/ industriegeschichte-in-bischofsheim (retrieved 8 July 2020). 23 See Roth, Das Jahrhundert, 170–174. 24 “Millionen vernichtender Geschosse sind in dem Weltkriege abgefeuert worden, die wuchtigsten, die gewaltigsten, die weithin tragendsten Projektile von den Ingenieuren ersonnen worden. Aber kein Geschoß war weittragender und schicksalsentscheidender in der neueren Geschichte als dieser Zug, der, geladen mit den gefährlichsten, entschlossensten Revolutionären des Jahrhunderts, in dieser Stunde von der Schweizer Grenze über ganz Deutschland saust, um in Petersburg zu landen und dort die Ordnung der Zeit zu zersprengen.” Stefan Zweig, ‘Der versiegelte Zug’, in Stefan Zweig, Sternstunden der Menschheit. Vierzehn historische Miniaturen (Frankfurt am Main 1951), https:// www.projekt-gutenberg.org/zweig/sternstu/chap013.html (retrieved 1 August 2020). On Lenin’s voyage see also Catherine Merridale, Lenins Zug. Die Reise in die Revolution. Translated by Bernd Rullkötter (Frankfurt am Main 2017), Michael Pearson, Der plombierte Waggon. Lenins Weg aus dem Exil zur Macht (Berlin 1977), Fritz Platten, Die Reise Lenins durch Deutschland im plombierten Wagen (Berlin 1924), and Karl Radek, “Lenin’s ‘sealed train’”, New York Times of 19 February 1922. 25 See Nigerian Nostalgia, https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/79/a6/d579a675d73 ee051a75f60b8a6b2df4e.jpg (retrieved 19 July 2020). 26 See further articles of Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani, The Socio-Economic Impact of the Railway in Northern Nigeria: A Study in Transformation of the Rural Communities along the Rail line between Kano and Zaria, 1908–1970s. Ph.D. (University of Leiden 2015); Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani, ‘The Incidences of Theft of Railway Metals in

96  Ralf Roth Colonial Northern Nigeria’, Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 2.4 Quarter IV 2011, 1–23, and Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani, ‘The Development of Railway Transport: Labour Migrants and Upward Social Mobility in some Communities between Zaria and Kano, 1912–1970’, September 2018, https://www.researchgate. net/publication/338344745_The_Development_of_Railway_Transport_Labour_ Migrants_and_Upward_Social_Mobility_in_some_Communities_between_ Zaria_and_Kano_1912-1970 (retrieved 8 July 2020). 27 On a German example see Heinz Reif, Die verspätete Stadt. Industrialisierung, städtischer Raum und Politik in Oberhausen 1846–1929 (Cologne 1993), and Roth, Das Jahrhundert, 154–158. 28 On the Atlantic stream of migration see Ralf Roth, ‘Metropolenkommunikation: Einige Überlegungen zum Zusammenhang von Migrationsbewegungen und Ideentransfer am Beispiel von Berlin und Chicago im 19. Jahrhundert’, Rheinisch-westfälische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 46, 2001, 291–318. 29 See for this part of the essay especially Juha Sahi, ‘The Trans-Siberian Railway as a Corridor of Trade between Finland and Japan in the Midth of World Crises’, Journal of Transport History, 36, 1, 2015, 58–76, here 60–61, and further literature there. See also Steven G. Marks, Road to Power. The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia 1850–1917 (London 1991), 200 and 206, and Anastasia Liliopoulou, Michael Roe, and Irma Pasukeviciute, ‘Trans Siberian Railway: From Inception to Transition’, European Transport, 29, 2005, 46–56, here 46–48, http:// wwwistiee.org/te/papers/N29/05%20(pg.%20 46-56)%20Pasukeviciute.pdf] (retrieved 10 December 2015, and Igor Slepven, ‘The Trans-Siberian Railway’, History Today, 46, 11, 1996, 37–39. 30 Sahi, ‘The Trans-Siberian Railway’, 61. 31 On the history of the Transiberian Railway see Edward Ames, ‘A Century of Russian Railroad Construction: 1837–1936’, American Slavic and East European Review, 6, 3/4, 1947, 57–74, Marks, Road to Power, Jacob Metzer, ‘Railroads in Tsarist Russia: Direct Gains and Implications’, Explorations in Economic History, 13, 1, 1976, 85–111, Henry Reichman, ‘The 1905 Revolution on the Siberian Railroad’, Russian Review, 47, 1, 1988, 25–48, and Bryn Thomas, Trans-Siberian Handbook. The Guide to the World’s longest Railway Journey, 8. ed. (Hindhead 2011). 32 See Mathias Beer and Dittmar Dahlmann, eds., Über die trockene Grenze und über das offene Meer. Binneneuropäische und transatlantische Migrationen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Essen 2005). 33 See Art. Transsibirische Eisenbahn, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsibirische_ Eisenbahn#/media/Datei:Karte_Transsibirische_Eisenbahn_2.svg (retrieved 3 August 2020). 34 On the Russian revolution of 1905 see Manfred Hildermeier, Die Russische Revolution 1905–1921 (Frankfurt am Main 1989), Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905: A Short History (Stanford 2004), and Pete Glatter, ed., ‘The Russian Revolution of 1905: Change Through Struggle’, special issue of Revolutionary History, 9, 1, 2005, and Pete Glatter, ‘The Consciousness Factor’, International Socialism, 108, 2, Autumn 2005, 1–52, available at: https://www.marxists.org/ history/etol/writers/glatter/2005/xx/1905.html (retrieved 15 August 2020). 35 Others mention about four million from 1906 to 1914. See Nikolai M. Dronin and Edward G. Bellinger, Climate Dependence and Food Problems in Russia, 1900–1990: the (Interaction of Climate and Agricultural Policy and their Effect on Food Problems (Budapest 2005), 38. On the reform period after the revolution of 1905 see Abraham Ascher, P. A. Stolypin: The Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia (Stanford 2001), Roger Bartlett, ed., Land Commune and Peasant Community in Russia: Communal Forms in Imperial and Early Soviet

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  97 Society (New York 1990), Mary Schaeffer Conroy, Peter Arkad’evich Stolypin: Practical Politics in Late Tsarist Russia (Boulder 1976), Yanni Kotsonis, ‘The Problem of the Individual in the Stolypin Reforms’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 12, 1, 2011, 25–52, David Macey, ‘Reflections on Peasant Adaptation in Rural Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: The Stolypin Agrarian Reforms’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 31, 3–4, 2004, 400–426, Judith Pallot, Land Reform in Russia, 1906–1917: Peasant Responses to Stolypin’s Project of Rural Transformation (Oxford and New York 1999), and Valentin V. Shelokhaev, ‘The Stolypin Variant of Russian Modernization’, Russian Social Science Review, 57, 5, 2016, 350–377. 36 ‘Construction of the Western Section of the Amur Railway, 1908–1913. Album of Prints made from the Photographs of the Rail Line. Produced by the artistic Workshop of the Obrazovanie Society, Moscow’, https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Katorga#/media/File:Russian_prisoners_of_Amur_Railway.jpg (retrieved 15 August 2020). On the background see Johannes Grützmacher, Die Baikal-Amur-Magistrale. Vom stalinistischen Lager zum Mobilisierungsprojekt unter Brežnev (Munich 2012). 37 See art. Transsibirische Eisenbahn, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsibirische_ Eisenbahn#/media/Datei:Transib_Novosibirsk.jpg (retrieved 2 August 2020). 38 See the trilogy of Jörg Baberowski, Der rote Terror: Die Geschichte des Stalinismus (Frankfurt am Main 2007), Verbrannte Erde: Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt (Frankfurt am Main 2014), and Räume der Gewalt (Frankfurt am Main 2018). 39 Novosibirsk was the administrative centre for the first labour camps of Siblag, Novosibirsklag and Kamenlag. Moreover there were some prisoner of war camps. See Virtual museum Gulag Online, http://www.gulag.online/places/ novosibirsk?locale=en (retrieved 15 August 2020). On the sharashka system see Viktoriya Sukovata, ‘Scientific Freedom during Stalinism: Creativity in Sharashka’, in Ralf Roth und Aslı Vatansver, eds., Scientific Freedom under Attack. Political Oppression, Structural Challenges, and Intellectual Resistance in Modern and Contemporary History (New York and Frankfurt 2020), 55–74. On the Gulag system in general see Anne Applebaum, Der Gulag (Berlin 2003), Steven A. Barnes, Death and Redemption. The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society (Princeton et al. 2011), and Ralf Stettner, ‘Archipel GULag’. Stalins Zwangslager – Terrorinstrument und Wirtschaftsgigant. Entstehung, Organisation und Funktion des sowjetischen Lagersystems 1928–1956 (Paderborn et al. 1996). 40 Further readings for the history of Sibiria and its development in twentieth century see W. Bruce Lincoln, Die Eroberung Sibiriens (Munich 1996), Eva-Maria Stolberg, ed., Sibirische Völker. Transkulturelle Beziehungen und Identitäten in Nordasien (Münster 2007), Eva-Maria Stolberg, Sibirien: Russlands ‘Wilder Osten’. Mythos und soziale Realität im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 2009), and Ludmila Thomas, Geschichte Sibiriens. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin 1982). 41 See Art. Great Indian Peninsula Railway, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ Indian_Peninsula_Railway#/media/Datei:Tanna_Railway_Viaduct.jpg (retrieved 18. July 2020). 42 See articles about the Great Indian Peninsula Railway in London Standard of 19 November 1845, and Morning Post of 1 July 1845. 43 “The produce of the capital is mostly eaten up by their own countrymen, and, after that, they carry away the rest in the shape of profits and dividends (…) The guaranteed railways not only ate up every thing (sic) in this manner, but compelled India to make up the guaranteed interest also from her produce”. Mahatma Ghandi quoted from Yogendra Pal Anand, Mahatma Ghandi and The Railways (Ahmedabad 2002), 23–36, here 29.

98  Ralf Roth 44 Ralf Roth, ‘Die Eisenbahnen der Welt – formten sie wirklich ein world wide web?’, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 12, 2, 2011, 77–106. 45 See Jeffrey Richards and John M. Mackenzie, The Railway Station: A Social History (Oxford 1986), Mihály Kubinszky, Bahnhöfe Europas. Ihre Geschichte, Kunst und Technik. New edition (Stuttgart 1982), Carroll L. V. Meeks, The Railroad Station: An Architectural History (New Haven 1956). 46 See art. Bahnhöfe und Haltepunkte in Frankfurt, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Liste_der_Bahnhöfe_und_Haltepunkte_von_Frankfurt_am_Main#/media/ Datei: Frankfurt_hbf_01.jpg (retrieved 8 July 2020). 47 “Es gilt, Einzigartiges zu schaffen, gewissermaassen einen Typus festzustellen für einen Centralbahnhof, der durch seine mächtigen Dimensionen … die ausgeführten Bahnhofsgebäude übertreffen soll”. ‘Concurrenz für den Centralbahnhof zu Frankfurt am Main’, Wochenblatt für Architekten und Ingenieure, 1881, 69f. and 80ff. See also Ralf Roth, ‘Interactions between Railways and Cities in Germany – Some examples’, in Ralf Roth and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003), 3–28, here 8, and Heinz Schomann, Der Frankfurter Hauptbahnhof. 150 Jahre Eisenbahngeschichte und Stadtentwicklung (1838–1988) (Stuttgart 1988), 125–135. On the role of Frankfurt’s main station for art history see Meeks, The Railroad Station, 113ff. 48 See Eugène Hénard, Weltausstellung 1889. Der Maschinenpalast. Translated and commentated by Chup Friemert and Susanne Weiß (Hamburg 2009). 49 Roth, Herrschaft, 434–456, or Roth, Das Jahrhundert, 161–164. 50 On the Leipzig railway station see Josef Gaugusch, ‘Der Leipziger Hauptbahnhof’, Der Bautechniker, 33, Nr. 25 and 26, 1913, 557ff. and 581ff. Online available at: http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?apm=0&aid=bau& datum=19130000&page=609 (retrieved 16 August 2020). On railways in war see Ralf Roth, ‘On the Way to War: The Role of German Railways in Military Strategic Planning, 1830 to 1914’, in Andreas Giuntini and Paul Veron, eds., Railways and First World War (London and New York 2023, forthcoming) 51 See art. Maschinenhalle, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschinen-halle_Paris#/ media/Datei:Interior_of_exhibition_building,_Exposition_Universal,_Paris,_ France.jpg (retrieved 8 July 2020). 52 See art. Hauptbahnhof Frankfurt, https://de.Wikipedia.org/ wiki/Frankfurt_ (Main)_Hauptbahnhof#/media/Datei:Hauptbahnhof_Frankfurt.jpg (retrieved 19 July 2020). 53 See Art. Stuttgart 21, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 retrieved 16 August 2020), and official website of the project: Bahnprojekt Stuttgart-Ulm, https://www.bahnprojekt-stuttgart-ulm.de/aktuell/ (retrieved 16 August 2020). 54 See contribution on Juchtenkäfer at the website of the Bund für Umwalt und Natur (BUND), https://www.bund-bawue.de/themen/tiere-pflanzen/artenschutz/ juchtenkaefer/ (retrieved 21 August 2020). 55 See on this topic Ralf Roth, ‘Wirtschaftliche, politische und kulturelle Implikationen der Eisenbahn im deutsch-skandinavischen Raum – 1870 bis 1914’, in Monika Burri, Kilian T. Elsasser, and David Gugerli, eds., Die Internationalität der Eisenbahn 1850–1970 (Zürich 2003), 130–148. About Strousberg and his role in the German railway network see Roth, Das Jahrhundert, 114–130, and Ralf Roth, ‘Difficulties of International Railway Investments in Germany. The Example of the Railway King Bethel Henry Strousberg, 1855–1875’, in Ralf Roth and Günter Dinhobl, eds., Across the Borders – Financing the World’s Railways in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Aldershot 2008), 33–47. 56 See Ralf Roth, ‘Strousberg-Affäre’, in Wolfgang Benz, ed., Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Judenfeindschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Band 4: Ereignisse, Dekrete, Kontroversen (Berlin 2011), 402–405.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  99 57 See Friedrich Hitzig, Architektonisches Skizzenbuch, H. 159/6 (Berlin 1879), pagina 1. 58 See Art. Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Berlin_Hamburger_Bahnhof_um_1850.jpg#mw-jump-to-license (retrieved 10 August 2020). 59 Stiftung Deutsches Technikmuseum, Sammlungskonzept (Berlin 2019), 15. 60 See the website of the museum: Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/hamburger-bahnhof/ about-us/profile/ (retrieved 17 August 2020). 61 See art. Iași railway station, https://en.wiki-pedia.org/wiki/Iași_railway_station#/ media/File:La_Gare_de_Jassy.jpg (retrieved 22 July 2020). 62 See art. Ghandi and railways, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/ 7/7e/Crowd_greets_Gandhi_as_he_exits_a_train_at_a_station.jpg (retrieved 4 August 2020). 63 On the role of Gandhi for the political use of railways see his brochure Mahatma Gandhi, Third Class in Indian Railways (Bhadarkali-Lahore 1917). 64 See art. Haydarpaşa, https://fr.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Gare_de_Haydarpa_İa#/ media/Fichier: Haydarpaşa_İstanbul_(12966 897554).jpg (retrieved 23 July 2020). 65 Art. Haydarpaşa railway station, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haydarpaşa_ railway_station (retrieved 22 July 2020). 66 Roth, ‘On the Way to War’. 67 See Schomann, Der Frankfurter Hauptbahnhof, 46ff., and Roth, Herrschaft, 449 and 516. 68 See art. Schinenverkehr in Mexiko, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenverkehr_ in_Mexiko#/media/Datei: Estacion_de_Ferrocarril_Atequiza_Mexico.JPG (retrieved 26 July 2020). 69 Newhouse, ibid. 125, and Gedanken über Eisenbahnen, deren Wesen und Wirkung; dann Grundsätze bei Anlage und Benützung derselben. Ein Taschenbuch für gebildete Eisenbahn-Freunde (Vienna 1843), 35 and 37. 70 ‘Längs den Eisenbahnzügen, schrieben sie, werden wie die langen Arme von sich streckend, die Städte sich mit neuen Ansiedlungen umgeben.’ Gedanken über Eisenbahnen, 45. 71 Newhouse, Vorschlag, 126, Hansemann, Eisenbahnen, 132, and Gedanken über Eisenbahnen, 46. 72 See Statistisches Amt der Stadt Berlin, ed., Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin für das Jahr 1872 (Berlin 1873), 249, and Statistisches Amt der Stadt Berlin, ed., Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin für das Jahr 1874 (Berlin 1875), 231. On house building in Berlin see Christoph Bernhardt, Bauplatz Groß-Berlin. Wohnungsmärkte, Terraingewerbe und Kommunalpolitik im Städtewachstum der Hochindustrialisierung (1871–1918) (Berlin and New York 1998), 72ff. 73 On the background see Dieter Radicke, ‘Planung und Grundeigentum’, in Jochen Boberg et al., eds., Exerzierfeld der Moderne. Industriekultur in Berlin im 19. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Munich 1984), vol. 1, 182–189, here 184. On the role of social reformers see Thomas Wolfes, Die Villenkolonie Lichterfeld. Zur Geschichte eines Berliner Vorortes (1865–1920) (Berlin 1997), 21f. On the studies Schwabe made on English railways see Schwabe, Eisenbahnwesen, 1–30. 74 On the social background see Dieter Radicke, ‘Öffentlicher Nahverkehr und Stadterweiterung. Die Anfänge einer Entwicklung beobachtet am Beispiel von Berlin zwischen 1850 und 1875’, in Gerhard Fehl and Juan Rodriguez-Lores, eds., Stadterweiterungen 1800–1875. Von den Anfängen des modernen Städtebaues in Deutschland (Hamburg 1983), 345–357, here 350, and Die Berliner Stadtbahn. Linie – Bau – Betrieb. Von einem Techniker (Berlin 1883), 26.

100  Ralf Roth 75 Petition of the magistrate from 23 October 1871, in Hermann Schwabe, Berliner Südwestbahn und Centralbahn. Beleuchtet vom Standpunkt der Wohnungsfrage und der industriellen Gesellschaft (Berlin 1873), 7ff. See also Berlin und seinen Bahnen, vol. 2, 76–77. 76 Originally Schwabe wrote: mit “allen Annehmlichkeiten des Landlebens und den unvergleichlichen Freuden der Mutter Natur”, Schwabe, Südwestbahn, 7, 16–17, 36–37. and 50. See also Ernst Engel, ‘Die Wohnungsnoth. Ein Vortrag auf der Eisenacher Conferenz am 6.10.1872’, in Zeitschrift des Königlich Preußischen Statistischen Bureaus, 12, 1872, 392–394, here 392, and Horst Henning Siewert, Die Bedeutung der Stadtbahn für die Berliner Stadtentwicklung im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1978), 79. 77 On the construction of the City Railway see Die Berliner Stadtbahn, 2–62, and Berlin und seine Eisenbahnen, vol. 1, 304–341. On the impact of the Ring and City Railway of Berlin see Werner Hegemann, Das steinerne Berlin. Geschichte der grössten Mietkasernenstadt der Welt (Berlin 1930), 2, and Karl Scheffler, Wandlungen einer Stadt (Berlin 1931), 24ff. On the background see Bernhardt, Bauplatz, 33, 43–44, 51–55. and 135–137. On mass house building see Fritz Neumeyer, ‘Massenwohnungsbau’, in Jochen Boberg et al., eds., Exerzierfeld der Moderne. Industriekultur in Berlin im 19. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Munich 1984), vol. 1, 224–231, and Dieter O. Müller, Verkehrs- und Wohnstruktur in Groß-Berlin 1880–1980. Geographische Untersuchungen ausgewählter Schlüsselgebiete beiderseits der Ringbahn (Berlin 1978), 87–88. On the ridership of the City, Ring and commuter trains see Giese, Schnellbahnnetz, 32 and 235–242, and Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 107. On the Ring Railway see Architekten-Verein zu Berlin, ed., Berlin und seine Bauten. 2 vols. (Berlin 1877), 96–100. Online available at: https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/image/16337858/5/ (retrieved 29 August 2020). On the move of citizens and factories to the periphery see Ingrid Thienel, ‘Verstädterung, städtische Infrastruktur und Stadtplanung. Berlin zwischen 1850 und 1914’, Zeitschrift für Stadtgeschichte, Stadtsoziologie und Denkmalpflege, 4, 1977, 55–84, here 59–68; Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 499–503, and Bernhardt, Bauplatz, 19–22. 78 See Haruya Hirooka, ‘Evolution of Urban Railways. The Development of Tokyo’s Rail Network’, Japan Railway and Transport Review, 23, 2000, 22–30, here 29, online: https://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr23/F22_Hirooka.html (retrieved 2 August 2020). 79 Tomoko Kubo, Divided Tokyo: Housing Policy, the Ideology of Homeownership, and the Growing Contrast between the City Center and the Suburbs (Singapore 2020). 80 See Tokyo Metropolitan Area and its Transport Network. East Japan Railway Culture Foundation. Taken from Hirooka, ‘The Development of Tokyo’s Rail Network’, 23. 81 Schwabe wrote: “mit allen Annehmlichkeiten des Landlebens und den unvergleichlichen Freuden der Mutter Natur”, Schwabe, Südwestbahn, 7, 16–17, 36–37 and 50. 82 See Patrick Abercrombie, Greater London Plan (London 1944). For its context see The Museum of Architecture et al., eds., City Visions 1910/2010. Urban Planning in Berlin, London, Paris and Chicago 1910 and 2010 (Berlin 2010). See also the presentation of Saajan Sharma, Patrick Abercrombie. Greater London Plan and The County of London Plan, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282815561_ London_1944_Greater_London_Plan, and the Art. Greater London Plan, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Plan (both retrieved 5 August 2020). 83 Raffaele Pernice, ‘The Transformation of Tokyo during the 1950s and Early 1960s. Projects between City Planning and Urban Utopia’, Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 5, 2, November 2006, 253–260, here 257.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  101 84 Michael Hebbert, ‘Senbiki admist Desakota: Urban Sprawl and Urban Planning in Japan’, in Philipp Shapira, Ian Masser, and David Edgington, Planning for Cities and Regions in Japan (Liverpool 1992), 70–91, here 72. 85 Pernice, ‘The Transformation of Tokyo’, 257. The specific cause of the failure of the Tokyo belt was the formation of a political league between sixteen municipalities and several hundred farmers to frustrate the plan. In Koganei city, farmers prematurely subdivided and sold plots to prevent designation. The small landowners had a powerful ally in the form of Japan Housing Corporation, owner and intending developer of large tracts of land in the heart of the proposed [green] belt. Quoted in Philip Shapira, Ian Masser, and David Edgington, eds., Planning for Cities and Regions in Japan (Liverpool 1992), 73 86 See art. Tama Toshi Monorail Line, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/9/94/TamaToshiMonorail6061.jpg (retrieved 22 August 2020). 87 Article of Nobuhiro Yanagihara in this volume. 88 Le Rappel of 16 April 1896. In general see Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 240–244. 89 See ‘Die Berliner Stadtbahn. Ihre Entwicklung in den Jahren 1887/88 bis 1891/92 nach amtlichen Quellen’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 16, 1893, 17–91, ‘Die Berliner Stadtbahn. Ihre Entwicklung in den Jahren 1892/93 bis 1895/96 nach amtlichen Quellen’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 20, 1897, 684–767, and Ministers der öffentlichen Arbeiten, ed., Berlin und seine Eisenbahnen 1846–1896. 2 vols. (Berlin 1896), vol. 2, 191. 90 See Theo C. Barker and Michael Robbins, A History of London Transport. Passenger Travel and the Development of the Metropolis, 2 vols. (London 1963–1975), vol. 1, 25, 61, and 91–98; Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 81–90, and Christine Kalb, Weltausstellung im Wandel der Zeit und ihre infrastrukturellen Auswirkungen auf Stadt und Region (Frankfurt am Main et al. 1994), 19. See also Ministers der öffentlichen Arbeiten, Berlin und seine Eisenbahnen, vol. 2, 74. 91 A drawing of a broad-gauge GWR Metropolitan class locomotive as used on the underground Metropolitan Railway from 1863 to 1869. See art. London underground, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#/media/ File:GWR_broad_gauge_Metropolitan_Class.jpg (retrieved 17 August 2020). 92 See art. History of rapid transit, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/c/c8/Constructing_the_Metropolitan_Railway.png (retrieved 17 August 2020). 93 See Kellett, Railways, 2ff. For the role of railways in London see Jack Simmons, The Victorian Railway (London 1993), 29–100. On the impression the London stations made on German visitors see Hermann Schwabe, Über das englische Eisenbahnwesen. Reise-Studien (Vienna 1877), 11–30. 94 Figures included in Barker and Robbins, Transport, vol. 1, 139 and 165, and vol. 2, 154 and 163. See also Eduard Frank, Der Betrieb auf den englischen Bahnen (Vienna et al. 1886), 7 u. 38. On the role of railways in London see R. H. G. Thomas, London’s First Railway – The London and Greenwich (London 1972). On the history of the underground railways see Charles Edward Lee, The District line (London 1973), Charles Edward Lee, The Metropolitan line (London 1973), John R. Day and John Reed, The Story of London’s Underground, 11th ed. (Crowthorne 2010, 1st ed. 1963), 8, 14 and 18–24, and Bill Simpson, A History of the Metropolitan Railway. 2 vols. (Oxon 2003). 95 On the development of the bus companies and trams see Barker and Robbins, Transport, vol. 1, 25–98 and 178–197. See also M. L. Moore, A Century’s Extension of Passenger Transport Facilities (1830–1930) within the London Transport Board’s Area and Its Relation to Population Spread, Ph.D. (London 1948), 71–73.

102  Ralf Roth 96 On the development of omnibus companies in London, Paris, and Berlin see Ralf Roth, ‘Die Finanzierung der Verkehrssysteme in europäischen Hauptstädten: London, Paris und Berlin’, in Wolfgang Ribbe, ed., Hauptstadtfinanzierung in Deutschland. Von der Reichsgündung bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin-Forschungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin, vol. 4 (Berlin 2004), 263–287, and Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 84 and 134–137. 97 On omnibus companies in Berlin see Erich Giese, Das zukünftige Schnellbahnnetz für Groß-Berlin (Berlin 1919), 42–48, Richard Petersen, Personenverkehr und Schnellbahnprojekte in Berlin (Berlin 1907), 4, Architekten-Verein zu Berlin and Vereinigung Berliner Architekten, eds., Berlin und seine Bauten, 3 vols. (Berlin 1896) vol. 1, lxxvii, lxxx, lxxxiv, lxxxvi, and Dieter Radicke, ‘Die Entwicklung des öffentlichen Personennahverkehrs in Berlin bis zur Gründung der BVG’, in Berlin und seine Bauten, part X, vol. 3 (Berlin et al. 1979), 1–14. On tramways in Berlin see Giese, ibid., 47–52, and Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 104–110, 377 and 384. 98 On the environmental issues at this time see Arne Andersen and Franz-Josef Brüggemeier, ‘Gase, Rauch und saurer Regen’, in Franz Josef Brüggemeier and Thomas Rommelspacher, eds., Besiegte Natur. Geschichte der Umwelt im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich 1987, 64–85; Franz-Josef Brüggemeier, Das unendliche Meer der Lüfte (Essen 1996); Klaus Saul, ‘Wider die “Lärmpest”. Lärmkritik und Lärmbekämpfung in Deutschland’, in Dittmar Machule et al., eds., Macht Stadt krank? (Hamburg 1996), 151–192, and Ilja Mieck, ‘Berliner Umweltprobleme im 19. Jahrhundert’, in I. Lamprecht, ed., Umweltprobleme einer Großstadt (Berlin 1990), 1–26. 99 Otto von Bismarck, quoted in Peter G. Kliem and Klaus Noack, Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof (Frankfurt am Main 1984), 23. On the traffic problems of Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin see Peter Bley, 150 Jahre Berlin-Anhaltische Eisenbahn (Düsseldorf 1990), 51, and Helmut Maier, Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof (Berlin 1984), 55. 100 See Julius Derikartz, Die Entwicklung der Eisenbahnanlagen im rheinischwestfälischen Industriegebiet (without place of publication 1952), 1. See also Reif, Stadt, 92–100 and 172–175, and Franz Sander, Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Eisenbahnen des Ruhrgebietes und ihre Beziehungen zum Wirtschaftsleben der westlichen (rheinischen) Ruhrstädte, Ph.D. (Cologne 1932), 30. 101 See Roth, ‘Interactions between Railways and Cities’, 27. On the reconstruction of the rail network in Oberhausen see Reif, Stadt, 94. On the discussion of a speed train through the Ruhr region see Sander, Entwicklung, 94–111, and Derikartz, Entwicklung, 34–42 and attachment 10. On the City Beautiful Movement see William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore 1989). 102 World’s Columbian Exposition, https://www.britannica.com/topic/City-Beautifulmovement#/media/1/119016/188928 (retrieved 10 August 2020). 103 On the history of horse tramways see in general see above all Robert Peschkes, World Gazetteer of Tram, Trolleybus, and Rapid Transit Systems. 4 vols. (Exeter, London, and New York 1980–1998), and Frank Rowsome and Stephan McGuire, eds., A Trolley Car Treasury: A Century of American Streetcars—Horsecars, Cable Cars, Interurbans, and Trolleys (New York 1956). For further reading also very valuable Chas S. Dunbar, Buses, Trolleys & Trams (London 1967), William D. Middleton, The Time of the Trolley (Milwaukee, WI 1967), and Christos N. Pyrgidis, Railway Transportation Systems: Design, Construction and Operation (Boca Raton, FL 2016). 104 On the background see Ralf Roth, Stadt und Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main. Ein besonderer Weg von der ständischen zur modernen Bürgergesellschaft 1760 bis 1914 (Munich 1996), 392ff. 105 Art. War of the Currents, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents (18 August 2020).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  103 106 Art. International Electrotechnical Exhibition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ International_Electrotechnical_Exhibition#/media/File:Lauffen-Frankfurt_ 1891d.jpg (retrieved 18 August 2020). 107 On the importance of this exhibition see Jürgen Steen, Die zweite industrielle Revolution. Frankfurt und die Elektrizität 1800–1914 (Frankfurt am Main 1981), and Roth, Stadt und Bürgertum, 555–565. 108 Art. International Electrotechnical Exhibition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ International_Electrotechnical_Exhibition, retrieved 18 August 2020. One of the consequences of the exhibition was a communal power plant and the introduction of one of the first tramway lines in Germany, from Frankfurt to the neighbouring city of Offenbach. For further reading see Jürgen Steen, ed., ‘Eine neue Zeit ..!’, Die Internationale Elektrotechnische Ausstellung 1891 (Frankfurt am Main 1991), Horst A. Wessel, ed., Moderne Energie für eine neue Zeit (Berlin and Offenbach 1991), and Volker Rödel, Fabrikarchitektur in Frankfurt am Main 1774–1924 (Frankfurt am Main 1986), 30–31. 109 Art. Gustav Herold, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/ 2014_Gustav_Herold_-_Atlas_Skulptur_nach_Restaurie-rung.jpg (Foto Oskar Mahler, both retrieved 25 July 2020). 110 See Jürgen Steen, Die zweite industrielle Revolution. Frankfurt und die Elektrizität 1800–1914 (Frankfurt am Main 1981). 111 See Art. Streetcars in North America, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_ in_North_America#/media/File:Montgomery_birds_eye_view_postcard.jpg (retrieved 18 August 2020). 112 See Frank Rowsome, The Birth of Electric Traction: The Extraordinary Life of Inventor Frank J. Sprague. Ed. b. the IEEE History Center (self published 2014), and Frederick Dalzell, Engineering Invention: Frank J. Sprague and the U.S. Electrical Industry (Cambridge, MA 2009). 113 City planers enthusiastircally wrote: It was “ein der Eigenart der Stadtverhältnisse sich anpassendes und mit ihr verwachsendes Element der Neuzeit”. Paul Wittig, Die Weltstädte und der elektrische Schnellverkehr. Nach dem Vortrag im Berliner Architektenverein am 13. März 1909 (Berlin 1909), 6–7. 114 On the discussion on electric tramways see Pyrgidis, Railway Transportation Systems, Middleton, The Time of the Trolley, and Charles W. Cheape, Moving the Masses. Urban Public Transit in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, 1880– 1912 (Cambridge, MA 1980). On the development and distribution of tramways see Massimo Guarnieri, ‘Electric tramways of the 19th century’, IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 14, 1, 2020, 71–77, and David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940 (Cambridge, MA 1990). On the discussion in Europe and the obstacles to a rapid introduction of tramways in Europe see John P. McKay, Tramways and Trolleys. The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe (Princeton, NJ 1976), and Wolfgang König, ‘Massenproduktion und Technikkonsum. Entwicklungslinien und Triebkräfte der Technik zwischen 1880 und 1914’, in Wolfgang König and Wolfhard Weber, eds., Netzwerke, Stahl und Strom. 1840–1914 (Berlin 1990), 263–552. For Japan see Alisa Freedman, Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (Palo Alto, CA 2010). On the distribution of tramways in Germany see Karl Heinrich Kaufhold, ‘Strassenbahnen im Deutschen Reich vor 1914. Wachstum, Verkehrsleistung, wirtschaftliche Verhältnisse’, in Dietmar Petzina and Jürgen Reulecke, eds., Bevölkerung, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft seit der Industrialisierung (Dortmund 1990), 219–237. For Frankfurt see Jörg R. Köhler, Städtebau und Stadtpolitik im Wilhelminischen Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main 1995), 117–119, 173–175, 235–238, 243, 250 and 266. 115 See Giese, Schnellbahnnetz, 37.

104  Ralf Roth 116 See Giese, Schnellbahnnetz, 12. Figures see ibid., 38–39 and 57–60. On the disadvantages of tramways see Michael Erbe, ‘Probleme der Berliner Verkehrsplanung und Verkehrserschließung seit 1871’, in Dietrich Kurze, ed., Aus Theorie und Praxis der Geschichtswissenschaft (Berlin and New York 1972), 209–235, here 215; Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 112, 353–360 and 519, and Gustav Kemman, ‘Schnellverkehr in Städten, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von London und Newyork’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 16, 1893, 263–283 and 449–471, here 272. 117 See Sabine Bohle-Heintzenberg, Architektur der Berliner Hoch- und Untergrundbahn. Planungen, Entwürfe, Bauten bis 1920 (Berlin 1980), 11, and Bley, 150 Jahre, 61 u. 99. 118 Jack Simmons and Gordon Biddle, The Oxford Companion to British Railway History (Oxford 1997). See also Art. Elevated railway, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Elevated_railway (retrieved 18 August 2020). 119 Greg Borzo, The Chicago “L” (Chicago 2007), 23 and 43. See Brian J. Cudahy, Destination Loop: The Story of Rapid Transit Railroading in and around Chicago (Brattleboro, VT 1982). 120 Bericht über eine Reise nach Nordamerika und zur Columbianischen Weltausstellung in Chicago vom 30. Mai bis 5. August 1893 (Munich 1896), 161. 121 Giese, Schnellbahnnetz, 79. 122 Art. Tram, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram#Electric (retrieved 18 August 2020). 123 See Julius Kollmann, ‘Der Großstadt-Verkehr. Modernes Verkehrswesen der Großstädte’, Moderne Zeitfragen, 3, 1905, 3–44, here 10; Barker and Robbins, Transport, vol. 2, 40–45, 79–81, 102–105, 109–110, 137–140 and 164–170, and Jack R. Simmons, ‘The Pattern of Tube Railways in London’, Journal of Transport History, 7, 1965/1966, 234–240, 234–240. Figures taken from Barker and Robbins, Transport, vol. 1, 134, 154 u. 163. 124 See Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 134 u. 178, and René Londiche, Les transports en commun à la surface dans la région parisienne (Paris 1929), 45. On the construction of the Métro see Bendikat, ibid., 97–99, 152–155, 182, and 301–303, and Ludwig Troste, Die Pariser Stadtbahn. Ihre Geschichte, Linienführung, Bau-, Betriebs- und Verkehrsverhältnisse (Berlin 1905). On the reason why Berlin changed from an elevated train system to an underground train see Kemman, Schnellverkehr, 466f. On the efforts of Siemens to defend his elevated train system see Bohle-Heintzenberg, Architektur, 12–19, and Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 112ff. On the reservations of the state administration about a network of electrical high-speed trains see Karl Remy, Die Elektrisierung der Berliner Stadt-, Ring- und Vorortbahnen als Wirtschaftsproblem (Berlin 1931), 17–63, and Bohle-Heintzenberg, Architektur, 33. 125 U-Bahnhof Nollendorfplatz, Blick zum Tunnel Richtung Wittenbergplatz, http:// www.dewiki/85/U_Nollendorfplatz_Richtung_Wittenbergplatz.jpg (retrieved 10 August 2020). 126 Paul Wittig, director of the Hochbahngesellschaft of Siemens, paid tribute to this enforcement and mentioned in his study a similar case of Philadelphia, where an elevated train changed to an underground system. See Wittig, Weltstädte, 56. 127 “Von den Störungen des Straßenverkehrs losgelöst, der Straßenbahn an ­Schnelligkeit, den Dampfbahnen durch größere Anpassung an die Gestaltung des Stadtbildes und an die Ansprüche der Bevölkerung überlegen, hat sich die elektrische Schnellbahn zu einem unentbehrlichen Verkehrsmittel der Großstädte entwickelt”. Wittig, Weltstädte, 7. 128 See Giese, Schnellbahnnetz, 12. 129 Gustav Schimpff, ‘Wirtschaftliche Betrachtungen über Stadt- und Vorortbahnen’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 35, 1912, 597–643, 849–873, 1167–1201, 1456– 1482, and Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 36, 1913, 20–53, 383–416, 597.

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  105 130 On criticism of this concept see Schnellbahnnetz, 212. On his proposal see ibid., attachment, plate 15. 131 Robert Wentzel, Die Schnellbahn Moabit-Treptow unter Berücksichtigung der besonderen Aufgaben des Vorort- und Stadtverkehrs (Berlin 1919), 6. 132 See Bernhardt, Bauplatz, 267–269, and Kollmann, Großstadt-Verkehr, 17. 133 See Bendikat, Nahverkehrspolitik, 460, and Bernhardt, Bauplatz, 145, 155–157 and 272. 134 See Ralf Roth and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Aldershot 2015). 135 In the twentieth century we find increases in the railway networks in eastern Europe and in Asian countries such as India or China. See Ralf Roth, ‘The World’s Railways. Did they really form a world network?’ Paper for the session “We Move You All, We Move Everything – the World’s Transportation Networks – How They Work and How They Develop” at the Eighth International Conference on the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M): Transportation as a Lifeline of Development, New Delhi, India, December 2–5, 2010, and Roth, ‘Die Eisenbahnen der Welt’, 77–106. 136 On the whole problem of the change from transport system based on rails to such one based on streets see Roth and Divall, From Rail to Road. See also Mathieu Flonneau, L’Automobile à la conquête de Paris, 1910–1977. Formes urbaines, champs politiques et représentations, 3 vols., Ph.D. thesis (Université de Paris I 2002). 137 See Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (New York 1961), 509–512. 138 See Roth, Introduction, Roth and Divall, From Rail to Road, xxxiii–xliv. 139 See Winfried Wolf, Eisenbahn und Autowahn. Personen und Gütertransport auf Schiene und Straße (Hamburg 1986); Peter M. Bode, Sylvia Hamberger, and Wolfgang Zängl, Alptraum Auto. Eine hundertjährige Erfindung und ihre Folgen (Munich 1986), and Till Bastian and Harald Theml, Unsere wahnsinnige Liebe zum Auto (Weinheim 1990). 140 See Weert Canzler and Andreas Knie, Das Ende des Automobils: Fakten und Trends zum Umbau der Autogesellschaft (Perfect Paperback 1994). 141 See Klaus J. Bade, Europa in Bewegung. Migration vom späten 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Munich 2000), 378–382. In Germany conurbation increased significantly in the last decade and its six city-regions could develop to metropolises in a relatively short period of time. See Saskia Sassen, Metropolen des Weltmarkts. Die neue Rolle der Global Cities (Frankfurt am Main 1997), 63–65. 142 See Peter Hall and Ulrich Pfeiffer, Urban 21. Der Expertenbericht zur Zukunft der Städte (Stuttgart 2000), 12. 143 Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, ed., State of World Population 2007. Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth (New York 2007), 7. 144 Ibid., 7. 145 Ibid., 1. 146 Ibid., 1. 147 Ibid., 76. 148 Hans-Reiner Müller-Raemisch, Frankfurt am Main. Stadtentwicklung und Planungsgeschichte seit 1945 (Frankfurt am Main and New York 1998), 98. 149 On the Turin Alwegbahn see Massimo Moraglio, ‘Rails in a Car Kingdom: Competition, Changes and Continuity in Urban Mobility – the Case of Turin, 1914–73’, in Ralf Roth and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015), 355–372. 150 Alwegbahn is the name of a monorail speed train developed in Hamburg that dated back to the 1940s. With financial support of the Swedish millionaire Axel

106  Ralf Roth Lennart Wenner-Gren the initiators achieved the construction of a test line in a suburb of Cologne. 151 See art. Alwegbahn, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alwegbahn#/media/Datei: Torino_monorotaia_Italia_61.jpg (retrieved 20 August 2020). 152 See art. Alwegbahn, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/ FFM-ALWEG.png (retrieved 20 August 2020). 153 On the Alwegbahn see art. Alwegbahn, http://www.alweg.com/alwegcologne/ alwegtorino1961.html (retrieved on 24 February 2014). 154 See Müller-Raemisch, Frankfurt am Main, 98, and U-Straßenbahn, http:// de.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Straßenenbahn#Frankfurt_am_Main (last accessed on 10 February 2014). 155 See Müller-Raemisch, Frankfurt am Main, 105–108. 156 Ibid., 105. On the further development of public rail transport in Frankfurt see Geschichtliche Entwicklung des Frankfurter Nahverkehrs, http://www.trampage. de/geschichte_p214.html (last accessed on 4 March 2014). On the history of Frankfurts street cars see Horst Michelke and Claude Jeanmaire, 100 Jahre Frankfurter Straßenbahnen: 1872–1899–1972 (Brugg, Switzerland 1972) and Anton Wiedenbauer and Hans-Jürgen Hoyer, Fahrt in die Zukunft – Die Geschichte der Frankfurter Straßenbahn (Frankfurt am Main 1968). On the U-train system and urban transport in general see Jens Krakies and Frank Nagel, Stadtbahn Frankfurt am Main: Eine Dokumentation, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main 1989), Thomas Hanna-Daoud, ed., Nahverkehr in Frankfurt. Trambahn, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, Omnibus, Eisenbahn. Strassenbahn-Nahverkehr special. Nr. 7 (Munich 2000), and Stadt Frankfurt am Main, ed., Gesamtverkehrsplan Frankfurt am Main, Ergebnisbericht 2004. Studie im Auftrag des Stadtplanungsamts zur zukünftigen Entwicklung Frankfurter Verkehrsnetze (Frankfurt am Main 2004). 157 Müller-Raemisch, Frankfurt am Main, 105. 158 Ibid., 102–103. 159 On the case of Frankfurt and the rivalry between the city and its neighbouring city of Offenbach about access to labourers in the surrounding region see Roth, Das Jahrhundert, 164–170. 160 See art. Geschichte der Hamburger U-Bahn, https://dewiki.de/Media/Datei: U-Bahn_Bau_an_der_Wandsbeker_Marktstrasse_(1961)_2c.jpg (retrieved 24 August 2020. 161 Die Entstehung der Hamburger Hochbahn AG, darin: Die Ansprache des Bürgermeisters Dr. Johann Heinrich Burchard am 15. February 1912, https://fredriks. de/hvv/hhamix01.php#Burchard (retrieved 24 August 2020). There exists a lot of literature about Hamburg’s urban rails; see for example Ralf Heinsohn, Schnellbahnen in Hamburg: Die Geschichte von S-Bahn und U-Bahn, 1907–2007 (Norderstedt 2006), and Ulrich Alexis Christiansen, Hamburgs dunkle Welten. Der geheimnisvolle Untergrund der Hansestadt (Hamburg 2008). See also older contributions, such as Stephan Benecke et al., Die Geschichte der Hamburger Hochbahn (Berlin 1999), and Erich Staisch, Hamburg und sein Stadtverkehr (Hamburg 1989). 162 See art. Hamburg U-Bahn, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_U-Bahn #Network_development (retrieved 24 August 2020). 163 Art. 1973 oil crisis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis (retrieved 24 August 2020). The article refers to following sources: Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab–Israeli Conflict (New York 2006), 329, ‘OPEC Oil Embargo 1973–1974’, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian of 6 March 2014, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969–1976/oil-embargo (retrieved 24 August 2020), and ‘The price of oil – in context’, CBC News of 18 April 2006, https:// web.archive.org/web/20070609145246/http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/oil/ (retrieved 24 August 2020). For further reading see David S. Painter, ‘Oil and

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  107 geopolitics: The oil crises of the 1970s and the cold war’, Historical Social Research/ Historische Sozialforschung, 2014, 186–208, online available at: https://www.ssoar. info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/40394/ssoar-hsr-2014-4-painter-Oil_and_ geopolitics_the_oil.pdf?sequence=1 (retrieved 24 August 2020). 164 Glenn Yago, The Decline of Transit. Urban Transportation in German and US Cities 1900–1970 (Cambridge 1984), 207–210. 165 See Complete Guide to North & South American Metro rail and Light Rail Systems, including Subways, Els, Peoplemovers, Subte networks, http://www. urbanrail.net/am/america.htm (last accessed on 3 July 2020). 166 See Yago, Decline of Transit, 213. Glenn Yago analysed this shift already in the 1980s and described how easily German, French, Swedish and Canadian cities were able to switch back to urban and regional rail systems in answer to increasing fuel prices. 167 JFS, ‘The Rebirth of Trams: The Promise of Light Railway Transit (LRT)’, Japan for Sustainability Newsletter. No. 64, December 2007, https://www.japanfs.org/ en/news/archives/news_id027840.html (retrieved 2 July 2020. 168 See Hyderabad Metro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_Metro#/media/ File:Raidurg_metro_station_one.jpg (retrieved 25 August 2020). 169 See art. Hyderabad Metro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_Metro (retrieved 25 August 2020). 170 Christoph Ruhkamp, ʻKein Auslaufmodell. Das Auto wahrt seine Dominanz im Personenverkehr fast ungeschmälertʼ, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 11 August 2010. 171 “Die großen Städte in aufstrebenden Ländern wie Brasilien und China wachsen schnell. Die Regierungen investieren viel in Straßen und Schienen daran können auch Anleger verdienen. (…) Die Dimension der bevorstehenden Landflucht, Urbanisierung und Bevölkerungsexplosion in Asien und Lateinamerika ist atemberaubend. Insgesamt werden die Städte der Schwellenländer jede Woche um eine Million Menschen anschwellen – und all diese neuen Stadtbewohner brauchen Elektrizität, frisches Wasser und nutzbare Straßen, Zugverbindungen und in den großen Metropolen gar Untergrundbahn-Verbindungen. Die Ökonomen der Bank of America Merrill Lynch schätzen, dass die Regierungen der Schwellenländer allein in den kommenden drei Jahren 6 Billionen Dollar investieren werden, um die Infrastruktur ihrer Länder auf Vordermann zu bringen”. See ‘Jede Woche eine Million mehr Menschen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 18 September 2010. 172 See Andreas Predöhl, Verkehrspolitik (Göttingen 1958), 127 and 130. 173 Roth, Ralf, ‘Introduction: From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency’, in Ralf Roth and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015), 1–37. See also McKinsey and Company’s article, Reimagining the auto industry’s future: It’s now or never, https://www.mckinsey. com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/reimagining-the-autoindustrys-future-its-now-or-never, 27 October 2020 (retrieved 4 January 2021).

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114  Ralf Roth Roth, Ralf, ‘Die Eisenbahnen der Welt – formten sie wirklich ein world wide web?’, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 12, 2, 2011, 77–106. Roth, Ralf, ‘Die Finanzierung der Verkehrssysteme in europäischen Hauptstädten: London, Paris und Berlin’, in Wolfgang Ribbe, ed., Hauptstadtfinanzierung in Deutschland. Von der Reichsgündung bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin-Forschungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin, vol. 4 (Berlin 2004), 263–287. Roth, Ralf, Die Herrschaft über Raum und Zeit. Der Einfluß der Eisenbahn auf die deutsche Gesellschaft 1800 bis 1914. Habil, unpublished ms. (Frankfurt am Main 2003). Roth, Ralf, ‘Difficulties of International Railway Investments in Germany. The Example of the Railway King Bethel Henry Strousberg, 1855–1875’, in Ralf Roth and Günter Dinhobl, eds., Across the Borders – Financing the World’s Railways in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Aldershot 2008), 33–47. Roth, Ralf, ‘Interactions between Railways and Cities in Germany – Some examples’, in Ralf Roth and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003), 3–28. Roth, Ralf, ‘Introduction: From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency’, in Ralf Roth and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015), 1–37. Roth, Ralf, ‘Metropolenkommunikation: Einige Überlegungen zum Zusammenhang von Migrationsbewegungen und Ideentransfer am Beispiel von Berlin und Chicago im 19. Jahrhundert’, Rheinisch-westfälische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 46, 2001, 291–318. Roth, Ralf, ‘On the Way to War: The Role of German Railways in Military Strategic Planning, 1830 to 1914’, in Andreas Giuntini and Paul Veron, eds., Railways and First World War (London and New York 2023, forthcoming). Roth, Ralf, Stadt und Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main. Ein besonderer Weg von der ständischen zur modernen Bürgergesellschaft 1760 bis 1914 (Munich 1996). Roth, Ralf, ‘Strousberg-Affäre’, in Wolfgang Benz, ed., Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Judenfeindschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Band 4: Ereignisse, Dekrete, Kontroversen (Berlin 2011), 402–405. Roth, Ralf, ‘Transportkorridore zwischen Europa und dem Mittleren wie Fernen Osten: Große Visionen und ernüchternde Realität’, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 18, 2, 2017, 81–114. Roth, Ralf, ‘The World’s Railways. Did They Really Form a World Network?’ Paper for the Session “We Move You All, We Move Everything – the World’s Transportation Networks – How They Work and How They Develop” at the Eighth International Conference on the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M): Transportation as a Lifeline of Development, New Delhi, India, December 2–5, 2010. Roth, Ralf, ‘Wirtschaftliche, politische und kulturelle Implikationen der Eisenbahn im deutsch-skandinavischen Raum – 1870 bis 1914’, in Monika Burri, Kilian T. Elsasser, and David Gugerli, eds., Die Internationalität der Eisenbahn 1850–1970 (Zürich 2003), 130–148. Roth, Ralf, and Colin Divall, eds., From Rail to Road and Back Again? A Century of Transport Competition and Interdependency (Surrey 2015). Roth, Ralf, and Henry Jacolin, eds., Eastern European Railways in Transition, Nineteenth to Twenty-first Centuries (Surrey 2013).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  115 Roth, Ralf, and Henry Jacolin, eds., Rail Routes from the Baghdad Railway to the New Silk Road (19th to 21st Centuries) – Utopian Dreams, Past Achievements and Future Prospects for Rail Transport between Europe and the Middle and Far East (forthcoming 2024). Roth, Ralf, and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003). Rowsome, Frank, The Birth of Electric Traction: The Extraordinary Life of Inventor Frank J. Sprague. Ed. by the IEEE History Center (self published 2014). Rowsome, Frank, and Stephan McGuire, eds., A Trolley Car Treasury: A Century of American Streetcars—Horsecars, Cable Cars, Interurbans, and Trolleys (New York 1956). Sahi, Juha, ‘The Trans-Siberian Railway as a Corridor of Trade between Finland and Japan in the Midth of World Crises’, Journal of Transport History, 36, 1, 2015, 58–76. Sander, Franz, Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Eisenbahnen des Ruhrgebietes und ihre Beziehungen zum Wirtschaftsleben der westlichen (rheinischen) Ruhrstädte, Ph.D. (Cologne 1932). Sassen, Saskia, Metropolen des Weltmarkts. Die neue Rolle der Global Cities (Frankfurt am Main 1997). Saul, Klaus, ‘Wider die “Lärmpest”. Lärmkritik und Lärmbekämpfung in Deutschland’, in Dittmar Machule et al., eds., Macht Stadt krank? (Hamburg 1996), 151–192. Schaeffer Conroy, Mary, Peter Arkad’evich Stolypin: Practical Politics in Late Tsarist Russia (Boulder 1976). Scharrer, Johannes, Deutschlands erste Eisenbahn mit Dampfkraft oder Verhandlungen der Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in Nürnberg. Von ihrer Entstehung bis zur Vollendung der Bahn (Nuremberg 1836). Scheffler, Karl, Wandlungen einer Stadt (Berlin 1931). Schimpff, Gustav, ʻWirtschaftliche Betrachtungen über Stadt- und Vorortbahnenʼ, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 35, 1912, 597–643, 849–873, 1167–1201, 1456–1482, and 36, 1913, 20–53, 383–416. Schomann, Heinz, Denkmaltopographie Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen. Eisenbahn in Hessen. 3 vols. Ed. by Landesamt für ­Denkmalpflege Hessen (Stuttgart 2005). Schomann, Heinz, Der Frankfurter Hauptbahnhof. 150 Jahre Eisenbahngeschichte und Stadtentwicklung (1838–1988) (Stuttgart 1988). Schwabe, Hermann, Berliner Südwestbahn und Centralbahn. Beleuchtet vom Standpunkt der Wohnungsfrage und der industriellen Gesellschaft (Berlin 1873). Schwabe, Hermann, Über das englische Eisenbahnwesen. Reise-Studien (Vienna 1877). Shapira, Philip, Ian Masser, and David Edgington, eds., Planning for Cities and Regions in Japan (Liverpool 1992). Shelokhaev, Valentin V., ‘The Stolypin Variant of Russian Modernization’, Russian Social Science Review, 57, 5, 2016, 350–377. Siewert, Horst Henning, Die Bedeutung der Stadtbahn für die Berliner Stadtentwicklung im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1978). Simmons, Jack, ‘The Pattern of Tube Railways in London’, Journal of Transport History, 7, 1965/1966, 234–240. Simmons. Jack, The Railway in Town and Country, 1830–1914 (London 1986). Simmons, Jack, The Victorian Railway (London 1993). Simmons, Jack, and Gordon Biddle, The Oxford Companion to British Railway History (Oxford 1997).

116  Ralf Roth Simpson, Bill, A History of the Metropolitan Railway. 2 vols. (Oxon 2003). Slepven, Igor, ‘The Trans-Siberian Railway’, History Today, 46, 11, 1996, 37–39. Smith, Charles D., Palestine and the Arab–Israeli Conflict (New York 2006). Spiekermann, Klaus, ‘Visualisierung von Eisenbahnreisezeiten. Ein interaktives Computerprogramm’. Abschlussbericht des gleichnamigen Projekts für das Verkehrshaus in Luzern (Dortmund 1999). Stadt Frankfurt am Main, ed., Gesamtverkehrsplan Frankfurt am Main, ­Ergebnisbericht 2004. Studie im Auftrag des Stadtplanungsamts zur zukünftigen Entwicklung Frankfurter Verkehrsnetze (Frankfurt am Main 2004). ‘Die Berliner Stadtbahn. Ihre Entwicklung in den Jahren 1887/88 bis 1891/92 nach amtlichen Quellen’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 16, 1893, 17–91. ‘Die Berliner Stadtbahn. Ihre Entwicklung in den Jahren 1892/93 bis 1895/96 nach amtlichen Quellen’, Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 20, 1897, 684–767. Die Berliner Stadtbahn. Linie – Bau – Betrieb. Von einem Techniker (Berlin 1883). Staisch, Erich, Hamburg und sein Stadtverkehr (Hamburg 1989). Statistisches Amt der Stadt Berlin, ed., Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin für das Jahr 1872 (Berlin 1873). Statistisches Amt der Stadt Berlin, ed., Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin für das Jahr 1874 (Berlin 1875). Steen, Jürgen, Die zweite industrielle Revolution. Frankfurt und die Elektrizität 1800–1914 (Frankfurt am Main 1981). Steen, Jürgen, ed., ‘Eine neue Zeit..!’, Die Internationale Elektrotechnische Ausstellung 1891 (Frankfurt am Main 1991). Stettner, Ralf, ‘Archipel GULag’. Stalins Zwangslager – Terrorinstrument und Wirtschaftsgigant. Entstehung, Organisation und Funktion des sowjetischen Lagersystems 1928–1956 (Paderborn et al. 1996). Stolberg, Eva-Maria, Sibirien: Russlands ‘Wilder Osten’. Mythos und soziale Realität im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 2009). Stolberg, Eva-Maria, ed., Sibirische Völker. Transkulturelle Beziehungen und Identitäten in Nordasien (Münster 2007). Stürmer, G., Geschichte der Eisenbahnen. Entwicklung und jetzige Gestaltung ­sämmtlicher Eisenbahnnetze der Erde (Bromberg 1872). Sukovata, Viktoriya, ‘Scientific Freedom during Stalinism: Creativity in Sharashka’, in Ralf Roth und Aslı Vatansver, eds., Scientific Freedom under Attack. Political Oppression, Structural Challenges, and Intellectual Resistance in Modern and Contemporary History (New York and Frankfurt 2020), 55–74. The Museum of Architecture et al., eds., City Visions 1910/2010. Urban Planning in Berlin, London, Paris and Chicago 1910 and 2010 (Berlin 2010). Thienel, Ingrid, ‘Verstädterung, städtische Infrastruktur und Stadtplanung. Berlin zwischen 1850 und 1914’, Zeitschrift für Stadtgeschichte, Stadtsoziologie und Denkmalpflege, 4, 1977, 55–84. Thomas, Bryn, Trans-Siberian Handbook. The Guide to the World’s longest Railway Journey, 8th ed. (Hindhead 2011). Thomas, Ludmila, Geschichte Sibiriens. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin 1982). Thomas, Ronald Henry George, London’s First Railway – The London and Greenwich (London 1972). Troste, Ludwig, Die Pariser Stadtbahn. Ihre Geschichte, Linienführung, Bau-, Betriebsund Verkehrsverhältnisse (Berlin 1905).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  117 Tubbesing, Markus, ʻDer Wettbewerb Groß-Berlin: Die Suche nach der Einheit im Großstadt-Chaosʼ, in Harald Bodenschatz et al., eds., Stadtvisionen 1910/2010 (Berlin 2010), 64–70. Ueber Eisenbahnen auf Staatsrechnungen von einem patriotischen Eisenbahn-Actionär, 2 vols. (Darmstadt 1836). Weiner, E., Urban Transportation Planning in the United States: An Historical Overview. US Department of Transportation, Department of Transport (Washington, DC 1986). Wentzel, Robert, Die Schnellbahn Moabit-Treptow unter Berücksichtigung der besonderen Aufgaben des Vorort- und Stadtverkehrs (Berlin 1919). Wessel, Horst A., ed., Moderne Energie für eine neue Zeit (Berlin and Offenbach 1991). Wiedenbauer, Anton, and Hans-Jürgen Hoyer, Fahrt in die Zukunft – Die Geschichte der Frankfurter Straßenbahn (Frankfurt am Main 1968). Wilson, William H., The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore 1989). Wittig, Paul, Die Weltstädte und der elektrische Schnellverkehr. Nach dem Vortrag im Berliner Architektenverein am 13. März 1909 (Berlin 1909). Wolf, Winfried, Eisenbahn und Autowahn. Personen und Gütertransport auf Schiene und Straße (Hamburg 1986). Wolfes, Thomas, Die Villenkolonie Lichterfeld. Zur Geschichte eines Berliner Vorortes (1865–1920) (Berlin 1997). Yago, Glenn, The Decline of Transit. Urban transportation in German and US Cities 1900–1970 (Cambridge 1984). Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani, ‘The Development of Railway Transport: Labour Migrants and Upward Social Mobility in Some Communities between Zaria and Kano, 1912– 1970’, September 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338344745_The_ Development_of_Railway_Transport_Labour_Migrants_and_Upward_Social_ Mobility_in_some_Communities_between_Zaria_and_Kano_1912-1970 (retrieved 8 July 2020). Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani, ‘The Incidences of Theft of Railway Metals in Colonial Northern Nigeria’, Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 2.4 Quarter IV 2011, 1–23. Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani, The Socio-Economic Impact of the Railway in Northern Nigeria: A Study in Transformation of the Rural Communities along the Rail Line between Kano and Zaria, 1908–1970s. Ph.D. (University of Leiden 2015). Zweig, Stefan, ‘Der versiegelte Zug’, in Stefan Zweig, Sternstunden der Menschheit. Vierzehn historische Miniaturen (Frankfurt am Main 1951), https://www.projektgutenberg.org/zweig/sternstu/chap013.html (retrieved 1 August 2020). Internet Resources Art. 1973 oil crisis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis (retrieved 24 August 2020). Art. Alwegbahn, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alwegbahn#/media/Datei: Torino_ monorotaia Italia_61.jpg (retrieved 20 August 2020). Art. Bahnhof Mainz-Bischofsheim, https://de.wiki-pedia.org/wiki/Bahnhof_MainzBischofsheim#/media/Datei:Bahnhof_Bi-schofsheim_1867.jpg (retrieved 8 July 2020). Art. Bahnhöfe und Haltepunkte in Frankfurt, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_ Bahnhöfe_und_Haltepunkte_von_Frankfurt_am_Main#/media/Datei: Frankfurt_ hbf_01.jpg (retrieved 8 July 2020).

118  Ralf Roth Art. Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_ Hamburger_Bahnhof_um_1850.jpg#mw-jump-to-license (retrieved 10 August 2020). Art. Die Entstehung der Hamburger Hochbahn AG, https://fredriks.de/hvv/hhamix01.php#Burchard (retrieved 24 August 2020). Art. Elevated railway, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevated_railway (retrieved 18 August 2020). Art. Geschichte der Hamburger U-Bahn, https://dewiki.de/Media/Datei:U-Bahn_ Bau_an_der_Wandsbeker_Marktstrasse_(1961)_2c.jpg (retrieved 24 August 2020). Art. Geschichtliche Entwicklung des Frankfurter Nahverkehrs, http://www.trampage. de/geschichte_p214.html (last accessed on 4 March 2014). Art. Ghandi and railways, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/7/7e/ Crowd_greets_Gandhi_as_he_exits_a_train_at_a_station. jpg (retrieved 4 August 2020). Art. Great Indian Peninsula Railway, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ Indian_ Peninsula_Railway#/media/Datei:Tanna_Railway_Viaduct.jpg (retrieved 18. July 2020). Art. Greater London Plan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Plan (both retrieved 5 August 2020). Art. Gustav Herold, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/0/0a/2014_ Gustav_Herold_-_Atlas_Skulptur_nach_Restaurie-rung.jpg (Foto Oskar Mahler, both retrieved 25 July 2020). Art. Hamburg U-Bahn, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_U-Bahn#Network_ development (retrieved 24 August 2020). Art. Hamburger Bahnhof, https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Hamburger_ Bahnhof#/media/Datei%3AInvalidenstrBerlin_12-2017_img1.jpg (retrieved 10 August 2020). Art. Hauptbahnhof Frankfurt, https://de.Wikipedia.org/ wiki/Frankfurt_(Main)_ Haupt-bahnhof#/media/Datei:Hauptbahnhof_Frankfurt.jpg (retrieved 19 July 2020). Art. Haydarpaşa railway station, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haydarpaşa_railway_station (retrieved 22 July 2020). Art. Haydarpaşa, https://fr.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Gare_de_Haydarpa_İa#/media/ Fichier: Haydarpaşa_İstanbul_(12966 897554).jpg (retrieved 23 July 2020). Art. History of rail transport in France, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Histo-ry_ of_rail_transport_in_France#/media/File_France1860railways.png (retrieved 20 July 2020), the same for 1842 and 1850. Art. Hyderabad Metro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_Metro#/media/ File:Raidurg_metro_station_one.jpg (retrieved 25 August 2020). Art. Hyderabad Metro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_Metro (retrieved 25 August 2020). Art. Iași railway station, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iași_railway_station#/media/ File:La_Gare_de_Jassy.jpg (retrieved 22 July 2020). Art. Industriegeschichte in Bischofsheim. Route der Industriekultur Rhein-Main, http://www.krfrm.de/projekte/route-der-industriekultur/interaktive-karte/industrie geschichte-in-bischofsheim (retrieved 8 July 2020). Art. International Electrotechnical Exhibition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Electrotechnical_Exhibition#/media/File:Lauffen-Frankfurt_1891d. jpg (retrieved 18 August 2020).

Railways: Looking Back Over Two Centuries  119 Art. International Electrotechnical Exhibition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ International_Electrotechnical_Exhibition (retrieved 18 August 2020). Art. Juchtenkäfer, https://www.bund-bawue.de/themen/tiere-pflanzen/artenschutz/ juchtenkaefer/ (retrieved 21 August 2020). Art. London underground, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#/ media/File:GWR_broad_gauge_Metropolitan_Class.jpg (retrieved 17 August 2020). Art. Maschinenhalle, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschinen-halle_Paris#/media/ Datei:Interior_of_exhibition_building,_Exposition_Universal,_Paris,_France.jpg (retrieved 8 July 2020). Art. Railroads Built in the Late 1800s, https://www.national-geographic.org/maps/ tracking-growth-us/ (retrieved 16 July 2020). Art. Reimagining the auto industry’s future: It’s now or never, https://www.mckinsey. com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/reimagining-the-auJtoindustrys-future-its-now-or-never (retrieved 4 January 2021). Art. Schinenverkehr in Mexiko, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenverkehr_in_ Mexiko#/media/Datei: Estacion_de_Ferrocarril_Atequiza_Mexico.JPG (retrieved 26 July 2020). Art. Streetcars in North America, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_North_ America#/media/File:Montgomery_birds_eye_view_postcard.jpg (retrieved 18 August 2020). Art. Stuttgart 21, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 retrieved 16 August 2020), and official website of the project: Bahnprojekt Stuttgart-Ulm, https:// www.bahnprojekt-stuttgart-ulm.de/aktuell/ (retrieved 16 August 2020). Art. Tama Toshi Monorail Line, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ 9/94/TamaToshiMonorail6061.jpg (retrieved 22 August 2020). Art. Tram, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram#Electric (retrieved 18 August 2020). Art. Transsibirische Eisenbahn, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsibirische_ Eisenbahn#/media/Datei:Karte_Transsibirische_Eisenbahn_2.svg (retrieved 3 August 2020). Art. Transsibirische Eisenbahn, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsibi-rische_Eisenbahn#/media/Datei:Transib_Novosibirsk.jpg (retrieved 2 August 2020). Art. U-Straßenbahn, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Straßenenbahn#Frankfurt_ am_Main (last accessed on 10 February 2014). Art. War of the Currents, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents (18 August 2020). Art. Wartburg, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/a/ac/Johann_ Wolfgang_Goethe%2C_Wartburg_mit_Mönch_und_Nonne%2C_14.12.1807.jpg (both retrieved 24 July 2020). Art. Wissower_Klinken, https://de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Wissower_Klinken#/media/ Datei:Caspar_ David_Friedrich’s_Chalk_Cliffs_on_Rügen.jpg (retrieved 25 July 2020). Art. World’s Columbian Exposition, https://www.britannica.com/topic/CityBeautiful-movement#/media/1/119016/188928 (retrieved 10 August 2020).

Part II

Cities in a Wider Context: The Role of National and Continental Railway Networks in the Development of Cities

2 Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets Chicago’s Perilous Transition From Frontier Town to Industrial City Ted R. Mitchell

Charles Glumer was walking home from a friend’s house on Chicago’s west side one December evening in 1856, when he was accosted and about to be attacked by two ruffians, when he attempted to make his escape by running from them, and had thus succeeded and gained upon his pursuers, when he [approached] Kinzie Street, where he was suddenly stopped on account of the street being blocked up at this point by a long train of cars: he then attempted to get around them, but being thus delayed he was overtaken, and attacked by the ruffians, knocked and beaten down, and received severe bodily injuries.1 The man of 58 years lay on the ground for ‘about half an hour’, after which time he had recovered sufficiently to get up and found himself badly beaten and injured: ten dollars of money taken from him, his portmanteau and private papers of value taken, and a ticket to Detroit, for which he paid $7.50, and another to Milwaukee worth $2.00.2 As a result of this beating, Mr. Glumer was unable to deliver lectures in Detroit and Milwaukee, and thus lost the money he was to receive for these engagements. He was so badly injured by the beating that he was confined by sickness and prostration from the injuries for at least a month, and from which he has never recovered, that he is thus reduced to great debility, penury and destitution, and would humbly and respectfully ask the Mayor and Common Council, under these circumstances, for relief.3 The Council denied Charles Glumer’s request for monetary relief. This episode demonstrates more than simply the miserly nature of Chicago’s Common Council at a time when governmental social safety nets were scarce. DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-5

124  Ted R. Mitchell It is a prime example of the great effect railway development played on the built environment of Chicago. Railways helped turn Chicago into a boomtown during the 1850s and 1860s. These railways represented the technological and economic progress of the modern condition better than perhaps anything else from the era. Yet this progress was not without a cost. Railway development limited the agency of Chicago residents; it ushered in a state of dependence by shaping the built environment in such a way as to limit the movement of and create hazards for Chicago’s residents and visitors. In most cases, the threat of injury or death that resulted from railway development did not come from ‘ruffians’; it stemmed from the presence of the new locomotive technology, which was bigger, faster, and more powerful than anything Chicago residents had ever experienced. The fact that Chicago underwent economic and industrial growth at such an accelerated rate amplified the condition of dependence endured by its residents. As historical actors, individuals in Chicago unknowingly conceded historical agency to the economic and technological forces that in part brought them to historical relevance. The railway development limited agency not only through the sheer power of the new technology, but also by shaping the built environment of the city and thus bounding people’s movement. Chicago grew at an alarming rate through the 1850s and 1860s. When Chicago’s railway era began in 1848, just over 20,000 people called Chicago ‘home’. By 1871, just before much of the city burned in the Great Fire, 325,000 people lived there. Chicago was quickly climbing its way up the ranks of American cities. In 1840, it ranked 92nd out of the 100 most populous cities in the United States; in 1870, it was fifth. The railways helped create what, by 1890, came to be called the ‘Second City’; only New York boasted a larger population in the United States.4 A town of a few thousand became a metropolis of over a million in only half a century. Chicago’s railway infrastructure promoted both the economic and demographic growth of the city. These two developments worked hand-in-hand: railway construction drew commercial and industrial establishments to Chicago, and these businesses created jobs that attracted migrants and immigrants who were able to conveniently travel by train to Chicago. Few, if any, of Chicago’s newest residents had the means to purchase a home along Michigan Avenue or any of the city’s other ‘aristocratic’ avenues, which were home to the city’s elite.5 Most of Chicago’s migrants and immigrants were people of modest means who hoped to ply a trade, keep a small store or tavern, or labour on the railways, in the various lumber or stockyards, or in industrial establishments such as the McCormick Reaper Works. Though some of the newcomers settled in surrounding suburbs, the large number who moved to Chicago proper turned what had previously been sparsely settled industrial areas into mixed-use neighbourhoods where men, women, and children both lived and laboured.6 These neighbourhoods were not desirable residential enclaves: the local soundtrack was the piercing, ubiquitous din of industry; and the nose was assaulted with a persistent stench

Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets in Chicago  125 formed from a cocktail of smoke, animal and industrial waste, and the Chicago River’s stagnant, polluted waters.7 These areas were not pleasing to the eye, ear, or nose, yet they were inexpensive in which to live, and they were within walking distance of potential jobsites, which saved money on train or omnibus fares for working families who could ill afford an added expense.8 As Chicago’s population grew, human contact with railways became an everyday occurrence. Chicago so quickly became the railway hub of North America that, by the early 1850s, even wealthy Chicagoans could not escape contact with the smoke-belching symbol of America’s industrial progress. The Chicago ‘aristocracy’ who lived along Michigan Avenue was not afforded an unadulterated view of Lake Michigan, despite their wealth and power. Chicago’s Common Council struck a deal in 1852 that brought the Illinois Central Railroad into the city along the southern lakeshore and guaranteed these wealthy residents a front-window view of trains and tracks that destroyed any naïve notion of an idyllic Chicago. Everyone who lived in or visited the city had to deal with the railways. And all of Chicago’s residents and visitors dealt with numerous problems and inconveniences that surfaced with the mix of population growth and railway development beginning in the 1850s. The railways produced a complete sensory experience that transformed both urban space and the lives of city dwellers during the industrial age. Railway development shaped Chicago’s space before even a single train rolled through or across any streets. Before a train could run, the track had to be laid. This was a formidable task in 1840s and 1850s Chicago; though the railways were happy to take any free right-of-way the city would give them, the streets on which they were to build were in an abysmal condition. Chicago – a word of Algonquian origin – means ‘a place where wild onions grow’. Onions grow in marshes and swamps, and early Chicago’s streets can be considered such. Chicago resident William Bross clearly illustrates this point: [W]e had no pavements in 1848. The streets were simply thrown up as country roads. In the spring, for weeks, portions of them would be impassable. (…) Of course there was little or no business doing. (…) As the clerks had nothing to do, they would exercise their wits by putting boards from dry goods boxes in [large pot]holes (…), with (…) signs, [such] as, “No Bottom Here” [or] “The Shortest Road to China”. Sometimes one board would be nailed across another, and an old hat and coat fixed on it, with the notice “On His Way to the Lower Regions”.9 The poor condition of Chicago’s streets helped shape people’s movement, and its ability to do so was amplified by the fact that the railways themselves changed the shape of the streets. Specifically, railway tracks protruded above the grade of the street, thus creating a hazard for those who needed to cross them. Injury due to protruding tracks became a quotidian occurrence

126  Ted R. Mitchell beginning very early in Chicago’s railway era. Dan Brobston, a West Side Chicago resident, petitioned the Council on behalf of the residents of his neighbourhood. He claimed that the crossings of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad (GCURR) were ‘in a very dangerous condition and have been for a long time past’, and that ‘several accidents’ had occurred as a result, including an accident to one of our citizens Mr. Levi More [who] has been thrown from his wagon & his thigh bone broken & otherwise injured. And said More who is a sober industrious & good citizen has been obliged to apply to the county for assistance & support for his family & himself in consequence of said accident and neglect.10 Mr. Brobston went on to point out other crossings in the area that needed repair. The Council granted his petition and ordered the railway companies ‘to construct sutible (sic) crossing[s] (sic) at the severil (sic) streets’ crossed by railway tracks in the West Division of the city.11 Mr. Brobston’s petition is evidence of a trend that began early in Chicago’s railway era: the GCURR disregarded the maintenance of their grade crossings, even when ordered by the Council to repair them.12 Protruding tracks, muddy streets, and ill-maintained crossings were not the most serious problems posed by railways to the people of Chicago. Many of the city’s railways were given the right-of-way by the Common Council to build their tracks in the middle of Chicago’s streets. These streets were public thoroughfares that trains shared with Chicago residents, and this close proximity of humans to the daunting new technology created a new, if obvious, hazard. The scale of the hazard created by trains on city streets helps demarcate the beginning of the industrial era in the United States: before the railway, Chicagoans had to deal with bad roads and the occasional runaway horse, inconveniences that sometimes led to injury; after the railway, people had to be hyperaware while travelling on streets through which tracks ran, for death could result from a lapse in concentration. The most dangerous railway encounters on streets usually happened at grade crossings. Grade crossings – the intersections of streets and railway tracks – became a substantial problem fairly early in Chicago’s railway era. John Rauch, Chicago’s sanitary superintendent, reported that 34 people were killed in railway accidents in Chicago’s city limits in 1869, and that 20 people were killed in 1868.13 He alluded that many of the deaths occurred at grade crossings. This is a staggeringly high number: nearly one death by train every ten days in Chicago in 1869; about one death every 18 days the previous year. The newspapers were full of accounts of victims killed by trains at grade crossings. One such account describes a man, Michael Somas, who was driving a few cattle to his home west of the city limits.14 One of his cattle

Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets in Chicago  127 darted onto the tracks of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad ‘[j]ust as the train had reached the crossing’.15 Mr. Somas [i]mmediately (…) appeared, making hurried attempts to push the animal off the track (…). [E]vidently [Mr. Somas had] miscalculated his distance or the speed of the train, for it was too late to prevent his being struck by the engine and thrown to one side. He was picked up dead, a fatal blow having fallen upon his head.16 As if Mr. Somas’s death were not bad enough, the last paragraph revealed a cruel irony: It is said [the] deceased had a brother killed on a railroad in Ohio some time since. He had himself been working on a railroad up to that time, but immediately left the employ, and has since cherished and expressed an unconquerable dread of railroad accidents, from which however he has met his own fate.17 The risks of accidents and death are the most obvious negative aspects of railway development in a city, but they were not the most common. Many more Chicago residents lived with – rather than died by – the railways. Chicago residents had to deal on a daily basis with a number of unintended costs concomitant with railway development in cities. Some of them were just annoying, while others were insalubrious, yet they each, to some extent, altered how Chicago residents had to live life beginning in the 1850s. First, trains were loud. Their steam-powered engines created a ruckus; their whistles screamed and put people on edge; their wheels were metal as were their tracks, a combination that scraped and squealed more than it whispered. But trains did not stop their bodily assault at the ears. The massive amounts of smoke they produced attacked the eyes, nose, and lungs of Chicago’s residents and visitors. The wood and soft coal burned by most locomotives during Chicago’s early railway era produced profuse amounts of black smoke and soot that polluted the air, sullied the lungs, and covered clothing, furniture, and other surfaces in a black patina of pollution.18 The fire that made the smoke counted as another hazard with which Chicago residents had to deal. Fire was a daunting problem that regularly plagued cities during a period when wood and coal were burned to heat homes and power the Industrial Revolution. Fire, coupled with the fact that many houses and buildings near railways were constructed from wood, created a volatile mixture. Hot cinders could jump out of a locomotive’s stove onto a wooden roof and cause a conflagration.19 Fire could also break out if there were a collision at a crossing: the stove that powered the boiler or that which heated wooden passenger cars could start fires on the train or in a wooden coach. Passengers and passersby alike risked being consumed by the flames as wooden coaches splintered and burned on impact.20

128  Ted R. Mitchell Chicago was nearly saturated with railways by the 1860s. Their ubiquitous nature and the fact that they shared and crossed the streets at grade made them a massive obstacle that frequently created traffic gridlock. Trains became a part of the urban built environment, and, as such, obstructed people from moving about the city. Chicago’s population and railway development expanded simultaneously, which made gridlock a frequent, palpable experience to Chicagoans beginning in the 1850s. Traffic gridlock was more than an annoyance; it changed schedules and helped dictate the pace of life in Chicago. As Wolfgang Schivelbusch has observed, railways ‘annihilated space and time’ between two points. Yet his observation did not tell the entire story, at least in regard to railways in urban spaces. In cities, they created time in the form of waits and delays, and they created new spaces – specifically, neighbourhoods that were atomised by the railways.21 Railway development in Chicago quickly moved beyond being simply an inconvenience, especially to the working-class residents of mixed residential/ industrial neighbourhoods. In 1855, the Chicago & Milwaukee Railroad asked for permission from the Common Council to lay track on Jefferson and Kinzie Streets in order to make a connection with the GCURR. Immediately, a group of area residents remonstrated against the railway’s rightof-way petition. These individuals’ homes were to be bounded on all sides by railway tracks if the petition were approved. The residents of the neighbourhood claimed that such use of Jefferson Street would be a public nuisance, greatly injurious to the property on both sides of the same and to a very considerable extent beyond in all the neighborhood. It is also to be considered that the vicinity above referred to is already subject to great inconveniences & damages by the Galena Road & its surroundings to which if there is to be added another track bearing northerly for two more railroads the neighborhood will be almost entirely uninhabitable as a location for families & for business purposes to which it is now used quite impracticable.22 The Council’s Committee on Streets and Alleys found for the remonstrants and against the railway’s wishes for right-of-way, but in the end, it did not matter: the Council passed the ordinance that allowed the railway to build tracks on Jefferson Street.23 These six square blocks, which were composed of homes and businesses, were completely hemmed in by railways. Though the property may have been owned and used by a variety of individuals for life and livelihood, the hegemonic nature of railways in cities marked it as de facto ‘railway space’ – an urban area that was dominated by the built environment of the railways. By the 1880s, the homes that had occupied the six square blocks had been replaced by railway tracks. The area had become official, as opposed to simply de facto, railway space.24

Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets in Chicago  129 In this episode, the railways co-opted space that was owned by private individuals. They accomplished this simply through their proximity to private property. The railways were able to succeed in this endeavour through the aid of the Council, which gave the railways public space – the street – that they undeniably marked as railway space. When economic depression followed the Panic of 1873, families in the area likely sold their land for whatever trifle they could get. The railways were there to pay them a pittance and mark the area as official railway space.25 This story exposes an irony of urban railway development. Chicago’s overall economic growth sparked speculation and drove up land prices throughout the city years earlier, yet they often damaged the value of the property on the neighbourhood level. People simply did not want to live around trains because of the risk and inconvenience attendant with their presence. Yet some people, especially the working class, did not have much of a choice in railway matters. They were the ones who disproportionately felt the heavy hand of industrialisation not only in an economic realignment that meant low wages, job insecurity, long hours, and difficult working conditions but also in spatial changes represented by the railways, which made Chicago an even more difficult place in which to live. The first railroad in Chicago was the Galena & Chicago Union, which was chartered in 1836 to build tracks to the lead mines at Galena in northwestern Illinois. The first tracks were laid in 1848. Other railroads soon completed lines of track linking Chicago with the wheat fields of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Later lines connected the city with Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, and St. Paul. Railroads were especially important as haulers of grain and livestock, which helped Chicago gain a primary role in the grain marketing and meatpacking industries. Chicago was the corporate headquarter, as well as yards and shops of many railroad lines of the West. Chicago became a centre for the manufacture of freight cars, passenger cars (Pullman Company), and, later diesel locomotives (Electro-Motive Division of General Motors, in La Grange). Freight moving across the country is funnelled through the railroad yards of Chicago, where it is classified and then transferred to the yards of other railroads within the metropolitan area. The largest of these yards include Proviso and Bensenville on the western edge of the city, Clearing Yard in Bedford Park, Barr, and Blue Island Yards on the far South Side, and Corwith Yard near the Stevenson Expressway. Although the nation’s railroads now have been merged into just a few large systems, Chicago remains the hub where the tracks of one company end and those of another begin.26

130  Ted R. Mitchell

Notes 1 Chicago City Council Proceedings Files [hereafter CP], 1857/58 0156A 04/13. 2 Ibid. 3 CP 1857/58 0156A 04/13. 4 Campbell Gibson, Population of the One Hundred Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990. Population Division Working Paper No. 27 (Washington, D.C. 1998). Online see http://www.census.gov/population/ www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html (last accessed 4 May 2013). 5 For discussion of the class and ethnic character of various Chicago neighbourhoods in the 1850s and 1860s see Harold Mayer and Richard Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (Chicago 1969), 54–66. 6 For Chicago’s farm, industrial, and commuter suburbs, see Ann Durkin Keating, Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in the Railroad Age (Chicago 2005). Keating’s description of the process by which people came to live in industrial suburbs – the plant, factory, or stockyards were built, and inexpensive worker housing soon popped up nearby – was similar to how it happened in the industrial neighbourhoods within the city limits. See ibid. 65–91, especially 76–78. Also, Keating maintains that, despite the popular conception that commuter suburbs are ethnically and socioeconomically homogeneous – this is a teleology based on the homogeneity of many of these suburbs today – these suburbs ‘had a variety of residents – commuters, local businessmen, local craftsmen, and workers’. Ibid. 105. Finally, the general process by which worker neighbourhoods grew in industrial suburbs – ‘Around all of these plants, which at their height employed thousands of workers, seemingly instant neighborhoods and towns emerged’ – is an apt description for the residential growth in Chicago’s manufacturing and industrial districts in the 1850s. Ibid. 76. Though none of the companies hired ‘thousands of workers’ at that point, the agglomeration of businesses in those areas (for example, along the south branch of the Chicago River) attracted workers to make them mixed-use neighborhoods in which they lived. 7 Descriptions of the polluted, insalubrious state of Chicago during the nineteenth century abound. For an overview of the city’s environmental degradation, including water and air pollution, see the comparative study of Harold Platt, Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform of Manchester and Chicago (University of Chicago Press: Chicago 2005), 78–195, 232–297. For the nuisances and pollution created by horses in cities, see Clay McShane and Joel Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD 2007), 18–30, 120–126. 8 The omnibus and commuter trains became regular features of Chicago transportation beginning in the 1850s. Mayer and Wade, 66–70; Keating, Chicagoland, 93–113; McShane and Tarr, 57–83. 9 Mabel McIlvaine, William Bross, Charles Cleaver, Joseph Jefferson, and A.T. Andreas, Reminiscences of Chicago during the Forties and Fifties (Chicago 1913), 15–16. 10 CP 1855/56 1659A 12/10. 11 Ibid. 12 An early example of this is CP 1853/54 12/19A 11/28, in which the Council ordered the Street Commissioner of the West Division to ‘notify’ the GCURR ‘to construct within ten days convenient crossings for vehicles, where their track crosses the line of streets’. 13 CP 1869/70 0893A 07/18. 14 ‘Sad Casualty’, Chicago Tribune, of 7 January 1860, 1. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.

Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets in Chicago  131 17 Ibid. 18 David Stradling, ‘Dirty Work and Clean Air: Locomotive Firemen, Environmental Activists, and Stories of Conflict’, Journal of Urban History, 28, 1, November 2001, 35–54, here 36. 19 For examples of such roof fire incidents in Buffalo and New York see David Stowell, Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 (Chicago 1999), 54–55. 20 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828–1965 (Baltimore, MD 2006), 79–82. These were not common incidents, but, as Aldrich states, ‘while fires took relatively few lives they seemed especially horrifying’. Ibid. 79. 21 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley, CA 1977, sec. ed. 1986). See Chapter 3, ‘Railroad Space and Railroad Time’, 33–44, for specific discussion of ‘the annihilation of space and time’. 22 CP 1855/56 1606A 11/26. 23 CP 1856/57 1668A 02/02. Chicago Common Council, Laws and Ordinances, 269–270. 24 I came to this conclusion by comparing a number of detailed Chicago maps produced between 1863 and 1888, which I found at http://www.lib.uchicago. edu/e/su/maps/chifire/ and http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org (last accessed 4 May 2013). Maps consulted at University of Chicago Library website: W. L. Flower and J. Van Vechten, Chicago: Drawn from Davie’s Atlas with the Latest Recorded Subdivisions. Map 1:6,000 (Chicago 1863); Charles Shober, Guide Map of Chicago. Map 1:24,000 (Chicago 1868); Gray’s Atlas Map of Chicago. Map 1:32,000 (Philadelphia 1873); Chicago. Map 1:31,680 (New York 1876); S. Augustus Mitchell, Chicago. Map 1:36,000 (Philadelphia 1876?); Rufus Blanchard, Index Map of Chicago: Running South to Seventy-First Street. Map 1:21,000 (Chicago 1888). Maps consulted at Encyclopedia of Chicago website: Rufus Blanchard, Guide Map of Chicago (Chicago 1871); New Guide Map of Chicago (Place of publication unknown 1879); Railway Map of Chicago and Environs: Situate in Cook County Illinois and Lake County Indiana (Chicago 1879); E. Robinson, Robinson’s Atlas of the City of Chicago, vol. 3 (New York 1886), plate 6. 25 For discussion about Chicago land values and the economy from the Civil War to the World’s Fair of 1893 see Homer Hoyt, One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago: The Relationship of the Growth of Chicago to the Rise of Its Land Values, 1830–1933 (Washington, DC 1933; reprint, 2000), 81–195, passim. 26 John C. Hudson, Art. Railroads, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/ pages/1039.html (retrieved 30 August 2020).

Literature Aldrich, Mark, Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828–1965 (Baltimore, MD 2006). Gibson, Campbell, Population of the One Hundred Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990. Population Division Working Paper No. 27 (Washington, DC 1998). Hoyt, Homer, One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago: The Relationship of the Growth of Chicago to the Rise of Its Land Values, 1830–1933 (Washington, DC 1933; reprint, 2000) Keating, Ann Durkin, Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in the Railroad Age (Chicago 2005).

132  Ted R. Mitchell Mayer, Harold, and Wade, Richard, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (Chicago 1969). McIlvaine, Mabel, Bross, William, Cleaver, Charles, Jefferson, Joseph, and Andreas, A. T., Reminiscences of Chicago during the Forties and Fifties (Chicago 1913). McShane, Clay, and Tarr, Joel, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD 2007). Platt, Harold, Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform of Manchester and Chicago (Chicago 2005). Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley, CA 1977, sec. ed. 1986). Stowell, David, Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 (Chicago 1999). Stradling, David, ‘Dirty Work and Clean Air: Locomotive Firemen, Environmental Activists, and Stories of Conflict’, Journal of Urban History, 28, 1, November 2001, 35–54.

3 A Comparative Study of the Impact of Railway Stations on Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns in the Kura District of Kano Emirate Shehu Tijjani Yusuf Introduction The impact of railways on colonial Nigeria has attracted a fair amount of attention in the literature.1 The consensus is that railways have played a tremendous role in the social and economic development of the Nigerian society. However, despite their richness, the literature focused almost exclusively on the more important centres of production, while neglecting peri-urban fringes such as Madobi and Kwankwaso. The impact of the railway on smaller towns also needs to be understood because the railway was instrumental to their transformation and development. This essay attempts to fill in the gap, by situating Madobi and Kwankwaso within the wider discourse on railway studies, and to show that they were important railway towns. This chapter will demonstrate that, the railway had a huge impact and that the impacts differed between towns. It will address questions such as: what motivated the establishment of the stations? How did the towns react to this development, and to what extent did the railway affect the towns?

An Overview of the Study Areas Kwankwaso and Madobi are predominantly agrarian settlements in the Kura district, southwest of Kano City. Both towns were among the satellite towns bordering Kano City. Originally, they were both founded by Fulani nomads in the nineteenth century.2 Presently, Madobi and Kwankwaso are both within the Madobi local government area, the headquarters being in Madobi and Kwankwaso being one of the principal villages. Geographically, Madobi is strategically located on a major trade route, known as the Kano-Zaria road, which the railway also followed. Kwankwaso, on the other hand, is in a remote area, despite being on the railway. Geographically speaking, the area is mostly flat with slightly undulating contours; it is also characterised by sandy and loamy soils which support agricultural activity. The proximity of the Challawa and Kano rivers was, and still is, beneficial to agriculture. They watered the soil, thus supporting the cultivation of food and cash crops, in addition to satisfying domestic and industrial needs DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-6

134  Shehu Tijjani Yusuf of the people. The rivers also helped create favourable grazing conditions, which attracted Fulani nomads and also encouraged them to settle in the areas. These same favourable conditions further attracted and sustained populations of diverse origins and occupations in the areas.3

Kwankwaso and Madobi under British Rule and the Extension of the Lagos Railway to Kano In 1903, when the British conquered the Kano Emirate, Madobi and Kwankwaso were brought directly under colonial administration, both in the Kura district. As elsewhere in the emirate, the towns were administered by local heads who were answerable to the district head of Kura. In what may be seen as a concrete step towards the transformation of the towns, Madobi was made one of the sub-districts in Kura, alongside Bebeji and Kura, two other important towns in the district.4 In 1908, this sub-district was transferred to Gora, because of allegations of financial misconduct against its village head.5 By 1909, Madobi (Gora) covered 391.82 square miles with a population of about 33,305.6 This figure comprised the two main towns and the outlying villages. Right from 1900 when the British began to conquer Northern Nigeria, they were confronted with the difficulties of bringing the vast region under effective control and developing it for the maximum benefit of the home country. The region was landlocked, with a landmass covering more than half of present-day Nigeria. The inland states including Kano were not brought under effective rule until 1903, partly because of transport difficulties. Furthermore, it was a poor region which depended largely on imperial treasury and annual grant-in-aid from the more thriving Southern Protectorates. In contrast with the protectorates, it did not have direct access to the sea, except through Lagos, which its High Commissioner, Fredrick Lugard resented. Though Northern Nigeria has two main rivers, they were however not navigable all year round for large vessels. For a government bent on exploiting the region’s resources for the home country’s benefit, this created several challenges. Moreover, the decimating cotton supplies from the United States led the British to assume that Northern Nigeria would provide an alternative source of cotton to the home industries. It was within these conditions that a railway from Baro (a small port on the Niger) to Kano was proposed.7 As Lugard himself argued, the development of the region depended on railways. He believed that a railway from Baro to Kano was necessary, rather than a connection with the Lagos Government Railway.8 Lugard’s proposal suffered a major setback because of opposition from the governments of the Southern Protectorates and the Lagos Colony. The choice of Baro as the terminus for the proposed railway and the plan to operate it independently of the Lagos Railway did not please Lagos Colony. The government of the Southern Protectorates also believed that its own region was much more deserving of rail transport than the Northern Protectorates. The colonial office in London did not help matters either, for throughout

A Study of the Impact of Railway Stations  135 this period of rivalry it remained silent. After some six years of debate, the railway was approved for immediate construction in 1907. Also approved was the linking of the railway with the Lagos Railway already extended as far as Ibadan. In 1908, construction work began from Baro, with earthwork and plate laying progressing rapidly. Three years later, construction reached Kano, passing through Madobi and Kwankwaso, and was opened in 1912.9 The arrival of the railway stimulated groundnut production and purchases in Northern Nigeria and the Kano Emirate in particular. Although the railway was constructed with cotton in mind, groundnut – a crop that never featured during the planning and construction of the railway –, became the most important export product. Within two years after the opening of the railway, groundnut export from Kano alone stood at over 21,000 tons. The volume of the groundnut was so high that export had to be discontinued because the railway could not cope with the magnitude of the traffic. As the war broke out in 1914, the groundnut trade slumped and did not pick up until the end of the war.10 The increased demand for Kano groundnut since the beginning of this boom, and again at the end of the war, resulted in the establishment of more railway stations in the countryside, as a measure to tap groundnut directly from the sources.11

The Establishment of Railway Stations in Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns The establishment of a railway station in Madobi and Kwankwaso had a transformative impact on the economic and socio-cultural development of these towns. Elsewhere I had assumed that the stations were established in 1918 and 1919, respectively.12 New evidence suggests that Madobi station was established in 1913, while Kwankwaso got its station in 1918.13 The physical arrival of the early train made a strong impression, as it was perceived with mixed reactions of fear and wonder due to unfamiliarity, but as familiarity with the steam increased, people apprehended it in a variety of ways.14 The railway almost immediately altered the long-held perceptions of distance and geography, by annihilating more or less, time and space between the towns and the City and with the world beyond. A journey to Kano City which previously lasted a day, or even two on foot or on animal transport, was accomplished in less than 20 minutes by train. Compared with earlier modes of transport, travelling by train was fast and punctual, which explains why people came to depend more and more on it for leisure and business travel. As Table 3.1 on outward passenger traffic clearly shows below, Madobi station had the highest passenger traffic. In this part of the world where the notion of time was determined by sunrise and sunset, the railway changed people’s appreciation and awareness of time. The stations came to assume strategic importance as gateways for the arrival and departure of trains, people, goods, and ideas. They became places to welcome important personalities. Previously, the towns’ gates and markets performed these

136  Shehu Tijjani Yusuf Table 3.1  Passenger Traffic at Madobi and Kwankwaso Railway Stations, c.1939 Years

Stations

Passenger journeys

Revenue in British pounds

1916 1918 1919 1923 1939 1939

Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Kwankwaso

4,073 2,498 4,798 1,229 19,149 5,976

273 353 575 238 869 290

Source: Colonial Office (CO657/7), Nigerian Railway Administrative Report for the year 1918 (CO657/4), Nigerian Railway Administrative Report for the year 1919 (CO 657/4), Nigerian Railway Administrative Report for the year 1923, Arewa House Archives Kaduna (AHAK), 3/3/16 Report on Transport in Nigeria.

strategic functions, but as the train arrived, the stations became the new hubs.15 The railway also affected the way business was conducted. Trade was conducted very fast and cheaply. Agricultural goods from the south and European manufactured goods found their way to the towns (Figure 3.1). One of the immediate effects of the establishment of railway stations in Madobi and Kwankwaso, as elsewhere in the Northern Provinces, was the move of commercial trading firms to these towns. As studies by Jan Hogendorn and Florence Okediji have demonstrated, these moves were a response to ‘a new demand’ for fats and oils from Europe which stimulated a corresponding demand for groundnuts.16 It is in the context of both this demand from abroad and the availability of better access to transport that the arrival of firms may be seen. However, they were not allowed to operate there physically until the government trading layouts there were established. Instead, they relied on the African agency.17 The idea behind the layouts was to prevent the chaotic situation in the city market.18 The establishment of the trading layouts almost immediately led to an influx of commercial trading firms in the towns. As this chapter will show, the firms concentrated at Madobi because it was bigger and also a special gazetted buying station. Prices at such stations were set by the government to include differential allowances for transport; hence the reasons why firms were attracted to Madobi. When the trading layouts were initially established in 1924, six Lebanese and Syrian firms came to Madobi. By the 1940s, there were 17 firms, comprising European, Lebanese, Syrian, as well as indigenous African firms, whereas only one firm was established at Kwankwaso, as can be seen from Table 3.2 on trading firms below. (This firm even closed its station during the economic depression of the 1930s.) Throughout the colonial period, Madobi was the centre of attraction. A number of the firms there stationed middlemen at Kwankwaso.19 The trading firms depended on African agencies such as the Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa, who acted as intermediaries for them. The Yoruba were primarily the pioneer middlemen in Madobi, as they had been living there even

A Study of the Impact of Railway Stations  137

Figure 3.1  M  ap of Nigerian Railways from 1901 to 1964 (The Trading Firms and the Groundnut Trade). Map: Created by Henry Jacolin on a model of the Cartography Lab Geography Department of Bayero University Kano.

before the firms came. Using ethnic ties, they created a network that ensured them a monopoly of the groundnut trade in the areas. Through their networks they provided a commercial linkage between the farmers and the firms, thereby facilitating the flow of groundnut to the markets.20 Farmers had no problem cultivating groundnut, for the price was sufficiently attractive for them to forego the cultivation of other crops. Although the railway stimulated groundnut production by facilitating access to the markets at low cost, farmers could not avoid growing food crops, for these were grown simultaneously with groundnut. Given the uneven economic opportunities in both towns, the middlemen largely concentrated in Madobi from whence they advanced to the outlying villages, including Kwankwaso. In this period of major transformation by cash, Madobi became an important centre of groundnut trade. Farmers from near and far brought their produce to Madobi because of the price incentive, making it the most popular station not only southwest of Kano but also between Kano and Zaria. The railway played an important role in this movement of produce from one station to another. It also offered farmers and middlemen along the railway the chance to dispose of their produce at Madobi, where prices were higher than what was obtained nearby.21 As was mentioned above, Madobi was a gazetted buying

138  Shehu Tijjani Yusuf Table 3.2  L  ist of Trading Firms in Madobi and Kwankwaso Trading Layouts, c.1924–1940s S./No.

Name of firms

Date of establishment

Location

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

M. A. Bugren L. A. Ambrosini Abdul Hussain S. Raccah Miller Brothers Manaise Brothers John Holt Alhassan Dantata Musa Tahir Niger Properties Olude Stores Michael Nwankwo Lagos Stores United African Company G. B. Ollivant Compagnie Francaise de lʼafrique Occidentale W.B. McIvers United African Company

24/7/1924 24/7/1924 24/7/1924 24/7/ 1924 24/7/1924 24/7/1924 1//1/1933 1/1/1934 1/1/1936 30/8/1941 5/10/1943 1/8/1947 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi Madobi

n.a. n.a.

Madobi Madobi

17. 18.

Sources: KSHCB Acc. no. 68, Kura Inspection Notes Vol. I, KSHCB 512 Kano Provincial Gazetteers, KSHCB Kano Provincial Annual Report 1924, KSHCB MLG 9117/1929 Kura District of Kano Emirate Reassessment, KSHCB 2568/1933 Provincial Gazettes Vol. II. Note: n.a. = not available.

station where the approved minimum prices, including transport allowances, were offered. It was in the 1950s that scale or buying points were established at Kwankwaso and Daburau (the site of the station). Scale points were minor buying stations established by the Native Authority to put indigenous entrepreneurs on equal footing with foreign entrepreneurs who dominated trade at the gazetted stations. The buying points served as bulking points from whence the produce was transported to the gazetted stations on the rail line. Scale points were usually established at least within a radius of 12–15 miles from gazetted stations so as to protect the latter.22 However, not only were prices stable and higher at the gazetted stations, but prices also varied between the gazetted stations. For example, in 1954, a ton of groundnut was sold for 35 British pounds and 10 shillings at Challawa station against 35 British pounds and 12 shillings at Madobi. Although the difference was not great, it however had the effect of attracting traffic to the better-paying station.23 In 1924, groundnut tonnage at Madobi station stood at 3,000 tons and rose to 9,187 tons in 1945. By the 1953/1954 season, about 12,712 tons were railed from the station.24 Although the railway opened new areas and markets in isolated areas, there were limitations. The railway could not tap into sources of production that were too far away. This problem was circumvented by animal transport. Donkeys and oxen transporters became a popular means of conveying

A Study of the Impact of Railway Stations  139 produce from such areas to the railway stations. As a result of the large groundnut traffic coming from such areas, some villages became popular as produce transporters. One such village was Garun Mallam. This was in addition to large numbers of porters who loaded and carried the produce.25 The groundnut trade also had the cumulative effects of creating a variety of jobs for people in the areas. Besides growing the groundnuts, many people made a living through commissions and wages in this industry as middlemen or agents, clerks, guards, and labourers. Many also made a living as hoteliers, transporters, and traders selling a variety of goods, or were running eateries to service the groundnut industry. Although men controlled most of the activities, the efforts by women were important as well. For example, women made a living decorticating groundnuts chasan gyada. In return for their work, they were paid a token amount. Another aspect which cannot be overlooked is related to weights and measures. This was done mostly by women masu aunia. Though they were not employed by the firms, the women were recognised. In return for their work, they took a small quantity of the produce and at times they also did the bargaining on behalf of prospective sellers.26 However, in this period of major transformation by cash, the groundnut trade and railway also stimulated and facilitated crime. Both towns, especially Madobi, acquired a bad reputation as a haven for criminals. Train robberies and theft of iron keys and sleepers from the rail line were very common there throughout the colonial period.27

The Arrival of Migrants and the Creation of Migrant Quarters in Madobi One important development resulting from the establishment of railway stations and the intensification of activities of the trading firms was the influx of migrants to Madobi. They were attracted by the various commercial opportunities created by the groundnut trade, and also employment in the railway and in the commercial firms. These migrants were mostly Yoruba and Ibo from the south and others from the north, as well as immigrant workers and traders. Besides the railway workers, the first generation of migrants were Yoruba. Large numbers of them were groundnut traders. Some of them were permanent residents and had been living there prior to the arrival of the firms. One colonial record reported that a large proportion of the groundnuts marketed by the firms in Madobi were obtained through their network and that they enjoyed a monopoly in the groundnut trade.28 As far as numbers are concerned, the influx of people was most significant in the 1930s. The second generation of migrants consisted of entrepreneurs, artisans, and job seekers. These were mostly young people and included more men than women. As studies by Ahmed Bako and Olasiji Oshin have demonstrated, factors such as the burden of taxation, economic dislocation of the late 1920s and 1930s, commercialisation of rural land, and depletion of land resources arising from

140  Shehu Tijjani Yusuf population density pushed many southerners to centres of economic transformation in the north.29 The railway played a significant role in this movement of populations. As numbers from Madobi and Kwankwaso indicated, the migrants mostly went to Madobi, for the economic opportunities abounding there were too numerous to be sacrificed to a move to Kwankwaso. Besides the railway workers in Kwankwaso, there were no sustained migrants there. Those who did go there alternated between Madobi and Kwankwaso.30 The influx of people did stimulate the spread of the market economy, the production of goods and services, as well as economic specialisation, had profound political and interethnic implications. It also resulted in the creation of migrant quarters, such as Sabon Gari in Madobi in 1935, which became the most popular migrant settlement between Kano and Zaria. In their original theoretical format, such migrant quarters were conceived for the proper housing of Africans, especially southerners who were working for the government and for trading firms. As Ahmed Bako rightly pointed out, colonial segregation settlement was a result of the idea of town planning that emerged in the nineteenth century for military, political, economic, and sanitary needs of the colonial state. However, the practical implementation of the policy in Madobi, besides creating a dichotomy between the migrants and the host community, stripped the traditional village head of some of his political authority. As the Sabon Gari was established, it almost immediately became an independent village unit with an appointed village head in the person of Abdul Rahimi Ogunlade, a Yoruba man from Lagos.31 This development though was reversed in the 1950s, following Ogunlade’s demise, creating a deep-seated animosity between the two. It would have been interesting to have data on the migrant population. Unfortunately, they are not available. However, a tax assessment list estimated the number of migrants living in the quarters in 1949 at 208 and 142 for 1942/1943.32 This figure is questionable, for it was derived from a list of taxable adult males, and women and children were not included. Conversely, the poor economic opportunities in Kwankwaso discouraged migrants from settling there. They went instead to Madobi because of the better opportunities there. Although the colonial administration created a dichotomy between the migrants (especially the southerners) and their host, it could not prevent interethnic relations between the two, which were fostered within the socio-economic framework of colonialism. Besides the trade that brought them together, marriage and religion played an important role in fostering relations between them. Some of the Yoruba migrants, including the immigrants who were married and had families in Madobi, led to another generation of migrants who were born and raised in the diaspora. This is evidenced by Abdul Rahimi Ogunlade, who married a woman from Madobi and whose children in the course of time lost their Yoruba identity and have held important positions in Kano over the years. The migrants were also agents of change in Madobi. As the evidence indicate, they were instrumental in the establishment of schools, churches, and postal facilities, including in Kwankwaso.33

A Study of the Impact of Railway Stations  141

Conclusion From the foregoing, it is clear that the railway had a huge impact, but they differed between towns. As the chapter demonstrates, the railway stimulated groundnut production on a scale previously unknown. The impact was most pronounced in Madobi for reasons such as prices and locations, which were instrumental in the decision of firms to establish a station there. All these conditions were absent in Kwankwaso, which explains why firms did not go there. The only one that was established there, closed down because business was bad. The activities of the firms also attracted migrant populations from the south to Madobi. Their arrival had social and political implications. As this chapter shows, the presence of migrants stimulated economic activities and fostered interethnic relations, and also led to the establishment of migrant settlements, which stripped the traditional political leadership of some of its political responsibilities. The newcomers were agents of change in the community. However, the outbreak of the Civil War in the 1960s, the fall in groundnut prices, and the diminishing importance of the Nigerian Railways contributed to the decline of migrant quarters as with the towns. In general, this chapter submits that although the railway had enormous effects, they differed between towns.

Notes 1 For details on this see: O. Oshin, ‘Railway and Urbanization’, in Toyin Falola and Steven J. Salm, eds., Nigerian Cities (Trenton, NJ 2003–2004), 101–126; T. N. Tamuno, ‘Genesis of the Nigerian Railway, I’, Nigerian Magazine, 83, 1964, 279–292; T. N. Tamuno, ‘Genesis of the Nigerian Railway, II’, Nigerian Magazine, 84, 1964, 31–43; W. Oyemakinde, ‘Railway Construction and Operation in Nigeria, 1895–1911: Labor Problems and Economic Impact’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 3, no. 2, 1974, 303–324. 2 S.T. Yusuf, The Impact of the Railway on Kano Emirate, c. 1903–1960s: The Case of Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns (Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany 2010, 20–29. 3 Ibid., 20–21. 4 Kano State History and Culture Bureau (KSHCB), Kura Gazetteers 19/vol./2. 5 KSHCB, Kura Gazetteers. 6 KSHCB, 6415 Kano Province Annual Report for 1909 Judicial supplement. 7 For details on this see A.O. Anjorin, ‘Cotton Industry in Northern Nigeria during the Colonial Era’, in I.A. Akinjogbin and S. Osoba, eds., Topics on Nigerian Economic and Social History (Ife 1978), 115–127, especially 120. 8 F.D. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London 1965), 5, and Colonial Annual Report, Northern Nigeria for 1902, 8. 9 Yusuf, The Impact, 88, and KSHCB, 13.4P, Kano province Annual Report 1912, KSHCB, 13.4P, Kano Province Annual Report, SNP10/1. 10 F.A. Okediji, ‘An Economic History of Hausa Fulani Emirate of Northern Nigeria 1900–1939’, Indiana University Ph.D. thesis, 1972, 193; J.S. Hogendorn, Nigerian Groundnut Export: Origins and Early Development (Zaria 1978), 98–100, 114; National Archives Kaduna (NAK), Kan prof 717/1913, Annual Report Quarter Ending, NAK, Kan prof 270/1913, Annual Report Quarter Ending. 11 Yusuf, The Impact, 116.

142  Shehu Tijjani Yusuf 12 Ibid., 102; S.T. Yusuf, ‘Toward New Approaches to Nigeria’s Railway History: The Rural and Agricultural Alternatives’, in Saheed Aderinto and Paul Osifodunrin, eds. The Third Wave of Historical Scholarship on Nigeria, (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012), 207–223, 212. 13 Secretariat of Northern Province (SNP), 7/7/6/1913, Railway Station Naming. 14 Malam Mohammadu Nayi, interviewed at Gidan Radiyo Madobi on 23 March 2005; Malam Shehu Madobi (Baffan Kaduna), interviewed at Madobi Town on 18 September 2005; Alhaji Mohammadu Kwankwaso, interviewed at Kwankwaso Town on 25 September 2005. 15 Ibid. 16 Hogendorn, Nigerian Groundnut Export, 39, Okediji, ‘An Economic History’, 200. 17 KSHCB, 120P Kano Province Annual Report for 15 months ended 31 March 1921, KSHB, Acc. No. 68, Kura Inspection Notes. 18 S.A. Albasu, The Lebanese in Kano: An Immigrant Community in a Hausa Society in the Colonial and Post Colonial Periods (Kano 1995), 94–96. 19 KSHCB Acc. No 68, and MLG 9117/1929, Kura District of Kano Emirate Reassessment, and SNP 9/12 Kano Province Annual Report 1924, and 512 Kano Provincial Gazetteers. 20 KSHCB Acc. No 68. 21 Alhaji Ilyasu Lawan and Malam Yahaya Dabo, village head of Daburau, interviewed at Daburau, on 13 March 2011. 22 NAK, Kano prof 6179/S.2, and Kano Prof 6179/S.3 Groundnut Buying Stations and Points, NAK MKT/17/ N0.1, Gazetted Groundnut Stations, also see Yusuf, The Impact, 196–197. 23 NAK, Kano prof 6179/S.2. 24 M.B. Dottridge, ‘Aspects of Social and Economic Development in Southern Kura District before the Implementation of the Kura River Project’, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, paper presented, 1980, 15. See also NAK, Kano Prof 6179/S.3, Groundnut Buying Stations and Points, NAK 19/Vol. 2, AHAK, 3/3/16. 25 KSHCB Acc. No 68. 26 AHAK 3/3/16, 19–20. 27 KSHCB R528 Nigerian Railway Corporation, KSHCB Acc. No 68. 28 AHAK, 3/3/16, 14. 29 A. Bako, Sabon Gari Kano: A History of Immigrants and Inter Group Relations in the 20th Century (Sokoto 2009), 18–19, O. Oshin, ‘Railway and Urbanizationʼ, 110–114. 30 Alhaji Bala Gora, Alhaji Ilyasu Lawan, Malam Yahaya Dabo. 31 KSHCB, Acc. no. 68. 32 KSHCB, Acc. no. 68. 33 Yusuf, The Impact, 166–167.

Literature Albasu, S.A., The Lebanese in Kano: An Immigrant Community in a Hausa Society in the Colonial and Post Colonial Periods (Kano 1995). Anjorin, A.O., ‘Cotton Industry in Northern Nigeria during the Colonial Era’, in I.A. Akinjogbin and S. Osoba, eds., Topics on Nigerian Economic and Social History (Ife 1978), 115–127. Bako, A., Sabon Gari Kano: A History of Immigrants and Inter Group Relations in the 20thCentury (Sokoto 2009). Dottridge, M.B., ‘Aspects of Social and Economic Development in Southern Kura District before the Implementation of the Kura River Project’, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, paper presented, 1980.

A Study of the Impact of Railway Stations  143 Hogendorn, J.S., Nigerian Groundnut Export: Origins and Early Development (Zaria 1978). Lugard, F.D., The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London 1965). Mukhtar, M.I., ‘British Colonial Labour Policies on the Changing Roles of Labour in Kano Emirate c. 1903–1930’, Ahmadu Bello University Ph.D. thesis, 1994. Okediji, F.A., ‘An Economic History of Hausa Fulani Emirate of Northern Nigeria 1900–1939’, Indiana University Ph.D. thesis, 1972. Oshin, O., ‘Railway and Urbanization’, in Toyin Falola and Steven J. Salm, eds., Nigerian Cities (Trenton, NJ 2003–2004), 101–126. Oyemakinde, W., ‘Railway Construction and Operation in Nigeria, 1850–1911: Labor Problems and Economic Impact’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 3, no. 2, 1974, 303–324. Tamuno, T.N., ‘Genesis of the Nigerian Railway, part I’, Nigerian Magazine, 83, 1964, 279–292. Tamuno, T.N., ‘Genesis of the Nigerian Railway, part II’, Nigerian Magazine, 84, 1964, 31–43. Yusuf, S.T., ‘Toward New Approaches to Nigerian Railway History: The Rural and Agricultural Alternatives’, in Saheed Aderinto and Paul Osifodunrin eds., The Third Wave of Historical Scholarship on Nigeria (New Castle upon Tyne 2012), 207–223. Yusuf, S.T., The Impact of the Railway on Kano Emirate, c. 1903–1960s: The Case of Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns (Lambert Academic Publishing 2010).

4 Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West, 1865–1925 H. Roger Grant

Introduction For more than a century the railroad industry exerted a profound impact on the American urban landscape, spawning thousands of villages, towns and cities. This phenomenon knew no geographical bounds. Even in New England, the Mid-Atlantic States and the South, where settlement largely had preceded the coming of the iron horse in the 1830s and 1840s, “railroad towns” appeared and this new transport stimulated most existing communities. Take Branchville, South Carolina. In the 1830s the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road completed a 136-mile trans-state rail line that connected the Atlantic Ocean at Charleston with the Savannah River at Hamburg, opposite Augusta, Georgia. Within a few years after the opening of what was then the longest railroad in the world, the company, flying the corporate banner of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road, built a 62mile branch northward to Columbia, the state capital, from the new station and settlement at “Branchville”. Even the name denoted the railroad influence. Although it could claim to be the first American railway junction, Branchville never became a Charleston or Columbia, gaining only a few hundred residents by the outbreak of the Civil War. Commented a visitor, somewhat tongue-in-cheek: “When I last saw it in the spring of 1848, it was a water-vat and a pile of pine wood”.1 The principal Atlantic seaports, extending from Boston to Charleston, benefitted from the iron horse as rail lines penetrated the hinterlands. New York initially exploited the commence on the Hudson River that the advent of steamboats had enhanced. By the 1820s the Hudson became the continuing artery for freight and passenger traffic that moved between Albany and Buffalo along the Erie Canal, the harbinger of the canal-building craze of the 1820s and 1830s.2 Other cities became jealous of the transport patterns that energised Gotham. Richmond, situated at the tidewater end of the James River, sought to enhance its economic position by backing the James River and Kanawha Canal, but this waterway failed to reach the goal of the Ohio River. Philadelphia energised construction of the complicated and expensive “State

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-7

Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West  145 Works” to connect with the Ohio River and Lake Erie, which included canals and an inclined plane over the spine of the Appalachian Mountains. Baltimore hedged its bets. City fathers backed both the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (also headed toward the Ohio River) and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Charleston considered a canal to reach the Tennessee and Ohio rivers but instead opted for that rail route to Hamburg. Then at the Knoxville Railroad Convention of 1836 business interests agitated for a 700-mile railroad to the Ohio. Boston, though, realised that a canal would be impractical to reach the Erie Canal at Albany; the barrier of the Berkshire Mountains would make such an undertaking too costly. So Bostonians sparked construction of the Western Rail Road of Massachusetts that largely paralleled the contemplated canal path.3 In time New York, Philadelphia and Richmond followed Boston, Baltimore and Charleston and chose railroads, making impressive gains in population and wealth. By the 1850s New York & Hudson River and New York & Erie railroads connected New York City to the West as did the Pennsylvania Railroad for Philadelphia and somewhat later the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway for Richmond. Inland urban centres likewise profited from the appearance of the iron horse. Those principal river towns along the Ohio River – Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Cincinnati and Louisville – found that that great waterway, which via the Mississippi River, reached New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, could not be depended on solely, although Cincinnati and Pittsburgh had gained from canals. But the advent of railroads ensured growth, sustained and strengthened commercial hegemonies, and redirected the flow of goods from a largely north-south axis to an east-west direction, the latter being a revolutionary change. This adjusted traffic movement meant stronger economic ties between New England and the Mid-Atlantic with the Old Northwest, producing a profound impact on mid-nineteenth-century politics.4 What happened in Cincinnati indicates the impact of the rails on a place that had gained from both natural and artificial waterways. The town’s founding had much to do with its Ohio River location. The opening in 1828 of the Miami Canal between Cincinnati and Dayton and completion somewhat later of the Miami & Ohio Canal (Extension) between Dayton and Toledo on Lake Erie were major factors in making Cincinnati the ‘Queen City of the West’. Construction of the nearby Whitewater Canal in Indiana also bolstered commerce. The flow of goods into and out of Cincinnati, which these waterways facilitated, had that positive effect. Then came the railroads, first in 1843 with a tap line to the north that within a few years reached several strategic connections. In 1846 the second carrier to serve Cincinnati inaugurated service to Hamilton and five years later to Dayton. “Cincinnati is usually referred to as affording the most striking instance of progressive increase”, wrote an impressed English visitor in 1854, “not only as regards population, but manufacturers, commerce and every attribute of refinement.”5 More tracks appeared. By 1870, the city, which had

146  H. Roger Grant begun the nineteenth century as a settlement of 750 residents, had reached a population of 216,239 and claimed six railroads that radiated mostly to north, east and west. Much of this population spurt coincided with the coming of the rails. Yet connections with the South were less extensive. The desire to exploit the lumber, mineral and agricultural traffic from Kentucky, Tennessee and states of the Deep South and to enhance markets for commercial houses and manufacturers led to construction of the 336-mile municipally-owned Cincinnati Southern Railway that opened in 1880 between Cincinnati and Chattanooga, Tennessee, another burgeoning railroad centre. Within a decade Cincinnati gained nearly another 100,000 citizens, strengthening its position as Queen City of the West and testifying to the wise investment of public funds in what would be the largest municipal railroad in American history.6 If the iron horse energised Cincinnati, the foremost illustration of the impact of the railroad on urbanisation in the Old Northwest would be Chicago. Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, this future metropolis took shape in the 1830s as a shack-like village of a few hundred inhabitants that adjoined Fort Dearborn with its small garrison of U.S. troops. The town’s advantageous site, strengthened by the opening in 1848 of the 97-mile Illinois & Michigan (I&M) Canal, which linked Chicago with the Illinois River, allowed for impressive, sustained growth. The Census of 1850 listed a population of nearly 30,000, a whopping gain over the 4,170 residents enumerators counted a decade earlier. Chicagoans expected a bright future for their hometown and showed a fierce determination to foster growth. Residents correctly perceived that railroads were both a cause and result of urban development, and they strove to enhance these services. Fortunately, a good location, strong civic leadership and considerable luck blessed Chicago.7 In the same year that freight barges and passenger packets began to move along the much anticipated I&M “ditch”, the first steam locomotive arrived in Chicago. In late 1848 the ten-ton Pioneer, the initial piece of motive power of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad (core of the Chicago & North Western Railway System), puffed and clanked along the few miles of this primitive artery. But the engine did more than excite the populace. The Galena, which rapidly increased its length and rolling stock, showed real economic promise. ‘The company will, we presume, find no difficulty in obtaining sufficient means for the vigorous prosecution of the remainder of the line’, editorialised the American Railroad Journal in 1850. ‘The success of that part opened must inspire confidence in the ability of the company to meet all liabilities incurred on account of construction.’8 Chicago boomed: more railroads, more businesses, more population. By the time of the Great Fire of 1871, this city of 299,000 residents claimed to be the “Railroad Mecca of America”. Its principal rival, St. Louis, Missouri, whose boosters expected to exploit the Chicago calamity, failed to accomplish that objective. Although by the end of the nineteenth century St. Louis had become an important rail hub, it was no Chicago, having been hindered

Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West  147 by a leadership committed to river commerce (Mississippi and Missouri rivers) and slow to bridge the “Father of Waters”.9 As railroads and settlers poured into the undeveloped and underdeveloped areas of the trans-Chicago West (also called the trans-Mississippi West), railroad officials and town boomers hoped that the success of Chicago could be replicated. Would there be a series of “new Chicagos?” The answer was an expectant yes! While the iron horse would make such nonriver towns as Denver, Colorado; Lincoln, Nebraska and Topeka, Kansas, thriving cities, yet, none would equal the urban might of the Windy City. Railroads also contributed to the future importance of other places with navigable water connections: Kansas City, Missouri; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Omaha, Nebraska. Nevertheless, hundreds of railroad-spawned towns appeared at trackside. As an American traveller explained to a German visitor, Railroads with us are magic wands, horns of plenty, from which we scatter the seeds of population, and [towns] spring up and fill the place we have made for them as water does when you dig a canal in a moist country.10 In the trans-Chicago West, these places commonly sprouted where tracks advanced ahead of settlement, being spaced at regular intervals of from five to fifteen miles apart. And the years for town founding stretched for almost a century. This time frame extended long after the U.S. Superintendent of the Census pronounced in 1893 the close of the frontier and soon thereafter when historian Frederick Jackson Turner speculated that free or inexpensive lands had shaped the American character (individualism, optimism, materialism, democracy, nationalism and the urge to “move about”). Railroad ties to town creation were far more common than most Americans realised, even those who experienced the process.11 The excitement of a new town, including land speculations, took place throughout the trans-Chicago West, especially after the Civil War. Lot sales, boosterism and optimism were part of the town-development mix. Whether directly connected to a railroad company or not, promoters employed a variety of “come-ons” to attract buyers who hopefully would build homes and businesses in these embryonic communities. There would be a flurry of handbills, newspaper advertisements and other announcements. If a public auction were held, promoters offered free or inexpensive rail excursions to the location from nearby towns and cities. There was much more: food and drink (lemonade, coffee and occasionally beer), contests that ranged from the “prettiest baby” brought to the event to drawings for prizes and free lots and repeated pronouncements that money spent on real estate would be a shrewd investment. As late as the post-World War One era such town promotions continued. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (Santa Fe) and Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) railroads, for example, spawned towns in the Oklahoma panhandle,

148  H. Roger Grant a place that maintained frontier characteristics until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Even in more highly developed Minnesota new towns came into being. The Luce Line, named after the father-son promoters William and Erle Luce, gave birth in the 1920s to several towns as this “twilight rails” carrier built west from Minneapolis toward South Dakota. One urban project of the Luce Line involved Cosmos, located 76 miles from Minneapolis. On June 23, 1923, a ‘Big Auction Sale of COSMOS Townsite Lots’ took place. The development firm, controlled by the Luces, employed the typical hard-sell approach. Many will double and treble their money by buying at this sale. Investors made thousands of dollars in the early days buying lots on the west extensions of railway lines, and you will be able to do better. Don’t tell your children in years to come you could have bought lots in COSMOS, but show them your profits.12 Potential buyers were reminded that Nicolet avenue [principal street in Minneapolis] land could be bought at $40 an acre at one time, now it cannot be bought for $6,000 a running foot; same in proportion in many good Minnesota towns, with not the same chance that COSMOS has.13 The future for Cosmos looked promising. The sale went well, fostered by free transportation, popular prizes and good weather. The village grew and on July 31, 1925, the weekly Cosmos News made its debut. ‘Since the advent of the railroad’, wrote the editor in the inaugural issue, ‘Cosmos has made rapid growth and the necessity to help keep up the good work was beginning to be felt.’ While the place took on metropolitan airs, it never rivalled Chicago, let alone Minneapolis or the county seat of Litchfield, but it thrived until the brutal impact of the Great Depression and monumental changes in agricultural production and marketing.14 How many Cosmoses came about because of the railroad it is difficult to determine, at least in precise numbers. Some places never advanced much beyond a siding, grain elevator or stockyard, yet they had a name that was likely shown in timetables. Totals likely exceeded 5,000. South Dakota is representative. An estimated 600 railroad-birth communities appeared, many during the “Great Dakota Boom” that lasted from 1878 to 1885. This was the time when the Chicago & North Western (North Western) and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (Milwaukee Road) went on a rail-building blitz. By 1890 the two carriers covered the eastern part of the state like a “morning dew”. Early in the twentieth century the North Western and Milwaukee Road penetrated the West River Country from points on the Missouri River by opening lines to Rapid City, the expanding metropolis of the Black Hills, and adding additional appendages. With this construction came towns,

Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West  149 including Box Elder, Capa, Cottonwood, Midland, Philip, Quinn, Underwood and Wall on the North Western and Creston, Draper, Imlay, Kadoka, Kennebec and Murdo MacKenzie on the Milwaukee Road.15 Railroad officials knew the value of town-making. Those individuals who held a financial stake in a town-lot affiliate benefitted, earning personal rewards from real-estate sales. For the carrier, the goal was to develop its service territory and new towns made sense. “Dense settlement should be aimed at as the true foundation for a broad prosperity in the future”, opined a spokesman for the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. Earlier another Burlington official remarked: “We are beginning to find that he who buildeth a railroad west of the Mississippi must also find a population and build up business.”16 A railroad-spawned town was designed to attract the trade of the surrounding agricultural (and occasionally mining) population and to become the point where products – raw and finished – flowed. Simply put: a railroad town was an effective device for organising traffic (Figures 4.1 and 4.2).17 As the web of rails covered much of the trans-Chicago West, competition might become keen. Abandoning a townsite was tantamount to handing over business to a competitor, and so a railroad would loyally promote

Figure 4.1  T  ypical T-Town Layout. This “T-Town” drawing shows the typical layout for hundreds of railroad-spawned towns that appeared after 1865 in the trans-Chicago West. Source: Author’s Collection.

150  H. Roger Grant

Figure 4.2  M  odified T-Town Layout for Roaring Springs, Texas. One of the most imaginative variations of the standard “T-Town” design was created for Roaring Springs, Texas. In the early twentieth century, the townsite company boasted that this station on the Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railroad “is well laid out”.18 No one would disagree. Source: Author’s Collection.

and defend its communities. In some cases, towns stood only a few miles apart as lines of rival carriers neared or crossed one another. Early in the twentieth century when the Soo Line Railroad built its “Wheat Line” across North Dakota, the established Great Northern Railway countered this Soo “invasion” by extending branches that were designed for traffic protection. In the process, more town sites were platted and these settlements quickly obtained a depot, grain elevator and related businesses. Yet bitter rivalries involved more than two nearby competing towns on competitive rail lines fighting for dominance, even survival. Frequently battles broke out between

Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West  151 settlements for the county seat, an administrative unit that nearly always ensured the permanence of a townsite. More fights erupted over other public plums: normal and land-grant colleges, insane asylums, penitentiaries and state capitals.19 In the vast region of the trans-Chicago West, the process of town creation by World War One had largely run its course, although in scattered areas more railroad-spawned settlements appeared. The quest then focused on saving the communities that had been established. In recent years some scholars condemn the “over-building” of railroads and towns in the trans-Chicago West. In his controversial book, Bad Land, Jonathan Raban blasts the Milwaukee Road for booming the high plains of eastern Montana that gave rise to a host of what became “hard-luck” towns and villages. But contemporaries infrequently voiced the opinion that too many miles of rails had been installed or that too many towns had been created. Those who lived in dynamic trade centres certainly did not give this matter much thought, expecting continued growth. Even residents of the smallest places usually did not anticipate failure. If they did encounter economic troubles, they could relocate to more stable communities. These individuals of the Railway Age knew that over-land transportation alternatives were limited, at least until the advent of dependable motor vehicles and better public roads.20 Critics of the “too much” phenomenon gained ammunition with 20-20 historic hindsight should become their perfect historic hindsight. There is no denying that replacement technologies – motor vehicles – had a negative impact on the smallest railroad-birthed places. By the 1930s the “Automobile Age” had become fully established. But other factors came into play. Since so much of the trans-Chicago West depended on agriculture, the pronounced decline in the number of farms and ranches that came about because of the Great Depression, intense drought of the mid-1930s (“Dirty Thirties”), increased mechanisation of field-crop and livestock production and more efficient methods of commodities collection has meant a plethora of badly broken communities. By the twenty-first century scores of mostly ghost towns dot the landscape. Yet this is not to assume that failures were total. Those communities that existed within convenient automobile commuting distances of metropolitan centres, whether a Des Moines, Omaha or Wichita, have held their own, and at times these “bedroom” communities have grown as urban sprawl has advanced. Rapidly changing technologies have allowed individuals, who seek the solitude, charm and economy afforded their families by scores of railroad-spawned towns, to reverse the withering process. Just as few anticipated the impact of cars, trucks and allweather roads, few before the last decade of the twentieth century grasped the potential impact of the Internet and its maturation thereafter with smartphones and related electronic devices. Whether following or preceding urban development, the railroad made its mark. Although thousands of miles of rail lines have been abandoned since World War Two, and hundreds of communities have regained or gained the

152  H. Roger Grant status of “inland” places, the railroad continues to sustain towns and cities in the trans-Chicago West, and something that is not likely to end. The impressive growth of intermodal transportation, best represented by container transport, has meant that regional urban life can flourish. Moreover, new products, often rural-centred like corn ethanol, move to market totally or in part by rail, adding to the importance of railroads in the trans-Chicago West. In the process, such changes have stabilised or caused the growth of some small towns that seemed destined for fatal decline.

Notes 1 Samuel M. Derrick, Centennial History of South Carolina Railroad (Columbia, SC, 1930); Boston Daily Advertiser (Boston, MA) of 11 January 1865. 2 Robert G. Albion, The Rise of the New York Port, 1815–1860 (New York 1939). 3 Ronald E. Shaw, Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790–1860 (Lexington 1990), 98–125; Caroline E. MacGill, et al., History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (Gloucester, MA 1948); Frederick C. Gamst, ed., Early American Railroads: Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner’s Die innern Communicationen (1842–1843) (Stanford 1997), 352–362; Justin Winsor, The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630–1880 (Boston, MA 1881). 4 Archer Butler Hulbert, The Ohio River: A Course of Empire (New York 1906), 358–370; Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, MA 1959). 5 William Chambers, Things As They Are in America (London and Edinburgh 1854), 149. 6 R. Carlyle Buley, The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815–1840, 2 vols. (Indianapolis 1950); J. H. Hollander, The Cincinnati Southern: A Study in Municipal Activity (Baltimore, MD 1894). 7 Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago: The Beginning of a City, 1673–1848 (New York 1937); William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York 1991); Jack Harpster, The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago: A Biography of William B. Ogden (Carbondale, IL 2009), 73–195. 8 H. Roger Grant, The North Western: A History of the Chicago & North Western Railway System (DeKalb, IL 1996), 8–17; American Railroad Journal of 7 September 1850. 9 Wyatt Belcher, The Economic Rivalry Between St. Louis and Chicago, 1850–1880 (New York 1947). 10 Johann G. Kohl, Travels in Canada and through the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 2 vols., (London 1861), vol. 1, 239. 11 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York 1920). 12 Hutchinson (MN) Leader of 22 June 1923; H. Roger Grant, Twilight Rails: The Final Era of Railroad Building in the Midwest (Minneapolis 2010), 114–119. 13 Ibid. 14 Cosmos (MN) News of 31 July 1925. 15 Grant, The North Western, 91–92; August Derleth, The Milwaukee Road: Its First Hundred Years (New York 1949), 184–185. 16 Richard C. Overton, Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines (New York 1965), 101–103. 17 John W. Reps, Cities of the American West (Princeton, NJ 1979); Richard C. Overton, Burlington West: A Colonization History of the Burlington Railroad (Cambridge, MA 1941), 269–289; newspaper clipping, Chicago, Burlington &

Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West  153 Quincy Railroad file, John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, University of Missouri-St. Louis; C. Berens and N. Mitchell, ‘Parallel Tracts, Same Terminus: The Role of Nineteenth-Century Newspapers and Railroads in the Settlement of Nebraska’, Great Plains Quarterly, 29, Fall, 2009, 287–300. 18 Don L. Hofsommer, The Quanah Route: A History of the Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railway (College Station, TX 1991), 31. 19 J. Hudson, ‘North Dakota’s Railway War of 1905’, North Dakota History, 48, 1981, 4–19; John C. Hudson, Plains Country Towns (Minneapolis, MN 1985). 20 Jonathan Raban, Bad Land: An American Romance (New York 1997).

Literature Albion, Robert G., The Rise of the New York Port, 1815–1860 (New York 1939). Belcher, Wyatt, The Economic Rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago, 1850–1880 (New York 1947). Berens, C., and Mitchell, N., ‘Parallel Tracts, Same Terminus: The Role of Nineteenth-Century Newspapers and Railroads in the Settlement of Nebraska’, Great Plains Quarterly, 29, Fall, 2009, 287–300. Buley, R. Carlyle, The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815–1840, 2 vols. (Indianapolis 1950). Chambers, William, Things As They Are in America (London and Edinburgh 1854). Cronon, William, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York 1991). Derleth, August, The Milwaukee Road: Its First Hundred Years (New York 1949). Derrick, Samuel. M., Centennial History of South Carolina Railroad (Columbia, SC, 1933). Gamst, Frederick C., ed., Early American Railroads: Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner’s Die innern Communicationen (1842–1843) (Stanford 1997). Grant, H. Roger, The North Western: A History of the Chicago & North Western Railway System (DeKalb, IL 1996). Grant, H. Roger, Twilight Rails: The Final Era of Railroad Building in the Midwest (Minneapolis 2010). Harpster, Jack, The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago: A Biography of William B. Ogden (Carbondale, IL 2009). Hofsommer; Don L., The Quanah Route: A History of the Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railway (College Station, TX 1991). Hollander, J. H., The Cincinnati Southern: A Study in Municipal Activity (Baltimore, MD 1894). Hudson, J., ‘North Dakota’s Railway War of 1905’, North Dakota History, 48, 1981, 4–19. Hudson, John C., Plains Country Towns (Minneapolis, MN 1985). Hulbert, Archer Butler, The Ohio River: A Course of Empire (New York 1906). Kohl, Johann G., Travels in Canada and through the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 2 vols. (London 1861). MacGill, Caroline E., et al., History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (Gloucester, MA 1948). Overton, Richard C., Burlington West: A Colonization History of the Burlington Railroad (Cambridge, MA 1941). Overton, Richard C., Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines (New York 1965).

154  H. Roger Grant Pierce, Bessie Louise, A History of Chicago: The Beginning of a City, 1673–1848 (New York 1937). Raban, Jonathan, Bad Land: An American Romance (New York 1997). Reps, John W., Cities of the American West (Princeton, NJ 1979). Shaw, Ronald E., Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790–1860 (Lexington 1990). Wade, Richard C., The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, MA 1959). Winsor, Justin, The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630–1880 (Boston, MA 1881).

5 Bombay and its Hinterland(s) Railways and the Making of Colonial Western India, 1853–c.1900 Ian Johnstone Kerr Introduction Bombay (Mumbai) possesses South Asia’s finest, deep-water, sheltered harbour. In the early twenty-first century, it is India’s most populated city and India’s commercial and financial centre. Some 15 million people live within the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation, and many millions more live within the extended conurbation. The beginnings of this enormous growth date from the advent of railways in Western India in the mid-­nineteenth century, before which features of Bombay’s site and situation constrained economic and demographic growth. Bombay became South Asia’s major port, and a great centre of commerce, finance and ­manufacturing because of the mass transportation railways made possible. The railways enabled large-scale growth, although they were not the singular cause of growth (Figure 5.1). Bombay has a thin, insular-peninsular site located on a narrow coastal plain flanked by the mountain range commonly known as the Western Ghats. The Ghats, cresting at a precipitous 1,500 metres some 48–96 kilometres inland, made bulk transportation eastward to the interior of Western India difficult. Land transportation north or south from Bombay along the narrow coastal plain encountered other obstacles, notably the substantial estuaries of a succession of rivers. Bombay’s development, therefore, as a bulk-shipment port and as a centre of manufacturing and commerce was constrained in the mid-nineteenth century by the absence of a reliable, all-weather, land-based system of bulk transportation connecting Bombay to a potentially vast hinterland extending from north to south along an extensive eastern-facing arc.1 Railways alone in the nineteenth century could overcome the transportation limitations inherent in Bombay’s site and situation. Thus, the modern history of the growth of Bombay is, at one level, the history of the complicated, recursive roles the railways played in the making of Bombay and Western India from the 1850s onwards. However, and most emphatically, this emphasis on the railways does not mean that pre-railway Western India was static and immobile. Recent scholarship on pre and early colonial India has demonstrated how actively goods and people, ideas and remittances circulated throughout the Indian subcontinent and its regions.2 Therefore, the extent to which steam locomotion from the 1850s forward DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-8

156  Ian Johnstone Kerr

Figure 5.1  R  ailway map of India, 1931. Source: ‘General Map of Railways’, The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. 26; Atlas, new (revised) edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931, plate 23.

radically transformed transportation in India must be explored ‘on the basis of a reconstruction of long-term processes, in which patterns of circulation were replaced or reinforced, remoulded or overlaid’.3 The ‘making’ covered in this paper involved a dialectical relationship between older and newer forms of transportation constructed across spaces repeatedly configured and re-configured by the old and the new. Additionally, railways throughout colonial India expanded in temporally and spatially discontinuous sequences, disconnections fraught with consequences: some places came into close connection with Bombay sooner, some later; areas and towns close to the railway lines had a more intensely integrated relationship with Bombay than did areas and towns more distant from a railway line. Thus, Bombay had many hinterlands: continuous and discontinuous swathes of territory associated with different sequences of railway building. Quoting Henri Lefebvre, we can say that

Railways in Bombay and its Hinterland(s)  157 these spaces attained a real existence ‘by virtue of networks and pathways, by virtue of bunches or clusters of relationships’ whose diversity was ‘far more reminiscent of flaky mille-feuille pastry than of the homogeneous and isotropic space of classical (Euclidean/Cartesian) mathematics’.4 Railways provided the core infrastructure of those networks, pathways and relationships from the mid-nineteenth century until well into the twentieth century when the development of motorised road transportation began to present serious competition. Railway-influenced nineteenth-century Western India fitted well the world described by Frederick Cooper in his penetrating critique of the concept of globalisation as a space where economic and social relations are very uneven; it is filled with lumps, places where power coalesces surrounded by those where it does not, where social relations become dense amidst others that are diffuse. Structures and networks penetrate certain places and do certain things with great intensity, but their effects tail off elsewhere.5 Focussing on the period from 1853 to roughly 1900, this paper describes the railway-facilitated integration and expansion of Bombay’s hinterlands and the major consequences those processes had for Bombay and for Western India. Bombay had roughly 500,000 inhabitants in 1850, 980,000 in 1911, and 1,175,914 in 1921. Tons of goods booked to and from the railway stations of Bombay totalled 339,771 in 1870 and 1,825,007 in 1908. The total value of the foreign and coasting trade of Bombay port more than trebled between 1850–1851 and 1900–1901.6 These increases owed much to the railways. Meanwhile, within the hinterlands by way of a few examples, cotton growing increased, and raw cotton was moved in increasing quantities to railway stations for onward carriage to Bombay, a development that reached ‘bubble-like’ proportions in the regional economy in the early 1860s when the American Civil War cut off Britain’s supply of cotton from the American South. Some 20 years later the arrival of the railway in the Dharwar district in 1884 enabled its local farmers to grow a different kind of cash crop, large quantities of chili peppers for sale in the newly accessible – within the timely window of opportunity fresh produce sales required – vegetable markets of Bombay.7 More generally, only coastal shipping provided good water transport in most of Western India therefore elsewhere in the region ‘the railroad brought a staggering reduction in transport costs and an equally startling expansion in capacity’.8 The consequences, however, of railway development – and of the electric telegraph since the latter provided the quick transfer of information upon which better-integrated markets depended – were not limited to the movement of commodities. New bodies of capitalists and traders, for example, moved into Nasik after the railway reached that town in 1861. The Gazetteer (1888 edition) of the Nasik district observed:

158  Ian Johnstone Kerr When risks were great and much time was taken in turning over stock, business could be carried on only by men of considerable capital: competition was small and profits were high. With safe and rapid carriage, the stock in trade can soon be turned over, and the competition of men of small capital becomes possible. Again, the ease with which they can visit the district has attracted outside traders. And their knowledge of the railway and the telegraph, their bolder and wider methods of trading, and their willingness to take a smaller margin of profit, have enabled more than one class of outside traders to establish themselves in Nasik.9 However, and it is a crucial caveat, the particular socio-economic changes in the Nasik district were not necessarily replicated elsewhere in Western India upon the arrival of the railway. Local conditions influenced outcomes as did wider, even global events. The American Civil War is again a major example. The sequences of railway development also influenced the course of events. Thus, the late arrival from the north (1884) of the railway in the southern Bombay Presidency district of Dharwar (around Hubli on the map) meant that largely east-west transportation patterns based on all-weather carting roads constructed from the 1840s onwards were seriously disturbed.10 The railway engrossed cotton grown in the district, which had been carted to small ports on the west coast for shipment to Bombay. The destination of the cotton remained unchanged although upon arrival in Bombay a rail yard and its coolies replaced a dock and its stevedores at the point of unloading. Additionally, within Dharwar district: The increase in the cost of foodstuffs caused by increasing cotton production at the expense of subsistence crops, and the cheapening of imported mill cloth caused by the railroad, made handloom weaving ever less profitable and caused its decline in the countryside. At the same time, the railroad intensified the importance of the towns through which it passed, causing important changes in the relations of markets within the district.11 The remainder of this paper explores further the complexities of the railwayinfluenced relationships between Bombay and its evolving hinterlands in the period 1853 to roughly 1900. The focus is to explore the railway-mediated interconnections, the networks, pathways and flows, thanks to which Bombay grew as it became more closely connected to its developing hinterlands, which also experienced major changes. The development of the railways during this period occurred in at least three major spatial-temporal phases: (1) the expansion associated with the main-line growth of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) north-east and south-east through the Western Ghats and into the plateau lands beyond. These lines were soon provided through connections to the Gangetic Valley

Railways in Bombay and its Hinterland(s)  159 at Jubbulpore where a junction with the East Indian Railway was established, and to Madras via a junction with the Madras Railway at Raichur, available by March 1870 and May 1871 respectively; (2) the connection of Bombay with Gujarat via the coastal line of the Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway (BB&CIR) built southward from Surat to reach Bombay in 1864. Phase three (3) encompassed the development of alternative routes and feeder lines, and particularly the development in the 1880s in the western interior of the metre gauge Southern Mahratta Railway (SMR) whose main line, Goa to Tadepalli (510 miles, 821 kilometres), was opened throughout in 1890. Additional phases could be identified such as (4) the development within Bombay starting in the 1890s of a more dense network of harbour lines to more effectively link steamships and steam locomotives, port and hinterlands; and (5) the intensified integration of the ‘near hinterland’ associated with the suburbanisation of Bombay facilitated by the growth of a network of commuter lines as population densities in the older, southern part of the city skyrocketed. The five phases overlapped and their consequences for the growth of Bombay City became imbricated with one another. For example, Bombay had a ‘maritime heart’, and it remained very much a port city thanks to many steps taken to ensure its primacy.12 As early as October 1860 – before the Ghat railway inclines opened – prominent European and Indian merchants of Bombay ‘interested in the commerce and prosperity’ of the City sent a memorial to the Government urging the construction of wet and dry docks and bonded warehouses.13 At the present the shipping, landing, and storing of Goods are attended with great risk and inconvenience, and when the Railways have opened up communication with the remote but fertile districts of this Presidency, it is difficult to conceive how the business of the Port will be carried on, unless some steps are taken in anticipation to establish a Dock and Warehouse system as in England.14 However, because of space limitations, this paper focuses on the first three phases that occurred primarily in the spatial arena beyond Greater Bombay.

Phase One: The Growth of the GIPR Bombay long had been in the possession of the British – an isolated but useful enclave on India’s western coast since 1661. It included a naval station, shipbuilding location, and a transfer port between coastal and ocean-going ships. However, as British-controlled territories in Western India expanded, and as Britain industrialised domestically and found India useful as a source of raw materials and as a market for British goods pressures mounted in the 1840s to connect better Bombay’s hinterlands to Bombay harbour. Cotton

160  Ian Johnstone Kerr textile interests in the British Midlands were particularly keen to see railways connect Bombay harbour with the cotton-growing areas of the Bombay Presidency. Construction of the 5’6” gauge (1.676 metres) GIPR was approved in 1849, work began in 1850, and the first stretch of operating line, Bombay to Thana, officially opened in April 1853. The processes of integrating and extending Bombay’s hinterlands literally picked up steam as locomotives began to traverse a growing network of railway lines. However, over a decade passed before Bombay had continuous rail connection with the interior of Western India because the Western Ghats provided a formidable challenge to railway construction. The southeastern line of the GIPR routed via the Bhor Ghat Incline opened throughout in 1863 to provide direct connection between Bombay and Poona. The northeastern line of the GIPR surmounted the Western Ghats at the Thal Ghat where another difficult incline opened for through traffic in 1865. Some additional development of the GIPR, notably the line to Nagpur (opened 1867), from whence many years later a junction with the Bengal-Nagpur Railway was effected thus providing a shorter route to Eastern India, and the development in the late 1880s of the GIPR-owned, but separately floated, Indian Midland Railway connecting Bhopal with Cawnpore and other northerly points. By 1893, the GIPR and its subsidiaries operated along some 2,500 route miles through a large swathe of territory extending north-east to south-east of Bombay, which was the system’s main terminus and operating heart.

Phase Two: The Growth of the BB&CIR Initially, the Government of India denied the BB&CIR permission to build a line into Bombay. Therefore, its initial construction occurred in Gujarat, which, in colonial times, was also part of the Bombay Presidency. Sections of the BB&CIR north of Surat opened in 1860 and 1861. However, permission to construct a line south from Surat was eventually provided, such that in November 1864 the 183 miles of BB&CIR track to Bombay officially opened. The BB&CIR line from Surat brought a large, additional area into closer contact with Bombay. The BB&CIR already had lines beyond Surat into the agricultural areas of Gujarat within which cotton was grown in increasing quantities. That cotton in its raw form now had a direct rail link to the docks of Bombay and to the cotton textile mills of the City, although Ahmedabad in Gujarat also became a major location of the Indian cotton textile industry – roughly comparable to that of Bombay – from the 1860s. Later development of the BB&CIR saw it extend its routes into Baroda, the valley of the Tapti River, and into north and northwestern India. The latter included the BB&CIR acceptance in January 1885 of the working of the state-built and state-owned, 1,782 miles (2,867 kilometres) metre gauge Rajputana-Malwa Railway. Kathiawar was covered by a network of narrow gauge lines that intersected with the BB&CIR’s 5’6” gauge main lines. All of this network development extended and better integrated the western

Railways in Bombay and its Hinterland(s)  161 hinterlands of Bombay, which became the terminus and headquarters of the entire BB&CIR system soon after the railway entered the City. Gujarat had long been the most important commercial hinterland of Bombay (after Bombay had supplanted Surat as the major west coast port in the course of the mid-eighteenth century) thanks to coastal shipping and slow, laborious, yet substantial land transportation. Raw cotton in increasing quantity for the mills of Manchester, and opium from Gujarat and adjoining Malwa for China, had fuelled the previous growth of Bombay as an entrepot colonial port city. The BB&CIR maintained and strengthened a metropolis-hinterland relationship with Gujarat. However, the incorporation of the Deccan into an increasingly wellintegrated relationship with Bombay was fundamental to Bombay’s later nineteenth-century growth. The incorporation of the Deccan had to wait upon certain political changes, i.e. the emergence of clear British colonial dominance in Western India, and the defeat of the Marathas sealed in 1817, and the conquest of the Western Ghats by the GIPR railway lines in the 1850s and early 1860s, presaged by some decades of improved albeit difficult roads through the Ghats.15 Thanks to these developments, and particularly because of the railways, Bombay ceased to be ex-centrically located with respect to the Indian subcontinent. By the latter decades of the nineteenth century, Bombay had “moved” from the periphery of India to a central position in terms of inland communications, and had become the “Gateway of India” as far as overseas communications with the West were concerned.16

Phase Three: The SMR and the Deccan Interior This phase involved railway lines that did not extend into Bombay City. Construction of the metre gauge SMR was sanctioned in 1879, and its 510mile main line (821 kilometres), Tadepalli to the border of Portuguese Goa (where it joined the 51 miles (82 kilometres) West of India Portuguese Railway, also worked by the SMR after August 1902) was opened throughout by 1891. An additional 532 miles (856 kilometres) of branch lines were opened variously from 1889 through the first decade of the twentieth century. The SMR (later renamed the Madras & Southern Mahratta Railway) created a denser network of lines in the southern sections of the Bombay Presidency, in the northern parts of the Madras Presidency, and in the princely state of Mysore. Railway development in the large, princely state of Hyderabad under the auspices of the Nizam’s Guaranteed State Railway also must be seen as part of this network. The SMR was designed initially to provide its catchment area with a west coast port at Marmagao in Goa, although it eventually also provided east coast port access at Madras and Bezwada. Marmagao, however, for most shipments was a port-of-call for coastal shipping whose hub was Bombay.17

162  Ian Johnstone Kerr Moreover, for time-restricted goods (e.g., fresh chilies) rail shipments north to Poona on the metre gauge SMR (or other GIPR/SMR interchanges) where a transfer to the broad gauge GIPR occurred was a faster and surer route to Bombay. Madras harbour was not well developed until the early twentieth century, and Bezwada even later. Regardless, rail to Bombay for sea transport via the Suez Canal provided the shortest route for the passengers and freight that sustained the Anglo-Indian connection.

Some Reflections on Phases One, Two and Three The brief summary provided above gives rise to some observations about the evolving relationships between Bombay, its hinterlands, and the railways that connected one with the other in an increasingly integrated yet diverse space configured ‘by virtue of networks and pathways, by virtue of bunches or clusters of relationships’.18 The longer-term trend was clear. First, the railways replaced, reinforced, remoulded, overlaid and – importantly – extended Bombay’s hinterlands such that Delhi, Jubbulpore, Nagpur and Hyderabad formed the outer edges joined by the Madras Deccan when the export of oilseeds was involved. Another measure of the extent of Bombay’s hinterlands was provided in 1914 when a government review of the trade of India estimated that 41 per cent of all the trade of the Bombay Presidency passed through the port of Bombay plus 49 per cent of the trade of the Central Provinces and Berar, and 31 per cent of the trade of the Princely State ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad.19 Second, the hinterlands were always plural and never homogeneous. Different localities and regions within Bombay’s vast hinterlands had different relationships with the great metropolis. Poona, despite its proximity and regular train service to Bombay, maintained a distinctive identity throughout the colonial period. It was a cultural, educational and political centre for the Marathi-speaking elite in ways that the commercial and Anglo-centred Bombay did not match.20 It is useful, also, to remember that an important relationship between Bombay and some of its hinterlands – often the poorer, less favoured localities – was the provision of labour for the great city’s growing economy. Men hard-pressed to make a living out of agriculture (landless labourers or small landholders) went to Bombay to find work. They usually left their families behind in the peasant village to which the worker returned for a festival, a marriage, during a prolonged strike, or after becoming infirm or ill. Seasonal considerations – changing demands for labour within Bombay or the exigencies of the agricultural cycle – also contributed to circulatory fluctuations. For these workers, the railway lines provided the pathways between village and city, home and the distant-place of worker residence, and extended those pathways deep into the Deccan countryside thanks to the speed with which trains could transport people. Thus, the localities that provided labour for Bombay and Bombay itself came to be yoked within

Railways in Bombay and its Hinterland(s)  163 an emerging mode of production, commercial and industrial capitalism, where the countryside provided labour and also bore many of the costs of the social reproduction of labour avoided by Bombay employers. Employee remittances ensured the survival of poor, rural households; households that ensured reservoirs of labour for Bombay’s economy and a place of last resort for distressed workers. The Deccan and the Ratnagiri district of the Konkan (the proximate coastal area south of Bombay) provided the main sources of Bombay’s labour although a significant stream came from the distant, eastern sections of the United Provinces, from Gujarat, and from Goa.21 The Ratnagiri workers represented a special case because rail transportation was not available to them. The railway was not extended into Ratnagari – a rugged, beautiful but poor part of the Bombay Presidency – in the colonial period so the roughly 40 per cent of the district’s population who found work in Bombay did so via walking and coastal shipping. The absence of the railway had another effect on Ratnagiri. Before the railway age, Ratnagari’s small harbours and the bullock tracks across the Ghats made it an entrepot for trade from the interior. But country craft and bullocks could scarcely compete with the railways which linked the Deccan directly to Bombay. Between 1894–5 and 1906–7, the value of the district’s trade fell by more than one half.22 Here we have an excellent illustration of the complex ways the railways affected Bombay and its multiple hinterlands. The railways siphoned carriage away from Ratnagiri but nourished Bombay’s growing economy. That growing economy, in turn, helped to sustain existence in Ratnagiri by employing the district’s increasingly impoverished agriculturalists. The railways stimulated some economies and adversely affected others. One prominent historian denied a claim that Ratnagiri’s ‘teeming population’ was a chief factor in the development of Bombay and argued, to the contrary, that the growth of Bombay provided for the survival of Ratnagari’s population.23 I am more prepared to accept the presence of a recursive relationship, regardless of which the case of Ratnagiri emphasises well the complicated effects of the railways even when they were absent from a particular region. Even the simple idea that the presence or absence of railways, or the earlier versus later arrival of railways in particular localities, produced winners or losers in the realm of economic and social development becomes anything but self-evident when confronted by the complexities of specific, local cases. Third, the rail networks were never very dense and, moreover, increased density (and length) appeared in discontinuous sequences as first one locality and then another came into rail-mediated contact with Bombay. The historian needs to be sensitive to what was going on in the processual interstices of space and time; to, Cooper again, the

164  Ian Johnstone Kerr places where power coalesces surrounded by those where it does not, where social relations become dense amidst others that are diffuse. Structures and networks penetrate certain places and do certain things with great intensity, but their effects tail off elsewhere.24 Diversity, therefore, had its spatial, social and chronological dimensions. One can accept the early twentieth-century analysis of British rule in India by a British critic as a useful generalisation, but one that requires substantial modification in order to be applied to specific localities and regions. The critic, William Digby, wrote in 1901 that India under the British had become two countries: ANGLOSTAN, the land specially ruled by the English, in which British investments have been made, and by which a fair show and reality of prosperity are ensured; HINDUSTAN, practically all India fifty miles from each side of the railway lines, except the tea, coffee, indigo, and jute, plantations, and not including the Feudatory States.25 Certainly, in the Ghat areas and in parts of the Deccan interior traversed by the relatively few lines of the GIPR, joined later by the SMR, one often needed to travel far less than 50 miles to move beyond the zones where the railways significantly impacted the lives and economies of local inhabitants. However, to complicate matters as in the case of Ratnagiri, the absence of railways also had its effects. Local and regional social formations also had their consequences for the ways in which railways affected Western India and its specific localities. Fourthly, the extended consequences of the railways on the fortunes of both Bombay and its various hinterlands can be better understood when historians practice a willingness to change focus back and forth from the intimacy and complexity of relationships in specific places and their connections to distant places and long-term processes of change (…).26 The long-term, overall process was clear: by the 1890s, Bombay was a leading commercial, financial and industrial centre linked to the capitalist world economy and ‘closely integrated with a vast regional hinterland’ in addition to being the administrative and political capital of the Bombay Presidency.27 However, the specific manifestations of this overall process within specific localities and regions within Bombay’s hinterlands must be understood as the consequences of temporal and spatial specifics interacting with the dynamics of the longer-term process. Put more rhapsodically, Bombay and its hinterlands moved to a dialectical concerto whose complex rhythms synergistically and destructively ebbed and flowed across time and space.

Railways in Bombay and its Hinterland(s)  165

Conclusions Bombay of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries was made in considerable measure through the transportation pathways and flows made possible by the railways. Characteristics inherent in Bombay’s site and situation limited the developmental prospects of the City in the absence of mass, railed transportation. Railways enabled Bombay’s growth. This paper explored some of the inter-related consequences for Bombay and its hinterlands of the railway systems that were put in place. The provision of railway services was never a smooth, fully effective and uncontested response to Bombay’s transportation needs. On the contrary, the railway history of Bombay and Western India was peppered with mistakes and even disasters, disjointed progress, ineffective decision-making, and continuing contests over the social production of space within Bombay and throughout its many hinterlands. The latter point – the social production of space – is at the core of the processes described in this paper. And it deserves emphasis, an emphasis perhaps not sufficiently stressed in the words above, that human agency, particularly the agency wielded by those with power and authority, played a considerable role in the development of Bombay, its railways, and its many hinterlands. Moreover, because the evolving situation discussed in this paper was a colonial situation, Government in the form of colonial administrators often had the last word on railway matters, although powerful interests outside of Government influenced those authorities. Colonial authorities, moreover, could and did disagree with one another – within the authority structure of the Bombay Presidency and between that administration and the Government of India. The history of technologies, railways and otherwise, in Bombay or anywhere, cannot be separated from their social, political and economic contexts. Recent scholarship on the development of Bombay City has demonstrated well how the political expressions of the combined forces of colonialism and capitalism within the overall governance of Bombay and the Bombay Presidency directed development, including most certainly railway development, along lines that favoured economic interests at the expense of a more liveable, social environment.28 Where, precisely, were the railways to be routed? The GIPR engineers had to survey and re-survey potential inclines through the Western Ghats before permission came from the GOI to construct the lines at the Bhor and Thal Ghats. The BB&CIR could not build south to Bombay from Surat until Government provided the go-ahead. The location of stations, lines, and sidings on Bombay Island became contested issues – often strongly contested given the shortage of land on the Island even if the colonial state had the last word. The Bombay Port Trust, itself an arm of Government, came to control port development after 1873 and undertook most of the massive

166  Ian Johnstone Kerr land reclamation schemes that came to provide some 20 per cent of Bombay Island’s landmass by 1915. Once railways were in place they became dead capital, spent capital, literally embedded in the landscapes through which they passed. The geographer Dodgshon argues that the prime quality of the built environment is its inertial rather than topical form, an inertia that develops from the very moment of its creation and serves to distant it from the social practices and processes that operate across it at any subsequent moment.29 An emplaced railway is not easily displaced or changed, and if it is changed, the capital costs are substantial. Early railways create path-dependencies within which subsequent railway development takes place. As operating railways, however, the GIPR, the BB&CIR, and the SMR could and did influence the socio-economic world through which their trains steamed in increasing numbers. Because these were private, joint-stock railway companies (albeit with a good deal of Government oversight) – in short, profit-seeking, capitalist enterprises – they sought to make Bombay and its hinterlands in ways that were beneficial to the companies’ profitability. For example, a nakedly self-interested act on the part of the GIPR took place in 1868 when the company took measures to make shipment of raw cotton to Bombay Port by rail so beneficial to merchants ‘as entirely to shut out the carting of cotton direct to the Port as has been done so largely in previous years’.30 Thus, by measures and actions great and small made between 1853 and 1900, the railway companies influenced the making of Western India and its great port city.

Notes 1 The map that accompanies this paper locates the places mentioned in the text and delineates the railway lines, as they existed circa 1931 when the processes described in this paper had run their full course. 2 See, for examples, the excellent contributions in C. Markovits, J. Pouchepadass and S. Subrahmanyam, eds., Society and Circulation. Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia 1750–1950 (Delhi 2003). 3 R. Ahuja, Pathways of Empire. Circulation: ‘Public Works’ and Social Space in Colonial Orissa, c. 1780–1914 (Hyderabad 2009), 5. 4 H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. by D. Nicholson-Smith (Oxford 1991), 86. 5 F. Cooper, ‘What Is the Concept of Globalization Good For? An African Historian’s Perspective’, African Affairs, 100, 2001, 189–213, here 190. 6 Unless otherwise specified, these and other statistics used in this paper come from The Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, compiled under Government Orders by S. M. Edwardes, vol. I (Bombay 1909). Most railway-related material is found in chapter V: Communication and Trade. 7 M. B. McAlpin, Subject to Famine. Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860–1920 (Princeton, NJ 1983), 150. McAlpin writes: ‘before the

Railways in Bombay and its Hinterland(s)  167 construction of the railway its farmers had lacked a market that could absorb (at prices above costs) all of the chilies they could grow’. Ibid. 8 Ibid., 174. 9 Quoted in E. M. Gumperz, ‘City-Hinterland Relations and the Development of a Regional Elite in Nineteenth-Century Bombay’, reprinted in I. J. Kerr, ed., Railways in Modern India (New Delhi 2001), 97–125, here 115–116. 10 Ibid., 104. 11 Ibid. 12 F. Broeze, ‘The External Dynamics of Port City Morphology: Bombay 1815– 1914’, in I. Banga, ed., Ports and Their Hinterlands in India (1700–1950) (Delhi 1992), 245–272, here 261. 13 British Library, Asian and African Collections, L/PWD/5/11 14 Ibid. 15 This paragraph depends on M. Kosambi, Bombay in Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, 1880–1980 (Stockholm 1986), esp. 30–35. 16 Ibid., 35. 17 A substantial proportion of Bombay’s entrepot trade was carried in ‘hundreds of sailing country boats; nor is this merely coastal, though of course the bulk of it is with the minor ports from Dwarka to Cape Comorin’. O. H. K. Spate, India and Pakistan. A General and Regional Geography, sec. ed. (London 1957), 612. 18 Ibid. 19 A. K. Bagchi, ‘Reflections on Patterns of Regional Growth in India during the Period of British Rule’, Bengal Past and Present, 95, 1, 1976, 247–289, here 253. 20 Gumperz, ‘City-Hinterland Relations’, 122–125. 21 R. Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India. Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940 (Cambridge 1994), 129–130. 22 Ibid., 132. 23 Ibid., 139. 24 Cooper, ‘What Is the Concept’, 190. 25 W. Digby, ‘Prosperous’ British India. A Revelation from Official Records, reprint ed. (New Delhi 1969), 292. 26 F. Cooper, ‘African Labour History’ in J. Lucassen, ed., Global Labour History. A State of the Art, sec. ed. (Bern 2008), 91–116, here 94. 27 P. Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis. Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920 (Aldershot 2007), 23. 28 Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis; also M. Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realities. The Planning of Bombay City, 1845–1875 (Bombay 1991); S. Hazareesingh, The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity. Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay City 1900–1925 (Hyderabad 2007). 29 R. A. Dodgshon, Society in Time and Space. A Geographical Perspective on Change (Cambridge 1998), 15. 30 Mumbai, Central Railway Records, PRO Collection, Agent to Board Letters, 1868 Volume, Letter #66B dated 10 October 1868.

Literature Ahuja, R., Pathways of Empire. Circulation: ‘Public Works’ and Social Space in Colonial Orissa, c. 1780–1914 (Hyderabad 2009). Bagchi, A. K., ‘Reflections on Patterns of Regional Growth in India during the Period of British Rule’, Bengal Past and Present, 95, 1, 1976, 247–289.

168  Ian Johnstone Kerr Broeze, F., ‘The External Dynamics of Port City Morphology: Bombay 1815–1914’, in I. Banga, ed., Ports and Their Hinterlands in India (1700–1950) (Delhi 1992), 245–272. Chandavarkar, R., The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India. Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940 (Cambridge 1994). Cooper, F., ‘African Labour History’ in J. Lucassen, ed., Global Labour History. A State of the Art, sec. ed. (Bern 2008), 91–116. Cooper, F., ‘What Is the Concept of Globalization Good For? An African Historian’s Perspective’, African Affairs, 100, 2001, 189–213. Digby, W., ‘Prosperous’ British India. A Revelation from Official Records, reprint ed. (New Delhi 1969), 292. Dodgshon, R. A., Society in Time and Space. A Geographical Perspective on Change (Cambridge 1998). Dossal, M., Imperial Designs and Indian Realities. The Planning of Bombay City, 1845–1875 (Bombay 1991). Gumperz, E. M., ‘City-Hinterland Relations and the Development of a Regional Elite in Nineteenth-Century Bombay’, in I. J. Kerr, ed., Railways in Modern India (New Delhi 2001), 97–125. Hazareesingh, S., The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity. Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay City 1900–1925 (Hyderabad 2007). Kidambi, P., The Making of an Indian Metropolis. Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920 (Aldershot 2007). Kosambi, M., Bombay in Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, 1880–1980 (Stockholm 1986). Lefebvre, H., The Production of Space, trans. by D. Nicholson-Smith (Oxford 1991). Markovits, C., Pouchepadass, J., and Subrahmanyam, S., eds., Society and Circulation. Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia 1750–1950 (Delhi 2003). McAlpin, M. B., Subject to Famine. Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860–1920 (Princeton, NJ 1983). Spate, O. H. K., India and Pakistan. A General and Regional Geography, sec. ed. (London 1957).

Part III

The Railway Station: New Entrance to the City and Its Multiple Meanings

6 Inventing the Future. Early Railway Station Planning and Mechelen’s ‘Central Station’, 1835–1845 Paul Van Heesvelde Introduction The recent major catch-up efforts concerning urban redesign and rebuilding railway stations and railway station areas in different countries sometimes accentuate the major differences between the so-called old, nineteenthcentury railway stations and the present role of that type of building within the urban fabric. Nowadays, a railway station is considered to be a mobility spot, a place of traffic flows, a location of complex partnerships between various stakeholders, and – above all – it has to be a multimodal environment where users of the railway system connect with other means of transport, like bicycle, taxi, car, or regional and local public transport. By accentuating the contrast with the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century stations, the rich history of stations and station environments during the urban development in that period does not get the attention it deserves. The Flemish railway novelist Gustaaf Vermeersch opened his novel The Rolling Life with an adequate description of the atmosphere of a smaller railway station in a rural area. Steve Parissien opens with the quote that railway stations have long held a special place in the public's affection. The lure of the great terminus has been especially strong: the breathtaking grandeur of its architecture fused with the promise of adventure and escape.1 He gives a series of citations from novelists and well-known artists who describe a station, sometimes in a rather exuberant way, sometimes in more modest terms, but always with the same message: a nineteenth-century railway station is a living place. A citation from Proust might be most adequate to illustrate this: railway stations are tragic places, for in them the miracle is accomplished, whereby scenes which hitherto have no existence save in our minds are about to become the scenes which we shall be living.2

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-10

172  Paul Van Heesvelde The opposite view most probably lies in the wish to emphasise the novelty of the ongoing projects. The contradiction does not necessarily lie in the older and newer railway stations because both are ‘stations’ in the first place, meaning specific places in an urban or rural context. Before the start of railway traffic, mobility – infrastructure as well as means of transportation – was strongly embedded in and co-determined by the environment. Roads were unified with the landscape, just like the stagecoach and the depot of stagecoaches formed a unity with the city. Stagecoaches reached the city centres and depots were mostly established next to taverns, from where the stagecoaches were operated for transportation purposes. This tight relationship between landscape and mobility was definitely lost in the early nineteenth century with the introduction of the railways. The infrastructure was regularly situated in the periphery of the city, causing railway stations, locomotive depots, and related service buildings not to become part of the city. The station environment was commonly experienced as an odd appendix to the city.3 The early years of design, development, and construction of railway stations in Belgium have not yet been studied extensively, in contrast to the construction of the railway network. However, monographs for certain stations are available and in 2002 a reference study about Belgian railway station architecture was published – but that was more an inventory of the architectural heritage.4 Belgium started as a railway pioneer on the continent with the opening of the line Brussels–Mechelen on 5 May 1835. The realisation of this connection was preceded by extensive research of the network structure, but the design and architecture of railway stations seem to have been worked out ex nihilo, due to lack of experience and good practices. Various researchers have pointed at the analysis of existing traffic systems (e.g., diligences) and the transportation potential as a basis for outlining the railway alignment.5 However, no arguments are found on the positioning of railway stations originally envisioned as locations where a variety of railway company services connect; for instance, the management of passengers getting on and off the trains and the handling of luggage and freight. Van der Herten mentions the requests from various authorities to the government for additional stopping places in the 1840s.6 At the same time, remarks could be heard from various sources saying that the location of train stops had been planned on an experimental basis. Also, the question of where to plan railway stations – within the city or in the periphery – was still a source of discussion. With regard to planning and organisation of stops, the first years clearly were a leap into the unknown. Mechelen became a kind of living laboratory for railway station planning and urban development. The outcome of the process is well known. Belgium was widely cited at the end of the nineteenth century because of the very dense railway network within its borders, something that cannot be said about the stations. In the 1861 budget of public works, a catch-up operation was announced 35 years after the opening of the first line:

Inventing the Future of Railways  173 Until now, the railway station buildings and their outbuildings in several communities have not been adequate. After an experience of more than a quarter of a century, this situation has to come to an end; our national railway has to be finished in all its parts. In order to remedy this situation, the law of September 8th 1859 accorded a credit to the Government of 8.772.000 francs.7 This immediately raises questions on how the first stations were designed, what facilities were deemed necessary, and where the stations were planned to be built. In other words, what aspects were originally considered for the choices concerning the construction and the facilities of a stop or a railway station? The construction of the first station of Mechelen is an excellent test case to investigate the development of these choices.

Learned from Experience Under the 1834 Act, Mechelen became the hub of the state railways: There shall be established in the Kingdom a system of railways with Mechelen as its central point, extending eastwards towards the Prussian frontier via Leuven, Liège and Verviers, northwards via Antwerp, westwards to Ostend via Dendermonde, Ghent and Bruges and southwards to Brussels and to the French border through Hainaut.8 Not only is Mechelen designated as the junction of the two main lines to be built but it is also mentioned as the central hub of the railway network where, therefore, the central administration would be established and where the largest workshop would be built. The decision was ratified by royal decree in 1838.9 Van der Herten states that in the early planning process enough indications are found that point to a preliminary network vision. The consequences of the growing railway system for Mechelen are reflected in the success that this new mode of transport reached. Just one month after the first train journeys from Brussels, it was noted in the Moniteur Belge, the official newspaper publishing Belgian legislation, that Mechelen had become a faubourg (suburb) of Brussels. Every day, large numbers of spectators turned up to watch the trains at Allée Verte/Groendreef, where Brussels’ first railway station had been built, and the daily number of travellers was undoubtedly also considerable. On standard train sets, 624 passengers could travel per section; on a daily basis this was tantamount to 3,744 journeys up to June 1835 on the three links in each direction. From June 1835, the number of connections in each direction increased to five, further increasing the number of passengers on the Brussels–Mechelen section to 6,240 journeys a day. Repeated comments that there was insufficient capacity on the trains as a result of which travellers could not depart suggest in any case that every train was filled to capacity.10 The first complaints about the railway system confirm the

174  Paul Van Heesvelde descriptions of its success. People were dying for a chance to travel by train and complained in the press that there were too few connections per day. Having more trains was technically impossible in the first month. Even though since 1 June two additional trains have departed each day from Brussels and Mechelen, the flow of passengers has not shown any sign of diminishing, far from it! Unless one has obtained tickets the day before, it is quite impossible to find a place on the train at the times fixed for departure. Potential travellers ask that it be possible to book 48 hours in advance, but seats are apparently bought up for speculative purposes. There are no guarantees for the return journey.11 The high demand for transport meant that Mechelen soon needed to adapt its infrastructure to accommodate all these passengers: Since the railways had been inaugurated, there was regret that no establishment had been erected close to the travellers, and that it was necessary to cross the whole city of Mechelen to find a hotel or restaurant.12 This acute need for a new infrastructure in Mechelen included the railway domain itself, where public facilities were inadequate. In the first annual report of the minister of Home Affairs to Parliament, a budget increase for various service buildings was requested because they had been designed too small. The ever-growing flow of passengers since that day has forced us to construct or enlarge the booking offices, the barriers, the guardhouse, the sheds for rolling stock, etc., the necessary cost of which has been calculated today at nearly 50,000 francs.13 Visitors to Mechelen were impressed by the scale and size of the railway company. By 1840, approximately 30 buildings had been constructed or were under construction on the city’s railway site. From a total built-up surface of 13,855.60 square metres, almost 400 square metres (3 per cent) of the buildings are reserved for travellers; the remaining 97 per cent are technical buildings for the maintenance of locomotives, coaches, etc. Nearly 75 per cent of the technical buildings are constructed in stone; the remaining quarter is constructed in wood.14 In general, railway stations were located in the periphery rather than in the inner city. This decision was not only based on military considerations, but also depended on local taxes, city policy, and the availability of land. The government deliberately did not want to participate in the discussions for or against the location of railway stations in city centres, but it indicated nevertheless: As to the choice of stations, the Government believes that the railway must remain outside the tax system and the municipal police, even if this principle momentarily upsets some local interests.15

Inventing the Future of Railways  175 The decision to make Mechelen the focal point of the network, plus the availability of the necessary land, determined the station’s location at the periphery. It was even noted in foreign travel guides that the city council had been eager to keep the trains outside its city centre, and the author of one particular guide added subtly in parentheses: Gaudet Mechlinia stultis, like the wise men of Northampton, Oxford and Maidstone, stoutly resisted this, and with success. Now few of the millions who pass this city annually enter it, and still fewer stop here.16 In any case, the result was longer travel times as it was often necessary to take a stage coach from the station, which was in no way a guarantee for a comfortable journey. The opening of ‘the public garden with restaurant’ on the Coloma estate, near the border of the railway yard at the bank of the canal from Mechelen to Leuven was a first step towards the expansion of a new passenger infrastructure. An internal service order from 1846 revealed that in various stations and at other stops no food distribution had been planned. Personnel sometimes took over this task: ‘At some stops drink and food is available in shops, kept by railway staff, but without any permission given for this’.17 The map of 1835 (Figure 6.1) gives a summary of the building programme and railway tracks to be built, including the public space in front of the railway station. The station building was designed in two parts, with a square in front of the station and the platforms at the backside. The Milestone, a monument actually in front of the railway station, indicated the starting point of the railway network. Since the railway was constructed relatively far from the city walls, there was an urgent need for a road connecting the station area and the city centre. The engineers of the state railways and those of public works tried to reach an agreement with the city of Mechelen to finance the urban project and the road itself. On 24 May 1836, the city council decided to cover the costs for the construction of a direct link between the city centre and the city walls if the government agreed to pay for the road infrastructure between the city walls and the station square. This proposal was accepted by all parties. However, it was not until 1842 that the agreement was actually validated by the government. At the time of the inauguration of Mechelen’s railway station in 1837, the road infrastructure had still not been built.18 De Ridder, the railway engineer responsible for the construction of the network, summoned the city in December 1837 to start paving the road, taking into account the upcoming harsh winter period. Early travel guides criticised the poor condition of the access roads towards the city. Various demands of residents, and also of transportation firms, urged the city administration to proceed with the planned works in order to keep access to the station from becoming a cloaque de boue (a sewer filled with mud).19 The construction of Mechelen’s central station building did not follow the plans of 1835. Figure 6.2 stresses the urgent need for areas reserved for the maintenance of rolling stock, such as locomotive sheds and workshops for the repair of vehicles. The lack of accommodations for travellers is striking.

176  Paul Van Heesvelde

Figure 6.1 Planning-Application Map of 1835. Photo: SAM, 4293, Extrait du plan approuvé de la station du Chemin de fer aux abords de Mechelen, 30 September 1835.

Figure 6.2 Mechelen’s Central Station Building. Photo: B-Holding, Archief en Fototheek into © Collectie VZW IFA, Mechelen.

There were no canopies over the platforms, making it extremely uncomfortable to change trains in bad weather; tracks had to be crossed, which made the railway station a rather unsafe environment for travellers. The dimensions of the building were insufficient compared to the number of passengers to be handled through the network’s central transfer point.

Looking Back in Wonder? After four years of experience in railway operations and construction of the network, the engineers of the state railways presented an activity report to the Belgian Parliament, spanning the period of design, construction, and

Inventing the Future of Railways  177 exploitation until 1839. The report is an important source because it clarifies the early vision of network building and railway station planning. First of all, a clear distinction is made between departure and arrival stations on the one hand (stations principales) and the stops and stations where trains stopped only for travel purposes and not for technical reasons on the other hand. The rationale behind this distinction was prompted by the operation model and maintenance instructions for the steam engines. Consequently, departure and arrival stations were large installations, dedicated to maintenance and repair of rolling stock, coal and water supply, stockpiling material for later distribution (arsenal and storehouse function). Since Mechelen executed the major maintenance and major repairs, the overall costs of the buildings and infrastructure were running high. In contrast to the construction of the network where transportation potential played an essential role, the positioning of the stations principales was determined according to technical and operational requirements. The nature of railway stations is not exclusively determined by the importance of a populous location or an industrial centre. Their nature depends as well on the location taken within the railway operating system. (…) The engines cannot, in a system that is well managed, run for more than 10 to 12 lieus [50 to 60 kilometres; P. v. H.] without inspection. Therefore the locations to station are chosen according to these considerations (…). Coaches cannot run over too long a distance without inconvenience to the regularity of railway operations.20 There was thus a technical aspect at the basis of the location of the so-called stations principales. For stations and stops that were not subject to technical support functions and thus acted as a single gateway for modal transfer or for access to the railway system, preliminary planning was impossible since the location was directly related to the demand for transportation: For the railway stations (…) the building programme has to be based upon the needs, less predictable, of circulation of passengers as well as freight. For one element there is nowadays enough evidence: railway stations should be spacious.21 This last remark of the railway engineers confirms that the facilities had were ill-considered. Further research also indicates that these buildings were of a rather poor shape. Over a period of four years, opinions on the location of railway stations evolved. Whereas originally the decision had been made to stay away from city centres, awareness of the advantages linked to stations intérieures (i.e., stations located within the city limits) started to grow in cases where this was a realistic alternative. Cost and the opportunity to cooperate with the

178  Paul Van Heesvelde city formed important preconditions. The city had to relinquish patent rights and charge its budget by disposal of land at prices that might be lower than the current market price. But this was compensated by two advantages: the new transportation system had a greater connection with densely populated areas and with economic and industrial activities, which resulted in improved operating results for companies and lowered costs for pre- and post-transport.22 In 1840, the government asked Parliament to grant a loan for the completion of the railway network; the report of the central section, drafted by Mr. Dumonceau, a member of Parliament, comprised an overview of the investments in stations, to be seen as the global infrastructure for operations like booking offices, buffet rooms, luggage handling, but also items such as turntables, sidings, and turnouts. Because the expenses per station could not always be easily isolated, total values for all stops in the early network were included in the following table, which presents the resources for the construction of the ‘Bâtiments et dépendances des stations en exploitation’ (Buildings and annexes of railway stations in operation). The third column comprises the total assessment by engineers, the fourth column shows the amount of money spent until then, the fifth column shows the means required to finish the project, and the last column shows the amount of money adjusted by the administration. Of the total estimated budget, not even 40 per cent had been spent on the construction and equipment of stations and stopping places. None of the stations had been completed; for Mechelen, only half, approximately, of the foreseen budget had been spent. In other words, the other half still had to be found (see Table 6.1). While the network was being constructed, it is clear that the global programme was based on a temporary situation with traveller accommodations built out of wood prior to a definitive brick construction. At locations with military installations, these wooden structures were preserved for longer periods; at other locations, the situation is not very clear. The temporary nature of the accommodations allowed the railway company to close new stops rapidly when the station proved to be non-profitable. No logic is found in the decision to construct buildings in wood versus stone. In Antwerp, for example, Table 6.1  B  udget for Equipment of Railway Stations and Stops 1840 Section

Stations Global and stops estimation

Spending

Deficits

Amounts adjusted

Brussels–Antwerpen Mechelen–Oostende Mechelen–Ans Gent–Kortrijk Total

7 14 11 4 36

1,369,264 515,249 300,243

1,368,000 1,106,000 740,205 448,000 3,662,205

1,308,000 1,073,000 715,205

2,737,264 1,621,249 1,040,448 448,000 5,846,961

2,184,756

Source: Belgian Parliament – Chamber, Documents, 1839–1840, 161, 27.

3,096,205

Inventing the Future of Railways  179 the waiting room for the third class (Wagons) and luggage handling was built in stone, while the waiting rooms Diligence and Chars-à-bancs (first and second class) were constructed in wood. The wooden waiting rooms were, however, larger than the stone building. In Table 6.2, surface areas of the railway buildings are shown, based on the report presented to the Belgian Parliament in 1840. The numbers provided are not absolute, because in a few cases a variety of functions was combined in the same building. Surface areas for each separate function were calculated by dividing the total surface by the number of functions inside the building. The covered surface is strikingly small for the number of Table 6.2  B  rick and Wooden Traveller Accommodations in Railway Stations 1840 Railway stations

Masonry Wood Counters Waiting-room Luggage Counters Waiting Luggage room m²

Brussel 132.86 Vilvoorde 45.20 Mechelen 230.28 Duffel Antwerpen Malderen Dendermonde Wetteren Gent 90.30 Aalter Brugge Oostende Deinze 20.00 Waregem Harelbeke Kortrijk 60.68 Leuven Tienen Landen Sint Truiden Waremme Ans Bogaarden Halle 172.80 Tubize 58.80

m²

m²

m²

m²

m²

159.60 30.62 168.20 44.92

90.3

44.92

17.01 58.24 39.10 25.00 13.20

17.01 174.72 23.00 13.20

12.71 16.00 13.20

22.50

22.50

34.40

109.73

106.64 64.00 20.00

46.62

172.80 58.80

25.00 16.80

25.00

25.00 16.80

28.33 43.60 32.00 62.80 32.00 49.50 95.25

68.33 43.60 16.00

28.33 43.60 16.00

31.08

47.27 75.95 172.80 58.80

Source: Compte Rendu des Opérations, 1840 and own calculations.

32.00 99.00 237.49

180  Paul Van Heesvelde travellers who arrived and departed. This remark was made by Perdonnet in 1858 in his (translated) contribution to Allgemeine Bauzeitung: The Mechelen Railway station is a station where all travellers on the northern part of the Belgian network pass by and change from one wagon to another, without entering the waiting rooms. Therefore the accommodation for travellers is not larger than a first-class waiting room of an intermediate French railway station.23

Le Regard des Autres The construction of a new transportation network was undoubtedly a gigantic operation, so it raised international attention. In the Allgemeine Bauzeitung of 1842, Lichthammer, an architect, published a comparison between German and Belgian railway stations. The author sharpened his quill, right from the beginning of the survey: Since the construction of the railway network and the description of it, nothing or hardly anything has been made public on the leading case which is to be considered in building railway stations (…). An appropriate establishment of railway stations is not only convenient for travellers’ comfort but also forms the main basis of a regulated course of business.24 An adequate design of a railway station not only benefits the travellers but also underwrites the basic principles and goals of exploitation and organisation of the station. He illustrated his ideas with examples that are still valid today: if a departing traveller wants to buy a ticket but is not able to find the booking office in the station, it is not surprising that he/she gets on the train without a valid ticket. The mixing of arriving and departing passenger flows is another problem noted by Lichthammer since it unnecessarily complicates operations. After a short introduction about classification of railway stations, Lichthammer draws attention to the technical basis of the classification in Belgium: the size of the city where the main station is located is of minor importance. Mechelen’s station, considered as the most important of the stations principales, kept this status because of its function as a nodal point in the network and because of the presence of the central workshop. Figure 6.3 shows the ground plan of the first railway station in Mechelen. The station had two entrances (A and A’): one centrally located in the building for travellers without luggage and the other located on the left side for passengers with luggage. A passenger without luggage entered the building through a kind of peristilium, walked to the booking office, and proceeded directly to the waiting rooms for first and second class or – via a corridor – to the third-class waiting room. Lichthammer categorised this approach as ‘inefficiently organised’. Most travellers waited in these

Inventing the Future of Railways  181

Figure 6.3 Drawing of the Ground Plan of the First Railway Station in Mechelen – 1840. Source: Lichthammer, ‘Ueber einige Bahnhöfe’, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 1842, CDLXXXV.

rooms – there was no canopy or shed over the platforms offering protection in case of bad weather – and followed the crowd heading for the train, making them sometimes end up on the wrong train. For passengers with luggage, the walking path was more complex. Upon arrival at the station, the luggage needed to be handed over first. Next, the traveller had to buy a train ticket at the booking office, then he walked back to recollect his luggage after showing his train ticket in order to collect a ticket for the luggage. Finally, the passenger could pursue his way to the waiting rooms for the first, second, or third class. The inconvenience of this organisation is so striking that I will add no further comment (…). The technical part of the station, as we have seen, is of the highest perfection, and offers in itself a subject for a thorough study. It is all the more regrettable that in such a big project the travellers’ needs are taken so little into account, as the technical facilities are at almost the highest level of development.25 Lichthammer found the absence of sheds and canopies a real lack of quality. In his recommendations for best practices, he advocated specific rules regulating the proper functioning of a station. It was most important to strictly separate technical matters from passengers and freight operations. The engine sheds, maintenance shops, etc. should ideally be physically separated from areas where travellers are present. The luggage department (consigne) and the booking offices need to be located as close to each other as possible. Travellers should be able to leave luggage in a covered area, in good faith, and with the assurance that their luggage will be returned or can be fetched upon arrival. The walking lines need to be well indicated and as short as

182  Paul Van Heesvelde possible. Furthermore, the booking offices and waiting rooms need to be located as close to each other as possible. The platforms should be located in close proximity to the waiting rooms. Platform heights need to be adapted to the vehicles transporting the passengers. The railway station as a whole should be covered by a large roof. If this is practically impossible, at least the departure and arrival platforms should be equipped with canopies or roofs for travellers as well as for freight services.26 Generally speaking, Lichthammer was not at all impressed by the infrastructure, more particularly the infrastructure for the handling of traffic. However, he was more indulgent regarding the technical part of the railway station and the maintenance infrastructure built on the site. This contrast suggests that the design of the network originated from pure engineering logic and was minimally related to transport planning. In a short review about the Belgian railways of 1844, Perrot, a member of the committee for statistics, stated that: The central station of Mechelen contains nothing superfluous; one cannot accuse the engineers of having used any unnecessary luxury in the construction of buildings; nevertheless this station alone has cost as much as Mr. Simons and Mr. De Ridder had estimated in their plan of 1833 for all stations from Antwerp to Brussels and Ostend to the frontier of Prussia.27 He pointed out two major causes for the low budgets assigned to the construction of new stations. Apparently, in the budget planning of 1833, it had been assumed that railway operating costs could be passed on to the railway operator. In other words, stations, waiting rooms, booking offices, storehouses for freight and luggage handling, the engine sheds, and rolling stock were all supposed to be financed by the operators. Moreover, the agreements with local governments for the construction of connecting roads or for the acquisition of land inside the city walls further burdened the budget. Cities clearly had other ambitions than the engineers who designed the network from 1833 on and then realised it from 1835 on. Agreements made for the establishment of stations (…) have the effect of forcing the administration to embellish constructions with a more grandiose character, yet without going to a monumental style. Cities (…) required from the government that future buildings respond with dignity to their destination and these are requirements to which it is always very difficult to resist.28 The less than successful planning and functioning of the Mechelen railway station continued. In 1854 the following remark was made in Murray’s Handbook for Travellers:

Inventing the Future of Railways  183 Mechlin Stat. where the trains stop for a few min. is the point of departure from which 4 lines of railway ramify through Belgium (…). There is almost invariably great confusion, and frequently delay here, from the meeting of the trains. Travellers should take care they are not put in the wrong train, and that they are not run over in crossing the numerous lines of rails. Sheds, at least ought to be constructed to protect passengers and their baggage from the rain.29 It took until 1886 before a large canopy was built over the station platforms, simultaneously with the construction of a new station.

Some Conclusions The introduction of a railway system undoubtedly had an enormous impact on spatial planning. Railways not only connect places, railway infrastructure also contributes to the fragmentation of space and of the social fabric by the osmosis induced by the infrastructure. But above all, railways contribute to urbanisation and the growth of city populations, and stations will be important catalysts in this process. An analysis of the initial situation shows that stations did not get the attention they deserved. Their location strongly depended on maintenance requirements for the locomotives and rolling stock, rather than on the demand for transportation. The distances that locomotives covered between two check-ups initially were relatively short, so the distance between maintenance points played an important role. In most cases, maintenance shops and locomotive depots co-located with historical centres of older transport systems. With the establishment of the network, Tienen was selected as a locomotive depot and not Leuven, since the latter was too close to Mechelen. Selecting Leuven would have been less energy-efficient. From a technical point of view, the choice of location was correct, but as a result, many stations could not contribute to a sound vision of town planning. Moreover, travellers’ amenities were kept too simple because travel demand was underestimated. The financing of the project could no longer keep up with the overwhelming success since originally the financing was expected to be borne by the railway system’s operator. The limited attention given to the stations while the network evolved, also demonstrates clearly that the engineers did not expect these locations to be very important in the initial phase. Already after ten years, the state railways felt the need for a better railway station infrastructure, first of all in Mechelen. It took almost 30 years before the government approved a budget increase to end up with the provisional situation, with wooden constructions at the local stops and semi-finished buildings in the more important cities. It did not help Mechelen, which suffered from the dialectics of lead. It took until the 1880s before a new railway station was built, with canopy and platforms.

184  Paul Van Heesvelde

Notes 1 S. Parissien, Station to Station (London 1997), 7. 2 Citation of Marcel Proust in Parissien, Station, 7. 3 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986), 171. 4 H. de Bot, Stationsarchitectuur in België (Turnhout 2002). 5 B. van der Herten, België onder stoom. Transport en communicatie tijdens de 19de eeuw (Leuven 2004); M. Laffut, Les chemins de fer belges (1830–1930): genèse du réseau et présentation critique des données statistiques (Brussels 1999). 6 Van der Herten, België onder stoom, 324. 7 Belgian Parliament, Chamber, Documents, 1860–1861, 33, 7 December 1860, 21. 8 Moniteur Belge, 4 May 1834. See also, for the legislative process, B. van der Herten, ‘Nieuwe interpretaties over de besluitvorming rond de eerste spoorlijn in België, 1830–1834’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 73, no. 2, 1995, 379–400. 9 Pasinomie, ou Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, arrêtés et règlements généraux qui peuvent être invoqués en Belgique (Brussels 1838), 514. 10 Moniteur Belge, 27 May, 514. The calculations in this source differ from my calculations; a mix-up of digits in the figure in the original source is the cause of this mistake. 11 Moniteur Belge, 7 June 1835; see also issues of 26 May 1835, 29/30 May 1835. 12 Moniteur Belge, 14 May 1835. 13 Belgian Parliament, Chamber, Documents, 1835–1836, 5, Rapport sur les opérations du Chemin de Fer par M. le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 8. 14 Own calculations based upon Belgian Parliament, Documents, 1840–1841,89, Rapport sur les opérations du Chemin de Fer par M. le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 97 and following. 15 Originial quotation: Belgian Parliament, Documents, 1836–1837, 134, Compte Rendu 1835–1837, 6. 16 Handbook for Travellers on the Continent (London 1852), 65. 17 Original quotation: B-Holding, Service Orders, 1846, Ordre de Service N° 2, 27.01.1846. 18 Based on the sources it is not clear when the travellers accommodation was available, because the Compte Rendu 1835–1837 mentioned a ‘Bureau de recette et corps de garde provisoire’ (Booking Office and Guard), probably a wooden structure, and a ‘Bureau central de l’exploitation’ (Central Office for Operations) in brick, tendered on 6 March 1835 and available on 19 December 1836. Belgian Parliament, Documents, 1836–1837, 134, Compte Rendu 1835–1837, 58–66. 19 Stadsarchief Mechelen, 4293, Letters of 16 September 1836, 20 October 1836, and agreement of 21 August 1837. 20 Belgian Parliament, Documents, 1839–1840, 4, Chemins de fer et routes ordinaires 1830–1839. Rapport présenté aux Chambres législatives, 30. 21 Original quotation: ibid., 31. 22 Ibid., 31. 23 A. Perdonnet, ‘Ueber den Raum, den die verschiedenen Theile der Eisenbahnen einnehmen müssen’, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 1858, 281–282. 24 Original quotation in German: Lichthammer, ‘Ueber einige Bahnhöfe des westlichen Deutschlands und Belgiens’, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 1842, 354–363. 25 Original quotation in German: Lichthammer, ‘Ueber einige Bahnhöfe’, 355–356. 26 Ibid., 359. 27 E. Perrot, Des chemins de fer belges (Brussels 1844), 44. 28 Ibid., 44. 29 Handbook for Travellers, 153.

Inventing the Future of Railways  185

Literature Bot, H. de, Stationsarchitectuur in België (Turnhout 2002). Handbook for Travellers on the Continent (London 1854), 94–153. Herten, B. van der, ‘Nieuwe interpretaties over de besluitvorming rond de eerste spoorlijn in België, 1830–1834’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 73, no. 2, 1995, 379–400. Herten, B. van der, België onder stoom. Transport en communicatie tijdens de 19de eeuw (Leuven 2004). Laffut, M., Les chemins de fer belges (1830–1930): genèse du réseau et présentation critique des données statistiques (Brussels 1999). Lichthammer, ‘Ueber einige Bahnhöfe des westlichen Deutschlands und Belgiens’, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 7, 1842, 354–363. Parissien, S., Station to Station (London 1997). Perdonnet, A., ‘Ueber den Raum, den die verschiedenen Theile der Eisenbahnen einnehmen müssen’, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 23, 1858, 281–282. Perrot, E., Des chemins de fer belges (Brussels 1844), 44. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles 1986).

7 Railways in Prague Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot Martin Kvizda

Introduction Railways have been running throughout cities for nearly two hundred years.1 Over the years knotty junctions of railway lines developed in many places. For a long time, most of these junctions performed well and provided relatively smooth transport of passengers and goods, although this was not always the case. The world has of course changed and today many old railway junctions seem to be a hindrance rather than a help to the development of city transport and to the revival of city centres. Many municipalities are now confronting a dilemma: they must determine how to untangle and optimise their railway junctions, making them more efficient and suitable for competition in the contemporary dynamic transport market. In other words, how should they cut the Gordian knots which were tied in the nineteenth century? Numerous contemporary papers analyse competition within the railway industry, especially with regard to current reforms of railway transport in the European Union (EU). The basic principles of reforms tend to be ­liberalisation and privatisation.2 Contrary to strong national regulation of railways which in the past often led to the creation of inefficient state monopolies, a programme of liberalised transport services operated by private companies is increasingly viewed as a precondition of economic efficiency. The aim of liberalisation and privatisation is to achieve a higher degree of economic efficiency of transport by means of a higher level of economic competition.3 Yet, when speaking about railway operations across Europe, two basic forms of competition must be distinguished: ‘competition on the market’ and ‘competition for the market’. The recent programmatic strategies of ­European railway reform are based on competition for the market of train-operating companies. These strategies require a railway infrastructure separated from operations regulated and (usually) owned by the state, the so-called unbundling. But what is the market the companies are about to compete for? It will prove very worthwhile here to recognise the profound role of history and to take into account that the nature of the present market of railway operations is deeply rooted in the railway networks established some 170 years ago. The question is whether these networks, from

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-11

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  187 Stockholm to Madrid or to Sofia, are suitable for today’s companies’ business plans, and for potential customers’ willingness to use their services. Generally speaking, the following observation is clear: the bigger the gap between the network’s limits of quality (capacity) and companies’/customers’ ­demands, the higher the level of the network’s operational inefficiency. When we look closely at transport policy, it becomes evident that the level of this inefficiency correlates to the sum paid from public budgets to rebuild and improve railway infrastructure. The anticipated success of current railway reforms will ultimately depend on and be measured by a multitude of factors. Without a doubt, the quality and capacity of the new railway network will only be as good as the degree to which it will enable every particular train-operating company to fulfil its intentions. Unfortunately – yet quite naturally – in the real world no railway network is homogenous and optimally customised; bottlenecks very often occur throughout these systems. Train-operating companies are routinely faced with obstacles from different sources, especially within urban areas and junctions. That is why it is indisputable that the newly unbundled infrastructure must be carefully planned, built (or rebuilt), and managed by a central authority. Contemporary issues and problems in transport planning within metropolitan areas have been extensively investigated by many scholars.4 This chapter aims to describe in some detail an important historical ­paradox regarding competition: The railway networks were developed within the framework of ‘competition on the market’ a hundred years ago, yet train-operating companies ‘compete for the market’ that exists today. On the one hand, competition on the market required vertical integration of operators who laid their own rail lines to implement their own business plans. On the other hand, competition for today’s market, which is promoted and enforced by the Common Transport Policy of the EU, requires an unbundled infrastructure which includes business plans of all potential carriers. In this chapter, I will articulate this dilemma in a case study of the historical development of the Czech capital city of Prague. I will argue that the railway network which once perfectly matched the local conditions of ‘competition on the market’ is no longer suited for ‘competition for today’s market’.5

Roads and Railways – A Slight Difference Matters Since time immemorial paths and roads have been developed naturally, step by step, by their users. Typically, networks of footpaths surrounding sites connected the most important destinations of their inhabitants. Footpaths were gradually adapted to accommodate horses and mules, and eventually horse-driven carts and wagons.6 Rulers of the first known states and empires recognised that the importance of roads went beyond economics and that they played a strategic role as well (transport of troops and information). The early empire highways were planned and financed by a central authority

188  Martin Kvizda (a ruler) – the most famous ones started long ago at the time of the Roman Republic. In modern history, very important networks of state highways were established, for instance, by Napoleon I in France and Josef II in Austria. What is important is the shape of such networks: they either followed the roads that had developed naturally, or they broke new paths. In either case, they connected the most important destinations, namely the existing infrastructure of cities (often the city gates). Transit of persons or transport of goods from one road to another was naturally possible through the streets of city centres performing a junction function. Since the nineteenth century, nearly all European states have centrally planned and financed networks of national roads from one city to another, while municipalities planned and financed networks of streets and roads inside city walls. Free passage was possible between the national roads across cities without additional costs (except for tolls or other administrative fees). In contrast, railways were usually built as private undertakings without any aspirations to connect them with each other. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when the development of railways peaked, cut-throat competition rather than cooperation was the order of the day. As these networks became denser and denser during the 1860s and 1870s, many lines connected with each other, especially in large cities or industrial sites. In many cities throughout the world these railway networks more or less typically encircled the downtown areas, creating multiple stations. Today we can still see the results in many large cities, such as London and Paris: no central station, but several large stations which correspond to former rival companies. What is interesting from an economic point of view is the fact that early free competition between railway companies without restrictions for line routing produced what is for today’s world an acutely suboptimal solution. The failure of particular railways to directly connect in urban areas created additional costs for passengers as well as shippers: separate stations with duplication of functions used much more valuable land in city centres; transshipment of cars increased operational costs and construction of connecting lines increased land use. For passenger transport, this situation was also inconvenient as it required transfers from one station to another across a busy city centre. Cities were stressed and had to cope with these costs and difficulties for decades. They only improved their networks here and there, after mergers of independent railways and their nationalisation. With reference to London and Paris, few people today can imagine one central station. Nevertheless, it is also true that new Hauptbahnhöfe (mainstations) were recently completed in Berlin and Vienna. These difficulties and tensions have troubled many other cities and towns across Europe as well, resulting in the rebuilding and reshaping of railway networks within their metropolitan areas to create one central station. Let us now look closely at the example of Prague – a city where railways have been the backbone of commuter as well as long-distance passenger traffic for many years. Prague has not yet resolved the issue of having one unifying central station.

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  189

The Earliest Railways in Prague The birth of the Prague railway network reflects the attitude of the Habsburg Austrian Empire to which the city of Prague, as well as the Czech lands, belonged until 1918. Private railways were built in Austria at the very beginning of the railway age – between 1828 and 1841– without any state support.7 The state licensed the railways without any restrictions or requests for route planning. The first lines were clearly built with regard to constricted economic criteria, the lines connecting the most important sites in the country. What is important to recognise is that there was essentially no competition, as the railway service market was emerging only gradually. The very first railway in Prague was constructed in 1831 when a horse-powered narrow-gauge line carried timber to the city from nearby forests.8 The railway was built and operated by the forests’ owner and did not at the time seem too important for the city’s economy and development. That purpose-developed design of the operation explains why the line was not allowed to reach the city centre; its Prague terminal was located in front of a city gate on the edge of the suburb Bruska (indicated ‘1831’ in Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.1  Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1830 to 1860. Source: Created by the author.

190  Martin Kvizda At the beginning of the 1840s, the state drastically changed its policy towards the railways: the empire’s authorities now decided to build a railway network on their own account. The first real railway, a standard-gauge steam-operated line, reached Prague from Olomouc in 1845, connecting it with Vienna via Olomouc and Břeclav. This line was planned and financed by the state and became a part of the Austrian state railway network (the Northern State Railway/k.k. Nördliche Staatsbahn – NStB). The authorities allowed the Prague terminal of the line to be established inside the city walls, requiring a special railway gate to be built.9 This station (originally called Staatsbahnhof, after 1918 Masarykovo nádraží/Masaryk Station), became the first station in the city of Prague (indicated ‘1845’ in Figure 7.1). By 1850, the extension of the k.k. Nördliche Staatsbahn from Prague to Podmokly (today’s Děčín) on the Saxonian border was built to connect Vienna and Dresden via Prague. This line naturally led to the Staatsbahnhof crossing of the Vltava River by the Negrelli Bridge – a vast construction, after centuries the second major bridge built in Prague. The next stage of building private railways began in 1855 when state policy towards railways again acutely changed. NStB would be the first and the last state line that came to Prague. Thereafter, the state completely withdrew from the planning and building of railways on its own account.

Beginning of Free Competition on the Railway Market The next great railway project in Prague was the Bohemian Western Railway/Böhmische Westbahn (BWB). This line went from Prague via Plzeň to Domažlice on the Bavarian border and continued to Nuremberg. It was built (in 1862) and operated by a private company which had obtained a licence from the state.10 The state set up a special request for BWB to connect with an already existing railway in Prague – the former NStB which at that time was privatised as a newly established company called Kaiserlich-Königliche Privilegierte Österreichische Staatseisenbahngesellschaft (StEG). The railway faced a major problem: the StEG line approached the city from the east and the north, but the BWB line came from the southwest. Connecting both railways necessarily meant building tracks across the historical city centre inside a narrow river valley. The Prague terminal of BWB (called Westbahnhof, from 1918 Praha-Smíchov/Smíchov Station) was built at the southwestern edge of the city (indicated ‘1862’ in Figure7.1), and the connection to the StEG lines was postponed. For 26 years, passengers and baggage were moved from Staatsbahnhof to Westbahnhof through the city centre by crossing the only road bridge spanning the Vltava River – Charles Bridge, erected in the fourteenth century – using horse-driven carts and their own feet (Table 7.1). The first plans to connect the two important stations (Westbahnhof and Staatsbahnhof) appeared at the time the BWB was projected. The plan of railway engineer Karl Brantl (1850) and, later, of the popular Czech statesman and businessman František L. Rieger (1854), presupposed laying the track of a connecting line along the left bank of the Vltava River across

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  191 Table 7.1  C  zech and German Names of Towns Czech names (at present time)

German names (at time of construction)

Břeclav Děčín Domažlice Jihlava Kladno Kralupy Nymburk Olomouc Plzeň Podmokly Praha Tábor Turnov Vltava River

Lundenburg Tetschen Taus Iglau Kladno Kralup Nimburg Olmütz Pilsen Bodenbach Prag Tabor Turnau Moldau

the historical downtown (indicated ‘A’ in Figure 7.1). The plan required the demolition of the western tower of Charles Bridge and several Renaissance buildings but was never carried out.11 In any case, the BWB was obliged by its licence to build the connecting line and several plans to that effect appeared in the 1850s and 1860s, though none was seriously developed or implemented. While both the railway companies and the city had an interest in building the connecting line, they were not able to reach an agreement and share construction expenses. Meanwhile, the Buštěhrad Railway/ Buschtěhrader Eisenbahn (BEB) bought the oldest horse-powered line and rebuilt it into a standard-gauge steam-powered railway. It could then efficiently carry coal to the city from newly developed collieries in the Kladno region. The state ordered the company to build a connecting line from Bruska to the city; in 1868 a new Prague terminal of BEB was built in the northern suburb of Bubny and was connected to the StEG line there. The Bubny Station (Buschtěhrader Bahnhof, from 1918 Praha-Bubny, indicated ‘1868’ in Figure 7.2) became the city’s third terminal, connected to Staatsbahnhof but not to Westbahnhof. The war lost by Austria to Prussia in 1866 brought the endless discussions on the connecting line to a clear end.12 The Austrian military authorities now fully recognised the importance of railways for troop movement, seeing the ‘Prague gap’ as strategically unacceptable. The state would now insist on the construction of the connecting line.

Rail Mania in the 1870s – The Knot Is Being Tied The most important line built in the 1870s came to Prague from Vienna, from the south via Gmünd and Tábor. The builder – Emperor Franz Josef’s Railway/Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Bahn (KFJB) – fully understood the importance

192  Martin Kvizda

Figure 7.2  Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1860 to 1870. Source: Created by the author.

of the station’s location because competition on the railway transport market had become really cut-throat.13 This motivated the KFJB to build an enormous, posh station (called Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof, from 1918 Wilsonovo nádraží, i.e. Wilson Station), from 1948 Hlavní nádraží (Main Station), in the city centre, just 150 metres from Staatsbahnhof (indicated ‘1871’ in Figure 7.2). To do this meant digging a kilometre-long tunnel under the suburb of Vinohrady (indicated ‘B’ in Figure 7.2). Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof was opened to the public in 1871. It was connected with the StEG by a short line, but not directly with the StEG’s Staatsbahnhof. The next railway that reached Prague was a line of the Turnov-KralupyPraha Railway/Turnau-Kralup-Prager Eisenbahn (TKPE) in 1872. It came to Prague from the north, crossing the StEG line via a bridge and terminating at the city centre 200 metres east of the old Staatsbahnhof, and just behind Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof (indicated ‘1872’ in Figure 7.2). As both of these lines (TKPE and KFJB) were constructed at the same time and their terminal

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  193 stations were situated on adjacent land, the TKPE’s station was directly connected with Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof. Later, after nationalisation and merger of the Czech railways, both stations were united.14 Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof took on the role of the only passenger terminal, while TKPE’s infrastructure was turned into depots and supporting facilities. At the same time, another important line came to Prague from the east, built by the Austrian Northwestern Railway/Österreichische Nordwestbahn (ÖNWB). It originated in Vienna again and went through Jihlava and Nymburk. The terminal of this line (called Nordwestbahnhof, from 1918 Denisovo nádraží/Denis Station) was reached only after crossing the lines of both the StEG and TKPE. It was built 200 metres north of the Staatsbahnhof and opened to the public in 1873 (indicated ‘1873’ in Figure 7.2). This station was neither connected with Staatsbahnhof nor with Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof. The only possible connection between the ÖNWB line and the Prague node was at the Vysočany station in the Prague eastern suburb. Keen competition on the coal-transportation market and the absence of connecting lines through the city led the BEB to build its second line to Prague in 1872, with its terminus on the western bank of the Vltava River next to the BWB’s Westbahnhof.15 During the 1870s, the Prague junction attained its basic shape – the Gordian knot was being tied. Even though all of the newly built railways had been charged by the state concessions to build connecting lines with each other, none did. The Prague junction remained divided into two parts on opposite banks of the Vltava River, fragmented by railway companies in several isolated main stations.

Rebuilding the Prague Junction – Cutting the Knot What is noteworthy here is that the KFJB asked the state for its licence in 1866 – the very year the war was lost. So the state, granting the licence, ordered it to build the connecting line to Westbahnhof. After Vinohradský Tunnel had been dug on the KFJB line, a new possibility to connect all the Prague stations to each other appeared. The original plan to build a connecting line on the left bank through the historic downtown was now definitively rejected. The newly planned connection would use the tunnel as a conduit, which would require a new bridge across the river to be built. However, after nearly 30 years of discussions and planning, the Prague Connecting Railway/Prager Verbindungsbahn (PVB) finally came into being in 1872, and from 1888 passenger trains passed over it (indicated ‘C’ in Figure 7.3). It crossed the river by way of the newly built Smíchovký Bridge (269 metres long), which joined together all the railways operating within Prague.16 Nevertheless, the debate about the Prague railway junction was by no means over. The design of the city’s network might satisfy the business plans of private railway companies, but did not parallel the ideas of the nationalised railway which gradually emerged at the beginning of the

194  Martin Kvizda

Figure 7.3  Stations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1870 to 1970. Source: Created by the author.

twentieth century. After the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up in 1918, the new state was established – the Czechoslovak Republic – and Prague became its capital. The new situation boosted the demand for transport to and within the city. On the one hand, the nationalised and united railway – Czechoslovak State Railways/Československé státní dráhy (ČSD) established in 1918 – required a central passenger station as well as a marshalling yard. On the other hand, the city wished to commit less land of prime value to so many stations. The need to improve the railway junction was generally recognised. The rebuilding of the Prague junction began in the 1920s and continues up to the present day. First, the new freight station Nákladové nádraží Žižkov (Žižkov Freight Station) and the marshalling yard Praha-Vršovice (Vršovice Station) were built during the 1920s and 1930s (indicated ‘D’ and ‘E’ in Figure 7.3), and then several short connecting tracks were laid to join the new stations with the existing lines. To strengthen the connection of the two banks of the Vltava River, in 1964 a new bridge on the southern outskirts of the city was opened for freight only (indicated ‘F’ in Figure 7.3 – out of the

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  195 frame). As for passenger transport, the former Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof, now Hlavní nádraží (Main Station), became a quasi-central station, sharing its role of passenger terminal mainly with Staatsbahnhof, renamed Masarykovo nádraží (Masaryk Station), and to a lesser degree with Westbahnhof, renamed Praha-Smíchov (Smíchov Station), and Nordwestbahnhof, renamed Denisovo nádraží (Denis Station). Though the city of Prague made a call to abandon the Masaryk Station, Denis Station, and Bubny Station during the 1950s, and the government confirmed this in 1960, no such thing ever happened.17 Instead, during the 1970s a significant reconstruction took place that continued through the 1980s: a flyover crossing in the suburb of Libeň connected lines of the former StEG, ÖNWB, and TKPE to each other (indicated ‘G’ in Figure 7.4), enabling all eastern trains to terminate at the Main Station. In 1973 Denis Station was abandoned and later demolished; passenger traffic seemed to be concentrated at the two large stations, the Main and Masaryk. Nevertheless, the volume of passenger transport increased (namely the number of intercity trains) and the use of these stations quickly reached its practical limits. That is why Smíchov Station remained the terminal for western trains. Another long-lasting problem was that the Main

Figure 7.4  S  tations and Railways in the City of Prague, from 1980 to 2000. Source: Created by the author.

196  Martin Kvizda Station was still connected to the northeastern lines by only two separate single-track lines (former TKPE and StEG lines) with little capacity. Instead of reconstructing these lines, a new station was built in the suburb – a good example of erroneous transport planning during the communist era. The new station dedicated chiefly to international passenger transport was built in the northern suburb – Praha-Holešovice (Holešovice Station, indicated ‘1985’ in Figure 7.4). It was located on a newly built circuitous connecting line which crossed the Vltava River with a new bridge and passed along the river banks via a tunnel. International Budapest and Berlin express trains have been coming there since 1985. During the 1990s, after Czechoslovakia was split into two republics, the Czech Republic underwent several reforms of the railway industry. The earliest followed the framework of political and economic transition of the post-socialist republic, the latter followed the Common Transport Policy of the EU. The result of these reforms has been the unbundling – separating the infrastructure from operations. Even though the dominant national railway carrier – Czech Railways/České dráhy (ČD) – operates its passenger trains throughout the heavily state-subsidised network, some intra-modal competition among the ČD and private train-operating companies has become manifest on the tracks. Successful competition within the railway industry requires a workable network of tracks and stations enabling efficient and smooth operations. The whole Czech railway network is owned by the state so that its development should be planned in terms of public interest. Such planning constitutes a daunting task, of course, requiring a serious effort to meet the business goals of many train operators and at the same time satisfying municipal development strategies. In the last decade, a great project called Nové spojení (New Connection, indicated ‘H’ in Figure 7.5) has emerged in Prague, which proposes to increase the capacity of the Main Station and its connecting lines, making it possible for all Prague trains to terminate there. A former freight depot and all buildings of the abandoned TKPE station were demolished to create sufficient space for an entirely new set of platforms. Nowadays all western trains are able to terminate there. Next, a capacity-connecting line from Libeň was built involving the digging of a new tunnel. At present, for the very first time in its entire history, the Main Station efficiently accommodates all trains from all destinations, with the only exception of the first Prague line of 1831. This means that the Holešovice Station and Smíchov Station remain in operation for pass-through services only. It is ironic that the only exception is the first horse-powered railway later rebuilt by BEB: its trains are only able to terminate in Masaryk Station. Nevertheless, this line is of little importance to passenger traffic and no freight is transported on it nowadays. That is why a serious plan to abandon its intramural section has appeared. Masaryk Station is the last of the former terminals and its abandonment is underway today. The depots and workshops have already been demolished, and only a passenger hall and platforms are still in use for commuter trains. The same fate has

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  197

Figure 7.5  S  tations and Railways in the City of Prague after 2010. Source: Created by the author.

affected Žižkov Freight Station, as the volume of freight has declined considerably (Figure 7.5). It is being abandoned and a new residential area is being planned there. The last part of the rebuilding of the Prague junctions has been worth the nearly 0.5 billion euros spent (350 million euros for the New Connection and 100 million euros for the Main Station’s annex). Significant additional public expenditures, as well as private investments, are expected. This is the price that must be paid for improving the weak original junctions that were created within the framework of free competition ‘on the market’, but which has not met the demand of modern passenger transportation under the framework of competition ‘for the market’.

Conclusion A century and a half ago, free competition between railway companies without restrictions for routing of lines or station placement created knotty junctions in many European cities. After mergers and nationalisation of railways, many stations were found to have been located in the wrong places. Decommissioning of particular lines created additional costs for passengers as well as shippers, while newly separated stations

198  Martin Kvizda used much more valuable land in town centres, and transshipment of cars and development of connecting lines increased costs as well as land use. Although cities have experienced these costs and difficulties for decades and have attempted as best they could to improve railway networks in their region, the problem has persisted. It remains a serious background factor at a time when competition within the railway industry is being not so much restored as it is reformulated. Instead of the ‘competition in a vertically integrated market, competition of operators for the open market’ is being introduced. This case study of Prague demonstrates the vital importance which coordination and planning of metropolitan railway networks play in order to lower future additional costs of transportation in and through major cities.

Notes 1 The text was prepared within the project supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic – TAČR. The author thanks Petr Tonev for helping edit the figures. 2 European Commission, White Paper – European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide (Luxembourg 2001), and European Commission, Revitalising Europe’s Railways: Towards an Integrated European Railway Area (Luxembourg 2003). 3 See L. Di Pietrantonio and J. Pelkmans, The Economics of EU Railway Reform. Bruges European Economic Policy Briefings (Bruges 2004), and D. Seidenglanz, ‘Vývoj železniční dopravy v Evropě a její pozice v evropské dopravní politice’, Národohospodářský obzor – Review of Economic Perspectives, 4, 2005, 92–104. 4 See P. Checkland, Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. Includes a 30-Year Retrospective (New York 1999), L. Kane and R. Del Mistro, ‘Changes in Transport Planning Policy: Changes in Transport Planning Methodology?’, Transportation, 30, 2003, 113–131, M. Kvizda, ‘Faktory efektivnosti železniční dopravy – Jak rozhodovat o dopravní politice?’, Národohospodářský obzor – Review of Economic Perspectives, 6, no. 4, 2006, 37–49, and P. Timms, ‘Transport Models, Philosophy and Language’, Transportation, 35, 2008, 395–410. 5 My main resource of historical data derives from major works of several Czech scholars. See M. Štěpán, Přehledné dějiny československých železnic 1824–1948 (Prague 1958), J. Hons, Šťastnou cestu. Vyprávění o pražských nádražích (Prague 1961), J. Hons, Dějiny dopravy na území ČSSR (Bratislava 1975), J. Hons, M. Hlavačka, Z. Maruna, and K. Zeithammer, eds., Čtení o Severní dráze Ferdinandově (Prague 1990), M. Hlavačka, Dějiny dopravy v českých zemích v období průmyslové revoluce (Prague 1990), M. Hlavačka, I. Jakubec, F. Jansa, Z. Kaufmann, Z. Kozinka, H. Krejčí, M. Krejčiřík, Z. Maruna, B. Nádvorník, K. Sellner, J. Schrötter, P. Stejskal, and V. Zahrádka, eds., Železnice Čech, Moravy a Slezska (Prague 1995), P. Pavlíček Naše lokálky. Místní dráhy v Čechách, na Moravě a ve Slezsku (Prague 2002), P. Schreier, Zrození železnic v Čechách, na Moravě a ve Slezsku (Prague 2004), and I. Jakubec and Z. Jindra, Dějiny hospodářství českých zemí od počátku industrializace do konce habsburské monarchie (Prague 2006). For the argument that the necessary rebuilding of the network will require a considerable amount of public spending, see the best financial analyses of the Czech railways: T. Pospíšil and Z. Tomeš, ‘Kvantifikace objemu státních dotací do železniční dopravy v ČR’, Národohospodářský obzor, 4, 2005, 81–91, T. Otáhal and T. Pospíšil, ‘Will Czech Trains Ever Reach Their Destinations Efficiently?’, Independent Review, 14, no. 2, 2009, 271–287.

Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot  199 6 For a good overview see J. F. Musil, Po stezkách k dálnicím (Prague 1987), 10. 7 The city of Prague and the whole of the present-day Czech Republic were part of the Austrian Empire until 1918. 8 J. Hons, Šťastnou cestu. Vyprávění o pražských nádražích (Prague 1961), 19. 9 Ibid., 34. 10 Schreier, Zrození železnic, 130. 11 Hons, Šťastnou cestu, 65. 12 Ibid., 77. 13 Schreier, Zrození železnic, 182. 14 Hons, Šťastnou cestu, 204. 15 Schreier, Zrození železnic, 94. 16 Hons, Šťastnou cestu, 104. 17 Government of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Resolution of the government no. 928/1960. During the 1950s the old Staatsbahnhof was renamed again from Masarykovo nádraží to Praha – střed (Prague - Centre), to be renamed for the third time in 1990 back to Masarykovo nádraží (Masaryk Station); Nordwestbahnhof, later Denisovo nádraží, was renamed Praha – Těšnov (Těšnov Station).

Literature Checkland, P., Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. Includes a 30-Year Retrospective (New York 1999). Di Pietrantonio, L. and Pelkmans, J., The Economics of EU Railway Reform. Bruges European Economic Policy Briefings (Bruges 2004). European Commission, White Paper – European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide (Luxembourg 2001). European Commission, Revitalising Europe´s Railways: Towards an Integrated European Railway Area (Luxembourg 2003). Government of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Resolution of the government no. 928/1960 (Prague 1960). Hlavačka, M., Dějiny dopravy v českých zemích v období průmyslové revoluce (Prague 1990). Hlavačka, M., Jakubec, I., Jansa, F., Kaufmann, Z., Kozinka, Z., Krejčí, H., Krejčiřík, M., Maruna, Z., Nádvorník, B., Sellner, K., Schrötter, J., Stejskal, P., and Zahrádka, V., eds., Železnice Čech, Moravy a Slezska (Prague 1995). Hons, J., Šťastnou cestu. Vyprávění o pražských nádražích (Prague 1961). Hons, J., Dějiny dopravy na území ČSSR (Bratislava 1975). Hons, J., Hlavačka, M., Maruna, Z., and Zeithammer, K., eds., Čtení o Severní dráze Ferdinandově (Prague 1990). Jakubec, I. and Jindra, Z., Dějiny hospodářství českých zemí od počátku industrializace do konce habsburské monarchie (Prague 2006). Kane, L. and Del Mistro, R., ‘Changes in Transport Planning Policy: Changes in Transport Planning Methodology?’, Transportation, 30, 2003, 113–131. Kvizda, M., ‘Faktory efektivnosti železniční dopravy – Jak rozhodovat o dopravní politice?’, Národohospodářský obzor – Review of Economic Perspectives, 6, no. 4, 2006, 37–49. Musil, J. F., Po stezkách k dálnicím (Prague 1987). Otáhal, T. and Pospíšil, T., ‘Will Czech Trains Ever Reach Their Destinations Efficiently?’, Independent Review, 14, no. 2, 2009, 271–287.

200  Martin Kvizda Pavlíček, P., Naše lokálky. Místní dráhy v Čechách, na Moravě a ve Slezsku (Prague 2002). Pospíšil, T. and Tomeš, Z., ‘Kvantifikace objemu státních dotací do železniční dopravy v ČR’, Národohospodářský obzor, 4, 2005, 81–91. Schreier, P., Zrození železnic v Čechách, na Moravě a ve Slezsku (Prague 2004). Seidenglanz, D., ‘Vývoj železniční dopravy v Evropě a její pozice v evropské dopravní politice’, Národohospodářský obzor – Review of Economic Perspectives, 4, 2005, 92–104. Štěpán, M., Přehledné dějiny československých železnic 1824–1948 (Prague 1958). Timms, P., ‘Transport Models, Philosophy and Language’, Transportation, 35, 2008, 395–410.

8 Putting a Station in Its Place 30th Street Station and Its Relationship to Philadelphia’s Urban Fabric Albert J. Churella Like Mechelen, Belgium, site of the 4th International Railway History Conference (2010), the city of Philadelphia has a long and distinguished history that predated the development of railways.1 The new mode of transportation nonetheless quickly transformed both cities, and they quickly became important rail junctions. Philadelphia, founded in 1682, had by the late eighteenth century become the largest and most influential city in the newly created United States of America. After 1798, however, the city rapidly lost its commercial primacy to New York, and following the War of 1812 seemed in danger of falling behind Baltimore, as well. When work began on the Erie Canal, in 1817, that waterway further threatened Philadelphia’s interests. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania funded the construction of an ambitious system of internal improvements, the Main Line of Public Works, yet the project failed to restore Philadelphia’s fortunes. In 1846, Philadelphia merchants chartered a private corporation, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), in a bid to capture the western grain trade. They envisioned the PRR as an east-west railroad, and one that was subservient to Philadelphia’s commercial interests, rather than as a profit-making enterprise in its own right.2 The commercial pull of New York was simply too strong for the PRR to resist, however. Several independent railroads – collectively known as the Joint Companies, and later as the United New Jersey Railroad & Canal Companies – had built a link from Philadelphia north to New York. Other companies, eventually consolidated as the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, provided a comparable route south to Baltimore, with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad – long a competitor to the PRR, continuing south to Washington. To the dismay of the Philadelphia merchants who controlled the PRR, western farmers and merchants demanded access to New York and made it very clear that they would divert their business to either the New York Central or the Erie, the two main railroads that served that city. After civil engineer J. Edgar Thomson gained the presidency of the PRR, in 1852, he concluded that he would have to meet those demands, by forwarding traffic onward to New York, even at the expense of Philadelphia’s mercantile interests. Thomson faced a serious problem, however, in that the PRR did not make a physical connection in Philadelphia with the Joint Companies or with DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-12

202  Albert J. Churella the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore. As such, the challenge facing Thomson and his successors was to transform Philadelphia from the terminus of an east-west railroad to a junction city, with access to the north and to the south. During the late 1850s, and under pressure from western shippers, Thomson had ordered the construction of a freight line that would link the PRR to the docks along the Delaware River. Yet, there was still no mechanism for interchanging freight and passengers with the independent railroads that offered service to the north and south of Philadelphia. The traffic demands associated with the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 made such conditions intolerable. Officials representing the PRR, the Joint Companies, and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore cooperated in the construction of two short but crucial links – the Connecting Railway and the Junction Railroad, that enabled traffic to flow unimpeded through the city. By 1865, therefore, freight and passengers could travel, by rail, from New York through to Washington, and from either of those points, through Philadelphia, and to the West. The resulting gains in transportation efficiency helped to ensure the prosperity of the PRR but detracted from the goal of the company’s founders, which in 1846 had been to restore the city’s role as a commercial port.3 The transformation of Philadelphia from a terminus to a junction created additional problems for the PRR. For nearly the next one hundred years – from the mid-1860s until the late 1950s – PRR officials struggled to balance the conflicting goals of corporate efficiency and customer mobility, as they debated the proper location for the city’s passenger terminals. From 1846 to 1876, the PRR operated several stations in centre-city Philadelphia, between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Each of these stations shared a common problem, in that they were accessible only by tracks running through city streets, with municipal ordinances requiring the use of horses, rather than locomotives, to pull the cars. Following the completion of the Junction Railroad, in October 1864, there seemed little need to continue the inefficient practice of operating horse-drawn trains in the city. As such, the PRR closed its centre-city station at 11th and Market Streets, and terminated all eastbound passenger trains at 30th and Market Streets in West Philadelphia. The PRR maintained a freight station at that location, along with two passenger depots, one for passengers bound for New York, and the other for those heading toward Pittsburgh.4 The centennial of the American Declaration of Independence, in 1876, induced the PRR to reconfigure its passenger stations in Philadelphia. In anticipation of massive crowds destined for the Centennial Exhibition, the railroad built a temporary station at the exhibition grounds, several miles west of the city, as well as a permanent structure near the intersection of 30th and Market Streets. This West Philadelphia Station – or ‘Centennial Station’, as it was often known, was extraordinarily convenient for the railroad’s operations, as it possessed two levels of track, one for trains travelling between New York and Washington, and the other for trains headed for the

Putting a Station in Its Place  203 West. However, it was also located 30 blocks from the Delaware River, and nearly as far from the commercial centre of Philadelphia, and was therefore not well suited for the convenience of the travelling public (Figure 8.1).5 During the 1880s, however, PRR officials responded to changes in the urban fabric by moving passenger operations east of the Schuylkill River and back into the centre of the city. The area around the intersection of Broad and Market Streets had been at the heart of the city’s original grid plan, yet most developments had historically taken place along the Delaware River waterfront, too far removed from West Philadelphia to be readily accessible by the PRR. The opening of John Wanamaker’s department store, in 1876, and the construction of a new City Hall (work began in 1871, and was completed in 1901) shifted the centre of economic and political activity several blocks to the west, within reach of PRR rails. In 1881, the PRR opened Broad

Figure 8.1  One of the Two Main Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Stations in the City, Broad Street Station.6 The construction of Broad Street Station in 1881 marked the return of PRR passenger service to Center City Philadelphia. From West Philadelphia, trains crossed the Schuylkill River and traveled along the Filbert Street Extension, off of the left edge of the photograph, before stopping underneath a low peaked-roof trainshed. The original station (at the left edge of the photograph) soon proved inadequate for rising passenger levels, and in 1892 and 1893 architect Frank Furness designed a larger and taller addition to the south, along with a massive arched trainshed, the largest in the world at the time that it was completed. The building was demolished in 1953. Photo: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Reproduction Number HABS PA,51-PHILA,341–7.

204  Albert J. Churella Street Station at the corner of 15th and Market Streets, opposite City Hall. From the west, passenger trains crossed the Schuylkill River and avoided city streets by traversing a massive steel and stone viaduct more than two thousand feet in length. Properly known as the Filbert Street Extension, but typically referred to as the ‘Chinese Wall’, this viaduct prevented commercial development along the north side of Market Street, occupied valuable real estate, and restricted access to north-western Philadelphia.7 Although the new facility was convenient for travellers, from the perspective of PRR operating officials, Broad Street Station soon became a major bottleneck. In March 1881, six months before the station opened, the PRR purchased the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, along with its subsidiary, the West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad. There seemed little reason to retain the small West Chester & Philadelphia depot at 31st and Chestnut Streets in West Philadelphia, and after 1 January 1882, the PRR began routing trains from both of its new acquisitions across the Schuylkill River, over the Filbert Street Extension, and into Broad Street Station – immediately filling it to capacity. As more and more people moved to the outskirts of Philadelphia, they travelled to work along the PRR Main Line, the Chestnut Hill Branch, and other routes, and ended their commute at an increasingly congested Broad Street Station. By 1886, more than a million people a month were using the facility.8 The PRR was not the only railroad to serve Philadelphia, however, and it contested with the Philadelphia & Reading Rail Road for control of the city’s passenger and freight traffic. In 1888, only seven years after Broad Street Station opened, the Reading extended its tracks closer to the city centre, and built Reading Terminal at the corner of 12th and Market Streets. In response, PRR officials sought ways to retain the central location of Broad Street Station, with its convenience for passengers, while improving the facility’s operating efficiency, measured by its ability to accommodate as many trains as possible. The best way to achieve those twin goals was to transform Broad Street from a stub-end terminus to a through station. Samuel Rea, the PRR’s Assistant to the Second Vice-President, travelled to London and made a careful study of that city’s railways. He believed that the PRR could emulate both the great London stations and the connectivity features of the London Underground by constructing a new subterranean line, northeasterly from Broad Street Station to connect with an existing line serving an industrial district in Kensington, and then on to New York. If built, the new route would have obviated the necessity of backing trains in and out of Broad Street Station, while maximising passenger convenience.9 High construction costs, the economic depression of the 1890s, and the primitive state of electrification technology ensured that Rea’s proposals were never implemented. Instead, PRR officials spent approximately 25 million US dollars to expand Broad Street Station, between 1881 and 1910. In 1901, the PRR completed an auxiliary passenger station, in North Philadelphia, in order to alleviate some of the congestion at Broad Street. The North

Putting a Station in Its Place  205 Philadelphia facility greatly increased the efficiency of the railroad’s operations, as passenger trains travelling between New York and the West could easily bypass centre-city Philadelphia. Many elite residents complained, however, when the PRR’s premier long-distance passenger trains, such as the Broadway Limited, stopped at that inconvenient location, well to the north of the city centre.10 At the beginning of the twentieth century, two factors contributed to the redefinition of the PRR’s place in Philadelphia’s urban fabric. First, the 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago had given rise to the ‘City Beautiful’ Movement and had influenced a new generation of architects to redesign large urban spaces. Members of Philadelphia’s business community were often enthusiastic advocates of the City Beautiful ideal, especially because they saw it as a mechanism to eliminate the Filbert Street Extension and thus release valuable real estate, to the north of Market Street, for commercial development. They were also receptive to proposals that called for the elimination of Broad Street Station, to make way for a grand boulevard that would connect City Hall with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fairmount Park.11 At the same time, merchants, residents, elected officials, and PRR managers were taking action to relocate much of the industrial trackage that interlaced South Philadelphia. The earliest efforts to elevate tracks above street level occurred in 1898, but it was not until 1904 that the city’s Bureau of Surveys began to examine the subject. In the fall of 1909, Philadelphia Mayor John Reyburn created a Committee on Railway Terminals and Transportation, in order to mediate an agreement between the PRR and the city. The enhancement of safety, the elimination of congestion, and the concomitant improvement in efficiency would, Reyburn hoped, restore the commercial glory that the city had lost more than a century earlier. In the Mayor’s words, ‘Philadelphia may soon be made as great a factor in the world’s trade as are other inland ports, such as London, Hamburg, or Antwerp.’12 As a logical extension of the South Philadelphia project, municipal and business representatives also called on the PRR to conform to the City Beautiful model, by redesigning the city’s passenger facilities.13 The city’s commitment to grade-crossing elimination, and to the removal of tracks from city streets, prompted the PRR to create an organisational mechanism to carry out those policies. On 30 December 1911, Samuel Rea, by then a PRR vice-president, created a Board of Engineers on Philadelphia Terminal Improvements, instructing them to respond to the city’s recommendations. That Board soon evolved into the entity that managed the far more extensive efforts to rebuild the PRR’s passenger facilities in the Philadelphia area.14 That overhaul was nonetheless more than four decades in coming. While the PRR paid a substantial share of the cost of elevating freight tracks and eliminating grade crossings in South Philadelphia, the railroad’s officials refused to accept the city’s plans for new passenger facilities. Instead, PRR executives ordered the electrification of commuter service in suburban

206  Albert J. Churella Philadelphia, increasing operating efficiency and alleviating some of the congestion at Broad Street Station. On 11 June 1923, however, a fire destroyed most of the station’s massive train shed, which at one time had been the largest in the world. The conflagration provided the necessary impetus to restart the stalled discussions regarding the relocation and replacement of Broad Street Station. Two years later, representatives from the city and the railroad had reached an agreement regarding the transformation of Philadelphia’s passenger rail facilities (Figure 8.2).15

Figure 8.2  The Second of the Two Main Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Stations in the City, 30th Street Station. By the early 1900s, Philadelphia residents and their elected officials were anxious to remove the Filbert Street Extension that marred the urban landscape and restricted commercial development. Pennsylvania Railroad officials agreed to build a new passenger station to the west, on the opposite side of the Schuylkill River. The new Pennsylvania Station opened in 1933, but it did not fully replace Broad Street Station until the 1950s. In this aerial view, from the 1970s and looking west, the north-south tracks of the Amtrak (former Pennsylvania Railroad) mainline between New York and Washington are hidden underneath the structure, passing from right to left, and paralleling the Schuylkill River. The visible tracks are those for the PRR’s commuter trains (now operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) that pause on the upper level of the station before proceeding eastward (toward the photographer) and entering the underground tracks serving Suburban Station, completed by the PRR in 1930. Source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Reproduction Number HAER PA,51-PHILA,694–13. (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/hhh.pa1447.photos.140426p/) (last accessed 5 April 2013).

Putting a Station in Its Place  207 Under the 1925 agreement between PRR and municipal officials, the railroad agreed to withdraw passenger service from the centre-city area, and move it to West Philadelphia – where it had been, prior to the construction of Broad Street Station. Initially referred to as ‘Pennsylvania Station,’ the facility would be more commonly referred to by its current official title, 30th Street Station. The West Philadelphia location made the railroad’s operations vastly easier and more efficient, yet threatened to reduce mobility for Philadelphia residents. In order to alleviate that situation, the agreement called for the construction of a second station, dedicated to commuter traffic. The trains that used the ‘Suburban Station’ commuter facility would cross into the city on underground tracks – made possible by the electrification projects of the previous decade – that provided mobility without disrupting the urban fabric.16 Passengers heading for or arriving on long-distance trains could ride commuter trains for the short distance into centre city.17 Suburban Station opened on 28 September 1930, yet the Great Depression and World War Two soon slowed work on 30th Street Station, thus preventing the closure of the old facility on Broad Street, as well as the elimination of the Filbert Street Extension. In January 1932, PRR officials announced the slowdown or suspension of all major engineering projects, across the system. In December 1933, 30th Street Station entered service, but on a severely limited basis, with only two tracks and a single platform in use. With 30th Street Station incomplete, the railroad continued to operate most long-distance trains in and out of Broad Street Station. The last train did not leave Broad Street Station until 27 April 1952.18 By the early 1950s, however, the PRR and other railways in the United States were experiencing severe declines in passenger service, as travellers relied more heavily on automobiles and airplanes. As such, 30th Street Station was never utilised to anything like its full capacity. In contrast, the much more utilitarian Suburban Station continued to serve large numbers of commuters.19 During the 1950s and 1960s, as a steady decline in both passenger and freight revenues caused serious financial problems for the PRR, company managers attempted to exploit their most valuable asset – their urban real estate holdings. In New York, they demolished the aboveground portions of Penn Station, replacing them with an office and sports complex – Madison Square Garden. In Philadelphia, however, the location of 30th Street Station in a commercial dead zone between Centre City and the University of Pennsylvania campus saved it from the fate of Penn Station in New York City. PRR officials nonetheless attempted to make substantial changes in West Philadelphia, in order to exploit the ‘air rights’ along the tracks that served the station. Such plans, it should be emphasised, were ‘one-off’ projects to gain a quick injection of capital that could be invested in a failing railroad, and were only tangentially connected to municipal goals of comprehensive urban planning. In 1956, for example, the PRR hired Philadelphia architect Vincent G. Kling to design a sports arena, north of 30th Street Station, to be built with city funds. The station, unlike its counterpart in New York, would

208  Albert J. Churella remain, yet be overshadowed by a 75,000-seat, 15 million US-dollar stadium over the station approach tracks. City officials rejected that proposal, and three years later the railroad floated an equally unsuccessful plan for a 60,000-seat stadium that would be built without public funds.20 PRR executives resurrected the stadium proposal in the early 1960s – reflecting, in microcosm, many of the issues that plagued the railroad and ultimately led it into bankruptcy. In the summer of 1961, the PRR officials made plans to create the Philadelphia Stadium Corporation, jointly owned by the PRR (25 per cent), the city (50 per cent, in lieu of real estate taxes on the stadium complex), and the four major professional sports franchises (25 per cent, divided among the Phillies, Eagles, Warriors, and Ramblers). The corporation would build the stadium, leasing air rights from the railroad at 840,000 US dollars a year. In response to the railroad’s enormous liquidity problems, its executives soon replaced the annual air-rights rental for a onetime sale price of three million US dollars to the city. The city would then resell the air rights to a redevelopment authority for one million US dollars, with that agency contracting with a stadium corporation (owned jointly by the railroad and the construction contractors) to build the actual facility.21 PRR officials were so anxious to secure this arrangement that finance chairman David Bevan proposed eliminating the ‘High Line’ freight bypass through West Philadelphia as a show of good faith to the city. The proposal, made by an executive who was generally judged to be more interested in real estate than in railroading, was a particularly egregious example of the railroad cannibalising its physical plant in order to secure enough money to keep operating.22 PRR officials then applied, unsuccessfully, to the Urban Renewal Administration to have the area surrounding 30th Street designated a ‘blighted area’, and thus eligible for federal funds. The city would have used those funds to purchase the air rights from the railroad, with the cost now increased to four million US dollars. According to at least one Philadelphia newspaper, Mayor James H. J. Tate, responding to rumours of a PRR-New York Central merger, may have attempted to use the air rights sale as leverage to ensure that the railroad’s corporate headquarters would remain in Philadelphia.23 Despite the many efforts at urban redevelopment, the dual station arrangement, created by the PRR during the 1930s, remains in place. 30th Street Station survives, mercifully unmarred by a stadium complex. A 75 million US-dollars overhaul, begun in 1988 and completed in 1991, restored the facility to its former glory.24 Suburban Station likewise exists virtually unchanged. As an office building with a station in the basement, its functionality proved its salvation. Opened in 1984, the 1.7-mile-long Centre City Commuter Connection links the former Pennsylvania tracks at Suburban Station with the former Reading tracks at Reading Terminal. Despite the construction of the Centre City Commuter Connection, long-distance passenger trains still lack direct access to centre-city Philadelphia. Passengers

Putting a Station in Its Place  209 arriving from New York, Washington, and other locations must transfer to a local train, or else take a taxi, a bus, or the subway, in order to reach the city’s core at Broad and Market Streets. In many respects, the relationship between the railways and the city in Mechelen and in Philadelphia was quite different.25 The decision to make Mechelen a rail junction, and to locate shop facilities there, was made by government decree, and not by the actions of private investors. Furthermore, even though Philadelphia developed into an important rail junction, the shop facilities were located some distance away, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a company town that did not exist prior to the advent of the railroad. Many of the issues pertaining to labour in the Mechelen workshops – ranging from issues of workplace solidarity, to the development of a unique railway ethos, to the use of welfare capitalism to undermine the strength of independent unions, all applied to the PRR, but the effect was mainly felt at Altoona, and at other locations where the railroad maintained large shop facilities.26 Yet, there were also a great many similarities between Mechelen and Philadelphia. Philadelphia never ceased to be an important city, but it was experiencing a decline in trade and in certain types of small-scale manufacturing. As a result, the city’s more prosperous residents, many of whom were merchants, supported the development of railways as a mechanism for preserving the city’s economic fortunes. The PRR failed to re-establish Philadelphia’s status as the nation’s leading port. However, it did something that was equally valuable, in that it helped to transform Philadelphia into a nexus for the small-scale, flexible, custom production of high-quality goods.27 In the case of Philadelphia, the ongoing debates over the proper location of passenger facilities exemplified the complex relationship between the railroad and the city. The first ‘stations’, predating the completion of the PRR, followed the model of private stage lines and were located in hotels or taverns, or even in the open air, along a stretch of the city street. As the PRR internalised the transportation of freight and passenger traffic capabilities, taking over those functions from private transportation firms, the company’s executives accordingly saw the need to consolidate and centralise passenger stations. A city-centre location was certainly convenient for travellers, but hardly conducive to efficient operations, particularly given the decision of municipal authorities to ban steam locomotives from city streets. During the period between the 1850s and the 1950s, there were continual discussions as to which goal was more important – passenger convenience or operational efficiency. In the end, two factors – one private and one public – shaped the outcome. In the private sector, increased congestion at Broad Street Station convinced many PRR executives that they would have to withdraw their passenger service to a more efficient location, west of the Schuylkill River, and away from Centre City. In the public arena, a coalition

210  Albert J. Churella of municipal officials and leaders in the business community, inspired by the City Beautiful model of urban planning, concluded that they could countenance the loss of convenience associated with a city-centre passenger station location, in order to beautify the urban fabric and open up additional real estate for commercial development. The resulting meshing of the private and public factors contributed to the long process of shifting passenger service from Broad Street Station to 30th Street Station. Ultimately, the engineers and architects associated with the construction of 30th Street Station and Suburban Station succeeded in creating a superbly efficient transportation system for the city of Philadelphia. In that sense, a governmentally regulated but privately managed transportation enterprise produced a socially optimal outcome that did not differ appreciably from the results associated with centralised governmental planning. There was a difference, however, in that governmental entities in the United States have traditionally made little effort to develop a sound national transportation policy, or to make any substantive efforts to preserve local or long-distance passenger service. As such, since the 1950s there have been few efforts to incorporate the station more fully into Philadelphia’s urban fabric, or to re-conceptualise its role in the city’s transportation infrastructure, other than the isolated example of the Centre City Commuter Connection.

Notes 1 This essay is a revision of a paper presented at the Cities, Users, and Their Railways forum at the 4th International Railway History Conference in Mechelen, Belgium, 27–29 May 2010. Portions of this essay also appeared in Albert J. Churella, ‘External and Internal Networks on the Pennsylvania Railroad: The Philadelphia Improvements,’ Business and Economic History On-Line, 2, 2004, http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHonline/2004/Churella.pdf. The author thanks the Hagley Museum and Library for financial support for research, and to Assistant Curator Chris Baer for his invaluable assistance. 2 Robert Greenhalgh Albion, with Jennie Barnes Pope, The Rise of New York Port, 1815–1860 (New York 1970, original New York 1939), 1–2, 8–13, 32, 58–61; James Weston Livingood, The Philadelphia – Baltimore Trade Rivalry (Harrisburg, PA 1947), 10–11; Christopher T. Baer, with Glenn Porter and William H. Mulligan, Jr., eds., Canals and Railroads of the Mid-Atlantic States, 1800–1860 (Wilmington, DE 1981), 6; George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (New York 1951), 7, 180. 3 PRR Board of Director’s Minutes, 12 May 1851, 441–443, 3 Nov. 1851, 51, 7 Apr. 7, 1852, 153; Pennsylvania Railroad, Sixth Annual Report of the Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, February 7, 1853 (Philadelphia 1853), 18–19; Pennsylvania Railroad, Seventh Annual Report of the Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, February 6, 1854 (Philadelphia 1854), 14; Christopher T. Baer, William J. Coxey, and Paul W. Schopp, The Trail of the Blue Comet: A History of the Jersey Central’s New Jersey Southern Division (Palmyra, NJ 1994), 55–56; William Bender Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, with Plan of Organization, Portraits of Officials and Biographical Sketches, vol. 1 (New York 1899), 180–182; Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad, vol. 2, 188–189, 307–308; George H. Burgess and Miles C.

Putting a Station in Its Place  211 Kennedy, Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1846–1946 (Philadelphia 1949), 104–105, 236, 241, 401–402; David W. Messer, Triumph III: Philadelphia Terminal, 1838–2000 (Baltimore, MD 2000), 12, 21, 109–110, 316. 4 John Henry Hepp, IV, The Middle-Class City: Transforming Space and Time in Philadelphia, 1876–1926 (Philadelphia 2003), 49–52; David W. Messer and Charles S. Roberts, Triumph V: Philadelphia to New York, 1830–2002 (Baltimore, MD 2002), 18. 5 Burgess and Kennedy, Centennial History, 353–355. 6 Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Reproduction Number HABS PA,51-PHILA,341–347 (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/pa1046.photos.138288p/ (last accessed 5 April 2013). 7 Messer, Triumph III, 25–27, 29, 35–37, 40–45. 8 Messer, Triumph III, 13–15, 25–27, 29, 35–37, 40–45. Hepp, The Middle-Class City, 49–55. 9 Samuel Rea to J. N. DuBarry (Second Vice-President, PRR), 29 October 1888, Pennsylvania Railroad Collection, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, De. (Hereafter, HML), Box 1550, folder 21, second copy in Box 157, folder 3, p. 2, p. 6; Rea to J. L. Eysmans, 1 June 1926, HML, Box 1550, folder 21; ‘Report of Board of Engineers for the Improvement of Passenger Terminal Facilities in Philadelphia,’ 17 May 1911, HML, Box 1550, folder 22, p. 2. 10 Ibid. ‘Report of Board of Engineers,’ p. 3. 11 The City Beautiful movement began in Chicago, and is typically associated with Daniel Burnham, but it appeared in cities around the world. See Hepp, The Middle-Class City, 201–203; Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, updated edition (Oxford 1996), 174–202. 12 South Philadelphia: The Abolishment of Grade Crossings and the Creation of Opportunities for Commercial and Industrial Development (Philadelphia 1913), quotation at 8; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of 11 February 1910; F. C. Sweeton memorandum, 30 December 1931, HML, Box 758, folder 17. 13 Committee on Railway Terminals and Transportation to Samuel Rea, 26 November 1909, HML, Box 150, folder ‘Philadelphia – Committee on Railway Terminals + Transportation (1909–1912).’ 14 ‘Minutes of the Board of Engineers on Philadelphia Terminal Improvements,’ 3 January 1911; 9 January 1911; HML, Box 1550, folder 20; F. C. Sweeton memorandum; Messer, Triumph III, 40, 116. 15 ‘Philadelphia Improvements’, 13 June 1923, HML, Box 1547, folder 8; ‘Philadelphia Improvements’, 15 January 1932, HML, Box 1572, folder 6; ‘Agreement between the City of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company’, 13 July 1925, HML, Box 1550, folder 19. 16 Messer, Triumph III, 52, 56–58, 64–65. 17 F. C. Sweeton memorandum; ‘Philadelphia Improvements’, 20 August 1936, HML, Box 758, folder 18; ‘Report on Comparison Between Pennsylvania Railroad Tunnels Under the Schuylkill River, Phila., and Bridge Over the River as per Original Agreement of 13 July 1925’, 10 June 1927; Minutes of meeting of the Advisory Board – Philadelphia Improvements, 15 June 1927; both in HML, Box 758, folder 15; ‘Philadelphia Improvements’, 10 November 1937, HML, Box1572, folder 6. 18 Messer, Triumph III, 52, 55, 66–67; Office of the Chief Engineer, ‘Memorandum in connection with Philadelphia Improvements’, 3 February 1936, HML, Box 1572, folder 6; Office of the Chief Engineer, ‘Philadelphia Passenger Terminal Improvements’, 26 February 26, 1932, HML, Box 1572, folder 5; Chief Engineer, Philadelphia Improvements, to W. D. Wiggins, 31 December 1935; C. J. Henry,

212  Albert J. Churella ‘The Philadelphia Improvement Completion Program,’ statement at Public Utilities Commission hearing, 28 February 1952, HML, Box 1486, folder 23; Philadelphia Record, 21 July 1931, 15 December 1931. 19 PRR press release, 17 April 1952, HML; Box 259, folder 18; J. P. Newell to E. W. S., 26 February 26, 1952, HML, Box 1486, folder 23; Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 April 1952; Philadelphia Bulletin, 6 July 1952; Modern Railroads, August 1952, 61–65. 20 Minutes of meeting of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Penn Center Area Development Committee, 15 July 1959, HML, Box 1550, folder 12; Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 January 1956, 20 September 1959; PRR press release, 22 October 1958, HML, Box 259, folder 25. 21 Memo, ‘Subject: Philadelphia, Pa. – 30th and Arch Sts. – Proposed lease of “air rights” as site for all-purpose, all weather, domed stadium,’ 15 June 1961; undated memo, ‘Stadium,’ 01182-19; both in HML, Box 259, folder 26. 22 David C. Bevan to A. J. Greenough, 12 November 1962, HML, Box 259, folder 26. 23 Philadelphia Bulletin, 21 June 1964; 28 June 1964; 30 June 1964; Philadelphia Daily News of 25 May 1964; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of 14 April 1964; 3 June 1964; Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 June 1964; 17 June 1964; 28 June 1964. 24 Messer, Triumph III, 354. 25 For the Mechelen example, see Paul Van Heesvelde, ‘A City within the City? Mechelen and the Arsenal – Central Workshop of the State Railways, 1836– 1914,’ Paper presented at the 5th Railway History Congress, Palma De Mallorca, 14–16 October 2009. 26 At present, the best study of Altoona is John C. Paige, A Special History Study: Pennsylvania Railroad Shops and Works, Altoona, Pennsylvania (Washington, DC 1989). 27 See, for example, Philip Scranton, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization (Princeton, NJ 1997) and John K. Brown, The Baldwin Locomotive Works 1831–1915 (Baltimore, MD 1995).

Literature Albion, Robert Greenhalgh, with Pope, Jennie Barnes, The Rise of New York Port, 1815–1860 (New York 1970, original New York 1939). Baer, Christopher T., Coxey, William J., and Schopp, Paul W., The Trail of the Blue Comet: A History of the Jersey Central’s New Jersey Southern Division (Palmyra, NJ 1994). Baer, Christopher T., with Porter, Glenn and Mulligan, Jr., William H., eds., Canals and Railroads of the Mid-Atlantic States, 1800–1860 (Wilmington, DE 1981). Brown, John K., The Baldwin Locomotive Works 1831–1915 (Baltimore, MD 1995). Burgess, George H., and Kennedy, Miles C., Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1846–1946 (Philadelphia 1949). Churella, Albert J., ‘External and Internal Networks on the Pennsylvania Railroad: The Philadelphia Improvements,’ Business and Economic History On-Line, 2, 2004, http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHonline/2004/Churella.pdf. Hall, Peter, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, updated edition (Oxford 1996). Heesvelde, Paul Van, ‘A City within the City? Mechelen and the Arsenal – Central Workshop of the State Railways, 1836–1914,’ Paper presented at the 5th Railway History Congress, Palma De Mallorca, 14–16 October 2009. Hepp, John Henry, IV, The Middle-Class City: Transforming Space and Time in Philadelphia, 1876–1926 (Philadelphia 2003).

Putting a Station in Its Place  213 Livingood, James Weston, The Philadelphia – Baltimore Trade Rivalry (Harrisburg, PA 1947). Messer, David W., Triumph III: Philadelphia Terminal, 1838–2000 (Baltimore, MD 2000). Messer, David W., and Roberts, Charles S., Triumph V: Philadelphia to New York, 1830–2002 (Baltimore, MD 2002). Paige, John C., A Special History Study: Pennsylvania Railroad Shops and Works, Altoona, Pennsylvania (Washington, DC 1989). Pennsylvania Railroad, Sixth Annual Report of the Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, February 7, 1853 (Philadelphia 1853). Pennsylvania Railroad, Seventh Annual Report of the Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, February 6, 1854 (Philadelphia 1854). Scranton, Philip, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization (Princeton, NJ 1997). South Philadelphia: The Abolishment of Grade Crossings and the Creation of Opportunities for Commercial and Industrial Development (Philadelphia 1913). Taylor, George Rogers, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (New York 1951). Wilson, William Bender, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, with Plan of Organization, Portraits of Officials and Biographical Sketches, vol. 1 (New York 1899).

9 ‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways The Opening Ceremonies of Railway Stations in Nineteenth-Century Bucharest Octavian O. Silvestru The representations of railways and railway stations as widespread nineteenth-century symbols of progress, modern rationalism, and centralised management are well illustrated in the studies included in this volume. This chapter aims to fine-tune the theories and opinions in this regard by focusing on a case of technological transfer in Romania, a country that by all means may be considered an exemplary peripheral region of nineteenth-century Europe.1 Singular events play out over a time span that goes beyond their basic facts through social and political mechanisms with formative effects.2 The inauguration of a railway line and the opening ceremonies of stations, as occurrences of technological transfers, may consequently prove relevant for the understanding of broader social and cultural situations. Starting from this premise, the present study explores the logic and the effects of the ceremonies and reactions occasioned by the openings of Bucharest’s railway stations in 1869 and 1872, respectively. By analysing the actual ceremonial events, the quasi-ritual official practices, their motivations, and the public reactions to them, this study will ascertain the specific socio-cultural functions triggered by the introduction of railways in nascent Romania. Romania emerged as a state after the 1859 unification of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Bucharest, already the capital of the latter, became the capital of the new country. Although one of the largest cities in the Balkan region, with a population reaching approximately 150,000 inhabitants, Bucharest was at the time completely devoid of some basic modern urban facilities such as canalisation and decent roads, not to speak of public transportation or railways.3 Thus, a British engineer who had lived in Bucharest and worked at the construction of the first railway line in Romania, recollected in the late 1870s: In the days I write of the streets were paved with water-washed pebbles from the river, as round as cannon balls, set in the accumulated mud of ages, without any drainage, and most of them loose. I once saw, not fifteen years ago, a horse foundered in a bog-hole at the very door of the house of the then minister of Public Works! (…) In summer, not only do

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-13

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  215 you drive and walk through piles of dust, but you breathe it, eat it, and drink it, and in winter directly you are out of your house, you are plunging, slipping, and staggering in a quagmire composed of liquid filth and the above-mentioned boulders.4 In a sense, conditions in the new capital mirrored those of the whole country. Above all, the lack of efficient means of transportation cumbered the commercial and political aggregation of the new state’s territory. Transportation in Romania at that time was slow, expensive, and uncomfortable. For instance, in 1863 the transfer of goods to the ports on the Danube from a distance no greater than 250 kilometres in the interior took longer and cost more than further ship transport of the same goods from these ports to Marseille.5 Besides the economy, political life also suffered. One person remembered that prefects in northern Moldavia literally had to beg prominent people in their districts to accept their election to the Bucharest parliament. The trip to the capital was so expensive and perilous that most declined the honour. Those who did accept to become members of parliament used to make their wills before leaving their estates, since the journey to the capital, which took several days, was usually punctuated by accidents and even close and dangerous encounters with wolves in the winter months, as one deputy confirmed in 1862.6 In these conditions, the railways naturally appeared in the eyes of the educated and modernising elite as a means to improve the country’s archaic forms of transportation. Several additional factors contributed to the quasi-unanimity of this opinion. First, a national railway network would serve the economic interests of the elite itself. Since big landowners formed the large majority of the Romanian political elite of the time, their economic interests, consisting in cheap transportation of agricultural products to the main ports on the Danube, carried great weight in the debate.7 Second, the decision to endow the country with railways had an ideological motivation. Several Romanian intellectuals who were influential public voices of the time, did their studies abroad, especially in France, where they came into contact with Saint-Simonist ideas.8 According to Saint-Simon and his followers, the railways represented a civilising factor, determining the crystallisation of national and international markets, furthering interpersonal and interstate communication, which together announced a golden age of peace and prosperity for humanity.9 Not always thoroughly understood, these ideas penetrated the Romanian public sphere in the 1860s and permeated, as will be shown, the discussions concerning railways in Romania. Third, in the context of these ideas, railways came to be seen as a political instrument of nation- and state-building. Consequently, a railway line between Moldavia and Wallachia would strengthen and assure the unification of the Romanian state by creating a cohesive national territory. In this respect, a newspaper article in 1867 claimed that railways had the task of fortifying the state, thus becoming ‘the most indestructible cement of the union [of the two

216  Octavian O. Silvestru principalities; O.S.] and a source of general prosperity’.10 Along the same lines, a railway connecting the former capitals of the Romanian principalities, Bucharest and Iaşi, was seen by the politicians in power as a political and moral necessity and the most efficient tool for ‘the consolidation of our nationality’.11 Last but not least, in an age of rising nationalism, the desire to imitate neighbouring states also played an important role in the decision to build railways. An editorial in the most widely circulated newspaper in the country plainly expressed the idea: The railway question has become for us a matter of national amour propre. It is a disgrace for our country, this outpost of occidental civilisation in the Orient, to be outpaced [in railway construction; O.S.] by other, more uncivilised states like Turkey.12 The decision to engage in a considerable railway-building project was thus justified. Since the broader European representations of railways as harbingers of progress and civilisation had already been appropriated by the educated elite, railways came to be seen as indispensable means to enter the ‘concert of European nations’ and to leave isolation and backwardness behind forever. A cultural transfer paved the way for the actual technological transfer. Certainly, these ideas did not entail that the larger Romanian public had a clear image of what railways actually meant. Ion Condiescu, who would become a prominent railway engineer at the end of the century, admitted that at the time of the first construction he took the French chemin de fer very literally and believed that railways were mere roads covered with an iron foil that would permit horses to run faster.13 Not coincidentally, exactly at the time when the problem of railways entered the political scene, the national cultural scene witnessed the appearance of comedies and vaudevilles treating the issue of modern railways and mocking the ignorance towards them exhibited by the gentry and the middle class.14 The fascination and expectations the railways provoked, doubled by a certain ignorance regarding the technicalities, therefore sustained the general modernising effort of the political elite and provided the context in which the construction would be initiated. The first ruler of the unified Romanian state, Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859–1866), as well as his successor, Carol von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, proved to be strong proponents of railways as means to alleviate the country’s poor economic and political conditions. Thrilled by the railway success stories of other small European states – most notably Belgium – they adamantly encouraged Romanian politicians to develop a vast modernising process, including the construction of a local network. However, considering the archaic character of the economy and the complete lack of capital and know-how, the necessary funds had essentially to be raised abroad, and the engineering expertise also had to be acquired in foreign countries. The international circumstances happened to be favourable. After the Crimean War, numerous speculators and concession hunters, including

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  217 several British and German railway contractors, visited the region in search of profitable business.15 After several failed attempts to concede the whole railway network to a single builder as it was designed by Romanians, the small segment connecting the country’s capital with Giurgiu, the nearest port on the Danube, was finally granted to a company led by the British financier John Staniforth and the engineer John Trevor Barkley. The latter had already built similar lines on the other side of the Danube in the Ottoman Empire; hence he was experienced in working with the local population and subcontractors.16 Under the close, though formal supervision of Prince Carol himself, the line comprising 67 kilometres was opened for goods and passenger traffic without major technical problems in 1869, as the first segment of a state-owned and state-operated Romanian railway network. Before the glorious opening day, there were endless differences of opinion between concessionaires and the local elite. In fact, major difficulties were caused by Romanian landholders and politicians, who expected the line to serve their interests and domains, or who did not agree with the expropriations. Most of these interventions were turned aside. However, the line’s major peculiarity, its broad curve to the east (see Figure 9.1), owes something to the fact that Mihail Kogălniceanu, an influential politician and member of government at the time,

Figure 9.1  Romanian Railway Network at the End of 1872. Source: Created by the author.

218  Octavian O. Silvestru had a large estate at Comana on the Argeş river, and that the location of the bridge which carried the line across the Argeş was selected while Kogălniceanu was Romania’s prime minister. In the following years, the Comana forest area was developed as a holiday resort, and Kogălniceanu profited from the convenience of its connections with Bucharest. The British builders disliked these practices and mockingly named the minister ‘old cog-wheels-and-guano’ in their letters.17 The same type of political opportunism is to blame for another drastic modification of the plans. Initially, the railway was supposed to reach the Danube at Smarda, the port of Giurgiu, passing through the town, but a petition signed by 400 local innkeepers, merchants, and carriers claiming that the railway project would eventually ruin their businesses, had been accepted by the government. Consequently, the line was shortened by approximately three kilometres, and the terminus station was built at the gates of the town, to the amazement of the British builders who found themselves absolved of costly expropriations and troublesome technical works, including a bridge. In the context of elections, this concession was the price paid by the government for the votes of the local population.18 In the end, every difficulty only contributed to making the construction of the line a praiseworthy enterprise in the eyes of Romanian authorities. Exceptionally, the line had not one, but three distinct opening ceremonies. The first was occasioned by Prince Carol’s departure for his first tour in Western Europe since his ascent to the throne. At the Filaret railway station in Bucharest, some 20,000 people of all kinds gathered, driven by their curiosity to see the first train in Romania. A newspaper noted on the occasion that the naïve, cheerful crowd followed the train long after its departure believing it could keep pace with the running locomotive. It should not have been too difficult considering the fact that the train was running at a speed of only 25 kilometres per hour.19 The same article describes the miraculous change of perspective offered by travel on the train, as the landscapes surrounding the line seemed animated by ‘a mysterious quasi-electrical force’. The radical transformation in the perception of nature is thus designated as one of the effects of modernisation through railways: ‘We may see at last the true civilisation advancing rapidly through the power of steam!’20 The official opening ceremony, however, was supposed to take place at Carol’s return. Since his stay in Germany and France was prolonged by several weeks, government authorities, in all probability determined to use the opportunity to export more conveniently the season’s agricultural harvest, decided to inaugurate the line in his absence. The event was carefully prepared. A real advertising campaign was put in place disseminating the programme of the ceremony, designed by the central government.21 Even the opposition newspapers adopted a triumphant tone when announcing the inauguration: Tomorrow’s ceremony (…) is one of the most important and genuine celebrations for a nation. Tomorrow, for the first time in Romania, man and his goods will be carried by the power and speed of steam. Tomorrow,

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  219 the Romanian citizen will see a childhood dream fulfilled; a dream that until now has been a mere chimera, a simple fairy tale, because of some people’s ignorance and of others’ corruption. Tomorrow, the Romanian citizen attains one of the biggest inventions of the human genius alongside the compass and the press. Finally, tomorrow, man becomes a hero in Romania too. Tomorrow, that miraculous dragon that eats glowing embers and carries with him wherever he goes the civilization, prosperity and solidarity among nations will come here. (…). We happily welcome the inauguration of the railway from Bucharest to Giurgiu.22 At the same time, government officials took steps to ensure public order during the ceremony and a large number of policemen were dispatched to control the crowd at the newly built station.23 On 19 October 1869, the Filaret railway station, draped in the national flag, was officially opened to the public. The audience itself was carefully selected so that inside the station only dignitaries were allowed, the representatives of the most important institutions in the state: members of the government, deputies, senators, officials of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, as well as the members of the municipal council of Bucharest, and various representatives of the capital’s rising bourgeois society. Special attention had been given to the reception of foreign guests, most of them members of the diplomatic corps established in the city. A military orchestra heralded the presence of the high officials. Furthermore, attendance recruited from the citizenry of the capital and nearby villages was numerous. For ten kilometres outside the stations of Giurgiu and Bucharest people gathered along the railway line to watch the strange and new technical spectacle (Figure 9.2). The ceremony itself began with a religious service. Next, a train driven by John Barkley himself and carrying the government officials and foreign diplomats departed for Giurgiu, receiving general acclaim and enthusiasm. A second one, with the other dignitaries on board, followed suit. It is significant for the ideological instrumentalisation of railways at the time that the name of the first train was Michael the Brave – after the Wallachian ruler who was the first to unite all Romanian principalities in 1600 – while the second train was named Danube. This represented yet another way in which the main functions assumed by local representations of technology, namely unity and freedom of commerce and communication, were discursively made explicit. The press consciously reported the seemingly general enthusiasm and effectiveness of the ceremonial practices: At every stop made by the train, masses of curious peasants gathered out of sheer joy (…) to see how the boyars from Bucharest travel with such a blazing speed and they found themselves unable not to be awed and to mechanically acclaim the train passengers.24

220  Octavian O. Silvestru

Figure 9.2  Filaret Railway Station in 1872. Source: Library of Romanian Academy.

The peasants are astonished and cannot understand how a ‘row of houses could go with such speed over the hills and valleys’. Others doubt the railway’s efficiency and opine that in a few months’ time, when trains will get mired in the late autumn mud, they will have to ‘pull it out with their own oxen, as before with the coaches’.25 The anonymous editorialist who reports this event inadvertently alludes to the deep social gaps dividing Romanian society of the time and to the implicit inefficiency of railways to alleviate the condition of peasants, reduced to the status of distant and passive spectators at the boyars’ affairs. Upon arrival in the terminus station of Giurgiu, the officials were respectfully received by the local authorities. On this occasion, Prime Minister Dimitrie Ghica, also the minister of Public Works, offered a banquet to all his guests. His speech underlined the centrality of railroad construction to the country’s future development and to the self-representation of Romanians as members of a modern nation. In his words, the introduction of steam ‘represents a beneficial revolution which brings us the same effects we admire when we travel in Western Europe’.26 As if citing from the works of Michel Chevalier, the prime minister praised the virtues of the railways, since they ‘have exerted the greatest influence on the intellectual, moral and material life of the citizens of states that built them, have improved manners, have raised the general level of human intelligence, of the arts and sciences’. Under these premises, the railways become a sign of

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  221 the virtues of a people: ‘The degree of civilisation of a nation is measured by the length of its railways’. Consequently, it is the government’s duty to ‘make up the lost time on the path of progress’.27 Furthermore, Ghica expressed his hope to see the country unified by a comprehensive railway network in the near future and his satisfaction that a large part of the personnel working at the new line is composed of young Romanian citizens.28 The official address ended with homage being paid to the prince and to his efforts to modernise the country.29 After this ceremony, the trains returned to Filaret station to the thunderous acclaim of the crowd. The speech by John Trevor Barkley is not mentioned in the historical records. Nevertheless, his opinion of Romanian politicians and their attempts at modernising the country may in all likelihood be deducted from the w ­ ritings of his brother, Henry C. Barkley, himself an engineer who worked on the line and spent several years in Romania as well as in European Turkey. In his late 1870s account of his Balkan experience, Barkley confessed: I fear I cannot say much in favour of the Wallach. I don’t like him. I even prefer the Turk to him, and yet (…) on the whole, he is the Turk’s superior in most ways. Since the partial independence of Wallachia, the country has greatly improved, and is going on improving. Good roads have been made where previously only muddy tracks existed. Iron bridges have been thrown over most of the large rivers where these roads cross them, and hundreds of miles of railroad have been opened; above all the Wallach is ambitious and hopes for a future on earth amongst European nations, and can be got at through public opinion. In these two latter points he is somewhere whereas his neighbour over the river is nowhere. (…) And yet Wallachia has much to do and many, many years must elapse before she can be admitted into the family of nations as an equal.30 The tone and the symbolic language expressed through the spatial dichotomy somewhere/nowhere, their ‘Orientalist’ character notwithstanding, illustrate the drastic differences of perception and suggest a relatively ambiguous place for nascent Romania in the European civilisational order. Whereas Romanians were convinced that the speed of railways would also accelerate the country’s advancement towards civilisation, their collaborators, the British railway engineers, most probably vexed by the corruption, opportunism, and different manners found in the region, doubted the country’s capacity to make progress and put its international status into a more sceptical perspective. Yet a third ceremony celebrating the line took place shortly afterwards, when Prince Carol returned to Romania. In its format, it had the same phases as the previous one – ceremonial music, religious service, banquet, speech, and actual travel on the railway. Carol’s speeches emphasised even more the logic behind the ceremony. The railway lines seemed to determine the expansion of the capital. Carol clearly expressed his hope that the railway

222  Octavian O. Silvestru and the new port facilities would lead to amazing commercial progress, thus turning the old Danube town of Giurgiu into ‘the great port of the Capital’ and ‘the key to commerce between Orient and Occident’.31 In similar terms, he claimed in the following years that Brăila, another Danube town connected with the capital through railway, had become ‘Bucharest’s most important port at the Danube’ and could ‘fully benefit from the advantages of the law’.32 The incipient railway network was thus conceived through a centred space, with Bucharest as the focal point of both lines and authority. The sovereign’s discursive practices clearly contributed to the construction of new social representations of the national territory. All elements of these ceremonies were carefully planned and reflected a genuine official strategy of mastering national space in which railways and railway representations were key instruments. As Jürgen Habermas noted, ‘the fundamental phenomenon of power is not the instrumentalisation of another’s will, but the formation of a common will in a communication directed to reaching agreement’.33 Through the public quasi-ritual opening ceremony, state officials created a common knowledge, promoting the idea of the beneficial role of railways designed by the state for everyone concerned. The tour to Giurgiu, as any political tour, created legitimacy and was the equivalent of a veritable symbolic conquest of space.34 By exclusively appropriating railways as a means of spatial mobility, government authorities managed to extend and legitimise their power. In turn, the banquets were also an occasion to produce and disseminate the sentiment of social identity which constituted the force behind the local political elite.35 The circumstances of the inauguration of Bucharest’s second railway station proved to be more complex. In 1868, the Romanian parliament voted two concessions for the construction and exploitation of the main lines of the state’s nascent railway network. The first one – for building a line from Suceava, in the north of Moldavia, to Roman, with ramifications towards Botoşani and Iaşi – went to a syndicate of British and Austrian financiers led by the entrepreneur Victor von Ofenheim. The projected line was thus a continuation on Romanian soil of the existing Bukovinian line Lemberg – Czernowitz, built by von Ofenheim in 1866, and linked Moldavia with ‘the Occident’, through Lemberg, Krakow, and Vienna. Its 224 kilometres were opened on schedule by 1871.36 The second concession was disputed by the same von Ofenheim syndicate and a Prussian consortium led by Dr. Henry Bethel Strousberg, a well-known entrepreneur and financial speculator, also known at the time as the ‘railway king’. Not without the direct intervention of Prince Carol, in the first phase a strong Strousberg supporter, a reluctant parliament ultimately awarded him the construction of the state’s most significant railway line connecting northern Moldavia and its capital Iaşi with Bucharest and western Wallachia all the way to the Austro-Hungarian border (see Figure 9.1). The capital for the 914.8-kilometre-long line was raised abroad and Strousberg was to pay dividends to the shareholders until the lines were

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  223 ready for operation. Romania, in turn, would be responsible for an annuity and the dividends after the line’s inauguration. The difficulties of the terrain, widespread corruption, the severe political and financial crisis emerging in Europe, and the obstacles created by Romanian politicians, prevented Strousberg from finishing construction on time. By the late 1870s, he declared insolvency and proposed that Romania defray the dividends on the railway bonds for incomplete lines. The Romanian government’s quite justified refusal to do so was met with an overt and aggressive intervention of Germany in favour of the foreign stockholders, which Romania considered a manifest violation of its autonomy and a ‘veritable robbery’ of Romanian finances. This financial scandal, which had major international echoes, triggered rabid anti-German and anti-dynastic public reactions in Bucharest as well as expressions of anti-Semitism.37 In these troubled circumstances, a new company founded in Berlin took over the lines and responsibilities of Strousberg’s bankrupt consortium. Construction was handed over to various entrepreneurs, while exploitation, management, and control of the existing lines were transferred to the society that also administered the Austro-Hungarian state railways, Kaiserlich-Königliche Privilegierte Österreichische Staatseisenbahngesellschaft (StEG.). This was yet another reason for a great public outcry in Romania since the potential passengers of the trains had difficulties communicating with the often impolite German-speaking personnel.38 After a long series of delays, the line was gradually opened to the public. The first segment of the line, from Bucharest to Ploieşti, opened in 1870, followed in 1872 by the railway connecting Piteşti with Roman via Bucharest, Brăila, and Galaţi. As numerous government reports and newspaper articles mentioned, the quality of construction was very poor so that accidents and derailments were frequent. In fact, a severe train wreck caused by a faulty railway bed and loose fastenings of the rails happened only a week after the main branch was officially opened.39 The construction of Bucharest’s station itself was the subject of endless squabbles between the builders and government officials. Unhappy with the initial plans, deemed too modest for the capital’s most important communication hub, Prince Carol and the minister of Public Works used every imaginable means, including police force, to press the concessionaires to rebuild it. The same situation was repeated in other stations of the line, especially in Brăila and Galaţi, the main ports on the Danube made more accessible by the line. Once again, station building appeared as a compromise between technology, aesthetics, and a specific political agenda.40 The attitude of Romanian authorities was not only a matter of amour propre. A gateway to all corners of the country, a platform for politicians, the future Northern Railway Station would act as an agent of state-building and nationhood and accordingly needed to have imposing dimensions and a grand architecture.41 However, given the troubling circumstances, the ceremonies associated with its opening were less than grandiose. Neither the government officials

224  Octavian O. Silvestru nor the prince was present. The unexpected costs and vexations resulting from the Strousberg affair caused this reaction, which was unanimously applauded in the press as proof of decency and thoughtfulness.42 In spite of all these difficulties, subsequent official speeches concerning railways emphasised the same drive towards unity, centralisation, order, and progress. In a message to parliament from November 1872, Carol maintained: The railways will completely transform the economic situation of Romania. Agriculture and commerce are already influenced by the benefits of accelerated speed; the general wealth is growing and even from this year on, we hope to diminish the annuity of the line through its profit.43 At the same time, the political tours on railway tracks continued. Carol’s speeches always mention newly constructed railways and underline their functions as harbingers of economic progress, political order, and good administration.44 The strength of the nation, the railways as a means of progress and civilisation, the bright future for the economy and society, in sum all the usual tropes are present. By displaying an impeccably staged control of the new means of transportation, the central authorities therefore instrumentalised the railway inaugurations in order to instil in the public the idea of a newly ordered national territory, thus attempting to forge updated power relations and to legitimise the role of the state. The ambivalent awe with which the public received the trains and the technical realm they opened up was thus transmuted, through ceremonial practice, into political allegiance to the nascent Romanian state. Simultaneously, the discursive intentions were buttressed by effective governmental practices designed to secure and consolidate the bureaucratic apparatus of control. State officials, government agents in the territory, and police personnel received free train tickets from the central authority. This gesture was meant ‘to ease their movement from place to place in order to get more efficient results in the missions assigned to them’.45 Following the same logic, the authorities made efforts to equip every line with the telegraph, and the stations in Bucharest became veritable communication centres used to broadcast and receive up-to-date news to and from all over the country. Even before facilitating the economic integration of the state, railways appeared to serve as an instrument of political and administrative consolidation. From the moment of their inauguration, the new tracks channelled and furthered the dissemination of state power through speeches and ceremonial practices. The opening ceremonies of the first railway lines can be interpreted in a highly ideological and legitimating key. They took place at a time when central authorities had not yet devised any concrete plan regarding the country’s future economic development or designed any measures to support the emergence of a local industry. As future developments proved, even the question of ownership and management of the railways – private or state-owned – remained unsolved.46 However, the official speeches made no

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  225 mention of the serious challenges posed by the construction of the line as regards the future development of the state in the local context. Instead, they exclusively emphasised the benefits of the new technology – as circulated by a large part of the European literature of the time, and stressed the key role of state authorities in making possible such a prospective national paradise powered by steam technology. The late Claude Lévi-Strauss described in his Tristes Tropiques the fascination and awe that modern techniques – in that specific case, the practice of writing – triggered in archaic populations. At the same time, precisely because of such representations, these techniques are subject to a specific appropriation by leaders willing to secure the legitimacy of their power.47 Keeping things in proportions, it may be claimed that in a backward society such as Romania in the 1860s, the railways, unanimously perceived to be the epitome of modern technology, were instrumental in legitimising the political authority. In the process, the specific distorted representation and its potential political usage mattered considerably more than the economic and social logic.

Notes 1 For the theoretical description of a ‘peripheral region’ see A. Janos, ‘The Politics of Backwardness in Continental Europe, 1780–1945’, World Politics, 3, 1989, 325–358. See also J.H. Jensen and G. Rosegger, ‘Transferring Technology to a Peripheral Economy: The Case of Lower Danube Transport Development, 1856–1928’, Technology and Culture, 4, 1978, 675–702, for a local case in point. 2 A. Farge, ‘Penser et définir l’événement en histoire. Approche des situations et des acteurs sociaux’, Terrain, 38, 2002, 69–78. 3 R. Florescu, ‘Social Classes and Revolutionary Ferment in Nineteenth-century Bucharest’, in S. Fischer Galaţi, R. Florescu, and G. Ursul, eds., Romania between East and West: Historical Essays in Memory of Constantin C. Giurescu (Boulder, CO 1982), 160. According to other sources, Bucharest had a population of 141,754 inhabitants in 1865; see D. Berindei, ed., Istoria Românilor (History of the Romanians), vol. 7, tome I: Constituirea României moderne 1821–1878 (The formation of modern Romania) (Bucharest 2003), 598. 4 H.C. Barkley, Bulgaria before the War during the Seven Years’ Experience of European Turkey and Its Inhabitants (London 1877), 256–257. 5 C. Botez, D. Urmă, and I. Saizu, Epopeea feroviară românească (The epic of Romanian railways) (Bucharest 1977), 40–41. 6 See N. Gane, Zile trăite (Iaşi 1903), 57. A. Cebuc and C. Mocanu, Din istoria transporturilor de călători în România (A history of public transportation in Romania) (Bucharest 1967), 105. 7 See for instance L. Maier, Rumänien auf dem Weg zur Unabhängigkeitserklärung, 1866–1877: Schein und Wirklichkeit liberaler Verfassung und staatlicher Souveränität (Munich 1989), 170–185. 8 Cf. G. Zane, ‘Le Saint-Simonisme et le fouriérisme en Roumanie’, Économies et sociétés, 4, no. 10, 1970, 1935–1963. 9 M. Wallon, Les Saint-Simoniens et les chemins de fer (Paris 1908), 24–25. 10 Botez, Urmă, and Saizu, Epopeea feroviară românească, 70. 11 Monitorul Oficial, 116, 24 May 1868. 12 Românul, XI, 20–21 March 1867, 234.

226  Octavian O. Silvestru 13 I.P. Condiescu, Istoricul căilor ferate (The history of railways) (Bucharest 1904), 7. 14 See, for instance, Vasile Alecsandri’s play Drumul de fer, reprinted in V. Alecsandri, Opere complete (Complete works) (Bucharest 1903), 861–904. 15 See J.H. Jensen and G. Rosegger, ‘British Railway Builders along the Lower Danube, 1856–1869’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 46, no. 106, 1968, 105–128. 16 John Trevor Barkley obtained the concession for and built the first railway line in the Ottoman Empire connecting the Black Sea port of Constantza with the Danube port of Cernavodă in the province of Dobrogea (1857–1860). A second similar line soon followed in Bulgaria, linking Varna to the Danube port of Ruse (1863–1866). After incorporating the province of Dobrogea in 1878, the Romanian state purchased the Constantza-Cernavodă line from Barkley in 1882. See Botez, Urmă, and Saizu, Epopeea feroviară românească, 60–66. 17 Ibid., 123. 18 C.C. Mănescu, Istoricul căilor ferate (The history of railways) (Bucharest 1906), 410–411 and 478. Eventually, in 1869, parliament voted the extension of the line according to the initial plan. See I. Popescu et al., Căile ferate române. O istorie în date şi imagini. 125 de ani de la inaugurarea liniei Bucureşti Filaret – Giurgiu (Romanian Railways. A history in facts and images. 125 years from the inauguration of the Bucharest – Giurgiu railway line) (Bucharest 1994), 13. 19 Pressa, II, 169, 3 September 1869. 20 Ibid. 21 Monitorul Oficial, 229, 14 October 1869. 22 Românul, XIII, 18 October 1869. 23 Romanian National Archives (RNA), Ministry of Interior Fund (MIF), 145/ 1869, f. 5. 24 Pressa, II, 207, 21 October 1869. 25 Ibid. 26 Monitorul Oficial, 232, 21 October 1869. 27 Ibid. 28 The exception to this trend is the director of the line, Emile Dubois. A former director of the French secondary line Lyon-Croix-Rousse-Sathonay, Dubois was appointed at the helm of the first Romanian line in August 1869 by the minister of Public Works. See RNA, MIF, 145/1869, file 1. 29 Monitorul Oficial, 232, 21 October 1869. 30 Barkley, Bulgaria before the War, 247–248. 31 King Carol I of Romania, Cuvântări şi scrisori (Speeches and letters), vol. 1: 1866–1877 (Bucharest 1909), 295. 32 Ibid., 318. 33 J. Habermas, ‘Hannah Arendt’s Communications Concept of Power’, Social Research, 44, no. 1 (1977), 3–24. For a theoretical elaboration of the relationship between ceremonies and authority, see M. Suk-Young Chwe, Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge (Princeton, NJ and Oxford 2001), 19–25. 34 A. Corbin, N. Gérôme, and D. Tartakowsky, eds., Les usages politiques des fêtes aux XIXe-XXe siècles (Paris 1994), 9–10. 35 Ibid., 29. 36 D. Iordanescu and C. Georgescu, Construcţii pentru transporturi în România, 1881–1981 (Transport constructions in Romania, 1881–1981), 2 vols. (Bucharest 1986), vol. 1, 26. 37 The details of the Strousberg affair are treated extensively in F. Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York 1977), 351–393. See also I. Şendrulescu, ‘Atitudinea unor mari puteri europene

‘Capital Politics’ Through Railways  227 faţă de rezolvarea falimentului Strousberg şi constituirea Societăţii drumurilor de fier din România’ (The attitude of European Great Powers on the settlement of the Strousberg affair and the creation of the Society of Romanian Railways), Analele Universităţii Bucureşti, Social Sciences series, 17, 1968, 101–117. 38 Românul, XIV, 18 November 1870, 1015–1016. 39 Pressa, V, 199, 12 September 1872. 40 I. Popescu, Amintiri despre o veche gară românească. 125 de ani de la inaugurarea Gării de Nord (Recollections about an old Romanian station. 125 years from the inauguration of the Northern Railway Station) (Bucharest 1997), 31, and D. Bán, ‘The Railway Station in the Social Sciences’, Journal of Transport History, 28, no. 2, 2007, 289–293. 41 See similar examples in R. Jeffrey and J. Mackenzie, The Railway Station: A Social History (Oxford 1986), 126–127. 42 Trompeta Carpaţilor, X, 1012, 31 August 1872. 43 Carol I, Cuvântări şi scrisori, vol. 1, 297–298. In fact, this never happened. 44 Carol I, Cuvântările Regelui Carol I (The speeches of King Carol I), vol. 1: 1866– 1886, (Bucharest 1939), 148, 153–154, and 164. 45 RNA, MIF, 36/1870, 125, 130–131. See also Pressa, V, 202, 16 September 1872. 46 In spite of the official discourse, between 1869 and 1873, the government, experiencing serious financial troubles, made several unsuccessful attempts to find a private company willing to buy or at least to exploit the Bucharest-Giurgiu line. See Mănescu, Istoricul căilor ferate, 469–498. 47 ‘Il ne s’agissait pas de connaître, de retenir ou de comprendre, mais d’accroître le prestige et l’autorité d’un individu - ou d’une fonction - aux dépens d’autrui.’ C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris 1955), 347–355.

Literature Alecsandri, V., ‘Drumul de fer’, in V. Alecsandri, ed., Opere complete (Bucharest 1903), 861–904. Bán, D., ‘The Railway Station in the Social Sciences’, Journal of Transport History, 28, no. 2, 2007, 289–293. Barkley, H.C., Bulgaria before the War during the Seven Years’ Experience of European Turkey and Its Inhabitants (London 1877). Berindei, D., ed., Istoria Românilor, vol. 7, tome I: Constituirea României moderne 1821–1878 (Bucharest 2003). Botez, C., Urmă, D., and Saizu, I., Epopeea feroviară românească (Bucharest 1977). Carol I (von Hohenzollern), Cuvântări şi scrisori, vol. 1: 1866–1877 (Bucharest 1909). Carol I (von Hohenzollern), Cuvântările Regelui Carol I, vol. 1: 1866–1886 (Bucharest 1939). Cebuc, A. and Mocanu, C. Din istoria transporturilor de călători în România (Bucharest 1967). Condiescu, I.P., Istoricul căilor ferate (Bucharest 1904). Corbin, A., Gérôme, N., and Tartakowsky, D., eds., Les usages politiques des fêtes aux XIXe-XXe siècles (Paris 1994). Farge, A., ‘Penser et définir l’événement en histoire. Approche des situations et des acteurs sociaux’, Terrain, 38, 2002, 69–78. Florescu, R., ‘Social Classes and Revolutionary Ferment in Nineteenth-century Bucharest’, in S. Fischer Galaţi, R. Florescu, and G. Ursul, eds., Romania between East and West: Historical Essays in Memory of Constantin C. Giurescu (Boulder, CO 1982).

228  Octavian O. Silvestru Gane, N., Zile trăite (Iaşi 1903). Habermas, J., ‘Hannah Arendt’s Communications Concept of Power’, Social Research, 44, no. 1, 1977, 3–24. Iordanescu, D. and Georgescu, C., Construcţii pentru transporturi în România, 1881–1981, 2 vols. (Bucharest 1986). Janos, A., ‘The Politics of Backwardness in Continental Europe, 1780–1945’, World Politics, 3, 1989, 325–358. Jeffrey, R. and Mackenzie, J., The Railway Station: A Social History (Oxford 1986). Jensen, J.H. and Rosegger, G., ‘British Railway Builders along the Lower Danube, 1856–1869’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 46, no. 106, 1968, 105–128. Jensen, J.H. and Rosegger, G., ‘Transferring Technology to a Peripheral Economy: The Case of Lower Danube Transport Development, 1856–1928’, Technology and Culture, 4, 1978, 675–702. Lévi-Strauss, C., Tristes Tropiques (Paris 1955), 347–355. Maier, L., Rumänien auf dem Weg zur Unabhängigkeitserklärung, 1866–1877: Schein und Wirklichkeit liberaler Verfassung und staatlicher Souveränität (Munich 1989). Mănescu, C.C., Istoricul căilor ferate (Bucharest 1906). Popescu, I., Amintiri despre o veche gară românească. 125 de ani de la inaugurarea Gării de Nord (Bucharest 1997). Popescu, I. et al., Căile ferate române. O istorie în date şi imagini. 125 de ani de la inaugurarea liniei Bucureşti Filaret – Giurgiu (Bucharest 1994). Şendrulescu, I., ‘Atitudinea unor mari puteri europene faţă de rezolvarea falimentului Strousberg şi constituirea Societăţii drumurilor de fier din România’, Analele Universităţii Bucureşti, Social Sciences Series, 17, 1968, 101–117. Stern, F., Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York 1977). Suk-Young Chwe, M., Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge (Princeton, NJ and Oxford 2001), 19–25. Wallon, M., Les Saint-Simoniens et les chemins de fer (Paris 1908). Zane, G., ‘Le Saint-Simonisme et le fouriérisme en Roumanie’, Économies et sociétés, 4, no. 10, 1970, 1935–1963.

10 The Railways and the City in the History of Indian Political Practice Lisa Mitchell

From April to June of 2008, hundreds of men and women of the Gujjar caste community in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan, sat, squatted, and lay down on the railway tracks, blocking railway traffic with their bodies for nearly six weeks in order to demand inclusion within the government’s affirmative action quota system that reserves government jobs and university seats for underprivileged groups. Their actions severely disrupted traffic on the major railway route between India’s two largest cities, Mumbai and Delhi, causing the cancellation of ‘some 381 trains’, rerouting of other trains on lengthy detours, and the loss of over 650 million rupees in passenger revenues.1 In September of the same year, farmers blocked Delhi-bound trains in the South Indian city of Secunderabad to draw the Central Government’s attention in the nation’s capital in New Delhi to the severe shortage of fertilisers.2 The following month, activists in the north Indian state of Bihar burned railway stations and blocked railway traffic in protest against attacks on north Indian labour migrants in Mumbai, India’s largest city and the capital of the state of Maharashtra.3 More recently, railway blockages in Hyderabad, India’s fourth-largest city, have played a significant role in the demand for the formation of a new state of Telangana in southern India.4 This chapter addresses the role of railway stations, and railway networks more generally, in facilitating political communication within urban centres and the transmission of political messages from margin to urban centre. It does so by treating railway stations not as connective sites within a broader transportation network, but rather as crucial nodes within a wider communicative network that has been essential to the emergence of the new forms of politics in India that we recognise as democracy. In India, as in much of the world, railway stations have been important sites of political congregation and mobilisation, going back to the days when anti-colonial nationalist leaders like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi travelled by train, stopping to address the crowds that gathered in each station along his route.5 They have also been important sites for political agitation and protest and an important means of communicating with political leaders. Indeed, this article argues that railway networks are a key tool for political communication in contemporary India, enabling groups to effectively broadcast their political DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-14

230  Lisa Mitchell views over long distances and convey political messages from margin to urban political centre. The phenomenon of the ‘rail roko’ agitation – the blockage (usually with human bodies) of a train or railway line in order to prevent vehicles or trains from passing – has become an extremely widespread form of political practice in contemporary India. The term ‘roko’ comes from the transitive Hindi verb roknaa, ‘to stop or detain something or someone’, but the noun form is now also increasingly used as a neologism in both English and local languages in some parts of India. Despite its ubiquity, however, there has been little effort to theorise the significance of this form of practice or its relationship to Indian cities and urban political life. As part of a larger effort to think about the role of the physical control of urban public space within Indian politics and cities, this paper focuses on the occupation of railway stations and blockage of railway lines as specific forms of political practice and argues that an analysis of the history and context of their widespread occurrence is important to understanding the nature and development of the everyday practice of democracy in India. Existing representations of rail roko political actions typically portray them in one of three (sometimes overlapping) ways: as law-and-order problems requiring greater police or military control, as evidence of the failure of the state to function properly, or, as challenges to state sovereignty continuous with anti-colonial forms of politics.6 In this article, I limit my analysis to two specific arguments. First, in contrast to conventional representations of rail blockages as challenges to the sovereignty of the state or as the breakdown of law and order, I argue that many such actions in post-independence India actually reify both the sovereignty of the state and the significance of the urban centres in which the key representatives and institutions of the state reside. Indeed, in a large number of cases, attempts to block railway traffic actually rely centrally on an understanding of officials in both the nation’s capital of Delhi and regional state capitals as the ultimate adjudicators of disputes and claims, and groups therefore use such actions as a method of communicating with urban-based state officials and giving voice to their concerns, concerns that may otherwise go unheard. Whereas rail blockages prior to independence were carried out with the demand that the British leave India (clearly a challenge to British sovereignty), post-colonial rail roko agitations, though often almost identical in form, frequently put forward very specific demands with the expectation that the state or its representatives can act to fulfil these demands. The second argument is perhaps the more dramatic of the two, and that is that rail roko agitations and associated forms of political practice (including road blockages, ticketless travel, and the use of the railway emergency alarm chain to bring trains to a halt for political purposes) have taken on a level of legitimacy in contemporary India that has actually caused the state to alter its notions of legality – informally, if not formally.7 The evidence offered

The Railways and the Indian Politics  231 below suggests that the state and its representatives frequently take specific measures to formally accommodate many ostensibly illegal practices – in effect, altering definitions of legality and raising questions about the nature of political power and its everyday mediation in India today.

Controlling Public Space: Contemporary Forms of Political Practice It is important to consider rail roko agitations within the larger historical and contemporary contexts of using and controlling urban public space in order to create, mobilise, and sustain power in India. In addition to such agitations, rallies, too, are popular as ways for political parties to mobilise support and publicly demonstrate their power by causing supporters from across the state (or, in some cases, the entire country) to simultaneously converge on a capital city (regional or national). Such rallies would be virtually impossible without the railways. Although buses are used for both interstate and intrastate travel, particularly for destinations that are not conveniently located on rail routes, trains are by far the preferred method of long-distance travel. And when attending a political rally, supporters take advantage of the ways a train can aggregate numbers and allow supporters to travel en masse without purchasing tickets, a practice much more difficult to accomplish when travelling by bus. So widespread has the practice of ticketless travel become, that railway officials now routinely communicate with rally organisers in advance of publicised events in order to accommodate the swelling of passenger travel before and after such events. Although ticketless travel does not prevent traffic from moving the way a rail roko agitation does, it is similar in its collective appropriation and control of space in a manner that serves as a demonstration both of collective presence and of power. For this reason, I include ticketless travel by rail in my analysis here, as well. Also relevant to this history is the use of public processions through urban spaces in South Asia for the display of political power and for negotiating (and contesting) status within and between communities. Much of the scholarly literature on processions has been limited to a focus on their relationships with communal riots and urban violence, but it is important to see them as a form of political practice more generally, independent of riots and other collective forms of violence.8 Processions continue to be a popular method of publicising political concerns in India today, with processions from a city’s main railway station to the State Secretariat or Legislative Assembly chambers being by far the most popular procession routes. Bandhs or city-wide strikes, are similarly organised by opposition parties or coalitions within a state capital to protest decisions made by a political party in power, often in conjunction with a rail roko agitation. Bandh organisers seek to stop all forms of transport and close all schools and places of business. A successful bandh functions as a popular referendum, demonstrating the

232  Lisa Mitchell power of a particular political faction or allowing a party to gain a sense of the extent of their popular support, while a partial or unsuccessful bandh indicates a lack of support for or belief in the group that called the bandh. Like the above forms of political action, bandhs almost always occur within cities, where their impact is most likely to be felt by those in government positions and where organisers are likely to be able to display their power to the largest possible audience. Rail roko agitations, and the role of the railways more generally within politics in India, emerge out of a long history of train-wrecking and sabotage from the 1880s onwards. Yet two important distinctions can be made between earlier train-wrecking and sabotage attempts and the more recent forms of rail roko agitations that emerged in the 1930s and 1940s during India’s nationalist movement and have continued in the wake of India’s independence following 1947. First, earlier train-wrecking efforts were usually covert and anonymous actions that sought to physically damage the railway lines by pulling up the track or placing obstructions on the track before the arrival of a train.9 In contrast, more contemporary rail blockages have gained a moral authority that allows protesters today to openly participate in the appeal to authority by publicly engaging in the temporary halting of rail traffic with limited fear of arrest or punishment. Second, and of particular relevance to the present volume, this new openness and acceptance of rail blockages as a form of public political performance has moved political actions from unpopulated rural areas (where sabotage efforts or blockages were covertly executed under the cover of night), into the very centres of urban spaces where actions can be seen by all and covered by the media. Railways stations themselves – especially those in the national or provincial capitals – have become the preferred sites for these public political actions. In what follows I offer an analysis of the importance of urban railway stations within a wider repertoire of political practice in the history of Indian democracy. In tracing the genealogies of such actions, I also want to be sensitive to important internal distinctions within this category of political practices that reveal the principles governing the acceptance of certain forms of practice as legitimate – receiving tacit approval or passive acceptance on the part of representatives of the state, while other forms are seen as illegitimate and interrupted or violently repressed. Toward this end, I quote an ethnographic interview I conducted in 2009 with a senior railway official of the South Central Indian Railways who I will call Mr. Kohli. Mr. Kohli divided rail blockages and other political demonstrations that specifically utilise or target the railways into two categories for me, each with two subtypes, for a total of four distinct types. The first overarching category included all forms of peaceful, largely non-violent demonstrations, and the second he characterised as ‘illegitimate, illegal, and disruptive activities’. He further divided the ‘peaceful, largely non-violent’ category into two types: ‘pre-planned and spontaneous’, saying that both types usually forwarded ‘legitimate

The Railways and the Indian Politics  233 demands’. Of the pre-planned rail rokos, which almost always occur within the main railway stations of major cities, he said that: The goal is to embarrass or criticize the political party in power, and also to influence public opinion. They usually last 10–15 minutes, in the morning, and usually are completely dispersed by 12:00 noon.10 Most significantly, they are also largely accepted, at least by railway officials. ‘We also come to an understanding with the opinion makers’, he said. The fact that they are contrasted with ‘illegitimate, illegal activities’, suggests that although technically not legal, rail roko agitations have come to be seen as a largely legitimate form of political activity in contemporary India. Although in some cases the Railways have taken legal action and arrested leaders, for the most part, there is general agreement among all of the several dozen railway and police officials I interviewed that ‘as long as a group got in and out quickly and didn’t delay the train by more than 15–20 minutes’, the Railways would largely turn a blind eye. Another senior official, Mr. Kapur (all pseudonyms), told me that as long as they did not take too much time they would ‘allow the leaders [to] climb up on the loco[motive], put up their banner, and pose for media cameras’, letting the media capture the moment and their demands before disbanding.11 One of the Senior Divisional Security Commissioners, Mr. Chatterjee, said that typically the record would show that a preventative arrest was made, but in actual practice, the leaders would be set free. Although he claimed that greater efforts were now being made to book leaders of rail roko agitations ‘in each and every case’, he also said that only three cases have actually been convicted since 2005, all of which are currently in the High Court on appeal.12 In Secunderabad city, pre-planned rail roko agitations of this sort regularly occur, ‘once or twice in a month’, according to Mr. Kohli, and usually target the most popular trains bound for Delhi, the seat of the Central Government, since the railways tend to be targeted for Central Government demands rather than local or state issues. Road roko agitations targeting the state buses are preferred for State-level or local issues. In Secunderabad, the train that is subject to the most rail rokos is the Andhra Pradesh Express, which departs from Secunderabad station for Delhi daily at 6:50 am. Mr. Kohli went on to say that ‘the participants are usually mostly from the lower strata’ and their ‘leaders, mostly mid-level leaders, [are] usually from political parties’.13 My impression from studying a number of these pre-planned rail roko agitations is that they have come to take on an almost ritualised formula, with the various parties involved – including official representatives of the state in the form of railway officials or the police – carrying out very predictable roles. YouTube footage of a number of recent rail roko agitations shows numerous police personnel standing idly watching the proceedings as protesters climb up on locomotives, unfurl their banners, and lie down on the tracks in front of the engine, shouting slogans all the while. Indeed, the growth of the mass media in the wake of

234  Lisa Mitchell India’s 1991 liberalisation of its economy has turned rail roko agitations into publicity photo opportunities rather than primarily efforts at inconveniencing the public, indicating a historical shift in the nature of this practice. The second sub-type within the category of peaceful, largely non-violent demonstrations are spontaneous rail roko agitations. These, too, Mr. Kohli said, were ‘also usually non-violent’ and usually occurred in response to ‘a fairly legitimate complaint’. Spontaneous rail blockages almost always occur as a reaction to a very localised issue, usually a specific event which sparked the spontaneous protest, and for this type, he said, ‘there were usually no clear leaders’, making them in some senses a bit more difficult for the Railways to deal with since it was never clear exactly who officials could negotiate with. As an example of this spontaneous type, he offered the following: For example, we [the South Central Railways] have 38,000 unguarded level crossings. Once villagers sat on the tracks to protest the killing of an auto rickshaw driver by a train at an unmanned level crossing. The villagers refused to vacate and eventually mild force was needed to break it up.14 Although spontaneous, these protests are typically characterised by a catalyst that ignites existing shared frustrations or complaints that have failed in the past to be addressed by the state. In contrast to these pre-planned and spontaneous peaceful demonstrations, Mr. Kohli characterised the second overarching category as ‘Illegitimate, Illegal, and Disruptive Activities’, again with two sub-categories: First, actions ‘with the intention to disrupt but not harm lives’ and second, ‘targeted planned violent activity with the goal of maximum damage to human life and property’. As an example of the first, he offered the Maoist-inspired Naxalite revolutionaries, referring to the underground rural movement prevalent in several parts of India that resorts to armed encounters with landlords and police, and violent demonstrations of their own power. Mr. Kohli said: Whenever Naxalites want to show their strength,they capture a [railway] station, remove the people, and blast the communication and signalling systems. This can cause a one-month delay while it gets rebuilt, or a slowdown causing trains to run more slowly.15 What surprised me, however, was that even with this form of violent action, many in the senior level of the railways, like Mr. Kohli, were still willing to acknowledge a type of legitimacy to these actions. Another Security Commissioner with the Northern Railways told me that during the two years he was earlier posted in Hyderabad, ‘the Naxalites would warn the railways in advance to clear a station, and as a result, not one railway person or passenger was ever hurt in their attacks.’ He attributed the rise of this militancy to social disparities, saying ‘the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. If their demands are met, maybe one day they will shun violence’.16

The Railways and the Indian Politics  235 So even with this third kind, of more ‘illegitimate’ activity, there’s still a space for acknowledgement of a kind of legitimacy. The fourth and final sub-type offered by Mr. Kohli is ‘targeted planned violent activity with the goal of maximum damage to human life and property.’ As an example of this last form of action, he offered the 2008 Thanksgiving bomb blasts in Mumbai, which targeted Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria railway station) among other sites, and resulted in more than 170 deaths and over 300 injured. Although we do not need to accept Mr. Kohli’s typologies as the only way of analysing these types of political practices, I offer this as a way of illustrating how the breaking down of such events into categories like this enables us to make distinctions between them, rather than collapsing them together as a single undifferentiated form of political practice, as is more common within both academic and popular discourse. What is striking in the latter two sub-categories that make up what Mr. Kohli called ‘Illegitimate, Illegal, and Disruptive Activities’, is that unlike in the first two types, many actions in these latter categories do not correspond with a specific demand being made of the state. Instead, they are more typically performed as a refusal of the state’s authority, and as a way of demonstrating a group’s power as an alternate body of authority. In these cases, as with pre-independence roko agitations, there is indeed an outright rejection of the sovereignty of the state. What are even more significant are the actions that fall within the first two subcategories – those that Mr. Kohli regarded as more legitimate, and it is here that we most clearly see this paper’s two central arguments illustrated. First, these subsets of practices can be seen as a form of communication or negotiation with and reification of the state – particularly the upper echelons of the state located in urban centres – rather than a rejection of state sovereignty. And second, the widespread recognition of at least some portion of legitimacy in the demands communicated through rail roko agitations has resulted in recognisable alterations in the everyday practices and use of legal systems on the part of authorities in India.

The State’s Response: Accommodating Political Practice To illustrate these two arguments, I compare three different moments in the history of rail roko agitations: first, the Quit India Movement of 1942–1943, a crucial moment in the anti-colonial struggle and in the ultimate achievement of India’s independence from Britain in 1947; second, a decade later in 1952, during the demand for the first separate linguistic state in independent India, when rail roko agitations and political gatherings at railway stations played the crucial culminating role in creating the new state of Andhra and ultimately in redrawing the map of India on linguistic lines; and third, examples of more contemporary uses of roko agitations in recent years. During the height of the Quit India Movement in 1942 and 1943, when Gandhi, Nehru, and most of the other leaders of the Indian National Congress

236  Lisa Mitchell had been imprisoned, the railways became a key target of the anti-colonial protest. Virtually every major station and railway line in the country saw repeated roko agitations, and some lines took weeks or even months to reopen. Indeed, the colonial archive of this period shows a particular preoccupation with the compromised state of railway communication. Although some of the activity that targeted the railways was non-violent, in keeping with Gandhi’s desire that violence not be used, much of the activity did turn violent, with trains and stations burned and looted, rails removed, signals and telegraph equipment damaged, and other forms of physical sabotage. A confidential circular distributed by the Andhra Provincial Congress Committee on 29 July 1942, issued instructions to all of its District Congress Committees, outlining six distinct stages of action to be implemented. Group V, or the Fifth Stage, included the following suggested activities: • • •

Stopping trains by pulling chains only. Travel without tickets. Cutting telegraph and telephone wires.

An additional note just below these cautions that ‘Rails should not be removed or permanent way obstructed. No danger to life, should be a great caution [sic].’17 This was the period in which Gandhi famously gave his ‘Do or Die’ speech, and nationalist supporters were encouraged to think only of freedom from the British, even at the expense of their own lives. Rail roko agitations in this context were unquestionably a challenge to British sovereignty in India. What has been less clear has been the meaning of roko agitations in post-colonial India. The innumerable rail roko actions that took place in 1942, though strikingly similar in form to the protests that occurred a decade later in what is now Andhra Pradesh in southern India and elsewhere differ in one quite significant respect. Subsequent roko agitations, even when explicitly drawing a connection with the events of 1942, differed in the sense that they have explicitly appealed to the state to take a particular action. In 2002, when doing research for an earlier book, I met numerous people who compared the rail roko agitations that played such a key role in 1952 with those of 1942.18 One man, who participated both in the Quit India Movement (during which he was arrested) and in the later 1952 movement for the creation of a separate Telugu-speaking linguistic state, explained that for three days (…) all trains were stopped. Buses were very few in 1952, so stopping trains was a big deal (…). In 1952 everyone was reminded of the 1942 struggle. Nineteen fifty-two was a repetition on a small scale of 1942.19 His words and the narratives of others dripped with nostalgia and a desire for the feelings of that earlier era – an era that frankly the 1952 Andhra protests just did not quite live up to in their eyes. Nonetheless, it was the political messages communicated to the national capital in Delhi through these three days of rail

The Railways and the Indian Politics  237 blockages, and the police firings and other incidents of violence that they provoked, that caused Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to immediately give in to their demands and declare the formation of a separate Telugu-speaking linguistic state. Only then did the roko agitations cease. Three days of rail blockages were successful in pushing to a head what four decades of sedate meetings and petitions to the Prime Minister had failed to accomplish. Not all blockage efforts have been as successful as these 1952 roko agitations, but increasingly they have come to occupy a very recognisable slot within the larger repertoire of political actions. And although still controversial, particularly among those who advocate a model of democracy that more closely resembles Western forms of democracy, roko agitations, ticketless travel, and other forms of collective control of public space have altered the practices of governmental and law enforcement bodies. This then lays the groundwork for my last argument. In 2009, I met a well-educated Dalit professional with whom I shared my research interests in rail roko agitations, alarm chain pulling to stop trains, ticketless travel, and other creative uses of railway stations and transportation networks for the purposes of political communication.20 When I mentioned ticketless travel to political rallies, he immediately responded enthusiastically by saying, ‘Oh yes, we also did that. In the 1970s and 80s, I participated in many. About seven to eight thousand would travel from Aurangabad to Nagpur.’21 When I asked what the issue was that he and others had been protesting, he replied, ‘No issue. No reason. Just to show our strength. To show we’d arrived. We did it twice every year.’ In response to my question as to whether they all had travelled without tickets, he replied, ‘Of course. That was the whole point. And after awhile the Railways responded by adding an extra train for us’, he explained with pride.22 The government-controlled Railway’s response in adding an additional train to accommodate those engaged in political activities suggests that such practices have achieved an almost formal legitimacy. Mr. Chatterjee, another senior railway official in North India, explained to me that there were two types of ticketless travel. He said: There are those who are trying to avoid paying. They will be arrested. And then there are those who will travel en masse when there is a big political meeting. They know no one can touch them. No arrests will be made. It’s not possible. Arrests would create more problems – destruction of railway property. Unofficially everyone understands.23 In fact, one retired railway official told me that it is now so well known that the police and railways will accommodate a political group travelling ticketless, without harassing or arresting them, that it has now become quite common in some parts of India (he mentioned Bihar, in particular) for labour recruiters to distribute political flags from one party or another to their newly recruited labourers and then take them to a distant worksite on

238  Lisa Mitchell the train without purchasing tickets for them.24 This example indicates that it is the actual political activity that is being recognised, supported, and legitimated, for if the responses of the police and government railway officials were simply out of fear of what a large group might do, then there would be no need for labour recruiters to perform the charade of having a large group of labourers and carry political flags in order to reach their destination. The last example makes this even clearer. In September of 2002, more than 200,000 people, most of whom had travelled ticketless, converged on the city of Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, for a political rally. Immediately following the event, 17 people were killed in a stampede at the Lucknow Railway Station as participants converged on the railway station to return to their homes.25 Ultimately, following an inquiry, the blame for this incident was placed on the Indian Railways for having had insufficient measures in place to handle a crowd of this size, with the Divisional Railway Manager for the Lucknow Division of the Northern Railways transferred out to a less desirable post as a punishment.26 Subsequently, in order to prevent such an event from reoccurring, the Railways now work closely with political parties to accommodate such surges in railway uses. As Mr. Mehta, a senior railway official, explained to me, ‘the political parties now inform us in advance when planning a large rally so that we can add extra trains or bogies as needed to accommodate the additional passengers’.27 They do this with the full knowledge that most, if not all, of those travelling to attend such rallies will travel without purchasing a ticket. And while we may be tempted to dismiss this example as an illustration of the heavy-handedness of political parties, the fact that I was told similar stories of railway accommodations of political travellers in other parts of India, including the example of the Dalit activists in the 1970s and 1980s cited above, suggests that this is not just an accommodation of a single political party in power. I do not want to suggest that political agitations that target railway stations or lines are a panacea or even that we should necessarily encourage them. Rather, my purpose in this paper has been to identify ways in which we might use a close study of agitations that employ railway spaces in order to better understand contemporary forms of political practice and the importance of railway spaces to the emergence of modern urban environments and forms of social and political organisation. Using models of democracy developed elsewhere in the world to analyse contemporary urban Indian political and spatial practices can blind us to their significance and meaning, causing us to too quickly dismiss them as evidence of the failure to develop a proper form of democracy, or as the failure of law and order. Instead, understanding these uses of railway networks as forms of political communication and contextualising such political agitations within the specific histories and constellations of practice present in urban India today can help us recognise the ways in which they are integral to broader understandings of legality and illegality, legitimacy and illegitimacy of both the state and specific forms of urban political practice. The analysis outlined above also

The Railways and the Indian Politics  239 offers much-needed attention to the important, but often overlooked, contributions played by railway stations and networks within the development of urban political practices and the workings of democracy.

Notes 1 Amba Batra Bakshi, ‘Rail Roko …Roko’, Outlook Magazine, of 8 September 2008, 34. 2 ‘Ryots stage ‘rail roko’, The Hindu, of 6 September 2008, http://www.hindu. com/2008/09/06/stories/2008090656460400.htm (last accessed 14 May 2010). 3 Indo-Asian News Service, ‘Train Bogies Burnt in Anti-Thackeray Protests in Bihar’, India Today, of 22 October 2008, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ Train+bogeys+burnt+in+anti-Thackeray+protests+in+Bihar/1/18352.html (last accessed 14 May 2010). 4 Ganesh S. Lakshman, ‘Rail Roko in Telangana: 124 Trains Cancelled, Hundreds Arrested’, India Today, of 15 October 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes. com/india/Rail-Roko-in-Telangana-124-trains-cancelled-hundreds-arrested/ articleshow/10365481.cms (last accessed 16 November 2011). 5 Such whistle stop political tours were common not only in pre-independence India, but also in the United States. See, for example, Linda DeCota, ‘1948 Whistle Stop Tour’, Truman Memorial Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/ whistlestop/ TruWhisTour/coverpge.htm (last accessed 15 March 2013). 6 See, for example, Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘‘In the Name of Politics’: Democracy and the Power of the Multitude in India’, Public Culture, 19, 1, 2007, 35–57. 7 For further discussion of related forms of practice, including emergency alarm chain pulling as political practice, see Lisa Mitchell, ‘“To Stop Train Pull Chain”: Writing Histories of Contemporary Political Practice’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 48, 4, 2011, 469–495. 8 See, for example, the work of C. A. Bayly, ‘The Pre-History of “Communalism”: Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860’, Modern Asian Studies, 19, 2, 1985, 177–203; Sandria Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India (Berkeley, CA 1990); Sudhir Kakar, The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict (Chicago, IL 1996); Stanley Tambiah, Leveling Crowds: Ethno-Nationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia (Berkeley, CA 1996); Diane Mines, Fierce Gods: Inequality, Ritual, and the Politics of Dignity in a South Indian Village (Bloomington, IN 2005); Christophe Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste, and Politics in India (New Delhi 2010). 9 Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Early Railwaymen in India: “Dacoity” and “Train-Wrecking” (c. 1680–1900)’, in Barun De, et al., eds., Essays in Honor of S. C. Sarkar (Delhi 1976), 523–550. 10 Interview, senior railway official, Secunderabad, 2 January 2009. 11 Interview, senior railway official, Lucknow, 27 March 2009. 12 Interview, Secunderabad, 6 January 2009. 13 Interview, senior railway official, Secunderabad, 2 January 2009. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Interview, Lucknow, 27 March 2009. 17 ‘Letter from Andhra Provincial Congress Committee’, All India Congress Committee Manuscript Collection, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi, Vol. G-37/1942, 119–121. 18 Lisa Mitchell, Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India: The Making of a Mother Tongue (Bloomington, IN 2009). 19 Interview, Kavali, Andhra Pradesh, 12 August 1998.

240  Lisa Mitchell 20 Dalit is a term of self-identification widely used by those regarded as ‘untouch­ able’ by orthodox Hindus. 21 Interview, Delhi, 16 April 2009. 22 Ibid. 23 Interview, senior railway official, Secunderabad, 6 January 2009. 24 Interview, railway official, Lucknow, 26 March 2009. 25 ‘Probe ordered into Lucknow stampede’, The Hindu, of 4 October 2002, http:// hindu.com/2002/10/04/stories/2002100405581100.htm (last accessed 14 May 2010). 26 Interview, retired senior railway official, Lucknow, 25 March 2009. 27 Interview, senior Government Railway Police official, Lucknow, 27 March 2009.

Literature Bakshi, Amba Batra, ‘Rail Roko …Roko’, Outlook Magazine, of 8 September 2008, 34. Bayly, C. A., ‘The Pre-History of “Communalism”: Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860’, Modern Asian Studies, 19, 2, 1985, 177–203. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, ‘Early Railwaymen in India: “Dacoity” and “Train-Wrecking” (c. 1680–1900)’, in Barun De, et al., eds., Essays in Honor of S. C. Sarkar (Delhi 1976), 523–550. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, ‘‘In the Name of Politics’: Democracy and the Power of the Multitude in India’, Public Culture, 19, 1, 2007, 35–57. DeCota, Linda, ‘1948 Whistle Stop Tour’, Truman Memorial Library, http://www. trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/TruWhisTour/coverpge.htm (last accessed 15 March 2013). Freitag, Sandria, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India (Berkeley, CA 1990). Indo-Asian News Service, ‘Train Bogies Burnt in Anti-Thackeray Protests in Bihar’, India Today, of 22 October 2008, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ Train+bogeys + burnt+in+anti-Thackeray+protests+in+Bihar/1/18352.html (last accessed 14 May 2010). Jaffrelot, Christophe, Religion, Caste, and Politics in India (New Delhi 2010). Kakar, Sudhir, The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict (Chicago, IL 1996). Lakshman, Ganesh S., ‘Rail Roko in Telangana: 124 Trains Cancelled, Hundreds Arrested’, India Today, of 15 October 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ india/Rail-Roko-in-Telangana-124-trains-cancelled-hundreds-arrested/articleshow /10365481.cms (last accessed 16 November 2011). Mines, Diane, Fierce Gods: Inequality, Ritual, and the Politics of Dignity in a South Indian Village (Bloomington, IN 2005). Mitchell, Lisa, Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India: The Making of a Mother Tongue (Bloomington, IN 2009). Mitchell, Lisa, ‘“To Stop Train Pull Chain”: Writing Histories of Contemporary Political Practice’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 48, 4, 2011, 469–495. ‘Probe ordered into Lucknow stampede’, The Hindu, of 4 October 2002, http:// hindu.com/2002/10/04/stories/2002100405581100.htm (last accessed 14 May 2010). ‘Ryots stage ‘rail roko’’, The Hindu, of 6 September 2008, http://www.hindu.com/ 2008/09/06/stories/2008090656460400.htm (last accessed 14 May 2010). Tambiah, Stanley, Leveling Crowds: Ethno-Nationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia (Berkeley, CA 1996).

11 Save Haydarpaşa A Train Station as Object of Conflicting Visions of the Past Malte Fuhrmann

On the afternoon of 28 November 2010, a cold but clear day, a huge cloud visible even from the European shore engulfed Istanbul’s main port on the Asian side of the Bosporus. Within hours, many of the city’s inhabitants, either as eyewitnesses or through television, SMS, mobile phone, YouTube, or other media, learnt that the city’s largest railway station, Haydarpaşa, had suffered considerably from a fire. The main building’s roof was completely destroyed, the side wing’s roof showed considerable damage, and especially the upper floors had suffered from the water used to extinguish the fire. Whether the salt in the seawater (the fire had to be combated from boats, as the station protrudes out into the sea) would prove corrosive to the limestone of the building was one of the many questions that remained unclear.1 The Istanbul public was shocked. As one person (with blatant disregard for spelling rules) put it in an internet forum, I never tought that this station has a deep memory in every istanbullers life (…) everyone that i talk was crying like their homes burning down (…) can’t believe my eyes still when i saw it on the tv (…) like a very old friend burning and screaming but u can do nothing to save (…) just watching with the tears falling down from your eyes (…) hope its not a sabotage to turn the area into a tourism place and a hotel. if so i never ever forgive the government and the municipilty for this (…) never (…).2 There was widespread suspicion that foul play was involved. On an amateur video shot from a passenger ferry passing the fire and uploaded to YouTube the same day, an anonymous passenger comments: ‘Anyways now they will turn it into a hotel.’3 Official organisations were no less harsh in blaming those in power for the massive damage to the historical building. In a press release dated 5 December 2010, the Haydarpaşa Solidarity Platform, led by the Istanbul Chamber of Architects and enjoying the support of several other professional

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-15

242  Malte Fuhrmann chambers, trade unions, environmentalists, and organisations and parties with leftist or republican leanings, claimed: From the year 2004 until today, as a result of our alert academics and professionals, our societies and institutions and our people’s decisive position and intense struggle, it had been possible to prevent all the methods and games of those who strive to present the ensemble of Istanbul’s Haydarpaşa Train Station and Port, a part of the world cultural heritage, to the exploitation of the global property speculators and who for this goal disrespect all kinds of laws and regulations, according to their motto ‘First we’ll make Manhattan, then Venice here’. (…) For unfortunately those in power, who serve as tools of global profit capitalism, continue to exert boundless pressure and intensifying threats of changing dimension on our country’s, and most of all Istanbul’s natural, cultural, historical and social assets.4 An NGO focussed on the preservation of the railway as part of the industrial patrimony found a much shorter formula to express on its website the importance of the burnt train station: ‘Haydarpaşa Train Station = Labour  = Human Being = Life. Act Now!’5 Perhaps because they never had malicious intentions to begin with, perhaps because the public outcry took them by surprise, the officials in charge went out of their way to publicly demonstrate their interest in preserving the train station. The deputy head of Turkish State Railways, İsa Apaydın, declared: The rooftop fire which occurred at our country’s and our Istanbul’s apple of the eye, the historical Haydarpaşa Station building belonging to our company, has gravely sorrowed our nation, most of all the railway employees.6 Once the minister of transport, Binali Yıldırım, arrived at the location, he declared that the 102-year-old building, which he said had been constructed for the railway to Baghdad, would continue to serve as a station for several centuries to come.7 Another railway official later denied that there had ever been plans to convert the station into a hotel.8 Within days after the fire, trains started running again from Haydarpaşa, and after about six weeks ferries from the European side once again called at the station. The superficial damage to the ticket hall and platforms was soon painted over. What to do about the more fundamental damage to the roof and upper floors was still under debate at the time this essay was written. The anxiety, emotional reactions, and historical melodrama involved in this discussion are a strange contrast to Haydarpaşa’s actual importance as a transport hub in Istanbul. Before they stopped running due to railway construction in early 2012, the commuter trains, departing on average every 20 minutes from the station for the Asian suburbs, together with their counterparts on the European side held only a share of 1.9 per cent of daily

Save Haydarpaşa  243 commutes inside the city, with a tendency to decline even more. The hourly trains to the neighbouring cities of İzmit and Adapazarı did not fare much better. With only 12 intercity train departures per day, Haydarpaşa’s role for long-distance travel was negligible compared to the countless number of bus services connecting Istanbul to all Turkish cities, and even when compared to the quickly expanding air connections. We can safely assume therefore that most Istanbullus (Istanbul residents) who shed tears over the fire had never, or at least not recently, used the train station. To explain the significance of this building we must look further. I will therefore first explain the present situation of Turkish, and in particular Istanbul’s, railways before touching on the question of how interested parties historically contextualise these developments. In many countries around the world, railways are experiencing a renaissance. While this development has not matched the growth rates of air travel, the general need for improved mobility has produced a new wave of investments in railways. Turkey, after having abandoned serious investments in rail infrastructure since the Marshall Plan with its incentives for road transport, and more strongly since the post-junta government of the 1980s under Turgut Özal, who wished to bring to Turkey the American way of life, has in recent years embarked on a course of new rail construction.9 A network of high-speed lines promises to connect a select number of major cities and, in the distant future, span the country, while all large agglomerations intend to upgrade existing urban railways or build new ones. In order to position this policy as part of a historical teleology, the aforementioned minister of transport, Binali Yıldırım, often calls upon the republic’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and his 1930s policy of a massive extension of the existing railway network.10 The prime minister, R. Tayyip Erdoğan, and the president, Abdullah Gül, more in tune with their party’s conservative stance, have positioned the new wave of railway investments in a more Islamic context. The high-speed rail construction in the eastern part of the country is described as a ‘new Silk Road’ to the Caucasus and Central Asia that would place Anatolia at the crossroads of vibrant intercontinental trade.11 The intended resuscitation of a rail link to Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia has been named the ‘New Hejaz Railway’, alluding to the Damascus-Medina line that was completed in 1909 under Sultan Abdülhamid II to promote unity in the Islamic world. President Gül has promised that by 2023 a railway trip from Istanbul to Medina will take less than 24 hours.12 One of the key projects to bridge a gap in the existing railway network is to link European and Asian Istanbul by means of a tunnel underneath the Bosporus Straits (Marmaray). At the time of writing this essay, there was no rail link between Turkey’s European and Asian rail networks. Until the aforementioned 2012 closure of services for construction, both passengers and freight cars travelling between the European and the Asian rail terminuses of the city had to use a ferry that takes approximately 15 minutes. Turkish State Railways promises that as of October 2013 the tunnel will reduce the distance between

244  Malte Fuhrmann the last European and the first Asian station to a mere four minutes, and commuters, as well as long-distance trains, will then be able to continue on both sides of the sea, as the project will be integrated into the existing lines.13 This promises to shorten commutes in a significant way and to provide faster access to long-distance trains for most Istanbullus. As part of the project, a new state-of-the-art underground central station is being planned that will offer an interchange between suburban rail and two metro lines and the nearby port for fast ferries. The European rail terminus will be passed underground while Haydarpaşa will be bypassed altogether. The project, officially due to be finished by autumn 2013, has not been received with unanimous applause. Some critics have highlighted the project’s infeasibility. It seems unlikely that the renovated tracks of the existing lines, even after being increased from two to three tracks, will be able to handle the mix of long-distance and regional passenger trains, freight trains, and commuter trains at metro-like intervals.14 However, most critics have focussed less on technicalities but rather on the aesthetics of travelling and commuting in Istanbul. Compared to a dark tunnel, the older form of crossing from Europe to Asia certainly is the winner in the aesthetic category (Figures 11.1 and 11.2).15 For roughly a century, between 1908 and 2012, commuting in Istanbul took place according to the following scenario. The local trains on the European side spin around Seraglio Point to end in the Sirkeci Terminus, a small but opulently decorated turn-of-the-century neo-orientalist building, from where it is a five-minute walk down to the bustling piers near the city’s major bazaar area. The spacious ferries going to the Asian side offer a panoramic view of the city, its mosques, palaces, barracks, and hospitals located on the city’s three different shores. Passengers generally pass the time sipping a glass of tea while enjoying the scenery, whereas some feed the seagulls that inevitably trail the ferry. This form of commuting between continents has remained essentially unchanged since the introduction of local steamships to Istanbul almost 150 years ago.16 Having passed the container port, the ferry calls at Haydarpaşa, where passengers step onto the train station’s quay overlooking the Sea of Marmara, and then climb the monumental stairs to the spacious station itself, boarding trains to the eastern suburbs, to the neighbouring city of İzmit, and also to Ankara, Diyarbakır, or even Teheran. The aesthetic highlight of the ride is this transfer from water to land transport. No other station manages to integrate itself so well into a maritime environment. As the terminus extends far into the open sea by comparison to the adjacent bay of Kadıköy, the passenger is only aware of him or herself, the station building, and the sea. The flight of marble stairs between the jetty and the station doors serves to slow down the transition and lends a certain ceremonious atmosphere to it. Resistance to the tunnel project has mainly focussed on the planned fate of Haydarpaşa Station. The original plans implied the closure of the Asian rail terminus, its railway yards, and adjacent port, transforming them into a business area with glass-façade skyscrapers overlooking the sea, and having

Save Haydarpaşa  245

Figure 11.1  A  Passenger Ferry Calling at Haydarpaşa (Before the Fire). Photo: Courtesy of Malte Fuhrmann (foto 1052).

Figure 11.2  P  assengers Disembarking from a Ferry at Haydarpaşa Walking Up the Marble Staircase, Malte Fuhrmann, 2006. Photo: Courtesy of Malte Fuhrmann, 2006 (foto 1067).

246  Malte Fuhrmann the station building serve as a luxury hotel. This is the ‘Manhattan’ project referred to in the Chamber of Architects’ press release. After much public controversy and several lawsuits, the government, municipality, and State Railways backed down and promised to turn the huge terrain into a cultural theme park including shopping malls, large-scale residences, a cruise-ship port, and a canal system. This is what the architects referred to when they mentioned ‘Venice’. Details of how this plan will affect Haydarpaşa are not known as the clause in the bill passed by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality to reorder the Asian seafront was particularly vague regarding the fate of the station building. Continued usage by the railways or transformation into a cultural centre, a museum, a café, or a hotel would all be compatible with the legislation.17 However, while the aesthetic opposition to the project has its valid points, favouring established forms of commuting and the early-twentieth-century buildings in the port vicinity over the post-modern mix of skyscrapers and historicist kitsch that have become so characteristic of much of Istanbul, some opponents of the Marmaray Tunnel Project have felt the need to draw on the collective memory of the ‘nation’. An ambiguous image that is often evoked is the Anatolian villager, making his or her first journey from Central Anatolia to Istanbul by train, and upon exiting Haydarpaşa Station seeing the sea for the first time in his or her life. The popular online semi-serious dictionary Ekşi Sözlük interprets this scene as follows: Haydarpaşa Station has been the historical stage for the most touching stories. That’s how it is in Turkish cinema. Haydarpaşa is the preamble of the migrant fairy tales, the introduction to Istanbul for the ‘Anatolia covered in the fog of suicide’. The films begin here because during that period life begins here.18 Other less interpretive commentators add the obligatory elements of these films from the 1960s and 70s: the migrants are conspicuous because they do not wear a tie, they carry wooden suitcases, and they utter exclamations upon seeing the sea. While nobody actually lists any films which use this stereotypical scene, it is a common belief that it has been copied by countless films and songs.19 As with all common lieux de mémoire, the legend of Haydarpaşa Station is based to some degree on social practice of the past. The train played a prominent role in long-distance transport in the initial phase of post-Second World War urbanisation, when changes in agriculture caused many villagers to seek out the big cities in search of work, initially as seasonal workers but later settling there permanently. Istanbul’s population development, which had been negative between the two world wars, all of a sudden saw an unprecedented growth rate, from a mere half million inhabitants to nowadays more than 13 million. At the time, the long-distance bus system had not yet been established and trains were an affordable albeit spartan form of mass transport. The

Save Haydarpaşa  247 emotional pressure of leaving family and loved ones behind in the countryside and the train serving as a psychic purgatory on the way between the village and the city became a common trope of novels, films, and songs. It was most famously captured in ‘Kara Tren’, a migrant labourer’s song that is popular to this day. In this song, a young migrant worker tries to communicate with his girlfriend left behind in the village by asking the train engineer to give her his letters when passing the village. However, the young girl waits in vain, as ‘The Black Train is running late/ Maybe it will not come at all’.20 It is in this context that we should understand the common trope of Haydarpaşa Station as a background scene in migrant films. Yet, while many in today’s population of Istanbul can trace their roots to this migration wave of the 1960s and 1970s, prejudice towards Anatolia still remains strong. To this day TV series often thrive on playing with this ambivalence, as the uneducated country people coming to town are an object of ridicule, but often remind one of one’s own family roots. As the quote from Ekşi Sözlük reveals, the educated city dwellers still believe that ‘life’ must be impossible east of Istanbul, and that social and cultural conditions there almost inevitably encourage every sane person to move away, or drive them to suicide. To understand these associations and their relevance for the Haydarpaşa scene, we must take into consideration two more implicit assumptions that play a role here, one concerning the sea and the other the railway. In the nineteenth century, the sea played an important role for the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. The establishment of regular steamship connections around the Mediterranean increased the importance of port cities significantly. The unprecedented intense exchange of commodities, news, fashions, and ideas via the steamship gave the people in these cities the impression that they formed a part of modern civilisation, which on the mental map of the times culminated in France and, most especially, in Paris. The Messageries Maritimes ships would sail up to three times a week to Marseille, which was in turn linked to Paris by rail. Thus, the sea itself came to symbolise what lay at its distant end: the key to modernity.21 In this mentality, when the Anatolian peasants come to Haydarpaşa and look at the sea for the first time, they reveal that they have hitherto not participated in civilised, Western life as the seaside residents know it.22 Kemalism should have done away with this mentality, as the new republic after 1923 declared Anatolia to be the nation’s heartland. State ideology looked with disdain at the dependency on the European Great Powers and especially at Istanbul. The decision to move the capital to Ankara was as much a cultural decision as it was a strategic one. Contemporary depictions show Istanbul to be a city bowed down by its history, whereas Anatolia is presented as the young, dynamic land of the rising sun. The infrastructure that should keep this evolving polity together was the railway. The 1930s saw an ambitious rail construction programme centred on Ankara that accounts for roughly half of all of today’s railways in Turkey. While far inferior to the speed, technique, and comfort standards of more industrialised countries at

248  Malte Fuhrmann the time, these very basic lines, often constructed by conscripted labour, laid the ground for a countrywide transport network.23 However, as mentioned above, in the end, these tracks served less to populate Anatolia than to empty it. Contrary to Kemalist development plans, the rural population flocked to Istanbul and until today Anatolia serves as the cheap labour reserve for a city whose elites hope to give it global allure. Thus, in the perspective of the Istanbul city dweller, the railways, which were supposed to realise the promise of Kemalist enlightenment and an Anatolian renaissance, still hold this promise, but in quite a different manner. Instead of turning Anatolia into a place of enlightenment, the villagers must flee the unenlightened hinterland, where the sun cannot pierce the ‘fog of suicide’, to reach Istanbul, where they are exposed to the cultural and intellectual diversity of the world at large, symbolised, as in the nineteenth century, by the sea. Some of the quotes following the fire in late 2010 make us see yet another dimension of the appropriation of Haydarpaşa as lieu de mémoire, this time in an explicitly nationalist context. Thus the above-cited declaration by the Solidarity Platform argued for the preservation of ‘our country’s (…) natural, cultural, historical and social assets’ in the face of ‘the global property speculators’.24 Several times in the text, resistance to the station’s closure is implicitly associated with the nation as a whole, whereas capitalist pressure to reduce the historical ensemble to an object of real estate speculation is associated with foreigners. As a reaction, the assurances by the railway and the ministry that they will not abandon Haydarpaşa to such a fate were even more patriotic in tone. In the court decision to annul the original skyscraper construction plans for Haydarpaşa, an explicitly patriotic argumentation was used as well. The area was considered to be the country’s first railway yard and thus defined as a protected historical site.25 This is a historically absurd statement. While Haydarpaşa is unique in its size and integration into the urban and maritime landscape, the first railway station in the confines of present-day Turkey was opened in 1856 in Izmir, half a century before the current station and port at Haydarpaşa were completed (1908). Moreover, the activists promoting the station’s preservation have been noticeably silent on the subject of who planned, financed, and built the station and who initially operated it and the accompanying railways, as this information would hardly serve to establish Haydarpaşa as a monument exemplifying the Turkish Republic’s national ideology and accomplishments. An often overlooked commemorative plaque at the station building’s entrance more readily offers information on its origins than the websites clamouring for its conservation: On the initiative of the company’s German general director, Mr. Hünken, a port was erected in front of the station with a jetty protecting it against the waves as well as docks to load and unload the trains and silos. The German Anatolia Baghdad Company was contracted for the construction.

Save Haydarpaşa  249 It erected the train station building according to the plans of the German architects Otto Ritter and Helmuth Conu. On the construction site, Turkish artisans worked side by side with German artisans and Italian masons. The station that was erected in the German neoclassical style originally covered an area of 2525 square meters. (…) It is an attraction both for travellers and tourists from all over the world and coincidentally a visible symbol of the close relationship between Germany and Turkey.26 The text is characterised by excessive use of the word ‘German’. Every individual is highlighted as belonging to this collective; the company and also the architectural style are marked as that ‘nation’s’ exclusive property. Such invocations are characteristic of the German self-image in relation to its historical role in the region of present-day Turkey. In fact, this attitude can be traced back to the propaganda accompanying German involvement in the Ottoman railways at the turn of the twentieth century. To quote an example taken from a travelogue by a colonialist activist published in 1902: But one day the Germans themselves entered Anatolia following the same paths the crusaders had taken. Unlike them they did not wield heavy weapons or ride high with waving banners. They were carrying all kinds of tools and machinery, in their wake an army of industrious workers; they dug, they built, bridging enormous cliffs and raging rivers, penetrating mountains and drying up swamps. Where until then long camel caravans had trodden on treacherous paths, now the shining rails stretched. At the beginning of the nineties the first locomotives – called land steamers by the Turkish farmers – arrived huffing and puffing. They brought new life, movement, culture to the almost forgotten territories that had once been the cornucopia of first the Roman, then the Greek Empire, and that are now growing more important politically and economically from year to year. Thus do the new Germans fight in Asia Minor. Their victory is the Anatolian Railway, built with German money, by German engineers, and administered in an exemplary way by Germans. But no true victory goes unexploited!27 Which of the two narratives concerning Haydarpaşa and the Anatolian Railways are we to follow? Should we consider it essentially as Turkish, since the territory it is located on is undoubtedly within the Turkish Republic? Or shall we consider it a fortunate by-product of otherwise unsavoury Wilhelmine German imperialism? The paradigm I will suggest here does not adopt either interpretation. Haydarpaşa and the Anatolian Railways were in their founding days a result of a multi-ethnic, multi-national collaborative effort. The capital, labour, and creative vision invested in their development were not the product of just one or even two nations. The route from Haydarpaşa to the neighbouring city of İzmit was originally constructed by the Ottoman state and opened in 1873. The state’s

250  Malte Fuhrmann bankruptcy of 1876 halted plans to develop the line further and led to a renewed involvement of foreign investors in the Ottoman railways. The line was turned over to a British company. When in 1888 the Anatolian Railways were founded under the auspices of the Deutsche Bank, the existing line was purchased by the company as the initial stub from which it aimed to construct its line to Ankara and Inner Anatolia. As it considered the existing line inadequate, the İzmit line was completely rebuilt. As the source to cover the huge demand for wheat for the Istanbul population’s daily bread shifted from overseas markets to Inner Anatolia, the railway’s storage capacity was exhausted and the company reacted with an ambitious plan, increasing the Haydarpaşa Terminus’ docks from a small local jetty to a state-of-the-art overseas port, including massive grain silos and eventually a new station building. The company in charge was not the above-mentioned but non-existent ‘German Anatolia Baghdad Company’, but the Société du Port de Haidar-Pasha (a subsidiary of the Anatolian Railways). The entire enterprise was completed in the first decade of the twentieth century on land filled in from the sea. Construction of the port was headed by the engineer H. Waldorp, but he was assisted by the architect Alexandre Vallaury, a Levantine, i.e., a French citizen born and raised in Istanbul, who designed many of the city’s nineteenth-century landmarks.28 P. Augier and D. Laporte are also listed among the planning staff. Construction of the station building itself was the responsibility of the Philipp Holzmann Company that would also play a considerable role in the Baghdad Railway construction.29 Throughout its existence, the Anatolian Railway Company had played a double game when it comes to national allegiances. As a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bank, it often catered to German imperialist sentiment in order to secure the support of the German government and nationalist public opinion in its pursuits. For this reason, and probably for reasons of personal affiliations and intertwining business interests as well, many of the leading administrative staff members of the company, even a certain number of the rank-and-file personnel, and almost all the subcontractors for its construction were German. However, vis-à-vis Ottoman society and the wider European public the Anatolian Railways had to manoeuvre carefully in order to avoid accusations of imperialist chauvinism, as these would damage business interests in a thoroughly globalised market such as the Ottoman one. So, in order to attract non-German investors the company openly portrayed itself as a ‘cosmopolitan’ endeavour working for the general good of humankind.30 It was registered in Switzerland and the longtime director, Édouard Huguenin, was a Swiss citizen. More important though, the construction and operation of a railway in a country with a low level of infrastructural development such as the Ottoman Empire demanded much expertise and manpower that could not be exclusively ­s atisfied by importing workers from Germany. To the dismay of German imperialists, the company’s official language was French, as it served as the lingua franca around the Eastern Mediterranean at the

Save Haydarpaşa  251 31

time. Unlike the picture painted by the Wilhelmine propagandist above, it was not an army of conquering engineers of the German Herrenvolk that invaded Central Anatolia and stirred up the docile Turks there. The picture was much more complex. The workforce included some German nationals and a larger group of Austrians which consisted partially of speakers of German, but also included many who had a better command of diverse Slavic languages. Moreover, among the workers were a considerable number of Greeks and Turks, as well as Bulgarians, Armenians, Kurds, and Arabs. Among foreign subjects, Italians figured prominently. Throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region, a large number of men of rural background had specialised in construction work and traditionally travelled in large groups at the beginning of the season to find employment. They would, for example, travel from Central Thessaly to work on the railway in Western Anatolia, upon its completion retreat to their villages for the winter, and set out to work on the Suez Canal the following year. The tight network of steamship connections made such work routines feasible. Other workers, especially from more distant places such as the Venice area or Bohemia, would usually set out individually or in small groups and attempt to settle down and find long-term employment with the railway.32 While railway employees of German and Austrian origin were enlisted by their countrymen to support the notion that their home countries were the exporters of a superior culture and technology, they nonetheless could not afford to remain aloof from the society they lived in. Most railway workers or clerks came to the Ottoman Empire as single men and when they had managed to attain a permanent position, would often intermarry with local, predominantly Christian women. In this way, they integrated into local society even if some of them ideologically did not wish to do so. Their conflicting loyalties were put to the test especially in the tumultuous year of 1908 after the Young Turk Revolution, when strikes broke out first on the Bulgarian national railways, then on the Oriental Railways (a Deutsche Bank-owned company operating in the European provinces of the Empire), and then finally on the Anatolian Railways. To the horror of the German imperialists, German employees placed class solidarity over national solidarity and participated in the strikes, some even as spokesmen. However, the following years did not see a sustained internationalist movement among the Ottoman working class. Labour movements were suppressed and ethnic strife took precedence; incidents of strife between Kurdish and Armenian workers over positions, the usage of foreign workers as scabs, the dismissal of foreign workers to appease national sentiment built upon pre-existent emotions of envy and soured relations within the workforce.33 After World War One, all Germans and Austrians were forced to leave Ottoman territory. The Anatolian and Baghdad Railways were nationalised in 1924 by the triumphant Turkish Republican regime, as were all other railway companies later on. Railways, especially to the hitherto remote inland sections of the country, became an important part of the state’s claim to

252  Malte Fuhrmann progress. The older railway companies, however, were slandered as serving exclusively the interests of foreign imperialism and favouring the non-Muslim population over the Turks when it came to employment. Following this re-interpretation, Anatolians had not profited from railways before the intervention of the state founder, Mustafa Kemal.34 However, if one wanders off into the side streets adjacent to the Haydarpaşa railway yard, one can still find a glimpse of the diversity that used to be characteristic of this station, its employees, and their families. The neighbourhood known as Yeldeğirmen, made up of early-twentieth-century neoclassical and Art Nouveau buildings mostly still in good condition, features old railway workers housing projects, several large-scale apartment buildings which were otherwise rare in Istanbul before World War One, one of which is called ‘Italian Apartment’, the former German-language high school for the children of railway employees, a Catholic church named Eglise Notre Dame du Rosaire with apparently an adjacent school, a Greek-Orthodox church with an adjacent school, and a synagogue.35 To summarise: while playing practically no role in present-day communications, Haydarpaşa assumes a huge role in collective memories. This role varies, however, depending on the observers’ point of view. In state-centred depictions of Anatolia’s railway history, we find three competing visions of the past that all revolve around the terminus station Haydarpaşa: the benign Sultan Abdülhamid providing mobility to the suppressed Muslims of the world; the German master race bankers and engineers providing mobility to the unenlightened Anatolian peasantry; and the enlightened authoritarian leader Atatürk providing mobility to the unenlightened Anatolian peasantry. In contrast to these three top-down versions of railway history, I advocate a bottom-up approach in all its contradictions, conflicts, and diversity, focussing on the multi-ethnic workforce of the Anatolian Railways, on its users, especially the migrant workers of the 1960s, on the specific collective memories they produced, and on today’s citizenry resisting the transformation of their city into one where the interests of big business and the rich prevail.

Notes 1 I want to thank Suphi Yalcın Akyol for his support in researching the online sources used for this article and for help in the editing process. All translations from Turkish and German passages have been done by the author. 2 Emrearas, in ‘Skycrapercity – Marmaray, Undergound and Underwater tunnel between continents - u/c’ http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=194116& page=29 (last accessed 10 February 2011). The spelling has been left in original internet style. 3 Eonuryerlikhan, ‘Haydarpaşa garı yanıyor’, on YouTube http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=jTWcbDHUv3g (last accessed 10 February 2011). 4 The Chamber of Architects of Turkey, ‘BASIN BİLDİRİSİ: Haydarpaşa Gar, Liman ve Kıyı Alanını; “Pazarlanacak Mal” Olarak Küresel Emlak Tacirlerinin Hizmetine Sunmak İsteyenlerin Her Türlü Girişimi Boşa Çıkartılacaktır!’ http://

Save Haydarpaşa  253 www.mo.org.tr/index.cfm?sayfa=Belge&Sub=basin&RecID=3327 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 5 http://kentvedemiryolu.com/ (last accessed 10 February 2011). 6 Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları (TCDD), press release, http://www. tcdd.gov.tr/home/detail/?id=1019 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 7 TCDD, press release, http://www.tcdd.gov.tr/home/detail/?id=1020. 8 http://www.rayturk.net/?p=19769 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 9 Turgut Özal (Motherland Party/ANAP, Prime Minister 1983–1989, President 1989–1993) said: ‘The highways are a free system, the railways are a system that offers favourable conditions to communist ideology.’ http://www.byegm.gov.tr/ ayintarihidetay.aspx?Id=235&Yil=1990&Ay=6 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 10 See for example his personal website http://www.binaliyildirim.com.tr/bakanyildirim-cumhuriyetin-100-yildonumu-hedefi-olarak-duble-demiryollari-projesini2011-yili-itibariyla-baslatiyoruz.aspx (last accessed 10 February 2011). 11 http://www.arkitera.com/h22100-yeni-bir-ipekyolu-raylarda-canlaniyor.html (last accessed 10 February 2011). 12 http://www.haberpan.com/hicaz-demiryolu-yeniden-aciliyor-haberi/ (last accessed 10 February 2011). This project is of course on hold due to the Syrian civil war and Syria’s drastically worsened relationship with its neighbours. 13 www.marmaray.com.tr/mr/marmaray-anasayfa (last accessed 10 February 2011). The integration of the tunnel into the existing suburban lines is planned to be completed by summer of 2015. 14 www.kentvedemiryolu.com is the most informative website of the project’s opponents. 15 However, the significance of sea travel has decreased significantly in recent ­decades with the construction of two road bridges and the establishment of new business centres and housing settlements along the corresponding highways. The percentage of sea transport has dwindled to less than 5 per cent, rail-bound commuter services make up only 10 per cent, while public transport by road amounts to a staggering 85 per cent share of all traffic; see www.ibb.gov.tr (last accessed 10 February 2011). 16 Zeynep Çelik, The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle 1986), 84–86. Recently the aesthetics of Istanbul’s rail and ferry transport have been used in a commercial for the perfume Chanel No. 5. 17 ‘Undisclosed Plans for Haydarpaşa “killing Istanbul slowly”’, Hürriyet of 26 December 2009. See http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=222800& page=9 (last accessed 10 February 2011); Nilay Vardar, ‘“Haydarpaşa Port”a Dava Açılıyor’, Bianet of 14 Sept. 2012, http://bianet.org/bianet/bianet/140879-haydarpasaporta-dava-aciliyor (last accessed 11 March 2013). 18 http://www.eksisozluk.com/show.asp?t=t%C3%BCrk%20sinemas%C4%B1nda %20haydarpa%C5%9Fa%20gar%C4%B1 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 19 Ibid. 20 ‘Black’ in this context refers to the intense smoke produced by steam engines. See http://sarki.alternatifim.com/data.asp?ID=1424&sarki=Kara%20Tren&sarkici=Yavuz%20Bing%F6l&ok=1 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 21 Malte Fuhrmann, ‘Vom stadtpolitischen Umgang mit dem Erbe der Europäisierung in Istanbul, Izmir und Thessaloniki’, in Ulrike Tischler and Ioannis Zelepos, eds., Bilderwelten – Weltbilder: Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit in postosmanischen Metropolen Südosteuropas: Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Izmir (Frankfurt am Main 2010), 21–38. 22 An order in nineteenth-century Izmir for example forbade country-style baggy trousers on men. Upon arrival in the city, villagers had to rent Western-style

254  Malte Fuhrmann pants for the duration of their stay from shops in the vicinity of railway stations. See Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (London 2010), 173. 23 Ümit Sarıaslan, ed., Demir ağlardan örümcek ağlarına. 1930’lu yıllardan 209 fotoğraf ve belgenin tanıklığında Cumhuriyet Demiryolculuğu ve ötesi (Istanbul 2004). 24 The Chamber of Architects of Turkey, ‘BASIN BİLDİRİSİ: Haydarpaşa Gar, Liman ve Kıyı Alanını; “Pazarlanacak Mal” Olarak Küresel Emlak Tacirlerinin Hizmetine Sunmak İsteyenlerin Her Türlü Girişimi Boşa Çıkartılacaktır!’ http://www.mo.org.tr/index.cfm?sayfa=Belge&Sub=basin&RecID=3327 (last accessed 10 February 2011). 25 Oktay Ekinci, ‘Ülkenin ilk demiryolu alanı olduğu için “tarihsel sit alanı” sayılacak Haydarpaşa’yı “kurtarma” kararı’, Cumhuriyet of 1 May 2006. 26 Commemorative plaque, Haydarpaşa Station, entrance, date unknown (after 1983). 27 Paul Lindenberg, Auf deutschen Pfaden im Orient (Berlin 1902), 175–176. 28 Mustafa S. Akpolat, ‘Fransız kökenli Levanten mimar Alexandre Vallaury’, Hacettepe University (unpublished PhD thesis) 1991. 29 Peter Heigl, Schotter für die Wüste. Die Bagdadbahn und ihre deutschen Bauingenieure (Nuremberg 2004), 34–43. 30 Journal de Salonique of 19 November 1908 (referring to an article in Lloyd Ottoman). 31 Klaus Kreiser, ‘Le rôle de la langue française en Turquie et la politique culturelle allemande au début du XXe siècle’, in Hâmit Batu and Jean-Louis BacquéGrammont, eds., L’Empire Ottoman, la République et la France (Istanbul and Paris 1986), 405–417. 32 Robert Pichler, ‘Hirten, Söldner und Wanderarbeiter: Formen der mobilen Ökonomie in den Dörfern des albanischen Hochlandes’, in Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, and Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, eds., Die weite Welt und das Dorf: Albanische Emigration am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna 2002), 133–161; Malte Fuhrmann, ‘Go East: Deutsche und österreichische Arbeiter in der Türkei und auf dem Balkan vor 100 Jahren’, in Angelika Neuwirth and Günter Stock, eds., Europa im Nahen Osten – Der Nahe Osten in Europa (Berlin 2010), 299–314; Valeska Huber, ‘Highway of the British Empire? The Suez Canal between Imperial Competition and Local Accommodation’, in Jörn Leonhard and Ulrike v. Hirschhausen eds., Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century (Göttingen 2011), 37–59. 33 Fuhrmann, ‘Go East’, 299–314. 34 For a sample of Kemalist railway history that automatically declares prerepublican railways ‘bad’ and republican railways ‘good’, see Sarıaslan, Demir ağlardan örümcek ağlarına, especially 152–153 and 245–285. 35 I am grateful to Nazan Maksudyan of Kemerburgaz University Istanbul for drawing my attention to the architectural legacy of this neighbourhood.

Literature Akpolat, Mustafa S., ‘Fransız kökenli Levanten mimar Alexandre Vallaury’, Hacettepe University (unpublished PhD thesis) 1991. Anonymous, ‘Undisclosed Plans for Haydarpaşa “killing Istanbul slowly”’, Hürriyet of 26 December 2009. Çelik, Zeynep, The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle 1986), 84–86. Ekinci, Oktay, ‘Ülkenin ilk demiryolu alanı olduğu için “tarihsel sit alanı” sayılacak Haydarpaşa’yı “kurtarma” kararı’, Cumhuriyet of 1 May 2006.

Save Haydarpaşa  255 Fuhrmann, Malte, ‘Go East: Deutsche und österreichische Arbeiter in der Türkei und auf dem Balkan vor 100 Jahren’, in Angelika Neuwirth and Günter Stock, eds., Europa im Nahen Osten – Der Nahe Osten in Europa (Berlin 2010), 299–314. Fuhrmann, Malte, ‘Vom stadtpolitischen Umgang mit dem Erbe der Europäisierung in Istanbul, Izmir und Thessaloniki’, in Ulrike Tischler and Ioannis Zelepos, eds., Bilderwelten – Weltbilder: Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit in postosmanischen Metropolen Südosteuropas: Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Izmir (Frankfurt am Main 2010), 21–38. Heigl, Peter, Schotter für die Wüste. Die Bagdadbahn und ihre deutschen Bauingenieure (Nuremberg 2004). Huber, Valeska, ‘Highway of the British Empire? The Suez Canal between Imperial Competition and Local Accommodation’, in Jörn Leonhard and Ulrike v. Hirschhausen, eds., Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century (Göttingen 2011), 37–59. Kreiser, Klaus, ‘Le rôle de la langue française en Turquie et la politique culturelle allemande au début du XXe siècle’, in Hâmit Batu and Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont, eds., L’Empire Ottoman, la République et la France (Istanbul and Paris 1986), 405–417. Lindenberg, Paul, Auf deutschen Pfaden im Orient (Berlin 1902), 175–176. Mansel, Philip, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (London 2010). Pichler, Robert, ‘Hirten, Söldner und Wanderarbeiter: Formen der mobilen Ökonomie in den Dörfern des albanischen Hochlandes’, in Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, and Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, eds., Die weite Welt und das Dorf: Albanische Emigration am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna 2002), 133–161. Sarıaslan, Ümit, ed., Demir ağlardan örümcek ağlarına. 1930’lu yıllardan 209 fotoğraf ve belgenin tanıklığında Cumhuriyet Demiryolculuğu ve ötesi (Istanbul 2004). Vardar, Nilay, ‘“Haydarpaşa Port”a Dava Açılıyor’, Bianet of 14 Sept. 2012, http:// bianet.org/bianet/bianet/140879-haydarpasa-porta-dava-aciliyor (last accessed 11 March 2013).

12 The Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico A Pending Issue Mónica Solórzano Gil

A Brief History of the Introduction of the Railway System in Mexico To understand the importance of the construction of railways in Mexico, one of the fundamental factors to consider relates to the pre-existing roads and their condition at that time. The system of roads and trails dated back to the pre-Hispanic period, and during the sixteenth century, the network of roads of New Spain was laid out according to the interests of the metropolis and following paths dating from this older era. The Spanish Crown made an effort to build a basic network that would connect the capital of the viceroyalty with the major ports of Veracruz and Acapulco and also with the mining areas that refined precious metals. Moreover, animal traction and the wheel were the technology introduced to New Spain, thus creating the Mexican wagon, pulled by several pairs of mules, similar to the system established in Spain by the Real Cabaña de Carretería.1 Caravans were then organised using approximately ‘fifty vehicles to supply the capital and the mining areas and to transport ore to the sea ports’.2 Originally these roads were laid out in a radial configuration branching out from the city of Mexico to different locations following the original pre-Hispanic paths. The physical state of these roads was not good as they continuously suffered damage, and maintenance was not kept up with any urgency, so by the eighteenth century, the situation was worse than during the sixteenth century, making mule transport much more practical than wagon transport.3 Various circumstances had led to this situation, including the War of Independence, the lack of resources, and the destruction and dismantling of the mining system. As a result, in the 1870s, fewer than half of the existing roads were fit for transport. ‘Moved by a blind faith in the lucrative capacity of the modern lines of communication, the governments of presidents Juarez and Lerdo decided to build railway lines’.4 During these presidential administrations, 1,874 kilometres of telegraph lines had already been installed. In the decade between 1867 and 1876, more than one thousand kilometres of telegraph lines had been hung, old wagon roads had been repaired, and others newly opened for stagecoach services between the major cities of the republic.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-16

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  257 In the year 1837, the first concession for the establishment of a railway in Mexico was given, and at that moment the long and difficult process of the construction and consolidation of the railways began. Among the first concessions given was that of the railway between Mexico City and Veracruz with a branch line to Puebla. Later, in the year 1842, another concession was given for interoceanic communication through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.5 This was the beginning of the opening of lines and sections all over the country, which, as they were being consolidated, worked as a stimulant for political, economic, and social development. One of the first concessions was given to a British investor, Laurie Rickards, for the 13-kilometre line from Veracruz to El Molino, which was opened in September 1855. During this period, the raw materials and technology came from Belgium and Great Britain. Thereafter, ‘the company was oriented towards the United States to buy its raw materials’.6 In order to build railways, it was deemed necessary to procure funds by any means; at that time no one thought about the implications of the dependency produced by foreign investment. On the contrary, foreign capital was considered bold, enterprising and generous.7 The railway was presented as an alternative mode of transportation for freight and passengers that, given the condition of the roads, would become a viable and profitable option. Thus, the railway was conceived as a national opportunity to carry out efficient interregional trade and the transport of passengers, resolving the recurrent crises within the country at a time when the road system did not provide any certainty for trade because of its bad condition and lack of security. Another advantage of the railway was the considerable reduction of time and cost of transportation; for example, before the construction of the railways the stagecoach took two days to travel from Mexico City to Queretaro, three days to Irapuato, four days to Leon, five days to Aguascalientes, six days to Zacatecas, ten days to Chihuahua and eleven days to El Paso [on the northern Mexican border; M.S.G.].8 At the same time, ‘freight transport between Mexico City and Veracruz required between 350 wagons and 150 mules, which carried an average of 25,800 tons of goods, worth two million pesos’.9 Once in operation, the railway was able to substantially reduce the time of transport in the country to the border with the United States. Simultaneously ‘the ton of freight transported was multiplied by more than 5.5 from the beginning to the end, moving more than 140,000 tons of goods between the years 1875–1877’.10

258  Mónica Solórzano Gil The time saved in the transport of freight and passengers represented a radical change in Mexico’s economy. It allowed greater interregional trade due to the speed of transportation and communication between other haciendas and cities.11 This resulted in the immediate improvement of opportunities for trade, especially during the first decades of the nineteenth century, benefitting, above all, large-scale agriculture. The construction of railway lines from Mexico City created for the first time a national market for agricultural products. ‘The distances between these markets could now be covered faster and with fewer problems’.12 This nationwide progress made trade and the transport of products from the farthest regions available to towns and cities that were far away from the haciendas and other production centres. However, the railway did not reach all regions within the country. It was built gradually to reach certain places, especially those near production areas. Just as had been the case with the colonial roads, the disposition of the railway lines was oriented from central Mexico to the ports, mainly those of the Gulf, and also towards the borders, especially the northern border. ‘The construction of the first railway in Mexico was very slow and was affected by many obstacles resulting from the network of roads inherited from the colony, linking Mexico City with the port of Veracruz’.13 The haciendas near the railway stations benefitted the most; they increased their production and trade because their products could be sold with greater frequency, on a larger scale, and faster, without the great losses resulting from spoilage of their products and bad handling of cargo. ‘For the owners of the haciendas this represented exceptional opportunities’ to expand trade with foreign markets.14 In this manner, with the help of the railway, ‘the basis of the foundation of a national market of agricultural products was created for the first time’.15 Meanwhile, the haciendas which did not have railway service close to their lands were strongly affected in their economy, as they were at a disadvantage with the rest of the production centres. Many haciendas became isolated and gradually disintegrated because they could not compete commercially against those that benefitted from the proximity of the train. For all these reasons, the railway, in addition to being a symbol of modernity, ‘contributed to raising the standard of life in the country, given that an added value and social worth was given to each location’.16 In some areas, the process of building a railroad had already begun in the first part of the nineteenth century. Yet, by the time President Porfirio Diaz came into power in 1876, Mexico had only 640 kilometres of tracks, of which 424 kilometres were owned by Ferrocarril Mexicano, and another 114 kilometres used mules as a source of power instead of steam engines. As far as world standards were concerned, including Latin-American standards, this reflected a situation that was severely lagging behind. At that time there were over 6,000 kilometres of working railways in South America and even the smallest Central American republics had over 1,000 kilometres in operation.17

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  259 In the following presidential period ‘from 1880–1884 under Manuel Gonzalez, the railway network almost doubled. In this fashion the boom of the Mexican railway started precisely in 1880’ when two concessions were given to competitive groups of US businessmen.18 ‘During this period American engineers were brought to Mexico to construct the railways’.19 Officially, the Ferrocarril Central, which covered the section from the capital to Ciudad Juárez with a distance of 1,970 kilometres, began operations on 1 January 1880. ‘During this period President Gonzalez frequently inaugurated sections of this line and many others’.20 From 1881 on, ‘several American investors obtained concessions to build five railway systems within our country’.21 The year 1884 marks the return to power, once again, of Porfirio Diaz and, with it, a new stage in the consolidation of Mexico’s railways. Undoubtedly, the development of this means of transportation was the most important achievement of Porfirio Diaz’s long regime. ‘In this lapse of thirty years, the economy of the nation was set in motion towards modern economic growth’.22 Among other aspects of Porfirio Diaz’s presidency, the diplomatic relations, broken off with European countries after Maximilian’s execution, were re-established, as were those with the North American neighbours after the traumatic experience of the war and loss of territory.23 This renewal of diplomatic relations was prompted, among other things, by the desire to attract foreign capital for investments in a country that had been devastated by several wars and uprisings. In this way, ‘the regime of Porfirio Diaz activated the national economy and developed an internal market by soliciting foreign investors’.24 As an illustration of foreign investments acquired during the Diaz period, ‘French capital’ founded the Banco Nacional Mexicano, the bank which invested in railways – among other industrial businesses that the government of Diaz promoted – as well as in the establishment of large factories, resulting in the great impulse given to industrial development in Mexico.25 During this period large amounts of capital came to Mexico and by the end of the Porfirio Diaz presidential era, European capital constituted 62 per cent of foreign investments in Mexico, of which 33 per cent was put into the railways; the other 38 per cent of foreign investment came from the United States, of which 41.4 per cent went to railways. Besides the Ferrocarril Central, other important routes were built with foreign investment, such as the Ferrocarril Mexicano, the Ferrocarril Interoceanico, and the Veracruz to the Isthmus railway, which were mainly intended to transport goods for foreign trade with Europe. Diaz wanted to promote trade relations with the United States and Europe, and as he had done years before, during his second mandate, he signed treaties with Germany in 1882, with the United States in 1883, and with France in 1886.26

260  Mónica Solórzano Gil Reasons for focussing on stronger ties with the United States were, among other things, the prosperity achieved by that country as well as the scope of its railways. It was necessary to learn from this experience and to put it into practice in our own country. During this period a great impulse was given to the railway industry, with the construction of lines that established communication between the isolated regions of the country. Thus, by the end of 1884, 5,731 kilometres of railway track and telegraph lines were in service, and a passenger could travel by train from Mexico City to Toluca, to the cities in the valley of the Bajío, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, and to El Paso del Norte on the northern border. The railway from Nogales to Guaymas was already in use, with various branches to the central region. During the decade from 1877 to 1888, an average of 700 kilometres of track was constructed per year.27 In 1884, the completed trunk line of the Ferrocarril Central Mexicano was inaugurated, from Mexico City to El Paso, today known as Ciudad Juárez. ‘This line crossed the states of Hidalgo, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, and Durango, until its final destination on the northern border in Chihuahua’.28 Because of the progress made during the Diaz period and the successes in construction and development of the railway nationwide, ‘on 12 January 1888 the president was acclaimed a hero for his effort in national unification, international harmony, and for peace and progress’.29 Several years later, in 1898, the Department of Communication and Public Works was established, in a first attempt to control the anarchistic and subsidised railway concessions. This way, the government decided to regulate the system of concessions and develop specific requirements for obtaining them, which resulted in the first Ley General de Ferrocarriles (General Railways Law) that same year, when over 12,000 kilometres of tracks were laid.

The Process and Construction of the Railway Routes and Infrastructure in the State of Jalisco In the year 1884, the Compañia del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano finished construction of the line that ran from Mexico City to Ciudad Juárez, completing the 1,970 kilometres between terminals. Gradually after this date construction of railway stations was begun. By the year 1888, there were 121 stops on the line all the way to Ciudad Juárez.30 By 1894, the number of stations had increased to a total of 126 with five more stations on the trunk line. This number of stops is referred to by other authors who state that, when the line was still run by The Compañia del Ferrocarril Central, there were 128 stations, including the branch to Guanajuato with 23.3 additional kilometres. The main stations had all been constructed in masonry and in the secondary stations, wood was used.31 This occurred during 1894–1899 when construction of the stations

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  261 grew considerably as they were incorporated into the routes, augmenting the number of stations from 126 to 164 stations.32 By 1909, after the Central Mexican Railway was incorporated into the Compañia de Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico, there were 180 stations in all on the trunk line.33 Later, some new stations were built, while the stations that had been provisional were changed into permanent buildings. Jalisco is one of 31 states in Mexico, which along with the Federal District of Mexico, constitute the federal structure. It is located in the west, and is bordered by the states of Nayarit to the northwest, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, and San Luis Potosí to the north, Guanajuato to the east, and Colima and Michoacán to the south. Jalisco also has a long coastline on the Pacific Ocean, the most important port being Puerto Vallarta. In Jalisco, the first line reached Lagos and later, in 1883, Encarnación. On this section of the route that led to the north, the stations that were built and put into operation were Pedrito, Loma, Los Salas, Castro, Santa Maria Encarnación, and Tigre. The trunk line from Irapuato to Manzanillo was started in 1887 and finished a year later. As on the other lines, railway stations were constructed only gradually. The ones put into operation on this section were La Barca, Feliciano, Limon, Ocotlan, Santa Cruz el Grande, Poncitlan, Constancia, San Jacinto, Atequiza, La Capilla, El Castillo, Guadalajara, Tlajomulco, Flores, Mazatepec, Santa Ana, Catarina, Zacoalco, Verdía, Techaluta, Atoyac, Carmelita, Sayula, Manzano, Zapotlán, Huescalapa, Zapotiltic, Tuxpan, Quito, Atenquique, Platanar, Higuera, and Tonilita. Besides all these stations and their infrastructure, various bridges were built, such as those in La Barca and Ocotlan. Under the same company, construction of the branch from Guadalajara to Ameca began in October 1895 and was finished in 1896, with a length of 87,862 kilometres. The region which it served was rich in agricultural products from the nearby ranches and the railway contributed to their development. From that year on, the stations at Jocotán, La Venta, Orendain, Tala, Refugio, Cuicillos, Pacana, La Vega, Matute, Romero, Esperanza, and Ameca were gradually constructed and opened. By 1900, on the branch from La Vega to San Marcos 29.3 kilometres had been built on that route, and later the stations such as Carmen, Ahualulco, La Gavilana, Estancita, Etzatlán, Bárcena, and San Marcos were opened – the majority of them located at haciendas which mainly produced agave to manufacture mescal and tequila. A few years later, in 1905, construction of the Ocotlan to Atotonilco branch was begun, and the line was officially opened on 1 July 1907. Stations were opened at Zula, Alcalde, Navarro, and Atotonilco. Furthermore, the Guadalajara to Nogales trunk was built by the Southern Pacific of Mexico Company, which in 1951 was converted into the Ferrocarril Sud Pacifico. This line had a total length of 1761.3 kilometres and included various stations, such as the ones at Tequila, La Quemada, Magdalena, and Barrancas.34 On the Guadalajara to Chapala branch, the Fomento de Chapala S.A. Company constructed the track that connected Guadalajara with

262  Mónica Solórzano Gil Chapala between 1917 and 1920. This branch started from the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico (National Railway Company of Mexico) trunk, going from Irapuato to Manzanillo, and reaching the La Capilla station. Beginning at this location, there were stations at the hacienda Buenavista, Ixtlahuacán, Santa Cruz de la Soledad, and finally Chapala.

Urban Transformation of Guadalajara City and the Railway Rail service to Guadalajara city was inaugurated in 1888, but all passenger and freight stations along the line still remained to be built during the next three years. In Guadalajara itself, construction of the station began in 1891. It was considered the largest and most important of the entire route. Before arriving in Guadalajara, the railroad passed near several haciendas and made some detours on the way to nearby factories (Figure 12.1). With the arrival of the railway in Guadalajara, several changes occurred that contributed to making the city more cosmopolitan: the constant arrival of outsiders changed the social structure, which modified daily living habits, lifestyle, architecture, and the way people looked at the city and the world. However, the most important transformation was brought about by changes to the urban plan since the decision to locate the station in a central area resulted in a radical modification of the urban structure in the city’s southern part. For Guadalajara, the railroad also had a significant, distorting effect in relation to the urban grid of new settlements that would be constructed

Figure 12.1  Guadalajara Station Project of 1911. Source: Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos, Mapoteca, Map-1410.

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  263 years after the arrival of the railroad and that caused a change in the city’s layout to the south and southwest. The impact on urban activities near the station was immediate, because its location in a very central part altered the city’s layout, blocking the continuity of streets, and also endangering the lives of its residents, since from some trains flammable materials and explosives were unloaded, which remained a long time in storage.35 The Guadalajara railway also caused changes in the use of land, because of the establishment of successful hotels and shops around the station. Moreover, several industries were developed near the railway yards, which facilitated the loading and unloading of raw materials and processed products (Figure 12.2).36 Guadalajara’s urban sprawl continued to transform the city in the following years, as we see on the map of the year 1908. We notice how the city expanded and developed, considering the reticular layout that had prevailed in the city in the first decade of the twentieth century. However, some neighbourhoods were built according to the layout imposed by the railway station. Such is the case of Colonia Moderna, where the layout was parallel to the railroad tracks, and also of Colonia Americana, where the reticular layout was modified in order to be aligned with the railway. Thus, the railway had an important influence on the city’s spatial configuration, modifying its urban space and causing major changes in streets that had had continuity until that time.

Figure 12.2  N  orth View of the Guadalajara Station in 1929. Photo: Centro de investigación y documentación ferroviaria, Museo Nacional de los ferrocarriles mexicanos, Fototeca, Map. I-259.1–34.

264  Mónica Solórzano Gil

The Abandonment and Gradual Destruction of the Railway System and Its Infrastructure The Mexican Revolution was an armed conflict that began in 1910 between revolutionary troops and President Porfirio Diaz, longtime dictator. Mexico had acquired significant economic growth and political stability but with a high social cost that caused inequality among various groups in the population. Despite the circumstances, several rail lines and sections were constructed during this time, many of which still remain in use. The rebellion lasted until about 1920. Meanwhile, the First World War also broke out. Mexico’s situation was very complicated because of the internal conflicts and the country remained aloof from this international conflict. As a result of political developments caused by the Mexican Revolution, a new constitution was promulgated in 1917 that established a policy of religious intolerance against Catholicism specifically. An armed struggle followed, from 1926 to 1929, between the government and the church, in which it is estimated that 250,000 people died, civilians as well as military forces. Many of the battles were conducted using the country’s railway infrastructure, which suffered severe damage. This armed conflict is known as the Cristero War or Cristiada. Between 1935 and 1937, the railway suffered attacks through civil disorder, because of the uprisings that preceded stability in the country.37 It was in the year 1937, under the government of Lázaro Cardenas, that the nationalisation of all railways lines within the country became definitive, and that according to the government all railways should come under federal control. This led to the founding of the decentralised company, Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico (FERRONALES, National Railway of Mexico). Along with the global recovery from the economic crisis, this development permitted the railway to rise again in Mexico.38 In the first stages of the Second World War, Mexico remained neutral, but this would change a few years later, mainly because of its geographical location and several economic and political aspects. First, Mexico participated as petroleum distributor for the armament of the Allied countries. Then, in solidarity with the United States, it ended diplomatic and consular relations with the Axis powers. The country also contributed with its thousands of workers who grew agricultural products and who helped maintain railways in the United States during the war. In 1954 the Compañía Nacional Constructora de Carros de Ferrocarril (The National Railway Car Construction Company) allowed to supply the railways with national products, remodelling the cars and replacing the old steam engines with more modern diesel engines.39 Even under these circumstances, the short or secondary lines continued to function autonomously up to the 1970s, although they continued to be state-owned.40 By presidential agreement in January 1977, the five railway companies came under the responsibility of the FERRONALES, and ‘from 1985 on the company

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  265

Figure 12.3  S  an Marcos Station Abandoned. Source: Courtesy of the author, taken in 2005.

started the rehabilitation of the tracks and the improvement and rebuilding of its infrastructure’ (Figure 12.3).41 Years later, in 1994, the process of the restructuring and privatisation of the railway system was begun through the reform of article 28 of the Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States), promoted by the president at that time, Ernesto Zedillo.42 Since then, the Mexican railway system has been open to private and social enterprises through a regime of concessions and permits. As a result of these measures, passenger service has slowly begun to disappear, until it will finally be abandoned. The buildings and the infrastructure, such as the stations, have fallen into neglect and subsequently, there has been a rapid and accelerated loss of a part of our cultural heritage, built up over the years by the different companies that had administrated the railways.

The Railway System in the State of Jalisco at the Present Time Of the entire railway network that had been constructed in the country from the end of the nineteenth century through the first part of the twentieth century, only a few routes are still in use at the present time. In some sections, service has been suspended completely, and other consolidated routes that functioned until not too long ago, have lost their passenger service in recent years and now transport only cargo.

266  Mónica Solórzano Gil At present, ‘Jalisco has 665 kilometres of railway routes, including the three trunk lines and the branch lines that make up the optional short lines breaking off from the others’.43 Of these trunk lines running through the state, some connect with the northern border of the country, such as the trunk Mexico City to Ciudad Juárez. The line that connects Guadalajara with Nogales, comes second, and it splits into two branches, one of which (52 kilometres) connects Orendain with Ameca, while the other branch, from La Vega to Ezatlan, is 34 kilometres long. The third trunk line that passes through the state, runs from Irapuato to Manzanillo. From this line, a branch breaks off and connects Ocotlan with Atotonilco, consisting of 35 kilometres. Along all these main lines and branches, railway stations had slowly been built, including the infrastructure that served the locomotives and catered for passengers. A great majority of the stations has fallen into disuse, and only a few are used as traffic control points by the railway concessions.

The Preservation of Our Railway Heritage in Disuse, a Pending Issue in Mexico The reuse and rehabilitation of heritage property present itself as the logical step to take for these buildings, reinstating their original function if possible at all, or else adapting these aged structures to present-day requirements, always showing a special respect for these vestiges of the past and the authenticity of the buildings so as to achieve their conservation.44 Through rehabilitation, it is possible to make these buildings habitable, if one understands their capacity to offer a high standard of living through conservation of their spaces and structure. In order to recuperate the habitability of our heritage the rehabilitation of a building requires an established plan of intervention, where all the work that is done on repairs, conservation, restoration, and new installation systems is reflected, and the work necessary for the correct application of current building regulations is specified.45 However, one must have a clear understanding that ‘rehabilitation does not guarantee conservation of the structure by its inhabitants’, and it is necessary that the structures satisfy the actual needs of the new users of this heritage.46 This means that conservation of the buildings must meet the objectives of the society which owns them so that in this manner it is possible to reappropriate the identity of these buildings and therefore their conservation. In Mexico, for over a decade, all passenger trains have been cancelled completely, and at this moment the feasibility of passenger traffic being reinstated in the short or long term is not clear, making it almost impossible for these buildings to be reused. In this case, a new use adapted to rehabilitation

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  267 and conservation of the railway heritage has to be found. This type of heritage property, which includes railway stations, has great potential because of their versatility of design and location; many stations could be incorporated into urban development programs and much more aggressive restoration. The railway stations have an important potential to be rehabilitated for diverse uses, such as housing and transportation, public spaces and for cultural tourism.47 The present deterioration and abandonment of the railway stations in Jalisco are alarming and urgent action is required for their rescue and conservation. Unfortunately, this situation is not being remedied promptly by the Mexican authorities concerned, resulting in an uncertain situation for this cultural heritage. Just in the state of Jalisco 30 stations are considered to have heritage value. Detailed analysis shows a significant number of problems that reflect the condition of these stations, of which 11 are in disuse and exposed to vandalism and deterioration due to their abandonment. Four stations are presently in use by the concession companies as traffic control points. Ten stations are used for mixed purposes such as housing, a grocery store, a carpentry workshop, a sports club, and an agave syrup factory. Lastly, five stations are in ruins and showing advanced deterioration. Some stations still have other structures and infrastructure such as water tanks, a stationmaster’s house, warehouses, and other elements, all of these standing empty. Finally, there are at least three stations that have been irretrievably lost. Without any doubt, we still have a lot of work to do in the field of railway heritage conservation in Mexico.

Notes 1 It refers to the association dedicated to the transport of goods in New Spain. 2 J. Sanz Fernández, Historia de los ferrocarriles de Iberoamérica: 1837–1995 (Madrid 1998), 340. 3 Ibid. 4 D. Cosío Villegas, Historia General de México (Mexico City 1998), 911. 5 Secretaría Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT), and Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM), Caminos de hierro (Mexico City 1996). 6 S. J. Gutiérrez Álvarez, 1930 – Las Comunicaciones en América: De la Senda Primitiva al Ferrocarril (Madrid 1993), 365. 7 Ibid., 908. 8 F. F. Garma Franco, Railroads in Mexico: An Illustrated History, 2 vols. (Denver, Colorado 1988), vol. 2, part 2, 241. 9 Sanz Fernández, Historia de los ferrocarriles de Iberoamérica, 342. 10 Ibid. 11 Haciendas were units with vast territory considered to be the most important rural production centres and dedicated to farming, ranching, or mining, or combined activities. They had housing for owners and workers and their families,

268  Mónica Solórzano Gil and in most cases centres that included churches, schools, and shops for their inhabitants. From an architectural point of view they were large complexes of great value because of their formal and spatial characteristics. 12 H. Günther Mertens, Atlixco y las haciendas durante el Porfiriato (Mexico City 1983), 62. 13 Sanz Fernández, Historia de los ferrocarriles de Iberoamérica, 340. 14 J. H. Coastwart, Crecimiento contra desarrollo: El impacto económico de los ferrocarriles en el Porfiriato (Mexico City 1976), 120. 15 Mertens, Atlixco y las haciendas durante el Porfiriato, 71. 16 R. Vargas Salguero, Historia de la Arquitectura y Urbanismo Mexicanos (Mexico City 1999), 487. 17 S. Kuntz Ficker, ‘El ferrocarril Central Mexicano: claroscuros de una gran empresa en el México porfiriano’, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Boletín documental del Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Nueva época, 5, no. 19, 2004, 3–10. 18 Coastwart, Crecimiento contra desarrollo, 26. 19 Gutiérrez Álvarez, 1930 – Las Comunicaciones en América, 365. 20 Cosío Villegas, Historia General de México, 945. 21 Ibid., 941. 22 Kuntz Ficker, ‘El ferrocarril Central Mexicano’, 3. 23 Ibid., 4. 24 P. Juárez Lucas, ʻInversionistas e intermediarios en el nacimiento del Ferrocarril Central Mexicanoʼ, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Boletín documental del Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Nueva época, 5, no. 19, 2004, 17–19. 25 Cosío Villegas, Historia General de México, 942. 26 Ibid., 945. 27 Ibid., 946. 28 L. Carregha Lamadrid, Camino de hierro al puerto: Estaciones del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano en el estado de San Luis Potosí (Mexico City 2003), 21. 29 Cosío Villegas, Historia General de México, 953. 30 C. Vélez Rocha, ‘De México a Ciudad Juárez: Una mirada a las estaciones del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano’, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Boletín documental del Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Nueva época, 5, no. 19, 2004, 11. 31 Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT), Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM), Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos (MNFM) De las Estaciones (Mexico City 1995), 27. 32 Ibid., 27. 33 Ibid., 12. 34 Signor John R. and Kirchner John A., The Southern Pacific in Mexico and West Coast Route (San Marino, CA 1987), 52. 35 Garma Franco, Railroads in Mexico: An Illustrated History, vol. 2, part 2, 187. 36 Beatriz Nuñez Miranda, Guadalajara: una visión del siglo XX (El colegio de Jalisco, Ayuntamiento Constitucional de Guadalajara 1999), 44. 37 FNM, Inauguración del ferrocarril a Manzanillo. Ochenta aniversario. Álbum descriptivo (Guadalajara, Jalisco 1908), 8. 38 Ibid. 39 National Building Company of Railway Cars. 40 Gutiérrez Álvarez, 1930 – Las Comunicaciones en América, 380. 41 FNM, Inauguración del ferrocarril a Manzanillo, 10. 42 The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States.

Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico  269 43 Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Elementos para la Reutilización de la infraestructura ferroviaria en el Estado de Jalisco (Mexico City 2005), 8. 44 The understanding of authenticity plays a fundamental role in all scolarly studies of the cultural heritage, in conservation and restoration planning, as well as within the inscription procedures used for the World Heritage Convention and other cultural heritage inventories. UNESCO-ICOMOS, The Nara document on authenticity (Nara 1994), 3. 45 J. Coscollano Rodríguez, Restauración y rehabilitación de edificios (Paraninfo 2003), 213. 46 A. Rosas Mantecón, ‘La dificultad de conservar’, in Néstor García Canclini, ed., Cultura y comunicación en la ciudad de México (Mexico City 1998), 189. 47 M. E. Castillo de Curry, Adecuación del marco legal para la protección del patrimonio ferroviario en México: Las estaciones como zonas de conservación. Memories. Segundo encuentro nacional para la conservación de patrimonio industrial. El patrimonio industrial mexicano frente al nuevo milenio y la experiencia latinoamericana (Mexico City 2002), 426.

Literature Carregha Lamadrid, L., Camino de hierro al puerto: Estaciones del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano en el estado de San Luis Potosí (Mexico City 2003). Castillo de Curry, M. E., Adecuación del marco legal para la protección del patrimonio ferroviario en México: Las estaciones como zonas de conservación. Memories. Segundo encuentro nacional para la conservación de patrimonio industrial. El patrimonio industrial mexicano frente al nuevo milenio y la experiencia latinoamericana (Mexico City 2002). Coastwart, J. H., Crecimiento contra desarrollo: El impacto económico de los ferrocarriles en el Porfiriato (Mexico City 1976). Compañía Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM), Inauguración del ferrocarril a Manzanillo. Ochenta aniversario. Álbum descriptivo (Guadalajara, Jalisco 1908). Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Elementos para la Reutilización de la infraestructura ferroviaria en el Estado de Jalisco (Mexico City 2005). Coscollano Rodríguez, J., Restauración y rehabilitación de edificios (Paraninfo 2003). Cosío Villegas, D., Historia General de México (Mexico City 1998). Garma Franco, F. F., Railroads in Mexico: An Illustrated History, 2 vols. (Denver, CO 1988). Günther Mertens, H., Atlixco y las haciendas durante el Porfiriato (Mexico City 1983). Gutiérrez Álvarez, S. J., 1930 – Las Comunicaciones en América: De la Senda Primitiva al Ferrocarril (Madrid 1993). John R., Signor and John A, Kirchner. The Southern Pacific in Mexico and West Coast Route (San Marino, CA 1987). Juárez Lucas, P., Inversionistas e intermediarios en el nacimiento del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano, in Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Boletín documental del Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Nueva época, 5, no. 19, 2004, 17–19.

270  Mónica Solórzano Gil Kuntz Ficker, S., ‘El ferrocarril Central Mexicano: claroscuros de una gran empresa en el México porfiriano’, in Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), Boletín documental del Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Nueva época, 5, no. 19, 2004, 3–10. Rosas Mantecón, A., ‘La dificultad de conservar’, in García Canclini, ed., Néstor, Cultura y comunicación en la ciudad de México (Mexico City 1998). Sanz Fernández, J., Historia de los ferrocarriles de Iberoamérica: 1837–1995 (Madrid 1998). Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT), Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM), Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos (MNFM), De las Estaciones, Mexico City 1995. UNESCO-ICOMOS, The Nara document on authenticity (Nara 1994). Vargas Salguero, R., Historia de la Arquitectura y Urbanismo Mexicanos (Mexico City 1999). Vélez Rocha, C., ‘De México a Ciudad Juárez: Una mirada a las estaciones del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano’, in Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (CONACULTA), Boletín documental del Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Nueva época, 5, no. 19, 2004.

Part IV

Urban Rails and How They Affected, and Still Affect, the City

13 Private Railways as Urban Developers in Japan Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins

Railways in Japan Japan today has one of the largest and most densely used railway networks in the world with a length of nearly 27,000 kilometres, operated by 200 companies, transporting 63 million passengers a day (with a population of 127 million). However, Japan’s railway development started much later than in Europe or America, and the first railway was only opened between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1872. This line was built by the government. It later became the Tokaido Line, Japan’s most important route, extended via Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka to Kobe which was fully opened in 1889. Other main lines were built and operated by private railways. By the late 1880s, five major private railways – Hokkaido Colliery Railway, Nippon Railway, Kansai Railway, Sanyo Railway and Kyushu Railway – existed in addition to the Japan Government Railways (JGR), as well as numerous smaller private railways. Following Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War, the government saw the need to nationalise the network for strategic purposes and bought most of the large private railways in 1906 and 1907. However, local private railways, in the countryside as well as around the cities, were not affected by this nationalisation, as the government wanted them as branches for its main line network and wanted to concentrate investment in the long-distance lines.1 In the following years, a clear dichotomy developed: The national government built and operated the national railway network to connect the main urban and industrial areas, while private railways connected smaller cities to the railway network and built suburban lines.2 This has been kept over the years, and today private railways can be either short, single-track lines with diesel railcars, or large suburban networks with electrified double or quadruple tracks. In 1987, the Japan National Railways (JNR) was broken up into six privatised regional railways called Japan Railways (JR). Some un-remunerative lines became third-sector operations (involving both public and private finance), as did some new suburban routes. Although shares in the four largest JR companies have since been sold to private investors by the government, there is still a clear distinction in Japan between JR and the other private railways.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-18

274  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins

Urban Railways With few exceptions, Japan’s first railway lines provided long-distance links by connecting major cities, or were freight lines serving coal mines. Urban transport was provided by rickshaws and later by horse trams, and Japan’s first electric tramway opened in 1895 in Kyoto. At its peak, there were 70 tramway systems in Japan, with clear distinctions between tram, light and heavy rail not always being easy to draw. The first of these systems closed as early as 1929 (Iwakuni) when it became clear that traffic levels were not high enough for any further investment when the original equipment had to be replaced, but most of the systems became victims of the motorisation in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, 21 tramway systems in Japan with a total of almost 280 kilometres remain. Japan’s first underground railway opened in 1927 in Tokyo, followed by Osaka’s first line in 1933. Since the war, seven more cities have built subways forming a total network of 749 kilometres. One distinctive feature of Japan’s urban transit is the ten monorail and eleven Automated Guideway Transit (AGT) systems called peoplemover, the highest number in the world, with a total of 217 kilometres of tracks.3 However, what is most relevant for Japan’s urban development are the railways that reach out into the suburbs, and in this article, we want to concentrate on the private railways and their role in developing the suburbs, particularly through housing, shown by the example of the two largest conurbations, Tokyo and Osaka. Tokyo Prefecture has 13 million inhabitants, living in an area of 2,200 square kilometres; Greater Tokyo, i.e. the four prefectures of Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa and Tokyo, has 35 million inhabitants and 13,500 square kilometres. Osaka City has a population of 2.6 million people living in 220 square kilometres, while Greater Osaka, i.e. the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and their surroundings, has 18 million inhabitants and 11,600 square kilometres. The two urban areas of Tokyo and Osaka therefore constitute more than 40 per cent of Japan’s population. A loop line forms the core of the railway network in both cities: In Tokyo, this is the Yamanote Line with a length of 34 kilometres, and in Osaka the Osaka Loop Line with a length of 22 kilometres. Both run overground, are operated by JR and connect the major railway stations, in a similar way to London’s Circle Line. Radial lines reach out to the suburbs from these major stations. Inside these loops, there are very few railway lines, but a dense network of underground lines: thirteen in Tokyo and eight in Osaka. Connections to the suburbs are made by six JR lines and seven private railways in Tokyo and five JR lines and five private railways in Osaka.4 To travel from the suburbs to the city centre, one has to take a JR line or a private railway to its terminus along the loop line and then transfer to a subway line or a bus. To relieve overcrowding at those terminal stations, some subway lines have been connected to the suburban railway lines, providing through running trains so that there is no need to change trains.

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  275 Railways in Tokyo and Osaka are very efficient in the sense of punctuality, frequency and capacity. All lines are electrified and double-track, some even quadruple-track. Standard train length is ten cars, with some trains even up to 15 cars long. Trains run with a headway of no more than two minutes, and are packed to in excess of 200 per cent of capacity during the rush hour. The standard transportation capacity is designed for up to 80,000 people per track per hour (Figures 13.1 and 13.2). As mentioned above, the JGR (later JNR, and privatised as JR) traditionally concentrated on long-distance traffic, but JR lines are now also offering intensive suburban services. However, their heritage is reflected in station distances. For example, between Shinagawa in southern Tokyo and Yokohama with a distance of 22 kilometres, two lines run parallel, but the private Keihin Kyuko Railway has 25 stations on this section, while JR’s Keihin Tohoku Line has only nine. A similar situation is the 38 kilometres long route from Shinjuku, the busiest Tokyo hub, to Hachioji where the private Keio Railway has 34 stations, while JR has 20. In Osaka, three lines connect the main station (Umeda) with the shopping and entertainment centre at Sannomiya in Kobe. All in all, this route is 32 kilometres long and on this route JR has 14 stations, the private Hankyu Railway has 16 and the private Hanshin Railway has 32 stations. However, having more stations does not mean that the services are slower. Competition between these parallel lines is not done by price dumping – because railway fares are highly regulated in Japan – but by speed and quality of service. Each railway offers a variety of services, from local trains stopping everywhere to rapid and express trains. Some stations have extra platforms so that local trains can be overtaken by faster ones and transfers from slow to fast trains and vice-versa are possible.

Housing in Japan Housing in Japan shows both similarities and contrasts with other industrialised countries. Although famously characterised at the end of the 1970s as consisting of ‘rabbit hutches’, as described by Sir Roy Denman, the European Economic Community (EEC) director-general for external relations, interior space, particularly of houses as opposed to apartments, is not surprisingly markedly less than in the United States but not so far below that in European countries.5 Housing life expectancy though is markedly lower, influenced partly by its seismic situation. Although new construction techniques have mitigated this and, for example, allowed much higher-rise construction in recent decades in cities such as Tokyo, other factors including a strong desire for convenience and modernity have contributed to this short lifespan, as opposed to countries such as Britain where older houses, particularly from certain historical periods, have a strong cachet. In addition, the greater separation of the land and building element with a house purchase in Japan is more akin to U.S. ‘subdivisions’ than the uniformity and cohesion of building and land in Britain.

276  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins

Figure 13.1 Urban Railways in Central Tokyo and Southwest Kanto. Source: Created by the authors.

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  277

Figure 13.2 Urban Railways in Osaka and the Neighbouring Area. Source: Created by the authors.

Ann Waswo sees the greatest similarity in the state of development of housing during the twentieth century being with France.6 France and Japan moved from agrarian to industrialised societies later than Britain or Germany. They were slower in developing state supported public housing,

278  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins eventually concentrating on apartments rather than houses, and company housing played a greater role than in other comparable countries. Private railways, as this article will show, have always mainly targeted the middle class. This strategy both reflected and contributed to changes in the wider Japanese housing market. Well into the inter-war period, home ownership was restricted to the upper classes and business owners, who combined their housing with business premises, with as much as 90 per cent of housing being rented in major cities.7 Therefore, the target for the railway companies was an ‘affluent clientele of well-educated professionals and businessmen’.8

Before the Second World War – Reaching Out into the Suburbs Japan’s modern industrial development began after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, much later than in Europe. Industrialisation resulted in a population increase in the large cities, which at first could be absorbed by higher density within the existing city borders, but around 1900 Japan’s major cities started expanding their surface area. The cities which had grown larger thus needed tramways and railways. Early in the twentieth century, Osaka was Japan’s second most important city with 1.2 million inhabitants and its preeminent industrial city. Takarazuka, about 20 kilometres northwest of Osaka, had been founded as a post station in the seventeenth century and developed its hot spring (onsen) facilities in the late 1880s. To take a relaxing soak at an onsen has long been one of the favourite pastimes of the Japanese, and being close to Osaka, Takarazuka soon became popular. The private Hankaku Railway, ­nationalised in 1907, opened a line from Takarazuka southwards to Amagasaki in 1897 that gave Takarazuka a connection to the port of Amagasaki and also a link to the main railway line between Osaka and Kobe. Only a few years later, in 1910, the Minoo-Arima Tramway, which was the predecessor of the Hankyu Railway opened its 24 kilometres long line from Umeda in the neighbourhood of the Government railway station in Osaka to Takarazuka, providing a fast and direct service between both cities. Private railways’ main source of income was from fares. To increase ­revenue, the companies had to increase the number of passengers and engage in other businesses that could generate revenue. The ideal solution was to combine both strategies, as will be shown with Hankyu, which was one of the first railways to engage actively in non-railway activities, promoted by its leading figure, Ichizo Kobayashi (1873–1957), who, with his political connections, is considered to be one of Japan’s most influential railway industrialists. With attractive destinations at both ends, Hankyu did not only depend on commuter traffic into Osaka but also on leisure traffic outwards to Takarazuka, so achieving good load factors for its trains. As a next step, Takarazuka had to be further developed, which started with Hankyu’s own onsen facilities, which opened in 1912. In 1913, the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female music theatre troupe, was founded, which today is still the

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  279 best-known revue group in Japan. In 1924, a theatre for the group was built, the Takarazuka Hotel in 1926, a zoo and amusement park (later: Familyland) followed in 1928, all developed by Hankyu.9 Osaka itself had enough appeal to attract a large number of people living along the Hankyu line to ride its trains to get to the city. However, the Umeda terminus was still at some distance from the city centre, so the passengers had to change onto trams, later onto the underground. As everybody thus had to get off the trains anyway, Hankyu was the second company in Japan that opened a department store at a railway terminus in 1929.10 Until then department stores had only been operated by long-established apparel stores, such as Mitsukoshi (dating from 1673) and Takashimaya (1829) in traditional shopping areas, which were at some distance from railway stations. As the department stores in the new locations proved popular, more followed soon: In Tokyo, the Tobu Railway opened its Asakusa station in 1931, which was located on the second floor of a department store building, in 1934 the Tokyu Railway opened its Shibuya department store and in 1935 a department store opened next to the Seibu Railway’s terminus in Ikebukuro which was bought by the railway in 1940. In Osaka, the Hanshin Railway opened a shop in 1933, and Kintetsu Railway opened two department stores at its stations, in 1936 at Uehonmachi and 1937 at Abenobashi. The Hankyu Railway opened a second department store at the terminus of its line to Kobe in Sannomiya which was destroyed in the 1995 Kobe earthquake. As described above, attractive destinations in the immediate vicinity of the terminal stations helped to achieve a balanced ridership. To further secure a stable base of passengers, commuters using the trains daily would be very welcome. The decision to build housing along the railway lines in the ­suburbs would not only help alleviate the housing shortage (the vacancy rate in Osaka was as low as 0.15 per cent in 1919), but also offer housing in a more comfortable and healthy environment.11 Partly influenced by Ebenezer Howard’s idea of a garden city, the Hanshin Electric Railway, operating a line between Osaka and Kobe, published a booklet called ‘Recommendation to live outside the city’ in 1908.12 However, the first railway company in Japan to engage in the real estate business was the aforementioned Minoo-Arima Tramway (later Hankyu Railway), which started to develop the Ikeda-Muromachi area in 1910, the same year the railway opened for traffic.13 The company bought 91,000 square metres of land immediately west of its Ikeda station, parcelled it into 200 lots of 260–330 square metres each, built detached houses on it with a living area of between 60 and 100 square metres and sold them. The railway company also built all the infrastructure comprising roads, sewerage, parks and clubhouses.14 Another example in south-western Osaka is the Yamamoto district, developed by the Osaka Electric Railway (later Kintetsu) together with the Sumitomo Corporation. The railway line and the station Kawachi-Yamamoto were opened in 1925, and the first residents moved in in 1928. However, to increase the appeal of

280  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins the new district, in 1927 and 1931 two parcels of land were given to the city for free to construct two schools.15 What such companies did, and continue to do, is to directly develop and market housing, in contrast to railway companies abroad. Closest to the Japanese mode was the Metropolitan Railway in Britain, which was famous for promoting the residential potential and amenities of the area, northwest of London, where it can be reached with its network of trains. It published an annual booklet ‘Metro-land’ between 1919 and 1932, half of which contained builders’ advertisements. In addition, then as now, builders might contribute funds to the building of one of its new stations.16 Between 1929 and 1938, the Metropolitan built the Harrow Garden Suburb to the north of its line, while a building company developed more modest housing to the south.17 As Robert Selbie, the company’s general manager, said: ‘Railway companies are trusted and not open to the suspicion that often attaches to the speculative builder’.18 Selbie’s words do indicate, though, the status of railway companies which could be expected to stop them from building the kind of low-quality dwellings which many other builders in Japan constructed in the early-postwar period when there was a major housing shortage, as will be discussed below. In the period up to 1941, Hankyu built a total of 22 housing districts along its lines, while among the other private railways in Osaka Hanshin just built one, Nankaitwo, Kintetsu three and Keihan twelve. This reflects the d ­ ifferent strategies of each railway company, as those who did not invest much in housing, developed more leisure facilities like Hanshin which opened eight parks, pools and playgrounds between 1905 and 1929 or extended their network. For example, this was the case for Kintetsu which is today the largest private railway in Japan.19 In western Tokyo, the Denen Toshi Company which was established in 1918 built its garden city called Denenchofu. It was also modelled on the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, whose ideas were embodied in developments such as Letchworth and Welwyn Garden Cities, north of London. The overall construction of the garden city was completed in the summer of 1923, just before the Great Kanto earthquake struck on 1 September 1923, which destroyed much of central Tokyo, including total loss of, or serious damage to, an estimated 465,000 dwellings.20 Thus people moving out of the destroyed city contributed to the development of Denenchofu and other areas in the west of Tokyo. It was also in 1923 that Denenchofu Railway Station opened, providing a link to Meguro on the Yamanote loop line in Tokyo, and in 1927, a second line connected the garden city with Shibuya (also on the Yamanote Line) and Yokohama. Both lines are now part of the private Tokyu Railway Company, whose predecessor, the Meguro-Kamata Railway, merged with the Denen Toshi Company in 1928. Thus, Denenchofu was not developed by a railway but strongly connected to it. Although Denenchofu was ­originally an area for middle-class people, it soon became one of Tokyo’s most ­prestigious districts, so that today it is famous as a suburb for the wealthy.21

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  281

After the Second World War – Housing Pressure and Rapid Growth During the Second World War, some of the private railways in the large cities were merged by the government in order to achieve more efficiency. Some of these mergers have remained in force until today, while others did not last long. During and immediately after the war, the railways could not do much to extend their businesses due to the war economy. After the Second World War, with as many as 2.4 million dwellings destroyed by bombing, there was both a shortage of housing and of materials to construct replacements. The railway companies went somewhat downmarket with smaller, higher-density developments, epitomising the reduction in interior space during this period. They played their part in the growth of home ownership and the role of the private sector, which saw nearly 15 million out of the total 23 million dwellings built between 1945 and 1973 being privately funded. In south-western Tokyo, the Tokyu Railway opened the first stage of its Denentoshi (literally ‘garden city’) Line between Mizonokuchi (Kawasaki) and Nagatsuta (Yokohama) in 1966, opening up a vast area 30 to 40 kilometres southwest of Tokyo for large-scale settlement. This is probably the largest housing project in Japan, covering an area of 5,000 hectares with an initially projected population of 347,000. It has proved to be very popular, with the population exceeding 450,000 in 2000 and still growing.22 Similar projects by other private railways, but smaller in scale include Keio’s Takao Line in western Tokyo (opened in 1967) and Sotetsu’s Izumino Line in Yokohama (opened in 1976). However, most private railways had completed their basic network in the mid-1930s, and after the war, they concentrated rather on expanding transportation capacity than on building new lines, and thus also on adding new housing near their existing lines.23 But as the population of the large cities grew rapidly, the need for larger housing areas was great. Thus, the Japan Housing Corporation was founded by the national government in 1955, which built huge settlements for thousands of people, among them several so-called new towns. During this time, land prices started rising sharply, so many of these new towns were built far away from existing railway lines, where land was inexpensive, although some of them were later connected to newly built public subways and railways, including third-sector lines (see above). Another distinction between public and private developers is that the public corporations have mainly built rental housing, while the private companies have continued to concentrate on selling plots and detached houses. Rising land prices also brought about smaller plots. While the standard plot size before the war was 200–300 square metres, after the war, 100 square metres was common, rarely exceeding 150 square metres.24 From the early 1950s, Japan enjoyed a period of strong economic growth, and more department stores were built by the railway companies at their terminus or hub stations: in Nagoya, Meitetsu opened its department store in 1954, followed by Kintetsu next door in 1966. In Tokyo, Tobu opened its Ikebukuro

282  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins department store in 1962, in Shinjuku, Odakyu (1962) and Keio (1964) followed. In Osaka, Hankyu’s passengers increased mainly due to a growing number of people living along its railway lines, and the Umeda terminal fast became congested. Thus, the terminal was moved northwards by 400 metres in 1973, to give Hankyu space in the former station location to enlarge its department store and to develop new commercial facilities.25 In total, Hankyu built 13 large buildings around the station with a floor space of about 400,000 square metres between 1959 and 1999.26 These developments strengthened the role of the stations and furthered the development of transit-oriented urban subcentres. The most prominent examples are Umeda, Kyobashi and Namba along the Osaka Loop Line and Ikebukuro, Shinjuku and Shibuya along the Yamanote Line in Tokyo. The railways built department stores, office buildings, hotels and leisure facilities, and other companies also added to these amenities. Huge numbers of commuters pass through these areas every day, and they are also variously popular with shoppers, whether a younger clientele (as at Shibuya) or a somewhat older one (as at Ikebukuro).27

The Bubble Period Onwards – Railway Reform Creates a New Player Japan’s railway reform in 1987 partly deregulated its railway sector. While the JNR was not allowed to directly do business in any non-railway-related activity, this limitation was lifted for its successor companies. For example, JR Tokai (JR Central), which is based in Nagoya in central Japan, started its first housing project in 1989, two years after the company was founded. It has since been engaged in a wide variety of real estate projects; however, the share of real estate in the company revenue is still much lower than in the private railways.28 Major projects of the new JR companies have been redevelopments of their main stations, which had so far mainly been used for railway-only functions. Large new high-rises incorporating department stores, offices and hotels were opened in Kyoto (1997), Nagoya (1999), Fukuoka/Hakata and Osaka (both 2011), thus copying the long successful ways of the private railways. In Tokyo, however, the historic station building has been preserved and reconstructed in its original form, because the development rights for high-rises were not used by JR on its own land, but sold to companies in the neighbourhood, which could then use these rights to build taller buildings than originally allowed.29 In the housing business, Hankyu and other private railways have mainly been active in selling plots and ready-built detached houses, but since the 1980s, these companies have increasingly developed sites at a greater distance from their lines due to lack of available land closer by, and catered for an increasingly motorised society.30 In addition, they have joined the wider development of the more spacious middle-market condominium, generally known as manshon, to distinguish them from apaato which are smaller, even one-room apartments. In addition, increasingly, manshon development (especially highrise condominiums) takes place in the centre of the cities as well as along the

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  283 suburban railway lines. After Japan’s asset price bubble burst in 1991, property prices have been falling, thus making inner-city neighbourhoods more affordable again for ordinary people. The population in Tokyo’s central districts, which had been shrinking for decades, has started growing again since 1996.31

Financial Aspects for Railway Companies The real estate business has had various effects on the financial situation of railway companies. For example, when the Mekama Railway (later Tokyu) was intensively selling land in Denenchofu garden city and other areas in 1929, real estate contributed to 43.3 per cent of the railway company’s income. However, by the time most of the plots had been sold in 1938, real estate contributed only 19.3 per cent. Another example is the Keisei Railway in eastern Tokyo, whose real estate activities only made up 1 per cent of its income in 1932, but 17.1 per cent in 1938.32 In the last decade, the railways have been facing a difficult environment with the number of passengers decreasing on many lines due to an ageing society, shrinking population in the most densely inhabited urban areas and an increase in the use of automobiles. For example, Hankyu’s passengers have been decreasing since peaking in 1997, but income and profit from its real estate business – though varying with the ups and downs of the economy – has generally been steady.33 Hankyu’s transportation and real estate sections each contributed 39 per cent of its operating revenue for 2016.34 In the case of Tokyu, real estate accounted for 15.4 per cent of operating revenue in the 2016 financial year, in comparison with 18.5 per cent for transport businesses and 61.7 per cent for retailing.35 The latter figure shows the importance of that area and JR East aims to boost its non-transportation revenue, particularly from retailing, to more like 40 per cent of profits rather than the current 30 per cent.36

Current and Future Developments As with other companies, Japan’s private railways are currently adjusting to a very different business environment in Japan where economic growth is low, demographics are being transformed with a low birth rate and ageing population, and aspirations are changing. Unlike Japanese companies in other areas of the economy, they are not generally expanding overseas operations. Therefore, the key is to continue with their role in urban development while adjusting to the new reality. Examples include Tokyu which is targeting the existing population on its line. As more people are retiring, and no longer commuting, both transport revenue and housing needs are affected. With a subsidiary, it opened its first sheltered housing development in 2010 and plans four more by 2014.37 It is also targeting two groups to boost the population, families where both parents work, through taking over a company providing afterschool facilities, and rental units aimed at students near to stations. As with many businesses targeting students,

284  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins future opportunities may be more important than present ones. Increasing involvement in apartment building, referred to above, would also seem to partly target retirees, currently Japan’s ‘baby-boom’ generation, who want the convenience, security and accessibility of a modern apartment complex. In the Kansai area, where passenger numbers have been less resilient than Tokyo, another company which has particularly featured in this paper, Hankyu – now combined with long-time rival, Hanshin, after acting as its ‘white knight’ to stave off a hostile takeover – continues to focus both on its terminal area and on lines it serves. On its homepage the company writes: […] the Group has contributed over the years to building communities next to its railway lines by introducing a succession of services new to Japan and proposing enriched lifestyles to its customers. These have encompassed a wide variety of fields ranging from housing and commercial facilities to the Hanshin Tigers baseball team and Takarazuka Revue. In turn, the communities developed next to the lines have contributed to the mutual growth of our railway network and other business lines.38 Improved earthquake mitigating technology, referred to previously, allows higher-rise buildings on existing holdings, while the increased spaciousness which is achieved allows more circulation space which is needed for a ‘barrier-free’ society as the population ages. In addition, it has increased the development of ‘mall’-type facilities, which were legally restricted until 1990 to protect small local businesses, such as on its route from Umeda to Sannomiya at Nishinomiya Gardens. As we have indicated, JR companies not only are remaining distinct from the classic private railway companies such as Hankyu and Tokyu but are also developing in a similar way. They have the advantage of being able to make use of their landholdings, particularly sites of former rail yards or company housing. For example, JR Tokai has redeveloped condominiums and upmarket retailing facilities at its ‘Central Garden’ developments in Nagoya and at Nakata in Shizuoka. It has also made the attractiveness of station-related facilities such as Nagoya much more akin to the classic private railways’ hubs such as Shibuya (Tokyu) and Umeda (Hankyu). Even JR Freight, while bereft of passengers to bring to facilities, has redeveloped disused land, such as with its amusement park at Nagoya Port.

Conclusion Private railways were the driving force behind the development of the suburbs, because they needed to build a stable passenger base along their lines and because they were looking for additional income. In this way, they have also promoted a new lifestyle for the growing middle class. At their urban termini, the private railways have initiated the development of railway stations as urban subcentres, which have since become some of the most vibrant parts

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  285 of Japanese cities. The public sector has only much later become engaged in housing developments and has mainly concentrated on rental housing as opposed to the owner-occupied houses and flats promoted by private developers. The continuity of the private railways’ strategy is shown clearly by Hankyu’s Head of Real Estate Operations, in its 2009 report, when he said: The job of the Group’s Real Estate businesses is to create communities (…). The basic idea is the railway comes first, then the real estate business builds the community, and Group service businesses then supply the amenities that make the community viable.39

Notes 1 E. Aoki, ‘Construction of Local Railways’, Japan Railway & Transport Review, 5, 1995, 34–37. 2 D. Free, Early Japanese Railways 1853–1914. Engineering Triumphs that Transformed Meiji-era Japan (North Clarendon, Vermont 2008), 229. 3 E. Aoki, Tetsudo no chirigaku (Geography of Railways) (Tokyo 2008), 243–261; Japan Transport Economic Research Center, ed., Suji de miru tetsudo (Railways in Numbers) (Tokyo 2016), 28–59. 4 Haruya Hirooka, ‘The Development of Tokyo’s Rail Network’, Japan Railway and Transport Review, 23, March 2000, 22–30. 5 The Telegraph of 8 April 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1515118/Sir-Roy-Denman.html (last accessed 7 September 2017). 6 A. Waswo, Housing in Postwar Japan. A Social History (London and New York 2002), 59. 7 Ibid., 40. 8 Ibid., 95. 9 A. Matsuda, ‘Senzenki ni okeru kogai jutakuchi kaihatsu to shitetsu no senryaku (Developments of Residential Suburbs and the Strategy of the Private Railway Company before World War II)’, Jinbun Chiri, 55, 5, 2003, 492–508. 10 The first one was the Shirokiya department store in Gotanda (Tokyo) at the terminus of the Ikegami Railway (later Tokyu), opened in 1928, but since closed. 11 A. Matsuda, ‘Senzenki’, 495. 12 Y. Suzuki, ‘Shitetsu ni yoru kogai jutakuchi kaihatsu no kaishi to denen-toshi (Development of Suburban Housing and the Garden City)’, Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyo, 41, 1999, 51–75. 13 T. Kohara, ‘Shitetsukei developer ni yoru toshi saikaihatsu no tenkai – Hankyu Dentetsu Group no jirei (The Development of Real Estate Businesses by the Private Railway Company: The Case of the Hankyu Corporation Group)’, Keizai Chirigaku Nenpo, 52, 3, 2006, 62–80. 14 T. Takemura, ‘20 seki shoto nihon ni okeru kikai bunmei no juyo to Hankyu kotsu bunkaken no seiritsu (Acceptance of Mechanical Civilization and Realisation of Hankyu Traffic Culture Zone in the Early 20th Century of Japan)’, Journal of Osaka Sangyo University, Social Sciences, 71, 1988, 1–15. 15 Matsuda, ‘Senzenki’, 502. 16 G. Weightman and S. Humphries, The Making of Modern London, 1914–1939 , 2 vols. (London 1983 and 1984), vol. 2, 112. 17 Harrow Council, Rayners Lane, Conservation Area Appraisal (London 2006), 2, http://www2.harrow.gov.uk/documents/s15560/Rayners%20Lane%20Conservation%20Area%20-%20Appx%201.pdf (last accessed 2 March 2013).

286  Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins 18 S. Halliday, Underground to Everywhere: London’s Underground Railway in the Life of the Capital (Gloucestershire 2001), 110. 19 Matsuda, ‘Senzenki’, 496. 20 Waswo, Housing in Postwar Japan, 43. 21 K. T. Oshima, ‘Denenchofu. Building the Garden City in Japan’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 55, 2, 1996, 140–151. 22 N. Ishibashi and H. Taniguchi, ‘Tama Denentoshi kaihatsu no keikaku process ni kansuru kenkyu (Study on the Planning Process for the Development of “Tama Garden City”)’, Journal of Architecture and Planning, 598, 2005, 129–136. 23 A. Sorensen, The Making of Urban Japan. Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-First Century (London and New York 2002), 140. 24 Aoki, Tetsudo no chirigaku, 226–228. 25 T. Kohara, ‘Shitetsukei developer ni yoru fudosan jigyo no tenkai – Hankyu Dentetsu Group no jirei (The Development of Urban Redevelopment by the Private Railway Company: The Case of the Hankyu Corporation Group)’, Nihon Toshi Gakkai Nenpo, 40, 2007, 147–156. 26 Kohara, ‘Shitetsukei developer’, 73. 27 Among the largest are Ikebukuro with 1.25 million passengers per day, Shinjuku with 1.36 million (excluding subway lines) and Umeda with 1.0 million; JTERC, Railways in Numbers, 35. R. Cybriwsky, ‘Shibuya Center, Tokyo’, The Geographical Review, 78, 1, 1988, 48–61. 28 S. Klug, ‘Japanische Eisenbahngesellschaften als Akteure auf dem Boden markt’, Internationales Verkehrswesen, 54, 5, 2002, 210–215. 29 U. Hohn, ‘Zukunft wird gemacht: Urban Renaissance in der Global City Tokyo’, in L. Basten, ed., Metropolregionen – Restrukturierung und Governance. Deutsche und internationale Fallstudien (Dortmund 2009), 113–147. 30 Kohara, ‘Shitetsukei developer’, 68. 31 R. Lützeler, ‘Population Increase and “New-Build Gentrification” in Central Tokyo’, Erdkunde, 62, 4, 287–299. 32 M. Noda, ‘Kogai jutakuchi no kaihatsu to shitetsu no yakuwari (Suburban Housing Development and the Role of Private Railways)’, Tetsudo Shigaku, 15, 1997, 69–75. 33 Kohara, ‘Shitetsukei developer’, 65. 34 Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, About Us, http://www.hankyu-hanshin.co.jp/en/ corporate/about_us/ (last accessed 7 September 2017). 35 Tokyu Corporation, Financial Results for 148th term (March 20170), http://www. tokyu.co.jp/ir/english/finance/segment.html (last accessed 7 September 2017). 36 The Japan Times of 30 December 2010. 37 Tokyu Corporation, Fact Book (First Half of 2010 Financial Year), 25, http:// www.tokyu.co.jp/ir/upload_file/ENlibrary_06_01/9005_2010053116170901_ P01_.pdf (last accessed 22 February 2011). 38 Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., About us. Our Group's Business Activities. 7 core business system, http://www.hankyu-hanshin.co.jp/en/corporate/about_us/ (last accessed 7 September 2017. 39 Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Annual Report 2009, 33.

Literature Aoki, E., ‘Construction of Local Railways’, Japan Railway & Transport Review, 5, 1995, 34–37. Aoki, E., Tetsudo no chirigaku (Geography of Railways) (Tokyo 2008). Cybriwsky, R., ‘Shibuya Center, Tokyo’, The Geographical Review, 78, 1, 1988, 48–61.

Japan: Private Railways as Urban Developers  287 Free, D., Early Japanese Railways 1853–1914. Engineering Triumphs That Transformed Meiji-era Japan (North Clarendon, Vermont 2008). Halliday, S., Underground to Everywhere: London’s Underground Railway in the Life of the Capital (Gloucestershire 2001). Harrow Council, Rayners Lane, Conservation Area Appraisal (London 2006). Hirooka, H., ‘The Development of Tokyo’s Rail Network’, Japan Railway & Transport Review, 23, 2000, 22–30. Hohn, U., ‘Zukunft wird gemacht: Urban Renaissance in der Global City Tokyo’, in L. Basten, ed., Metropolregionen – Restrukturierung und Governance. Deutsche und internationale Fallstudien (Dortmund 2009), 113–147. Ishibashi, N., and Taniguchi, H., ‘Tama Denentoshi kaihatsu no keikaku process ni kansuru kenkyu (Study on the Planning Process for the Development of “Tama Garden City”)’, Journal of Architecture and Planning, 598, 2005, 129–136. Japan Transport Economic Research Center, ed., Suji de miru tetsudo (Railways in Numbers) (Tokyo 2016). Klug, S., ‘Japanische Eisenbahngesellschaften als Akteure auf dem Bodenmarkt’, Internationales Verkehrswesen, 54, 5, 2002, 210–215. Kohara, T., ‘Shitetsukei developer ni yoru fudosan jigyo no tenkai – Hankyu Dentetsu Group no jirei (The Development of Urban Redevelopment by the Private Railway Company: The Case of the Hankyu Corporation Group)’, Nihon Toshi Gakkai Nenpo, 40, 2007, 147–156. Kohara, T., ‘Shitetsukei developer ni yoru toshi saikaihatsu no tenkai – Hankyu Dentetsu Group no jirei (The Development of Real Estate Businesses by the Private Railway Company: The Case of the Hankyu Corporation Group)’, Keizai Chirigaku Nenpo, 52, 3, 2006, 62–80. Lützeler, R., ‘Population Increase and “New-Build Gentrification” in Central Tokyo’, Erdkunde, 62, 4, 2008, 287–299. Matsuda, A., ‘Senzenki ni okeru kogai jutakuchi kaihatsu to shitetsu no senryaku (Developments of Residential Suburbs and the Strategy of the Private Railway Company before World War II)’, Jinbun Chiri, 55, 5, 2003, 492–508. Noda, M., ‘Kogai jutakuchi no kaihatsu to shitetsu no yakuwari (Suburban Housing Development and the Role of Private Railways)’, Tetsudo Shigaku, 15, 1997, 69–75. Oshima, K. T., ‘Denenchofu. Building the Garden City in Japan’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 55, 2, 1996, 140–151. Sorensen, A., The Making of Urban Japan. Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-First Century (London and New York 2002). Suzuki, Y., ‘Shitetsu ni yoru kogai jutakuchi kaihatsu no kaishi to denen-toshi (Development of Suburban Housing and the Garden City)’, Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyo, 41, 1999, 51–75. Takemura, T., ‘20 seki shoto nihon ni okeru kikai bunmei no juyo to Hankyu kotsu bunkaken no seiritsu (Acceptance of Mechanical Civilization and Realisation of Hankyu Traffic Culture Zone in the Early 20th Century of Japan)’, Journal of Osaka Sangyo University, Social Sciences, 71, 1988, 1–15. Waswo, A., Housing in Postwar Japan. A Social History (London and New York 2002). Weightman, G., and Humphries, S., The Making of Modern London, 1914–1939, 2 vols. (London 1983 and 1984).

14 The Unfinished Dream of ‘Workplace and Dwelling Proximity’ Development of Private Railway Companies and Areas on Railway Lines in Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Areas Shuichi Takashima Introduction In 1898, Ebenezer Howard proposed the concept of the ‘garden city’ in To-Morrow (re-issued in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-Morrow). It was a sort of sublation experiment against the liberalistic economy, attempting to resolve foul city conditions by regulating the concentration of population and functions, as well as the related enlargement of urban zones.1 Its impact soon reached Japan, and in 1907 Den-en Toshi (Garden City) was published and edited by volunteers inside the ministry of Home Affairs. This publication was indirectly influenced by Howard’s garden city, but its underlying ideology was not thoroughly assimilated. It was only partly accepted and adapted to the local reform movement then taking place in rural areas.2 In 1918, Den-en Toshi Co., Ltd. was founded, bearing in its name the Japanese expression for ‘garden city’. The company undertook housing-land development in Ebara, Tokyo in the 1920s, but none of it was of the job-and-dwelling-proximity type. It constructed railways through its subsidiary company Meguro Kamata Electric Railway Co., Ltd., and residents of the area used it to go to work or school. This combination of development of areas on railway lines and the construction of railways was a new business model that kept expanding throughout the twentieth century. Den-en Toshi Co., Ltd. and Meguro Kamata Electric Railway Co., Ltd. merged to become a huge corporate complex, the present-day Tokyu Group. The ­Japanese den-en toshi, a complete opposite of Howard’s garden city, was born within the development of capitalism, as a part of it.3 In other cases, the circumstances were quite similar. Most of the suburban dwellings constructed during the interwar era were different from the small and unsanitary inner-city living environment. Their appeal was the suburban hygienic and healthy environment, but none of them were of the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-19

Development of Private Railway Companies  289 workplace-and-dwelling-proximity type, and residents had to use railways to go to work or school. These suburban residential areas were christened ‘bed towns’ after World War Two. The corporations’ combined development of areas on railway lines and of the railways themselves was a major Japanese characteristic, but it was also accompanied by the limitless superficial expansion of large cities. Here, we shall review its history through a few examples and discuss its background. Although distribution and tourism were also part of the activities undertaken by private railways, our report shall concentrate on housing developments.

Expansion of Large Cities and Suburban Housing Development during the Interwar Period Beginning of Suburban Housing Developments It was in the 1910s that housing-land development started in areas along private railways, but it was a result of the needs of new middle- and upper-class people who moved to the suburbs in order to avoid the environmental deterioration (air pollution among other things) caused by increased industrialisation in inner-city areas. Its focal point was not Tokyo, but Osaka. The Tenga-Jaya area along the Nankai Electric Railway was transformed from an exclusive villa area into a residential area as the railway was electrified in 1907, and the Hanshin Electric Railway launched a housing-land ­development business along its line by building 20 rental houses in Nishinomiya. The Mino-Arima Electric Tramway started housing-land projects in Ikeda-Muromachi by 1910.4 From the 1910s, partly because of the expansion of the network of streetcars, some areas in Tokyo such as Okubo, Shibuya, and Nippori were being changed into housing lots, and this also happened in the western suburbs (see Figure 14.1). Along the Tamagawa Electric Railway, the Tokyo Trust Company, which had close ties with the railway company, started the creation of the Shinmachi residential area in 1912.5 In the 1920s a disparity between supply and demand due to overvalued housing rents created an ‘economic housing shortage’ in Tokyo City.6 To counter this, land owned by the nobility in the city centre was ‘opened up’ and developed by companies such as Hakone Land and Mitsui Trust. However, contractors who were not given such opportunities, launched development projects in suburban residential areas, using the den-en toshi’s healthy environment concept as an attractive feature.7 The people who were enthusiastic about living in these suburbs were the new middle class, who earned monthly wages. Table 14.1 shows the number of suburban residential area development cases in the Kanto (the region including Tokyo) and Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe areas divided according to the developing bodies, based on the ‘Database of Suburban Residential Areas’ edited by Atsushi Katagi and others.8 In

290  Shuichi Takashima

Figure 14.1  R  ailway Networks in Greater Tokyo (1940). Map: Created by Shuichi Takashima on maps from Shinbashi Land Transportation Office, ‘Investigation Report of Transportation in Tokyo District’ (Tokyo Chihō ni okeru Koutsū ni kan-suru Chōsa Hōkoku-sho: Tokyo 1940).

Table 14.1  Number of Suburban Subdivided Housing Lots (1914–1936)

Kanto Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe

Railway company

Land company

Trust company

Others

61 62

109 177

84 0

17 5

Source: A. Katagi et al., Suburban Residential Areas of Modern Japan (Kindai Nihon no Kōgai Jūtaku-chi: Tokyo 2000), i-xxxi.

Development of Private Railway Companies  291 both areas ‘railway companies’ developed more than 20 per cent. In Kanto, 40 of the 61 cases were undertaken by Tokyo-Yokohama Electric Railway, Meguro Kamata Electric Railway [hereafter referred to as Toyoko and Mekama, and the current Tokyu Corporation], and their subsidiaries. Ten were in the hands of Odawara Express Railway, five were done by Tobu Railway, another five by Keisei Electric Tramway, and one by Keihin Electric Railway. Among the development projects undertaken by ‘land companies’, sixty were by Hakone Land, a company with strong ties with Musashino Railway (however, three of those were projects in Karuizawa and Hakone, far from Tokyo). In the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area, Hankyu Electric Railway (former Mino-Arima Electric Tramway) undertook twenty-one projects, nine were done jointly by Keihan Electric Railway and Shin-Keihan Electric Railway, seven by Hanshin Electric Railway, another seven by Osaka Electric Tramway, six by Osaka Railway, two by Hanwa Electric Railway, and two others by Nankai Railway. Incidentally, the development of Ikeda-Muromachi by Mino-Arima Electric Tramway, which then became Hankyu Electric Railway, is widely known as the pioneering example of suburban residential area development by a private railway company. Ichizo Kobayashi, the virtual CEO of the company, proposed the sale of houses and lots along the railway as a side business of the railway company, and made a profit by purchasing the land inexpensively before the opening of the railway, and then selling it in the form of lots after the opening. This revolutionary idea is highly valued in studies about economic history, but its main characteristic lies in the fact that (1) it requires the approval of ordinary landowners by means of persuasion through influential persons in the region, while (2) concealing the existence of the railway project.9 However, a method which relies on disparity of information can, theoretically, be used only once. As people become aware of the land price increase as a result of the railway’s inauguration, and of the fact that the development revenue is great, the purchase price of land will increase accordingly. Since the ordinary landowners lack the ability to develop and sell land on their own, the profit of developers will not vanish, but gaining enormous profits through an information disparity will become difficult.10 Den-en Toshi Co., Ltd., the predecessor of both Toyoko and Mekama, started the development of the Senzoku residential area in 1918, imitating the method used by Mino-Arima Electric Tramway, but was soon forced to move the focus of its development to the more remote Den-en Chofu, due to increases in the price of land.11 From then on, the company often had to face ‘restrained sales’. What played a considerable role in actually developing the suburban ­residential areas, was the arable land readjustment or land readjustment (here, we shall call both of them ‘land readjustment’), which will be discussed below.

292  Shuichi Takashima

Progress of Land Readjustment Projects along Railways The arable land readjustment project was institutionalised in 1899 by the Arable Land Readjustment Act (it was implemented the following year), in order to exchange land for agricultural improvement. The land readjustment project, however, was started by the City Planning Act of 1919, for the purpose of urban development. The nature of these two systems was essentially different. Yet, arable land readjustment projects were actually undertaken for the development of housing lots before the land readjustment was signed into law. Also, the Arable Land Readjustment Act was applied, with modifications, to the land readjustment project. Where urban development was concerned, there was no great difference between the two. The fact that government subsidies were granted only for arable land readjustment also attracted landowners towards it.12 This would only change after 1931 when the law was changed and arable land readjustment for the sake of urban development was prohibited. From the interwar era onwards, landowners in farming communities in the vicinity of large cities, who perceived the advantage of urban development in areas stretching along the railways, formed arable land readjustment associations and land readjustment associations. This was a scheme aiming to profit from housing developments and positioned them as antagonists of private developers on that account. In Tokyo, it was often implemented in the southwestern, northwestern, and eastern suburbs, except for areas around the Sumida River where development was undertaken by the post-quake restoration project after the Great Kanto Earthquake. By the end of March 1938, there were 271 land readjustment projects (of which one was under application) in Tokyo City (including new areas integrated since 1932), their total area stretching to approximately 130.56 square kilometres (see Figure 14.2).13 The implementation status of the land readjustment projects is put together according to railway lines in Table 14.2. The historical material used for this report lists the land readjustment associations according to the junctions and the lines departing and arriving there. This in itself reveals the fact that the relationship between land readjustment and railways was given most serious attention. The project area along the Toyoko and Mekama lines was the largest. If we add the Tamagawa line that was absorbed by Toyoko Railway in 1938, an area of over 660 hectares was designated for land readjustment projects. In many project zones, various railways overlapped. These zones are marked as ‘Lines overlapping’. For the railway companies, this meant that they were often in competition over a housing area. While this was the case in most of the land readjustment areas along the government’s lines, the proportion of such sites on the area along the Mekama Railway was 50 per cent, the smallest among the project areas. This implies that the railway and housing lot development business of this

Development of Private Railway Companies  293

Figure 14.2  L  and Readjustment Areas in Greater Tokyo in the Pre-War Period. Map: Created by Shuichi Takashima on maps from Akinobu Numajiri, Factory Location and City Planning (Kōjō Ritch to Toshi Keikaku: Tokyo 2002), 53.

company was stretched along regions with little competition with other railway/tramline companies. Arable land readjustment and land readjustment were taking place in Osaka as well, but its characteristic was the authorities’ proactive intervention. For example, the Miyako-jima Land Readjustment Association, formed in 1925, resulted from Mayor Hajime Seki’s ‘persuasive skills’ to establish associations, and Ryoichi Takiyama, who was the assistant director of the City Planning Department of Osaka City, became its chairman.14 The city institutionalised the Land Readjustment Subsidy Regulation, and at the same time enabled the city’s administration to be entrusted with land readjustment projects from associations, by means of the Land Readjustment Entrustment Regulation15 Since the institutionalisation of the Land Readjustment Subsidy Regulation in Tokyo was not completed until 1935, we can appreciate how progressive Osaka was on this matter.16

294  Shuichi Takashima Table 14.2  Suburban Trains and Land Readjustment Associations along the Railways Junction Shinagawa Shibuya

Shinjuku

Ikebukuro

Ueno

Line Ministry Line Keihin Line Keihin Electric Railway Meguro Kamata Dentetsu Tokyo-Yokohama Railway Toyoko Tamagawa Line Teito Railway Ministry Line Chuo Line Keio Electric Tramway Odawara Express Railway Seibu Tramway (Omekaido) Seibu Railway (Takadanobaba) Musashino Railway Tobu Railway Tojo Line Ministry Line Akabane Line Oji Electric Tramway Keisei Electric Tramway Tobu Railway Ministry Line Omiya Line (Tohoku Line) Ministry Line Matsudo Line (Joban Line) Ministry Line Chiba Line (Sobu Line) Joto Electric Tramway

1

2

3

16 30 48 24 24 12 16 11 21 10 15 18 15 20 21 55 8 24

10,744 15,097 40,411 22,611 10,039 10,039 13,329 4,171 4,230 10,224 5,839 9,986 10,105 8,347 5,153 14,624 1,549 9,158

3 to 6 in per cent 100 74 26 59 41 18 50 43 7 87 87 67 60 5 1 100 12 87 1 100 34 66 92 76 13 3 69 54 12 3 96 96 84 84 64 57 6 30 22 9 98 70 28 92 37 35 20 58 48 3 7 32 14 18 100 67 21 11

4

5

6

14

3,134

100

60

7

25

7,206

100

98

2

17

6,994

30

28

2

33

Source: Guidance to Readjusted Lands along Transportation (Kōtsū Keitō Ensen Seirichi an-nai: Tokyo Land Readjustment Research Group 1938). 1 = Associations; 2 = Squaremetres; 3 = Multiple lines overlapping; 4 = Overlapping on 1 line; 5 = Overlapping on 2 lines; 6 = Overlapping on 3 lines.

These land readjustment projects did not lead to satellite cities with workplace and dwelling proximity, as Howard had proposed. None of the associations had assumed this thing (proximity), and city planning itself, which was the master plan at the time, was inclined towards expansion of the city area. When he launched the second city expansion project of Osaka in 1925, Mayor H. Seki intended to promote the development of the city centre along with a connecting ‘garden suburb’, and as a means of transportation securing the connection, he decided on the construction of the Rapid Train Abiko Line (Subway Midosuji Line) by 1928.17 Tokyo City also implemented a city area expansion project in 1932 and absorbed the neighbouring five districts, including 82 towns and villages. The region combining the old and new city areas was called ‘Greater Tokyo’, and the villages of Chitose and Kinuta in the Kita-Tama district also merged in the course of the following year.

Development of Private Railway Companies  295

Land Readjustment and Developers The development of housing lots through land readjustment went against the activities of private developing businesses such as railway companies. However, this did not necessarily mean that these developers could not continue any business, and I intend to explain this next. We shall discuss the relationship between the associations’ activities and the railway companies, looking specifically at the Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Project undertaken in the Tamagawa Village, Ebara District, Tokyo Prefecture (part of the Setagaya Ward of Tokyo City since 1932).18 Tamagawa Village was a suburban farming village growing vegetables, fruits, flowers, and ornamental plants, but competition with other regions became intense in the 1910s and people started to feel that farming was unrewarding. At the same time, the demand for housing was rising and the famous development of the Den-en-chofu residential area by Den-en Toshi Co., Ltd. was under way in the southern vicinity of the village (see Figure 14.3). With these facts in the background, the opportunity for housing lot development through arable land readjustment was growing, and in 1925 the Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association was established. As shown in Table 14.3, both the Toyoko

Figure 14.3  T  amagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association and Its Branches. Map: Created by Shuichi Takashima on maps from Shuichi Takashima, Land Readjustment in Precincts and Local Communities (Toshi Kinkō no Kōchi Seiri to Chi-iki Shakai: Tokyo 2013).

296  Shuichi Takashima Table 14.3  Land Owned by Tokyu Corporations and Its Forerunners within the Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association (in Squaremetres) Branch name

Year of replotting

Replotted surface

Oyama Suwabun

1933 1934

342,502 499,539

Yoga Nishi Okusawa Nishi

1936 1938

1,118,280 859,028

Okusawa Higashi Suwagawara Kaminoge Seta Shimo Shimonoge Todoroki Naka Seta Naka Todoroki Minami Yoga Higashi Norada Todoroki Kita Yoga Naka

1941 1943 1943 1944 1945 1949 1952 1951 1951 1952 1952 1952

787,552 310,077 595,098 588,535 547,471 674,015 384,331 581,411 557,166 1,103,286 725,976 N/A

Corporation Hitherto

After replotting

Mekama Ikegami Toyoko Mekama Tamagawa Mekama Toyoko Toyoko Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu Tokyu

6,577 0 29,409 20,489 32,107 20,045 2,065 33,643 74,359 1,516 10,417 14,610 0 2,254 1,350 0 748 828 42,620

6,733 781 37,261 17,242 39,988 26,238 1,787 44,546 50,756 2,582 21,760 7,775 470 4,108 1,562 0 1,930 506 11,426

Source: Documentation Regarding the Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association (property of Setagaya City History Museum). Note: The Association readjusted the arable land by dividing the three million tsubos into 17 branches, but this chart only shows those of which the names of the landowners are known. Land reserved for truck construction is excluded.

and Mekama were participating in the project as members of the association, ­owning fairly sizeable portions of land within the project’s area; thus, they were not entirely excluded from the business. However, as we see in the statement that ‘land development undertaken by corporate organizations’ ‘partly adds commercial enterprise, and mightʼ spoil the traditional orders, the intention to make a profit from the developments was a factor in the associations’ establishment.19 If we consider in detail the activities of the association from then on, we discover that the landowners were not necessarily able to take initiatives as was originally planned. They were not able to sell portions of land in order to obtain project funds. It was called the association’s ‘reserved land’ within the association. The association proceeded with the project while dividing the entire area into 17 ‘branches’. For example, in the Okusawa Higashi (East Okusawa) Branch situated in the eastern area of the village, the plan was to first borrow from Tokyo-fu Noko Ginko (Tokyo Bank of Agriculture and Industry) for the construction work and sell the association land in order to repay the debt after completion. In the plan made in 1928, the 4,174 tsubo (13,774 square metres) of reserved land were to be sold at a price of 21 yen per tsubo. However, despite the fact that both the Toyoko and Mekama lines were already operating in this

Development of Private Railway Companies  297 branch, and the proximity to the centre of Tokyo had already been felt, they were not able to sell the land as planned. The discount rate kept rising, and by 1933 the unit price per tsubo had dropped to 17.4 yen. Still, there were unsold portions of land, and in the end board members of the branch, who also happened to be local celebrities and leaders, had to purchase them. Meanwhile, they had fallen behind on the repayment schedule, and the branch was plagued by the growth of interest payments. There was one branch that sold much land for a railway when the Ikegami Electric Railway Company opened a new line, but this was an exception, and most branches were having financial problems. Because of these experiences, various measures to establish stable proceedings were sought in some branches. There even was a plan to directly pay the contractor in terms of actual land, but by the mid-1930s they settled on the following: instead of selling the reserved land upon completion of the work, a contract for the sale of the land would be signed with certain developers before the actual work was started, and the money would be received as ‘advanced payment’. Among those that signed this contract were influential companies such as Toyoko, Mekama, and Tamagawa Electric Railway, forerunners of Tokyu Corporation. It seems that these companies and housing corporations possessed knowhow and channels regarding land subdivision or the means to maintain the land until its future sale – at least more so than the landowners’ associations. Purchasing reserved land, counting on a future resale was, therefore, a justifiable behaviour on their part. As for the arable land readjustment associations, this meant that they would tolerate the intervention of the development companies to a certain degree, in exchange for smooth management of the branches. After World War Two, Tokyu Corporation, successor of Toyoko and Mekama, refined and realised these measures and worked out the ‘Tokyu method’, acting as an overall agency for land readjustment in the Tama den-en toshi development project, which will be referred to in the next section.20 By being entrusted with the entire project, the company was able to take full initiative, while giving the appearance of a land readjustment project run by landowners.

Post-War Attempts to Restrain Growth of City Areas and Their Particulars The Shaping of the Tokyo Metropolitan District and the Setback of Satellite Cities In the post-war year 1946 Hideaki Ishikawa, who was the head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Planning Division, presented his design of the rehabilitation plan.21 He stated that the 35 wards (former Tokyo City area) shall be restricted to those absolutely necessary for the capital (…). Others shall be borne by the satellite cities scattered around Tokyo in a 40-kilometre radius, such as ­Omiya, Kawagoe, Kasukabe, and Atsugi (…). In terms of administrative

298  Shuichi Takashima district, Tokyo-to (Metropolitan Tokyo; Tokyo Prefecture and Tokyo City merged in 1943 to become the Tokyo Metropolitan Government) has to include at least the satellite cities within the 40-kilometre radius with Tokyo at its centre and listed a workplace-and-dwelling-proximity type of city formation as an ideal.22 In the war-damaged reconstruction scheme, the design was to ‘avoid an over-expansion of cities and stimulate rural small- and mid-sized cities’, Tokyo’s 35 wards having a total population of three and a half million, placing ‘satellite cities’ in a 40-kilometre, and ‘outlying cities’ in a 100-kilometre radius.23 While the post-war restoration plans all over Japan were being downsized due to a lack of funding, the Capital Construction Law was enacted in 1950, encouraged by the metropolitan assembly, and the Capital Construction Committee was set up. In 1953, the committee submitted the ‘Proposal Regarding the Development of Satellite Cities’ to the Ministry of Construction among others, recommending the installation of ‘commuting satellite cities’ in a 30-kilometre radius, and ‘independent industrial cities’ in a 30- to 50-kilometre radius, and encouraged its legislation. The ‘Study of Adequate Size of Great Cities and Surrounding Cities, and Planning Standard of Facilities’, published by the Architectural Institute of Japan in the same year also defined the ‘Tokyo Metropolitan District’ in a 50-kilometre radius and proposed a scattering of industrial sites. The outline of the ‘Tokyo Metropolitan District Design’ published by the Capital Construction Committee in 1955 was influenced by these recommendations. The National Capital Region Improvement Law was enacted in 1956 based on these moves, and its basic plan was announced in 1958. It listed the improvement of the 70- to 100-kilometre radius by fiscal year 1975 in the following ways (see Figure 14.4): •

• •

Existent city zone (15-kilometre radius): population growth shall be controlled in the wards, the cities of Musashino and Mitaka, and industrial plant construction shall also be restricted. New industrial sites shall be created in the cities of Yokohama, Kawasaki, and Kawaguchi. Outlying zone (15- to 25-kilometre radius): turn into greenbelts. Marginal zone (25- to 70-kilometre radius): define as ‘city development area’ and undertake city development around industrial development.

The method of developing the marginal areas while avoiding further expansion of the existing city area with the installation of greenbelts had been proposed even during the war, but we can see that the idea was still prominent at this time. In this plan, we find some influence of the Greater London Plan in 1944, which had been proposed by Patrick Abercrombie.24 However, in reality, the population increased in the areas that were supposed to

Development of Private Railway Companies  299

Figure 14.4  The Capital Region and Its Basic Plan in 1960. Source: Created by Shuichi Takashima on maps from Tokyo Metropolitan Government, ­Regional and City Planning for Tokyo (Tokyo 1961).

become the outlying zone and dropped in the inner-city area. The expansion of city areas taking the shape of a donut phenomenon was unstoppable, and the National Capital Region Improvement Law was modified in 1965, ­embracing the city’s transformation into a megalopolis. Development of Tama Den-en Toshi by Tokyu As an example of a suburban development by a private company that was partially responsible for the city’s expansion, we shall discuss the development of the Tama den-en toshi by the Tokyu Corporation (see Figure 14.5).

300  Shuichi Takashima

Figure 14.5  Tama New Town and Tama Den-en Toshi. Source: Created by Shuichi Takashima on maps from Tama City Combined Cultural Centre, Footsteps of the Tama New Town Development: Birth and Transformation of a ʻirth Experimental Cityʼ (Tama New Town Kaihatsu no Kiseki: Tokyo 1988).

In 1953 Keita Goto, CEO of Tokyu, published his ‘Prospectus of the Josai South District Development’ and said, The population of Tokyo is growing by half a million every year, and it shall surely reach seven and a half million within the year. However, since the standard size of public facilities ranging from water, gas, sewage, trains, bus to schools and food markets is conceived roughly for seven and a half million people, there will soon come a time where the sewage will clog up, no drinking water will be available, one cannot use

Development of Private Railway Companies  301 gas, no school will be available for children of schooling age, and trains will be full. (…) I therefore am thinking of purchasing land of four to five million tsubos (approx. 1,320 to 1,650 hectares) along the Atsugi Oyama Kaido, and build a second Tokyo. (…) London and Letchworth, London and Welwyn are connected by rapid trains and motorways, and are not in a wild expansion state as in Tokyo. (…) The welfare of Kanagawa Prefecture or Yokohama City should ­ordinarily start from areas closer to Tokyo, such as Kawasaki, Shin-Maruko, Mizonokuchi or Noborito, and then expand to farther areas, but this will take too long to progress. Therefore, I am planning to build at least 10 urban communities resembling garden cities, and promote the development of the entire region.25 That year, Tokyu started purchasing land starting from the Miyamae district, with an ultimate goal of acquiring five million tsubos (approx. 1,650 hectares) and had obtained three million (approx. 990 hectares) by the end of the year. However, officials then faced difficulties in getting a local consensus, as well as a steep rise in land purchasing prices, so they shifted to the previously mentioned ‘Tokyu method’. By 1959, the Nogawa Daiichi Land Readjustment Association was established with the e­ ncouragement of Tokyu. While Goto mentioned Letchworth and Welwyn and used the term ‘garden city’ in his prospectus, the project was not necessarily aiming to develop workplace-and-dwelling-proximity type of cities. Goto was clearly stating the construction of ‘residential areas’, and when it became clear that the National Capital Region Improvement Law enacted in 1956 would designate the planned area to become a greenbelt, Tokyu made a feint to it by framing the ‘New City Development Plan of the South-West of Tama River’ before the enactment of the law. In this plan, the company stated that from a historical point of view, cities naturally developed along the transportation facilities radiating from great cities like the spokes of a wheel, and expanded continually. This historical development of cities should not be neglected. The greenbelt design is said to control the population growth in the existent city by means of a circular belt. However, this not only is contrary to our country’s city development logic, but artificially prevents the development of railway lines expected in the future.26 They then pleaded for the approval of their plan as a governmental city planning project, and wanted to designate the areas in question as ‘accorded urban district’ or ‘urban development district’.27 Local city governments such as Kawasaki and Yokohama also aspired to increase their population through residential area development and supported this request.

302  Shuichi Takashima Tama New Town Development Next, we shall discuss Tama New Town, to which residents started to move from 1971 on, as an example of public residential area development (see ­Figure 14.5). This project derived from a plan for residential area development in South Tama by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in the years 1960 and 1961, but by this time it was supposed to disperse the capital’s functions. However, the ‘Report – Tama New Town Development Planning 1965’ prepared by The City Planning Institute of Japan stated that ‘the economic sphere of Tokyo does nothing but expand, and it is impossible to stop either the concentration or the accumulation of the various functions in Tokyo.’ As a result, the ‘Greater London Planning-style’ method of constructing scores of workplace-and-dwelling-proximity-type new towns of fifty to eighty thousand inhabitants, or establishing great cities of around a million inhabitants outside the greenbelt was deemed impossible. All told, it was concluded that it was difficult ‘to plan an independent and self-contained city’ and ‘to plan close-range commuting cities and disperse the capital’s functions’, and that ‘the chief provision should be characterised as a residential-city-development project for the central area of Tokyo’. It was also determined that ‘dispersing urban facilities to some extent (educational establishments, research institutions, branch offices, parts of industrial, ­storage, and logistical organisations) would be possible.’28 We may speculate that this turn of events was boosted by the rivalry between the ideal to restrict the cities’ expansion through the National Capital Region Improvement Law and the local communities’ and landowners’ inclination not to accept it. The report ‘South Tama’ of the South Tama Total City Plan Formulating Committee, established in 1964 by the Japan Housing Corporation, the Ministry of Construction, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Capital Improvement Bureau, is said to have declared that they would proceed with development based on the ‘New Housing and Urban Development Act’ (the Japanese New Town Act) enacted the previous year, focusing on the improvement of residential areas, and we can say that the backbone was determined at this point. The act has a ‘heavy fist’ characteristic, giving the public developing body the right to expropriate land, or not allowing price negotiations to land owners, and propelled conflicts with the local societies. There was a lot of opposition within the existent communities, but it is a known fact that land readjustment was executed, leaving only the existing residential area, and farmers were forced to switch their occupations to, for instance, mercantile stores within the ­housing complexes, as ‘livelihood rehabilitators’.29 Since this was the shape of the Tama New Town plan, the construction of railways was indispensable from the beginning. The Keio Teito Railway and Odakyu Railway (previously referred to as Odawara Express Railway), who were the final candidates, obtained the licence between 1966 and 1967, but they seem to have been reluctant to construct new lines since there was little room for private developers’ intervention in public housing development. In

Development of Private Railway Companies  303 1972 the ‘P-line method’ was used, whereby the Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation (JRCC) would undertake the construction, with support such as fiscal investment and loan funds infusion or interest subsidy from the government or autonomous bodies, and transfer it to private railway companies with a 25-year loan (in reality, the construction work was commissioned to private railway companies by JRCC). Various forms of preferential treatment regarding the acquisition of land were also implemented, and the line was finally opened in 1974.30

Conclusion We have thus reviewed the development businesses of the twentieth century on private railways, focusing on housing lot improvement. The den-en toshi that spread along the railways from the 1920s, were workplace-and-dwellingdetached-type residential areas resulting from the growth of capitalism, and were entirely different from the British ‘garden cities’. During World War Two, the concept of controlling great cities’ expansion through greenbelts reached Japan, and its ideals were inherited by the National Capital Region Improvement Law in the early stages of the post-war period. However, in reality, these were denied by landowners and autonomous bodies who sought ‘progress’, and the ideals themselves were abandoned during the rapid economic growth. The Tama den-en toshi project undertaken by Tokyu, a private company, and the Tama New Town project, which was a public development, differ greatly in the relationships between the projects’ main bodies and the local societies, and also in the concept of railway construction. Yet, we can say that they were the same in that they both were projects embracing the concept of a megalopolis. A related question that arises here is whether Great Britain has actually achieved proximity of workplace and dwellings. The reality is that Letchworth and Welwyn are exceptions, and even they have become workplaceand-dwelling-detachment-type cities and are not independent anymore. The truth, rather, is that there are many similarities with Japan, such as the residential area development undertaken by private companies, for example, Metropolitan Railway Co., Ltd. along its lines during the period between the two world wars. And some commercial housing associations also played important roles in cooperation with the railway companies, as same as Japanese land readjustment associations.

Notes 1 E. Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow, translated by M. Cho (Tokyo 1968). 2 S. Watanabe, ‘Urban Design’: Modern Japanese Urban Design Viewed through International Comparison (Toshi Keikaku no Tanjō: Tokyo 1993), chapter 2. 3 Tokyu Corporation, Fifty Years of Tokyu Corporation History (Tokyo Kyukō Dentetsu gojū-nenshi: Tokyo 1973). 4 Y. Suzuki, Large City Formation in Modern Japan (Kindai Nihon no Dai-toshi Keisei: Tokyo 2004), chapters 3 and 4.

304  Shuichi Takashima 5 Tokyu Corporation, Tokyo Yokohama Railway Corporate History (Tokyo Yokohama Dentetsu Enkaku-shi: Tokyo 1943). 6 H. Ono, ‘The Various Problems during the Course of Rebuilding Houses in Tokyo After the Great Kanto Earthquake: Centered around the Trends of the Rented House/Apartment Market’, Socio-Economic History, 72, no. 1, 2006, 47–67. Idem, ‘Housing Problems in Post-World War I Tokyo: Centered around the Trends of the Rented House/Apartment Market’, Journal of Political Economy & Economic History, 192, 2006, 1–16. 7 T. Hasegawa, Housing Lot Formulation History of Tokyo: Westward Advance of the ‘Yamanote’ (Tokyo no Takuchi Keisei-shi: Tokyo 1988). 8 A. Katagi et al., eds., Suburban Residential Areas of Modern Japan (Kindai Nihon no Kōgai Jūtaku-chi: Tokyo 2000). 9 See T. Kikkawa, ‘The Roots of Real Estate Management by Railway Companies in Japan’, in Housing Research and Advancement Foundation of Japan, ed., Historical Studies of the Real Estate Business I (Fudōsan-gyō ni kan-suru Shiteki Kenkyū: Tokyo1994), 86–99, and N. Nakamura, ‘Beginning of Suburban Housing Development’, in T. Kikkawa and M. Kasuya, eds., Japanese Real Estate Business History (Nihon Fudōsan-gyō shi: Nagoya 2007), 47–64. 10 S. Takashima, ‘City Expansion and Housing Lot Development’, in T. Kikkawa and M. Kasuya, eds., Japanese Real Estate Business History (Nihon Fudōsangyō shi: Nagoya 2007), 74–90. 11 Tokyu Corporation, Fifty Years, 54–55. 12 Y. Ishida, ‘Overview of the Land Readjustment System History in Japan 1870– 1980’, Comprehensive Urban Research, 28, 1986, 45–81. 13 Tokyo Land Readjustment Research Group, Guidance to Readjusted Lands along Transportation (Kōtsū Keitō Ensen Seirichi an-nai: Tokyo 1938). 14 Osaka City Miyako-jima Land Rreadjustment Association, A History of the Miyako-jima Land Readjustment Project (Miyako-jima Tochi Kukaku Seiri Kumiai Jigyōshi: Osaka 1939). 15 Osaka City Land Readjustment Association, ed., Land Readjustment of Osaka City (Osaka-shi no Kukaku Seiri: Osaka 1933). 16 Tokyo City Documentation, Particulars of the Implementation Date Determination and Announcement of the ‘Tokyo City Land Readjustment Subsidy Regulation’ (Tokyo-shi Tochi Kukaku Seiri Josei Kitei, December 27, 1935). 17 Suzuki, Large City Formation, chapter 6. 18 For the Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment see S. Takashima, Land Readjustment in Precincts and Local Societies (Toshi Kinkō no Kōchi Seiri to Chi-iki Shakai: Tokyo 2013). 19 Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association, Developing Our Home District: A Memory of the Land Readjustment Project (Kyōdo Kaihatsu: Tokyo 1955). 20 Tokyu Corporation, Tama Den-en Toshi: A Record of 35 Years of Development (Tokyo 1988). 21 H. Ishikawa, Design for the Establishment of the New Capital (Shin Shuto Kensetsu no Kōsō: Tokyo 1946). 22 For the system and chief provisions for the improvement of the Tokyo metropolitan area see Y. Ishida, Historical Studies of Modern Japanese City Planning (Nihon Kindai Toshi Keikaku-shi Kenkyū: Tokyo 1987), chapter 11. 23 Ibid. 24 P. Abercrombie, Greater London Plan, 1944 (London 1945). 25 Tokyu Corporation, Tama Den-en Toshi, 458–461. 26 Ibid., 53–54. 27 Ibid.

Development of Private Railway Companies  305 28 The City Planning Institute of Japan, Report: Tama New Town Development Planning 1965 (Tama New Town Kaihatsu Keikaku: Tokyo 1966), 17–21. 29 Tama City Combined Cultural Centre, Footsteps of the Tama New Town Development: Birth and Transformation of a ‘Huge Experimental City’ (Tama New Town Kaihatsu no Kiseki: Tokyo 1998). 30 E. Aoki, ‘Tama New Town’s Construction and Railways’, in M. Noda et al., eds., A Hundred Years of Tama’s Railway (Tama no Tetsudō Hyaku-nen: Tokyo 1993), 195–206.

Literature Aoki, E., ‘Tama New Town’s Construction and Railways’, in M. Noda et al., eds., A Hundred Years of Tama’s Railway (Tama no Tetsudō Hyaku-nen: Tokyo 1993), 195–206. Hasegawa, T., Housing Lot Formulation History of Tokyo: Westward Advance of the ‘Yamanote’ (Tokyo no Takuchi Keisei-shi: Tokyo 1988). Howard, E., Garden Cities of To-Morrow, translated by M. Cho (Tokyo 1968). Ishida, Y., ‘Overview of the Land Readjustment System History in Japan 1870– 1980’, Comprehensive Urban Research, 28, 1986, 45–81. Ishida, Y., Historical Studies of Modern Japanese City Planning (Nihon Kindai Toshi Keikaku-shi Kenkyū: Tokyo 1987), chapter 11. Ishikawa, H., Design for the Establishment of the New Capital (Shin Shuto Kensetsu no Kōsō: Tokyo 1946). Katagi, A. et al., eds., Suburban Residential Areas of Modern Japan (Kindai Nihon no Kōgai Jūtaku-chi: Tokyo 2000). Kikkawa, T., ‘The Roots of Real Estate Management by Railway Companies in Japan’, in Housing Research and Advancement Foundation of Japan, ed., Historical Studies of the Real Estate Business I (Fudōsan-gyō ni kan-suru Shiteki Kenkyū: Tokyo 1994), 86–99. Nakamura, T., ‘Beginning of Suburban Housing Development’, in T. Kikkawa and M. Kasuya, eds., Japanese Real Estate Business History (Nihon Fudōsan-gyō shi: Nagoya 2007), 47–64. Numajiri, A., Factory Location and City Planning: Characteristic of Japanese City Formation 1905–1954 (Kōjō Ritch to Toshi Keikaku: Tokyo 2002). Ono, H., ‘Housing Problems in Post-World War I Tokyo: Centered Around the Trends of the Rented House/Apartment Market’, Journal of Political Economy & Economic History, 192, 2006, 1–16. Ono, H., ‘The Various Problems During the Course of Rebuilding Houses in Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake: Centered around the Trends of the Rented House/Apartment Market’, Socio-Economic History, 72, no. 1, 2006, 47–67. Osaka City Land Readjustment Association, ed., Land Readjustment of Osaka City (Osaka 1933). Osaka City Miyako-jima Land Readjustment Association, A History of the Miyakojima Land Readjustment Project (Miyako-jima Tochi Kukaku Seiri Kumiai Jigyōshi: Osaka 1939). Shinbashi Land Transportation Office, Investigation Report of Transportations in Tokyo District (Tokyo Chihō ni okeru Koutsū ni kan-suru Chōsa Hōkoku-sho: Tokyo 1940). Suzuki, Y., Large City Formation in Modern Japan (Kindai Nihon no Dai-toshi Keisei: Tokyo 2004).

306  Shuichi Takashima Takashima, S., ‘City Expansion and Housing Lot Development’, in T. Kikkawa and M. Kasuya, eds., Japanese Real Estate Business History (Nihon Fudōsan-gyō shi: Nagoya 2007), 74–90. Takashima, S., Land Readjustment in Precincts and Local Communities (Toshi Kinkō no Kōchi Seiri to Chi-iki Shakai: Tokyo 2013). Tama City Combined Cultural Centre, Footsteps of the Tama New Town Development: Birth and Transformation of a ‘Huge Experimental City’ (Tama New Town Kaihatsu no Kiseki: Tokyo 1998). Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association, Developing our Home District: A Memory of the Land Readjustment Project (Kyōdo Kaihatsu: Tokyo 1955). The City Planning Institute of Japan, Report: Tama New Town Development Planning 1965 (Tama New Town Kaihatsu Keikaku: Tokyo 1966), 17–21. Tokyo Land Readjustment Research Group, Guidance to Readjusted Lands along Transportation (Kōtsū Keitō Ensen Seirichi an-nai: Tokyo 1938). Tokyu Corporation, Fifty Years of Tokyu Corporation History (Tokyo Kyukō Dentetsu gojū-nenshi: Tokyo 1973). Tokyu Corporation, Tama Den-en Toshi: A Record of 35 Years of Development (Tokyo 1988). Tokyu Corporation, Tokyo Yokohama Railway Corporate History (Tokyo Yokohama Dentetsu Enkaku-shi: Tokyo 1943). Watanabe, S., ‘Urban Design’: Modern Japanese Urban Design Viewed Through International Comparison (Toshi Keikaku no Tanjō: Tokyo 1993).

15 Creation of the Railway Culture Through Marketing and Consumption A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo Nobuhiro Yanagihara Introduction Railway enterprise and business has been one of Japan’s biggest nationbuilding projects through the pre- and post-war eras and symbolises its modern and post-war society.1 In this article, I will first discuss the marketing culture of railways for consumers, focusing on the history of tourism and shopping and also on that of suburbanisation; this will be followed by an analysis of the ‘created’ organic railway networks from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. It is my thesis that the Japanese railway culture has been created through marketing and consumption, right from the start. Throughout their development, railways in Japan have been connected with marketing strategies designed for their users, that is, commuters, tourists, and shoppers. We see not only the physical development and expansion of railway networks but, concurrently, the development of the psychologically created networks of our imagination. According to McLuhan, the word ‘medium’ means the technological instrument that can change the structures of human action and experience.2 The medium of railways was maintained and developed by connecting consumers with places to travel to and to go shopping. Below I will present ­several ­Japanese examples. This study will focus on one of the western parts of Tokyo, the so-called north and south Tama areas. More concretely, this area encompasses, among others, the municipalities of Fuchū-, Tachikawa-, Kunitachi-, Hachiōji-, and Tama-City, which are all referred to in this article. I will argue that this entire area represents an important part of Japanese railway history in terms of marketing and consumer culture, which I define as a ‘created’ organic railway culture. While emphasising this area, I will also explain the general history of Japanese railways for background information, introducing some epochal characters of the tourist and consumer cultures of trains from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Before I turn to the historical analysis, let me touch on the environment of contemporary railways around Tokyo, to clarify better the points of concern in the following sections.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-20

308  Nobuhiro Yanagihara

Background and Overview People visiting Tokyo from abroad or from other areas in Japan will be surprised by some aspects of the landscapes around railway lines and stations. Let us consider the railway landscape of Tokyo, which differs from other major cities, such as Berlin or London, especially from a ‘stranger’s’ perspective. The urban landscape does not end in the Tokyo metropolitan commuter sphere, which has a population of over 30 million.3 A good explanation is that there seldom were walled areas because a lot of cities around the commuter sphere were founded and developed through the construction of railways in the twentieth century, which is historically different from European cities.4 Tokyo is a ‘sleepless’ city like other extremely large cities in the world. But her awaking is very troublesome every day. During the commuter rush hour, the so-called commuters’ hell, most trains are jammed with office workers and students. For example, almost all trains in Tokyo are crowded beyond capacity. In 1975, the average boarding rate was 221 per cent, and in 2007, it was still 171 per cent.5 At the end of the workday, there is a mass exodus from the centre of Tokyo. One of the most frequent commuter destinations is the western part of Tokyo, which originally was developed as a residential area. Shinjuku station is one of the biggest stations in the world and was used by an average of 3.6 million people per day in 2011. This was a registered Guinness world record. Ten lines are linked to Shinjuku station, including the Chūō line of East Japan Railway (JR-East), the Keiō line, and the Odakyū line, all bound for the Tama area in western Tokyo. Despite all this traffic, the trains usually are very punctual. In this context, it is noticeable that there are few strikes in Tokyo, in contrast to Berlin for example. Delays, when they occur, are usually caused by somebody falling accidentally from a crowded platform or because someone has committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. One hears announcements of a ‘passenger injury’ at least once a week. There are surprises, not only related to Japanese trains, but also to the consumer culture associated with them. The big stations have shopping centres inside and are connected to huge department stores. In addition, in guidebooks and magazines, one finds numerous articles about food shops and restaurants associated with the names of various stations, and on television, too, there is a large amount of gourmet information linked to stations. For example, TV hosts inform consumers that ‘it’s just a five-minute walk from Shinjuku station’. Almost all stations in Tokyo have billboards with all kinds of tourist information, and pamphlets and posters about tours and stamp rallies by train are readily available as well. At the stations and in the trains, there are pictures and information about the ‘lives’ of personalised train characters. An example was the poster on the side of a train that announced, ‘Good bye! Railroad coach number 6000!!’ Why are Japanese landscapes around railways different from Berlin and other cities in Europe? The main purpose of this article is to answer this

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  309 question, through a case study of the history of railways in Japan, especially in the north and south Tama areas. I do not intend to analyse this problem with a theory of ‘Japanese singularity’, because history is open and can open a lot of possibilities. Therefore, I cannot grasp the total history of railway development in Japan. Rather, I would like to offer an answer through the keywords of ‘marketing’ and ‘consumption’ in considering the history of railway culture.6 Within the broader scope of this culture, my thesis examines the concrete cases of (1) tourism, (2) shopping, and (3) hobbies. Of course, these aspects are a part of the railway industry in general, but in Japan, they are an especially important concern of management strategy.7 The Tama area is one of the best places for an analysis. Before the railway age, this area was not suited for industrial development. The extension of railways starting at the end of the nineteenth century allowed for the development and growth of urban areas. Railways in this area, at first, served as a distribution channel for raw silk, the most valuable export product at the time (around 1883–1896). Then they were used for the transport of lime and gravel for the production of reinforced concrete (around 1896–1937), and for transporting commuters after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.8 After World War Two, ‘new towns’ developed in this area along with railway expansion. These changes led to the growth of the tourist and consumption culture. In examining the railway history of this area, we can see that Tama in particular exemplifies these new characteristic cultural trends in Japan since the 1990s.

The Development of Railways and Railway Culture (1872–1945) One-Day Trip to Sacred and Historical Sites with a ‘Bentō Box’ Railway service started in 1872, five years after Japan ended its period of isolation. From the beginning, there was a relation with tourism. A private railway company, Japan Railway Company (Nihon Tetsudō Gaisya), which was established in 1881, initially as a semi-governmental corporation, became independent and introduced a new management strategy. For example, it offered a sightseeing train for a day trip to Nikkō, a famous resort and temple. This idea inspired other railway companies. They proceeded with sightseeing trains for flower viewing, sea bathing, moon viewing, and paying the first visit of the year to shrines.9 On this foundation, a ‘second enthusiasm for railway building’ developed, as of 1896, in conjunction with the speculation boom caused by the victory of the Sino-Japanese War. This led to a large number of private railway companies all over Japan10 and to competition among them. To increase potential transport demand and realise higher profits, companies thought that special train trips, that were nondaily and had cultural aspects, would be attractive. Thus, from the beginning, there was competition for value-added train service.11 This trend was promoted officially, too. In 1893, guide boards for tourists were set up at stations. Next, the Railway Bureau of Japan (Tetsudō-in)

310  Nobuhiro Yanagihara sent an official notice that two guide boards should be built at every station near good locations for trips.12 One still sees these boards at every station in Japan now. ‘The look from abroad’ was also emphasised. The Japanese government had a policy of modernisation. As part of this nation-building effort, authorities wanted their country to become a tourist destination for foreign people, especially Europeans and Americans, in order to gain greater international recognition. Thus, the government established the Japan Tourist Bureau in 1912, so that Japan could acquire foreign currency and display its modernised infrastructure.13 The Tama area, too, attracted the attention of tourists as a one-day-trip destination. The first train service was opened from Shinjuku to Tachikawa on 1 April 1889. April was chosen because it was the cherry blossom viewing (hanami) season and fishing for sweet fish (ayu tsuri) was popular in this area.14 The one-day trip also had historical precedence and there had been continuity of the tourist culture since the Edo period. During that time, there were security checkpoints everywhere in Japan. Women especially did not want to go through the checkpoint of Hakone between the Kantō and Tōkai regions.15 Therefore, the one-day trip was developed. This trend continued after the establishment of railways in this area.16 After publication of the book, The Influence of Japanese Railways on Society and Economy, by Tetsudō-in, in 1916, the one-day train trip became even more popular because of the many group discount tickets, especially for trips to shrines and temples and places of scenic beauty and historical interest.17 A famous folklorist, Kunio Yanagida, has defined the development of railways as pilgrimage-oriented development. However, there is a broader cultural dimension of sightseeing to it than only a religious dimension, compared to the railways in the Arabian Peninsula, for example. Yanagida wrote that this pilgrimage by train meant a moving party time in the small community.18 Together with the development of a tourist culture, we notice the development of other consumer industries around railways, such as food and souvenirs. The Japanese way to consume at a station is to buy a bentō box (ekiben) while waiting for the train to depart or changing trains. This practice also has a long history. The rice ball and pickles rolled in bamboo skin already seem to have been sold at stations in 1885.19 Then, these developments became popular all over Japan and created consumer cultures related to tourists, food, and souvenirs. The inventor of this rice ball style had a connection with the ‘Shirokiya’ department store, which was one of the original department stores at the stations in Japan. How does the Tama area fit into this developing railway culture? There is a big shrine, the Ōkunitama shrine, in Fuchū-City. In contrast to western Japan, however, where the capital city was located for over 1,100 years, the area did not have many other famous places. Therefore, the railway corporations created new sightseeing spots. These included parks with cherry

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  311 blossoms, hiking trails, a zoo, and a racetrack for horses. In the case of the Tama area and, more generally, in much of Japan, the creation of new sightseeing spots was, and is, important when one considers the Japanese railways’ culture. I would argue, then, that this culture needs to be understood in part as one of ‘creation’. Exodus by Train after the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 struck the Kantō plain at lunch time on 1 September 1923 and killed between 100,000 and 140,000 people. Fires broke out at numerous locations in Tokyo’s densely populated areas and spread rapidly due to high winds. Because of this deathblow to the centre of Tokyo, the strategic orientation of city planning became suburbanised. Before the quake, Tokyo’s central area had a population of 2.2 million. The outlying districts, including Tama, had 1.2 million. In 1930, seven years after the catastrophe, the former had 2.0 million and the latter, 2.9 million people.20 With this population shift came the development of rapid electric railways connecting the centre with the suburbs. The new inhabitants were not industrial labourers but a new, white-collar middle class. They commuted from the newly constructed suburbs to the centre of Tokyo and the railways developed rapidly in connection with this social class.21 Not only people, but several institutions and facilities moved to the Tama area as well ‒ for example, temples, graveyards, and universities.22 A university town, Kunitachi, was built in 1926. It was designed from a new city-building concept and united the wide road from the station to The Tokyo University of Economics (later, Hitotsubashi University). Numerous universities moved to, or were newly established in, the Tama area during this period. These projects were, and still are, indispensable to railway development in Tama. I will return to them in the third section, about the post-war era. The Emperor of Japan (Tennō) as a Focus of Touristic and Militaristic Imagination along Railways Even sacred areas were invented in this area. After the death of Emperor Taishō in 1926, a mausoleum was built for him in Tama. The railway was extended for visitors.23 At the time, there was a movement to sanctify and popularise Meiji Tennō, the emperor preceding Taishō Tennō. The memorial hall of Meiji Tennō, called Seiseki Kinen Kan, was built in Tama and became a place for sightseeing and school trips. In 1930, the name of the nearby station was changed to Seiseki Sakuragaoka, which translates as ‘the sacred trace on the hill with cherry blossoms’.24 Today, the head office of the Keiō line is there. Tennō is at the centre of imagination in Japan’s modern history. In 1872, at the beginning of the country’s railway history, Meiji Tennō took the train,

312  Nobuhiro Yanagihara which was not yet available for public use. It is said that this event served to reassure the public about the safety of trains.25 Later on, Tennō used royal trains as a symbol of power and authority over the Japanese people. Pamphlets about tours to promote awareness of the motherland were published from 1938, as part of efforts to motivate the general public. This is also related to Tennō, as the father of all Japanese people. The year 1940 was a special one for Japan because it was 2,600 years after the enthronement of the first Japanese Tennō according to legend. During this year, many sacred places related to Tennō were opened through the establishment of railways.26 Making a pilgrimage to the newly created sacred places also led to involvement of department stores at big stations. These stores, managed by the railway corporations, held special sales, especially of travel bags, suitcases, and cameras, to promote the tours.27 During wartime, with air raids from 1944, the railways in the Tama area became important for the defence of Japan’s mainland and as a detour to the centre of Tokyo. In addition, since the Edo period, Tama had been acting as the defence line for Tokyo and had been used for munitions factories since the Meiji era. The four railway corporations in this area were combined into one in 1940. Then, after the war, they were split again into three private companies, Keiō, Odakyū, and Seibu.28 The most famous scene at train platforms during World War Two was that of crowds of people seeing off the soldiers being sent to the front, and shouting ‘Banzai!’ while waving the national flag.29 This scene disappeared after the defeat, but from the aspect of consumer culture, consumption activities around stations continued after war’s end. Ironically, after the war, the platforms in Tokyo became crowded with salaried people, so-called corporate soldiers.

Prosperity, Suburbanisation, and Railway Extension (1945–1970s) The Era of the ‘Economic Miracle’ After its defeat in World War Two, Japan became a country of ‘peace’ (heiwa). For example, the first express train after the war was named Heiwa. Tennō also used the train to announce this message of ‘peace’ to the people. From 1946 to 1954, Shōwa Tennō made a round of visits throughout the country – except the Okinawa islands that were occupied by the USA – in order to tell his people that Tennō was not a God but rather a human symbol for the nation of Japan.30 However, Tennō was still an important part of the Japanese imagination and, moreover, was now linked to the capitalism that was being exported by America. For example, the Jinmu Boom (1954–1957), Iwato Boom (1958–1961), and Izanagi Boom (1965–1970) were named after the legendary first Tennō and the story of Tennō’s ancestors. These were the

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  313 periods of high growth of Japan’s ‘economic miracle’. In the second half of the 1950s, Japan became a mass-consumer society. In 1958, the word ‘consumption revolution’ appeared in an economic white paper and highlighted the washing machine, refrigerator, and monochrome television as ‘three sacred treasures’, symbolising the Japanese Imperial throne in the period of the Jinmu Boom. In the mid-1960s, the automobile, telephone, and colour television became the new ‘three sacred treasures’ and created new desires for consumption through the development of advertising technology.31 During the ‘economic miracle’ years of the 1950s, the population share of cities went up from 37.3 per cent to 65.2 per cent as the general population grew and migrants moved from rural areas. Also during this time, local governments were combined at a significantly increased pace, and the number of local governments officially recognised as urban municipalities increased as well.32 The Olympic Games and the suburbanisation of Tama In the first decades after the war, the extension of railways was compatible with increased car ownership, as Japan prospered. The fact that in 1964 the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo, plays an important role in this study. For this big event, a new railway was built in Japan. This was the Shinkansen line (bullet train) connecting west and east Japan on a dedicated railway at speeds of over 200 kilometres per hour. The Olympic Games promoted the urbanisation of the centre of Tokyo and the suburbanisation of the city’s outskirts, including the Tama region. The population of all areas composing Tama counted one million people in 1955, two million in 1966, and over three million in 1976.33 Many new apartment complexes were built for all the people who now commuted to work in the central part of Tokyo. These apartments were presented as ideal for families like the ‘democratised US nuclear family’ seen in American soap operas of the 1950s.34 Tama New Town (south Tama) was developed in 1971 and new Keiō and Odakyū railway lines were extended and connected to the centre of Tokyo at Shinjuku station. André Sorensen points out that the character of suburbanisation in the Japanese case was almost entirely determined by rail commuting. He offers three reasons: first, the distinctly low rate of private automobile ownership until the 1970s; second, the location of employment predominantly in central areas well served by railway and subway-transit systems; and third, the lack of road networks in sufficient quality and enough parking spaces in central city areas. He concludes that Japanese suburbanisation has thus been based primarily on rail travel via the extensive networks of national railways and also, in the metropolitan areas, on private commuter railways.35 His points are applicable to the Tama area. In 1980, the Keiō line began sharing tracks with another railway company, the Toei Shinjuku subway line, which runs underground from the centre of Tokyo to Chiba, a prefecture just east

314  Nobuhiro Yanagihara of Tokyo.36 It meant that a passenger could travel from the western to the ­eastern part of Tokyo without changing trains.

Tourist and Consumption Cultures on the Rise and the Burst of the ‘Bubble Economy’ (1980s–2000s) The ‘Bubble Economy’ and Consumptive Imagination In the 1980s, Japan was characterised by the ‘bubble economy’, created by feverish land speculation. This period was the climax and, at the same time, the beginning of the end of Japan’s ‘economic miracle.’ One of the most characteristic facilities was ‘Tokyo Disneyland’, which opened in 1983. The landscape of the city itself was increasingly shaped by consumerism and the shopping areas were strongly influenced by fantasy images, like ‘Tokyo Disneyland’. For example, ‘Sanrio Kitty Land’ was opened in 1990 in Tama Center, which is a terminal station of the Keiō and Odakyū lines.37 Other shopping centres at or near the station imitated the theme of an amusement park. In this way, shopping areas were shaped after popular images and became ‘disneyfied’.38 Already in the ‘bubble’ era, the production of primary industry goods had declined in Tokyo and people there consumed and rearranged information and symbols ever more. Thus, Tokyo became known as ‘the city of consumption’.39 In this period, the landscape along railways was also used for commercial purposes. For example, the Keiō line running from Tama New Town was often the stage for shooting movies on location. This railway landscape repeatedly appeared in television commercials, TV dramas, and movies. An author who introduced these locations in his book asked: ‘Will Keiō connect the management strategy and the improvement of Keiō line’s image in the future?’40 In 1995, after the ‘bubble’ era, the movie Whisper of the Heart, set in the Tama area, was a big hit.41 The image of railway lines continued to gain importance in this age of consumption. The concept of the consumer city influenced the management strategy of Japan Railways (JR), which was privatised in 1987. In order to meet consumer demand, JR advertised train trips to resort destinations, such as ski areas and beaches. The role of stations was changing, too. In a survey conducted in 1988, 42 per cent of respondents answered ‘a multi-functional station’ when asked ‘What do you expect from the station of the future?’42 In fact, especially in Tokyo and its outskirts, stations had been multi-functional since the 1990s, after the end of the bubble economy. Consumption of the ‘Characterised’ Railways and the ‘Cute’ Station The association of railways and tourism continued after World War Two. It occurred at an even faster pace after the 1950s, encouraged by the subculture of animation films. The Galaxy Train 999 was a TV series from 1978 to 1981, based on the original comics written by Leiji Matsumoto. This animation film

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  315 was shown in 1979 and took in the highest revenues that year. Its multi-media content offered an opportunity to the tourist industry. About 30,000 people applied for 999 spots to participate in the ‘Mystery Train of 999’ event.43 At the same time, there was a boom in long-distance night trains, called ‘blue trains’ because of their colour. In this article, I cannot go into the history of railway hobbyists, who are knowledgeable about rolling stock and its mechanism, are interested in train schedules, pictures of trains, trips by train, and so on. According to Izumi Tsuji, a Japanese sociologist, the railway hobby has historically been dominated by men.44 But he also shows that since the early years of the twenty-first century women have increasingly become interested as well. However, the latter usually do not focus on the mechanism of trains, but take pleasure in trips by train while enjoying the landscape and food (ekiben).45 The trend toward domestic travel, when the bubble economy ended, may have been a factor in these developments. This said, Japanese tourism by train in order to visit special sites, with a bentō box, has a long history, as I mentioned previously. The hobby culture as a subculture spread in the 1990s and became increasingly popular in the following ­decade. Until then, hobbyists had communicated with each other in special groups. The word otaku meaning ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’ was well known. In the early years of the twenty-first century, a new slang word, moe, became popular. Moe means a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual. According to Go Sasakibara, an otaku culture researcher, moe is a rarefied pseudo-love for certain fictional characters in anime, manga, and the like.46 During the years of the moe bubble, the concept of moe was associated with Japan’s consumptive practices.47 Moe was chosen as the top buzzword of 2005. This moe culture influenced the railway culture. Countless moe characters for and about railways were created and were used in railway station guidebooks, on character goods for railways, and on personalised trains and lines (!). When a train is characterised, the personality is displayed in the train’s colour, character, and historical facts (Figure 15.1).48 The ways in which people consume in the stations have also changed since approximately 2000. Management at JR-East thought that one of the most important business areas, apart from rail transport, were services related to daily life and shopping. So ten years after privatisation (1987), JR-East started rebuilding stations, combining them with shopping centres and department stores. The first example of this kind was ‘Granduo’ at the Tachikawa station in Tama.49 Next, this building boom expanded around the concept of ‘at the station’. The idea was that terminal stations in Tokyo were not just places to pass through or to change trains, but commercial destinations. They were named ecute, combining the words eki (station) and the English ‘cute’.50 In Tama, ‘Ecute Tachikawa’ was opened in October 2007 with the concept of ‘my habitat’.51 A lot of people take the train just to go shopping there. This is the new consumer pattern around railways in Japan.

316  Nobuhiro Yanagihara

Figure 15.1  Personification of the Express Train of the Odakyū Line (drawn by Tomohito Megumi). Source: Tomohito Megumi.

Women make up the largest number of consumers at ecutes. Likewise, the number of female train passengers has increased in the past 10–15 years. The new concept of testsu-tabi or railway tourism means that one purpose, or even the main purpose, of a trip is to take the train or to visit railway institutions and museums.52 This railway tourism involves 34.1 per cent of travellers. According to one questionnaire, the fascination with railway tourism is, first, to enjoy the landscape from the train window, and also to enjoy beverages and food like ekiben.53

Conclusion: The Internalised Culture of Railways In this chapter, I have sketched a history of railway culture in Japan and analysed the development of railways related to marketing and consumer culture, looking at the example of the Tama area in west Tokyo. I have argued that Japanese railway networks were created by the symbolised sightseeing

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  317 areas, shopping places, and characterised figures, even including Tennō, all of which were intended to stimulate the imagination of Japanese travellers and consumers when the railways were constructed physically. This media function of railways in Japan poses a problem for Schivelbusch’s theory that the railway extends our human sense.54 My study shows that the human imagination contributed to the physical extension of railways in Tama, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Upon completion of this extension in the 1990s, the imagination created new marketing and consumer styles around railways and stations in Japan.

Notes 1 Masahiro Takeuchi, Tetsudō to Nihongun (Railways and the Japanese Army) (Tokyo 2010), 7. 2 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, MA 1994). 3 Hitoshi Abe, Man’in Densha ga Nakunaru Hi (The Day When the Problem of Jam-packed Trains Is Solved) (Tokyo 2008), 12–13. 4 See Yasuo Hibata, Toshi Keikaku no Sekaishi (The World History of City Planning) (Tokyo 2008). 5 Report of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Japan, http:// www.mlit.go.jp/tetudo/toshitetu/03_04.html (last accessed on 23 November 2013). 6 Tadashi Uda, a recognised authority on the study of Japanese railway culture, wrote: (…) the railway either as information system in the modern era or as cultural symbol has a great influence on one’s inner life, and leads to various cultural outputs. Then, the railway can become the cultural existence related to human sciences. Tadashi Uda, Tetsudō Nihon Bunkashi Kō (Thoughts on Japanese Railway Culture) (Kyoto 2007), 14. 7 Ibid., 174‒75. 8 Masaho Noda, Katsumasa Harada, et al., eds., Tama no Tetsudō 100 nen (100 Years of Railways in Tama) (Tokyo 1993), ii. 9 Kazuya Sawa, Nihon no Tetsudō. Kotohajime (The First Things of Japanese Railways) (Tokyo 1996), 198–201. See also Noboru Hirayama, Tetsudō ga kaeta Syaji Sankei (Railways changed the Visit to Tempels and Shrines) (Tokyo 2012). 10 Yasuo Wakuda, Nihon no Shitetsu (Private Railroads in Japan) (Tokyo 1981), 25–40. 11 Uda, Tetsudō, 178. 12 Sawa, Nihon, 202–207. 13 Uda, Tetsudō, 180–181. 14 Masaho Noda, ‘Hanami to Ayu Tsuri’ (Seeing Cherry Blossoms and Fishing Sweet Fish), in Noda and Harada, Tama no Tetsudō, 58. 15 Laura Nenzi, ‘Cultured Travelers and Consumer Tourists in Edo’, Monumenta Nipponica, 59, 3, 2004, 285‒319, here 288; Tōkai is west of the Tokyo area, that is, in the middle of mainland Japan. Mount Fuji is in this area. 16 Anne Walthall, ‘Nishiyama Hide: Turning Palace Arts into Marketable Skills’, in Anne Walthall, ed., The Human Tradition in Modern Japan (London, Boulder, New York, Toronto, and Oxford 2001), 81–98. 17 Tetsudō-in, Honpō Testudō no Shakai oyobi Keizai ni Oyoboseru Eikyō (The Influences on Society and Economy in Our Country), vol. 3 (Tokyo 1916), 1605.

318  Nobuhiro Yanagihara 18 Kunio Yanagida, ‘Meiji-taishō-shi. Sesō hen’ (Social Conditions in the Era of Meiji and Taishō), in Kunio Yanagida, Teihon Yanagida Kunio shū (Collected Works of Kunio Yanagida), 31 vols. (Tokyo 1971), vol. 24, 260–263. See Uda, Tetsudō, 175–176. 19 Shōji Sorimachi, Tesudō no Nihon shi (The Japanese History of Railways) (Tokyo 1982), 434. See also Junshin Hayashi, Shinobu Kobayashi, Ekiben gaku Kōza (Lessons about Ekiben) (Tokyo 2000). 20 Katsumasa Harada, Kisha kara Densha e (From a Steam Locomotive to an Electric Train: Sociohistorical Observations) (Tokyo 1995), 175. 21 Ken’ichi Nakanishi, Nihon Shiyūtetsudō shi Kenkyū. Zōho ban (The History of Japanese Private Railways. Enlarged edition) (Kyoto 1979), 258–259. 22 Masataka Kondō, Shitetsu Tanken (Expeditions to Private Railways) (Tokyo 2008), 47–82. 23 Takeshi Hara, Tetsudō Hitotsu Banashi (A Short History of Railways) (Tokyo 2003), vol. 1, 56–57. 24 Ibid., 197–200. 25 Harada, Kisha kara, 68. 26 Kenneth J. Ruoff, Imperial Japan at Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire’s 2,600 Anniversary (Ithaca, NY 2010), 151–152. 27 Ibid., 137–139. 28 Noda and Harada, Tama no Tetsudō, 4–10. 29 Takeuchi, Tetsudō, 7. 30 Takeshi Hara, Tetsugaku Gairon (An Introduction to the Study of Railways: Japanese Modern History from the Train Window) (Tokyo 2011), 85–111. 31 Masako Amano, ‘Seikatsu sha’ towa dareka. Jiritsu teki Shiminzō no Keihu (Who Are Living Citizens? A Genealogy of Images of Independent Citizens) (Tokyo 1996), 125. 32 André Sorensen, The Making of Urban Japan (London 2002), 172. 33 Noda and Harada, Tama no Tetsudō, 11–12. 34 Hara, Tetsudō Hitotsu Banashi, vol. 3, 176–177; Atsushi Miura, “Kazoku” to ‘Kōfuku’ no Sengoshi. Kōgai no Yume to Genjitsu (The Post-war History of ‘Family’ and ‘Happiness’: Dream and Reality in the Suburbs) (Tokyo 1999), 16–18. 35 Sorensen, The Making, 251. 36 Takashi Machimura, Sekai Toshi Tokyo no Kōzō Tenkan, Toshi Risutorakuchuaringu no Shakaigaku (The Structual Change of a Global City: The Sociology of Urban Restructuring in Tokyo) (Tokyo 1994), 58–59. 37 Shun’ya Yoshimi, Riaritii Toranjitto (Realities in Transit) (Tokyo 1996); Kondō, Shitetsu Tanken, 81–82. 38 See Edward Relph, Place and Placeness (London 1976). 39 Yōsuke Hirayama, Tokyo no Hate ni (To the End of Tokyo) (Tokyo 2006), 103–113. 40 Akihide Mori, Nihon no Shitetsu. Nandemo Dokuhon (Japanese Private Railways: A Book about Anything) (Tokyo 1996), 37–38. 41 Mimi o Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart), Dir. Yoshifumi Kondō, Studio Ghibli, 1995. 42 Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, ‘Ekibunka’ o Kangaeru (Thoughts on the Station Culture) (Tokyo 1988), 185–189. 43 Sawa, Nihon, 230–231. 44 Izumi Tsuji, ‘Naze Tetsudō wa “Otoko no Roman” ni nattanoka. “Syōnen Risō shugi” no Yukue (Why Did Railways become ‘man’s Dream’? The History of Boys Idealism)’, in Izumi Tsuji et al., eds., Otoko rashisa no Kairaku. Popuraa Bunka kara mita sono Jittai (The Pleasure of Masculinity: The Actual Situation from the Perspective of Pop Culture) (Tokyo 2009), 219–246.

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  319 45 Tsuji, ‘Naze Tetsudō wa’, 243. 46 Gō Sasakibara, ‘Bishōjo’ no Gendaishi. Moe to Kyarakutaa (The Contemporary History of Lovely Young Girls: Moe and Characters) (Tokyo 2004). 47 Yoshimasa Kijima, ‘Naze Kyarakutaa ni “Moeru” noka. Posuto Modan no Bunkashakai gaku’ (Why Does the Character Give Us ‘Moe’? Post-modern Cultural Sociology), in Tsuji et al., eds., Otoko rashisa no Kairaku, 137–168, here 147–148. 48 Tomohito Megumi, ‘Sharyō Dezain to Kyarakutaa. JR Kyūshū no ba’ai’ (The Design of Trains and Characters. The Case of JR Kyūshū), Eureka, June 2004, 187–194. Two examples of comics about personalised trains: Miracle Train Project, Mirakuru Torein (Miracle Train) (Tokyo 2009), and Seiji Matsuyama, Tetsuko na San Shimai (Train Mania: Three Sisters) (Tokyo 2009–2011). 49 The name Granduo is a compound word combining ‘grand’ and ‘duo’. 50 Takeo Ikezawa, Tetsudō to Hyakkaten. Gyōtai Henyō no Mekanizumu (Railways and Department Stores: The Mechanism of Change in Business Conditions), dissertation at Nagoya City University, 2008. 51 Yumiko Kamata, ‘Ekyūto’ Monogatari (The Story of Ecute) (Tokyo 2007). 52 The Research Institute of Travel, Tetsu-tabi Kenkyū. Reiru-uei Tsūrizumu no Jittai toTenbō (Study of Railway Tourism: The Actual Situation and Prospects of Railway Tourism) (Tokyo 2010), 20. 53 Ibid., 23, 60–61. 54 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986).

Film Mimi o Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart), Dir. Yoshifumi Kondō, Studio Ghibli, 1995.

Literature Abe, Hitoshi, Man’in Densha ga Nakunaru Hi (The Day when the Problem of Jampacked Trains is Solved) (Tokyo 2008). Amano, Masako, ‘Seikatsu sha’ towa dareka. Jiritsu teki Shiminzō no Keihu (Who Are Living Citizens? A Genealogy of Images of Independent Citizens) (Tokyo 1996). Hara, Takeshi, Tetsudō Hitotsu Banashi (A Short Story of Railways) (Tokyo 2003), vol. 1, 56–57. Hara, Takeshi, Tetsugaku Gairon (An Introduction to the Study of Railways: Japanese Modern History from the Train Window) (Tokyo 2011). Harada, Katsumasa, Kisha kara Densha e (From a Steam Locomotive to an Electric Train: Sociohistorical Observations) (Tokyo 1995). Hayashi, Junshin, Shinobu Kobayashi, Ekiben gaku Kōza (Lessons about Ekiben) (Tokyo 2000). Hibata, Yasuo, Toshi Keikaku no Sekaishi (The World History of City Planning) (Tokyo 2008). Hirayama, Noboru, Tetsudō ga kaeta Syaji Sankei (Railways changed the Visit to Tempels and Shrines) (Tokyo 2012). Hirayama, Yōsuke, Tokyo no Hate ni (To the End of Tokyo) (Tokyo 2006). Ikezawa, Takeo, Tetsudō to Hyakkaten. Gyōtai Henyō no Mekanizumu (Railways and Department Stores: The Mechanism of Change in Business Conditions), dissertation at Nagoya City University, 2008.

320  Nobuhiro Yanagihara Kamata, Yumiko, ‘Ekyūto’ Monogatari (The Story of Ecute) (Tokyo 2007). Kijima, Yoshimasa, ‘Naze Kyarakutaa ni “Moeru” noka. Posuto Modan no Bunkashakai gaku’ (Why Does the Character Give Us ‘Moe’? Post-modern Cultural Sociology), in Tsuji Izumi et al., eds., Otoko rashisa no Kairaku. Popuraa Bunka kara mita sono Jittai (The Pleasure of Masculinity: The Actual Situation from the Perspective of Pop Culture) (Tokyo 2009), 137–168. Kondō, Masataka, Shitetsu Tanken (Expeditions to Private Railways) (Tokyo 2008). Machimura, Takashi, Sekai Toshi Tokyo no Kōzō Tenkan, Toshi Risutorakuchuaringu no Shakaigaku (The Structural Change of a Global City: The Sociology of Urban Restructuring in Tokyo) (Tokyo 1994). Matsuyama, Seiji, Tetsuko na San Shimai (Train Mania: Three Sisters) (Tokyo 2009–2011). McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, MA 1994). Megumi, Tomohito, ‘Sharyō Dezain to Kyarakutaa. JR Kyūshū no ba’ai’ (The Design of Trains and Characters. The Case of JR Kyūshū’, Eureka, Juni 2004), 187–194. Miracle Train Project, Mirakuru Torein (Miracle Train) (Tokyo 2009). Miura, Atsushi, ‘Kazoku’ to ‘Kōfuku’ no Sengoshi. Kōgai no Yume to Genjitsu (The Post-war History of ‘Family’ and ‘Happiness’: Dream and Reality in the Suburbs) (Tokyo 1999). Mori, Akihide, Nihon no Shitetsu. Nandemo Dokuhon (Japanese Private Railways: A Book about Anything) (Tokyo 1996). Nakanishi, Ken’ichi, Nihon Shiyūtetsudō shi Kenkyū. Zōho ban (The History of Japanese Private Railways. Enlarged edition) (Kyoto 1979). Nenzi, Laura, ‘Cultured Travelers and Consumer Tourists in Edo’, Monumenta Nipponica, 59, 3, 2004, 285–319. Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), ‘Ekibunka’ o Kangaeru (Thoughts on the Station Culture) (Tokyo 1988). Noda, Masaho, ‘Hanami to Ayu Tsuri’ (Seeing Cherry Blossoms and Fishing Sweet Fish), in Masaho Noda, Katsumasa Harada, et al., eds., Tama no Tetsudō 100 nen (100 Years of Railways in Tama) (Tokyo 1993), 58. Noda, Masaho, Harada, Katsumasa, et al., eds., Tama no Tetsudō 100 nen (100 Years of Railways in Tama) (Tokyo 1993). Relph, Edward, Place and Placeness (London 1976). Ruoff, Kenneth J., Imperial Japan at Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire’s 2,600 Anniversary (Ithaca, NY 2010). Sasakibara, Gō, ‘Bishōjo’ no Gendaishi. Moe to Kyarakutaa (The Contemporary History of Lovely Young Girls: Moe and Characters) (Tokyo 2004). Sawa, Kazuya, Nihon no Tetsudō. Kotohajime (The First Things of Japanese Railways) (Tokyo 1996). Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986). Sorensen, André, The Making of Urban Japan (London 2002). Sorimachi, Shōji, Tesudō no Nihon shi (The Japanese History of Railways) (Tokyo 1982). Takeuchi, Masahiro, Tetsudō to Nihongun (Railways and the Japanese Army) (Tokyo 2010).

Railways: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo  321 Tetsudō-in, Honpō Testudō no Shakai oyobi Keizai ni Oyoboseru Eikyō (The Influences on Society and Economy in Our Country), vol. 3 (Tokyo 1916). The Research Institute of Travel, Tetsu-tabi Kenkyū. Reiru-uei Tsūrizumu no Jittai toTenbō (Study of Railway Tourism: The Actual Situation and Prospects of Railway Tourism) (Tokyo 2010). Tsuji, Izumi, ‘Naze Tetsudō wa “Otoko no Roman” ni nattanoka. “Syōnen Risō shugi” no Yukue (Why Did Railways become ‘Man’s Dream’? The History of Boys Idealism) ’, in Tsuji Izumi et al., eds., Otoko rashisa no Kairaku. Popuraa Bunka kara mita sono Jittai (The Pleasure of Masculinity: The Actual Situation from the Perspective of Pop Culture) (Tokyo 2009), 219–246. Uda, Tadashi, Tetsudō Nihon Bunkashi Kō (Thoughts on Japanese Railway Culture) (Kyoto 2007). Wakuda, Yasuo, Nihon no Shitetsu (Private Railways in Japan) (Tokyo 1981). Walthall, Anne, ‘Nishiyama Hide. Turning Palace Arts Into Marketable Skills’, in Anne Walthall, ed., The Human Tradition in Modern Japan (London, Boulder, New York, Toronto, and Oxford 2001), 81–98. Yanagida, Kunio, ‘Meiji-taishōshi. Sesō hen’ (Social Conditions in the Era of Meiji and Taishō), in Yanagida Kunio, Teihon Yanagida Kunio shū (Collected Works of Yanagida Kunio), 31 vols. (Tokyo 1971), vol. 24, 260–263. Yoshimi, Shun’ya, Riaritii Toranjitto (Realities in Transit) (Tokyo 1996).

16 From Viaducts to Vandalism The London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840 Alex Werner

The London & Greenwich Railway opened between 1836 and 1838 but leased its railway lines and property from 1845 to the South Eastern Railway Company. It took no further part in the running of the railway but continued to pay a dividend to its shareholders until 1923. In 2010–2011, just over 51 million passengers entered and exited the mainline station at London Bridge.1 For those arriving or departing for the first time, the arrangement of the station can seem very confusing. On ­advancing towards the station from London Bridge, one is confronted with two long railway bridges that cross the station approach road and Borough High Street, next to Southwark Cathedral, carrying trains to and from Cannon Street, Blackfriars, Waterloo and Charing Cross Station. This structure relates to an expansionary phase of London’s railway network in the 1860s when the railway companies were permitted to cross the river and built termini right in the heart of the City and the West End. A gradual incline on the left leads up to the covered station entrance with bus and taxi drop-off areas and a booking office. The raised aspect of the station is man-made and can be traced back to the London & Greenwich Railway’s original design. A transformation, however, is now underway at the station and the surrounding area. The most dramatic new feature is the Shard, a 310 metres skyscraper next to the entrance of the station. The new station concourse is being revealed gradually as development nears completion. An existing high-level walkway connects with Guy’s Hospital, to the south, an institution dating back to the early eighteenth century. There is another pedestrian station approach on the north side at street level. A brick-lined passage leads into London Bridge underground station entrance and booking hall with a nearby metal staircase ascending to the mainline station approach road and ticket barriers. Escalators descend to the Jubilee and Northern underground lines and ahead a further set of escalators ascend into the main station concourse. These street-level approaches, especially in their brickwork, betray an interesting earlier history. The railway and its surrounding areas have shaped and continue to shape this part of the city.2 One senses a tension here between the old and the new, with layer upon layer built up over time. Many of the spaces under the arches below DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-21

London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840  323 the raised railway’s course are today being refurbished and fitted out for a variety of new business uses. The London & Greenwich Railway (LGR) was the first to build a railway viaduct in the city as well as the first to try and commercially exploit the new urban spaces created beneath it. In the late 1830s, the LGR interacted with the metropolis in a novel way. Uniquely, it set out to be a passenger railway from the start.3 There were ambitious plans to extend the line, further east and south as far as Dover, but the initial concept was just for a short six-kilometre railway that would link the metropolis with Greenwich. In appearance, it differed from the London & Birmingham Railway (LBR), the other railway under construction at this period, which was approaching the capital by excavating deep cuttings to carry its line from Camden Town into Euston Square. The LGR was much more visible as it ran on a continuous brick viaduct of 878 arches. Unlike the LBR, the line extended right into the densely built-up area of the city very close to the southern approaches of London Bridge, the capital’s busiest river crossing. Existing roadways in the path of the railway, as well as the Surrey Canal and the River Ravensbourne between Deptford and Greenwich along its course, were bridged as the unbroken line of the brick viaduct formed a physical barrier where none had existed before. The regularity of the arches and the long thin strip of enclosed land, on either side of the railway, divided the urban space and transformed the cityscape. Although there was a novelty in the railway’s structure, its monumental scale was not extraordinary for early nineteenth-century London. Many other major developments were transforming the city at this date, something which many foreign visitors commented on.4 Four immense new bridges had been built across the Thames including Southwark Bridge with its three cast iron spans, the central one being the world’s largest at the time of its construction. In 1831, Old London Bridge itself had been replaced by a wider and more modern structure designed by the celebrated engineer, John Rennie. Eight private dock companies, five on the north side of the Thames and three on the south side, had completely altered the port area to the east of the Tower of London. These were vast undertakings. The West India Dock, which had opened in 1802, remained the world’s largest dock until the 1850s. An extensive canal had been cut linking Limehouse in the east and Paddington in the west with a long circuitous route to the north of the city. New roads had been built, especially the approach routes to the new bridges, and the turnpikes that connected London with the s­urrounding towns and villages were better maintained with macadamised surfaces. These and existing city roads were just starting to be used by the new omnibus, a mode of transport which competed directly with the LGR along with the existing steamboat services that carried commuters and leisure passengers up and down the river in increasing numbers. The steamboats share a commonality with the LGR in that they were seen by many as an attractive excursion mode of transport. A visit to Greenwich involved a trip down the river, possibly a meal at one of the taverns, a walk in the park and then a

324  Alex Werner return journey back to the city. When the railway opened it became part of this leisure route with the river and the railroad often combined as part of the overall experience. The railways in London in the late 1830s have to be placed within this context as they were just one of the many features marking out London as a city of the industrial age. In railway terms, the LGR was quite a minor affair compared to immense undertaking of the inter-city LBR which opened in 1838. Nevertheless, it was probably the world’s most expensive railway line per kilometre of track at the time. This was the result of the viaduct design and the cost of the land in the vicinity of London Bridge. The railway required a vast army of contractors and labourers to clear the sites and then construct the brick arches. The railway was no different to new dock, bridge and canal projects in that it employed a similar workforce. The main contractor for LGR was Hugh McIntosh who had supervised the works at the East India Dock, Vauxhall Bridge approach roads, Highgate Archway and the Regent’s Canal Dock as well as numerous other projects in Britain. For the deep foundations of the arches of the railway’s viaduct, he used concrete, something that he had employed at the East India Dock. The foundation trenches were filled with some 35 centimetres of water, to which a mixture of lime, sand and gravel was added.5 The construction of the LGR became a tourist attraction like other works in the city which had a transformative impact on the urban landscape. The prospect of travelling on the railway also excited a public that had heard and read so much about the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Similar anticipation greeted the LBR at Camden Town on the edge of the capital. As the railway neared completion there was a pent-up demand by Londoners to view the construction sites, tracks, railway engines and wagons. The LGR sensing a commercial opportunity, as funds were in short supply, started to charge people for the experience. Nearby a similar paid attraction was in operation at the Thames Tunnel works. Here, visitors descended underground to wonder at the enterprise and engineering ambition of Marc Brunel – later Sir Marc – and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who were attempting to build the world’s first tunnel under a navigable river. It was not unexpected when the railway’s viaduct was compared in newspapers and magazines to an ancient Roman aqueduct. In 1835, the ­G entleman’s Magazine wrote that the ‘viaduct when completed will exceed by three-­ quarters of a mile, the celebrated bridge of Trajan across the Danube, and is certainly the most extraordinary work of the kind in our age.’6 The regularity and length, if not the height, bore resemblances to structures of the ancient world. Colonel George Landmann, the engineer of LGR, had worked in Portugal and Spain when he was in the army during the peninsular wars. Perhaps he had seen the surviving Roman aqueduct at Segovia. Comparing London’s new structures to the ancient world was not uncommon, as commentators found it difficult to find anything comparable in size and extant in the modern world. For instance, a visit to the enormous wine vaults at the

London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840  325 London Dock was described as being like a descent into the catacombs of Rome.7 The railway itself created its own catacombs. The LGR had to accommodate the old Flemish burial site that lay in the path of the approach road to London Bridge Station. The railway’s Act of Parliament stated that no piers could be sunk into the cemetery. However, this was not viable and in the end, a series of arches was built and access to the c­ emetery continued although no burials were allowed close to the piers. London tended to be measured against ancient Rome, seemingly the only comparable capital in history that had sat at the centre of such an Empire. Charles Dupin, the French engineer, described Waterloo Bridge as ‘worthy’ of ‘the Caesars’.8 Appropriately, one of the first carriage frames built for LGR was ‘formed on the model of ancient Roman galley’. Herapath remarked that when flying along the line (it) will present to the spectator no bad idea of one of those vessels of war, by means of which, the masters of the world pushed their conquest even to this island.9 In some of the illustrations accompanying the texts describing the proposed new raised railroad, the engines and carriages often have the appearance of seemingly floating in midair above the viaduct. As part of the initial scheme of the railway, it was conceived that wealthy Londoners would drive their carriages onto special rail wagons and take advantage of the view from the viaduct, avoiding the congestion and uneven surface of the roads. Carriage approaches at Deptford and Greenwich were constructed but no vehicles were ever carried on the line. However, many of the early illustrations in the 1830s show these open carriage wagons alongside more standard railway coaches being hauled along by a locomotive.10 Certainly, there was no shortage of press articles describing the LGR during its construction phase as well as after opening. The fact that the railway was located right in the heart of London perhaps owed something to this level of attention. One of the most widely available and read weekly magazines at the period was the Penny Magazine produced by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In January 1836, it featured an artist’s impression of the LGR on its cover accompanied by a short article about the line (see Figure 16.1).11 Each month, the Penny Magazine illustrated a famous historical building on its cover but sometimes as here, a new structure was featured. The railways were impressive additions to Britain’s landscape and the magazine had included already an illustrated article on the Manchester to Liverpool Railroad in March 1833. The cover engraving shows a section of the LGR close to the new government funded Commissioners’ church of St. James, Bermondsey, completed in 1829. The church’s elevation has been swivelled round and brought closer to the viaduct in the print to add grandeur to the railway. Both are seemingly in tune with the spirit of the developing city and both classical in shape and proportion. The viaduct in its regularity and simplicity seems to march confidently across the landscape. In the distance to

326  Alex Werner

Figure 16.1  C  over of the Penny Magazine with a Motif of the Viaduct of the LGR, 1836. Source: Penny Magazine, January 1836,

the left London appears on higher ground. As the smoking engine pulling the railway carriages passes by on the viaduct, the world below has a more sedate and relaxed feel. Two couples are walking along beside the viaduct and a man, possibly one of the railway’s police constables, is pointing the way to a child. The railway crosses an area of market gardens that grows fresh produce for the city. A gardener is seen digging with rows of glass cloches behind him matching the regularity of the viaduct though surrounded with bushes and greenery. Two worlds are presented here – the one above of the viaduct carrying the railway and its passengers and the one below the arches with the walkway and fields. Both, however, seem quite regulated, conforming to a natural urban order, though the viaduct suggests movement and progress. The text of the magazine article recounted the history of the railway and the plans of its projectors. It claimed that the terms used to describe the new railway such as ‘magnificent’ were justified as the route between London and one of its ‘most frequented suburbs’ would become very useful to the public and profitable to the proprietors.12 In reality, the railway company faced major difficulties and its future remained uncertain. The company had been incorporated by Act of Parliament obtained in 1833 to build a railway between London Bridge and Greenwich carried on a continuous viaduct. However, such a scheme proved expensive and many

London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840  327 delays occurred. A clause in the Act that empowered local committees to view and decide on the proposed plans of the railway as it passed over certain roads hindered the rapid construction of the railway. Although not specified in the Penny Magazine article, there had also been problems in acquiring the land and securing sufficient funds to complete the works. To increase revenue, the railway proposed converting the arches into shops and dwelling-houses and letting them out to the local people and businesses. Two had been fitted out at Deptford. A novel feature was their heating that used special gas stoves instead of coal and wood fires as their chimneys would have been ‘an annoyance’ to the railway above. However, the main query was whether people would want to live there: A question will naturally be asked, in what degree will the comfort of future inhabitants of these singular houses be affected by the noise of the engines and trains of carriages passing overhead? One individual described the passing of a train, while he was within one of the houses, as resembling a distant roll of thunder (…) another thought it resembled the sudden passing of a heavily laden wagon.13 In the event, once the line had opened, these houses failed to attract occupants despite overcrowding and poor housing conditions in the area. Apart from the noise, the main problem was the dampness caused by rainwater seeping through the bricks. As the railway was a curiosity and the company had acquired land on either side of the viaduct, another money making operation was put in place with a walkway along the south side. Many of the illustrations show this picturesque walkway. The Penny Magazine view would have included a low parapet wall that had been constructed alongside the footpath but the text explained that it was omitted ‘to show the elevation of the arches’ more clearly. Pedestrians were charged a small fee to use the pathway. There were spas, tea gardens and pleasure grounds in the vicinity of the viaduct and such a walkway continued with the tradition of creating commercialised leisure spaces on the edge of the built-up city. The company planted a line of trees to provide shade for those on the walkway. Unfortunately, the parapet wall was no deterrent to local boys who vandalised the young saplings. This action can be explained by the fact that the railway had imposed itself on the landscape, walling off land that once had been open ground consisting of paths running across open fields. The vandalism may have reflected frustration in the transfer of these spaces from the public to the private sphere as they became controlled and commercialised. In comparison, the dock companies who faced pressing issues of theft and vandalism resorted to building high brick fortress-like walls, water-filled moats and timber palisades around their properties. LGR could do little to stop such activity as a high wall or fence would have detracted from those visiting the semi-rural walk. One solution for the railway company would have been to increase the number

328  Alex Werner of watchmen and attendants but this probably would have made the whole enterprise unprofitable. Gas lights were positioned at regular intervals along the parapet of the viaduct to light up the railway in the evening. Once the railway was operational trains ran until nine pm on weekdays and ten pm on Sundays. The light may have also helped the watchmen who patrolled the arches and pathway at night. The lighting of the railway track only continued for a few years as it proved to be too expensive. Another popular magazine, the Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Science, in December 1836, carried another illustrated perspective of the new railway, just after it had opened. In a rather crude wood engraving, copied from a print by George FredericBragg, a bird’s-eye view of LGR looked eastwards from the station at London Bridge towards Deptford in the distance with Bermondsey’s new church once again a prominent landmark alongside the new railway. Inaccurately the viaduct was shown to curve to the right whereas it followed a straight path. The railway’s directness had been promoted by the company in its prospectus, stressing that the line was a shorter route by one and three-quarter miles than the five miles by road. The accompanying text called the LGR ‘a noble triumph of science’.14 It was felt that the historical attractions at Greenwich with its annual fairs at Easter and Whitsun would make the railway a success. No station had yet been built at London Bridge although the company’s offices directly to the south of the entrance gates of the station are shown almost abutting the new wing of St. Thomas’s Hospital. The article spoke about a pay and check bar and outlet at the station but all that could be seen was a small cabin and fence. It was envisaged that the terminus would be a place into which ‘the coming trains may be impelled, like coaches in an inn-yard’. Such metaphors show that railway terms are still being formulated in 1836. At the point where the LGR joined with other railways that used the route into London Bridge, a ‘signal-man’ was to be stationed at the junction, ‘whose duty it will be to give notice of the approach of either of the trains’, something which is noted to be the practice on the ‘Manchester and all other Railways’.15 There was a concern about the prospect of so many trains from different lines meeting in one place. It was noted that a simple arrangement, ‘understood by all the engineers, as in coaches passing through crowded streets, and by the aid of a mechanical “switch”, the passage from one railway to another and back may be rendered perfectly safe’. John Herapath, one of the first expert commentators on railways had made this same point that the Greenwich line, ‘like the trunk of a tree, must gather strength and bulk from every branch it sends forth’.16 The Penny Magazine had predicted that it would ‘become a sort of turnpike road, by which other railways will be enabled to open a communication with the heart of London’.17 This was where the railway would be able to offer some sort of return to its shareholders not from running just a simple service between London and Greenwich as the viaduct had been so costly.18 The engraving does reveal the densely packed city that hugs the sides of the viaduct and confirms the major impact of the railway on properties along

London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840  329 its route, especially in the densely inhabited area close to London Bridge. As John R. Kellett has written the railways created ‘formidable physical barriers’ in cities and helped to consolidate ‘dereliction in annexed streets’.19 The LGR’s course ran through some very poor areas of Southwark where, during the cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1833, many local inhabitants had lost their lives. The LGR demolished many warehouses and buildings in its path. It paid compensation to property owners and businesses but offered nothing to people who were made homeless through losing their rented accommodation. This was comparable to the construction of the St. Katharine Docks, by the Tower of London, from 1826 to 1828 where around 11,000 inhabitants lost their homes. The article stressed the beneficial effect of the railway in opening up ‘neighbourhoods (…) into which for ages the light has scarcely shone’, by ‘promoting ventilation’ and ‘removing tenements of a wretched description, crowded with a miserable population, whose filth and density was a fruitful source of disease’.20 Such a view remained unchallenged in the 1830s and it was only later that commentators such as Karl Marx, questioned such ‘improvements’ which just forced out the poor and moved them on to another nearby district where the conditions were no better and often worse. A writer in Bentley’s Miscellany in 1837 called them ‘tragic dens’.21 The collapse of two arches of the viaduct in Bermondsey on the evening of 18 January 1836 drew attention to the living conditions of the poor in the district. There was no loss of life but newspaper reports mentioned that during the day children commonly played in the vicinity and at night the homeless poor sheltered under the arches.22 This locality came to even greater prominence when Charles Dickens described the terrible conditions of Jacob’s Island in ‘Oliver Twist’ in 1839 though he made no mention of the nearby railway. Another positive argument promoted by the LGR was how the construction of the railroad benefited the local economy by providing work in the area. While the viaduct was being built hundreds of labourers and bricklayers were employed and competition for work was fierce. Antagonism between groups of workers sometimes broke out and the 600 navvies working on the line had to be separated at one point along racial lines. This was the result of fights breaking out in the evenings between the English and the Irish, fuelled no doubt by the ready supply of beer and spirits in the nearby taverns. Two separate accommodation camps were established, one for the English and the other for the Irish workers. A small area named ‘English Grounds’ survives today close to London Bridge Station that possibly records the site of one of the camps.23 Whether the railway actually benefited existing businesses near the viaduct or raised land values is difficult to quantify. Areas in Southwark and Bermondsey alongside the railway remained slum areas throughout the nineteenth century. On 8 February 1836, a part of the line, a two and half mile stretch, was opened between Spa Road and Deptford with ten hourly services in each direction. This was a low-key event as the section west to London Bridge

330  Alex Werner Station was still under construction, but the company felt that it needed to begin running a service as there had been so many delays. A watercolour by Robert Schnebbelie, an artist known for his fine small accurate topographical drawings, shows Spa Road Station in the late spring or summer of 1836 (see Figure 16.2). This is the earliest known depiction of a London railway station. The overall impression is of a slightly disorganised site. The station is still a construction area with a scattering of equipment including a movable building tower, blocks of stone and stacks of timber. One of the arches has been bricked in with two small windows added. At the top of the viaduct, a few passengers appear to be about to board the train and the men in blue jackets by the carriages are railway company’s ticket collectors. Passengers, who have just experienced a railway trip, are making their way down the temporary wooden staircase and then moving on to catch an omnibus back to the city. A number of people are just sitting watching the scene while a man is entreating two well-dressed ladies towards an omnibus. A child stands behind them with a boisterous dog. In the right foreground, a woman is being helped onto the back of the omnibus, and a street-seller with two baskets hawks her wares nearby. It can be seen that the LGR is being used almost exclusively as an excursion railway line. The majority of the passengers have travelled on the railway as a leisure pursuit rather than as

Figure 16.2  S  pa Road Station, 1836.  Earliest known Depiction of a London Railway Station. Watercolour by Robert Schnebbelie. Source: Museum of London, Image Number 011415.

London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840  331 commuters or for business reasons. As soon as railway stations opened they had to connect with other transport networks. Here the omnibus is linking up with the recently opened service to take passengers back into the centre of the city. When it came to London Bridge Station, once it had opened, the arrangements for the hackney carriages and cabs that picked up and dropped off passengers had to be regulated. Cabs dropping off passengers were allowed at any time to proceed up the incline to the station whereas those waiting for the arrival of the trains had to wait in Dottin Street, close to the southern approach of London Bridge. On hearing the whistle of the arriving train, the cabs were permitted to make their way up to the station to pick up passengers.24 The area in front of the station was too confined for this system to work well and over the years the space was gradually enlarged. The LGR found that it had to cope with crowd control especially at Easter and Whitsun weekends when the popular Greenwich Fair was held. Tens of thousands of Londoners made their way there by road, steamboat and railway. As soon as the LGR had begun operating as a passenger carrying service in 1836, without either London Bridge or Greenwich Station having opened, it was used as a means of journeying to and from the fair. Once the line had been extended to London Bridge, passengers found in 1837 that they had to wait at the gates for more than half an hour. The railway was forced to introduce crowd control strategies in the form of barriers regulating and holding back the flow of travellers. Those passengers who managed to board the trains found themselves ‘crammed almost to suffocation’.25 The novelty of the experience, especially the speed of the train was a thrill to some. However, others were alarmed and feared that a ‘blow up’ of the engine and boiler would ‘form the conclusion to so pleasant an excursion’.26 For the 1840 Greenwich Fair, the crowds were especially unruly and some of the carriage cushions were ‘ripped to pieces’ on the Good Friday. This led to the railway company removing all of them for the rest of holiday weekend.27 The first four years of the operation of the LGR were extremely ­challenging for the company. It carried 5,787,240 passengers, a total which exceeded the inter-city lines such as the LBR and the Great Western Railway.28 In order to carry such numbers of passengers and operate a frequent and reliable service, a range of procedures were tested and introduced as no comparable railway existed at the time. Staffing costs were high and receipts were low in comparison to other railways. Equipment wore out rapidly, especially the inside of the carriages. The LGR did learn from the operations of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway and even hired staff who had worked for it. However, the LGR was different in that it was the first excursion and commuter line in London, carrying passengers over a short distance on journeys lasting just a few minutes. The railway was impressive with its viaduct cutting a path right into the centre of the city. But as has been shown there were more problematic narratives associated with the viaduct with its arches

332  Alex Werner sheltering the homeless of the city and its tree-lined walkway being vandalised. The carriages of the LGR mirrored the busy streets and pavements of the city. The rail service had to confront overcrowding, disturbances, drunkenness and defacement of its property.29 The urban railway had been born.

Notes 1 Station Usage 2010–2011, Office of Rail Regulation, DeltaRail Group Ltd. 2 See D. Riley, ‘The London Bridge Station Area’, in J. B. Burland, J. R. Standing, F. M. Jardine, eds., Building Response to Tunnelling: Case Studies from Construction of the Jubilee Line Extension, 2 vols. (London 2001), vol.1, 103–114. 3 The best standard introduction to the LGR is Ronald Henry George Thomas, London’s First Railway – the London & Greenwich (London 1972). This paper has extracted many details from the book about the railway’s early history in order to examine the cultural and material impact of the railway. 4 See Tamara Plakins Thornton, ‘Capitalist Aesthetics. Americans Look at the London and Liverpool Docks’, in Michael Zakim and Gary J. Kornblith, eds., Capitalism Takes Command. The Social Transformation of Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago 2012), 169–198 and Alex Werner, ‘Scaling London’s Early XIXth Century Docks, Bridges and Manufactories: Charles Dupin’s Writings and Technological Exchange’, in Patrice Bret, Irina Gouzévitch and Lilian Pérez, eds., Les échanges techniques entre la France et L’Angleterre (XVIe-XIXe siècles). Réseaux, comparisons, représentations, Documents pour l’Histoire des Techniques, No.19 (Paris 2010), 199–207. 5 R. J. M. Sutherland, Dawn Humm, Mike Chrimes, eds., Historic Concrete: Background to Appraisal (London 2001), 119. 6 Gentleman’s Magazine, 1835, 86. 7 Charles Dupin, The Commercial Power of Great Britain, 2 vols. (London 1825), vol. 2, 40. 8 Dupin, The Commercial Power, vol. 1, 360. 9 Herapath’s Railway Journal, 1, 1836, 86. 10 Thomas, London’s First Railway, 136. 11 Penny Magazine, January 1836, 9–11. 12 Penny Magazine, 1836, 10. 13 Ibid. 14 Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Science, No. 810, 1836, 402. 15 Ibid., 404. 16 Ibid., 405. 17 Penny Magazine, 1836, 10. 18 Thomas estimated that the LGR had cost 267,000 British pounds per mile, five times the cost of the LBR. 19 John R. Kellet, Railways and Victorian Cities (London 1979), 337. 20 Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Science, No. 810, 1836, 403. 21 Thomas, London’s First Railway, 55. 22 Ibid., 36. 23 Ibid., 31. 24 Ibid., 78. 25 Ibid., 79. 26 London Dispatch of 2 April 1837. 27 Morning Chronicle of 21 April 1840. 28 Thomas, London’s First Railway, 77. 29 Thomas, London’s First Railway, 82–83.

London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840  333

Literature Dupin, Charles, The Commercial Power of Great Britain, 2 vols. (London 1825). Kellet, John R., Railways and Victorian Cities (London 1979). Riley, D., ‘The London Bridge Station Area’, in J. B. Burland, J. R. Standing, F. M. Jardine, eds., Building Response to Tunnelling: Case Studies from Construction of the Jubilee Line Extension, 2 vols. (London 2001), 103–114. Sutherland, R. J. M., Dawn Humm, Mike Chrimes, eds., Historic Concrete: Background to Appraisal (London 2001). Thomas, Ronald Henry George, London’s First Railway – the London & Greenwich (London 1972). Thornton, Tamara Plakins, ‘Capitalist Aesthetics. Americans Look at the London and Liverpool Docks’, in Michael Zakim and Gary J. Kornblith, eds., Capitalism Takes Command. The Social Transformation of Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago 2012). Werner, Alex, ‘Scaling London’s Early XIXth Century Docks, Bridges and Manufactories: Charles Dupin’s Writings and Technological Exchange’, in Patrice Bret, Irina Gouzévitch and Lilian Pérez, eds., Les échanges techniques entre la France et L’Angleterre (XVIe-XiXe siècles). Réseaux, comparisons, représentations, Documents pour l’Histoire des Techniques, No.19 (Paris 2010), 199–207.

17 The B&O Railroad and the Changing Use of Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, 1829–1865 David H. Schley

On 2 June 1841, the Baltimore Sun breathlessly reported the process by which a message from President John Tyler had been disseminated around the nation the day before. The message had gone from a Washington printing office to the capital’s various railroad lines where locomotives sped them to distant locales. The bundle of papers bound for points east and north of Washington reached its first stop in Baltimore at the Mt. Clare Depot of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) on Pratt Street. From there, a local express manager carried the papers through Pratt Street to the depot of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad (PWB), where a waiting locomotive immediately departed for Philadelphia. To the Sun, the content of the message – a mundane address from a new president – was less important than the coordinated means by which it had been distributed, calling the arrangements ‘particularly in character with the advancement of the age’.1 The role of the railroad in quickening communications and binding once-distant places has long been understood by historians, but the Sun’s editorial inadvertently draws attention to an often-overlooked aspect of this new network: the role of urban space in the creation of an American railroad system.2 As the article indicates, Pratt Street, the Baltimore thoroughfare linking depots for the west- and south-bound B&O and the north-easterly PWB, became a crucial link in an emerging communications and transportation system. The B&O and other railroads laid tracks on urban thoroughfares to abet the distribution of trade within Baltimore and to facilitate transshipment of through traffic. In doing so, they remade the street, tying local infrastructure to an emerging national system of movement and communications. Yet the smoothness and rapidity by which locomotives and couriers could transmit President Tyler’s message belied the hazards, conflicts, and negotiations that accompanied the introduction and use of tracks on city streets. Tracks overlaid the infrastructure of long-distance transportation onto public spaces already used for local traffic, socialisation, and drainage.3 The result was a clash between patterns of movement and economic practices that made the city street a site of confusion and danger even as it became part of the nineteenth century’s ‘collapse of time and space’ (Figure 17.1).4 DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-22

The B&O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland  335

Figure 17.1  Map of Baltimore, 1853. Source: Detail from J. Slade, Plan of Baltimore & Vicinity Showing Proposed Routes for Bringing Water from the Jones’ and Gwynn’s Falls. (Baltimore 1853), courtesy of The George Peabody Library, The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

Looking at how the railroad changed the urban street provides insight into changing conceptions of the city over the course of the nineteenth century. Objections to the railroad’s increasing presence in urban space took many forms and emanated from sources ranging from draymen and carters to merchants and politicians. All argued that the city was a special regulatory environment in which the commercial dicta that governed railroad practices elsewhere had to yield to the unique spatial demands of an urban centre.5 Baltimore, for these people, was not merely a node in a larger economic system but a place with special status, where political, economic, and social justice demanded that railroads share trade and space with ordinary citizens without the benefit of the special privileges accorded to them in the countryside. Railroad officials and their merchant allies countered with the language of macroeconomic necessity, dismissing what they called the narrow and parochial concerns of their opponents. They contended that Baltimore’s continued growth depended on providing facilities for seamless and rapid transshipment, countering visions of traffic jams and injured children with anxieties about Baltimore’s growth relative to Philadelphia and New York. Studying the social, political, and technological processes

336  David H. Schley by which rail traffic remade the city street thus provides insight into the dynamic role of the city in the formation of modern technology and communication networks. The B&O, launched with the aid of municipal, state, and private investment, was the first corporation of its kind in the United States. Baltimore was thus the first American city to confront the question of how to integrate the infrastructure of long-distance transportation with the spaces of urban life. Even as high urban land costs and government policy kept tracks out of urban centres like the City of London, the municipal authorities in Baltimore agreed to place rail tracks through the dense urban core.6 This essay looks at the conflicts and consequences of laying tracks on city streets from the first debates in 1829 to the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Within this dynamic period, it examines first the debate over whether or not to lay tracks in the street, and second, conflicts about the use of locomotives within the built environment. The first question turned on how to understand the city’s role in an emerging economic system and the rights of urbanites to move freely in the street while the second involved determining the limits of private power and public safety in the city. Looking at these negotiations demonstrates that conflicts over the right to use the street reflected divergent ideas about the city itself. The B&O was created in 1827 to link the City of Baltimore with the Ohio River, tapping the trade of the rapidly growing trans-Appalachian West. Baltimore, located closer to the Ohio River Valley than any other major East Coast city, had long benefited from its connections to the West but had seen that trade diverted to New York and New Orleans in recent years by the opening of the Erie Canal and the introduction of steamboats to the Mississippi River. The railroad, its creators believed, would restore this trade to Baltimore by shortening travel time to the West, thus making the Chesapeake again the closest ocean outlet for western farmers.7 As a concept, the railroad to the West enjoyed widespread support among the citizens of Baltimore, but the need to integrate long-distance rail with the city’s local infrastructure sparked a prolonged public debate about the appropriate uses of urban space. The difficulties were economic and social: first, how to distribute the incoming trade within Baltimore so that no neighbourhood benefited disproportionately, and second, how to ensure that the rails and trains would not disrupt established routines for local residents. In both cases the local government wished to maintain the existing spatial order of their city, spreading prosperity evenly across town and minimally disrupting existing patterns of traffic and mobility. Baltimore’s dual status as the terminus of and investor in the B&O project gave city officials particular authority to set conditions. In permitting the B&O to build its tracks within Baltimore, the municipality requested that the company arrange for the distribution of trade and maintain the integrity of the streets as a place of free and equal transit.8 The B&O’s engineers shared these concerns, arguing that the ‘crowds with which’ a central thoroughfare like Pratt Street was

The B&O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland  337 ‘almost incessantly thronged (…) utterly preclude the expediency and feasibility of introducing a Rail-road’.9 They planned a route that arched around the built limits of the city, from which branches would serve neighbourhood depots. The Board of Directors deemed this proposal too costly though, and the B&O decided in 1831 that it would instead bring tracks right into the heart of Baltimore by building the line down Pratt Street to the waterfront.10 The city accepted this measure but enacted a series of regulations designed to accommodate rail traffic within urban space and minimise the railroad’s effect on urban life. The ordinance permitting the B&O to lay its tracks on Pratt Street contained a number of safety precautions: it forbade the use of locomotives, established a three miles per hour speed limit (defined as a ‘walking pace’), and authorised the city to remove the tracks should they be found to ‘constitute an obstruction or impediment to the ordinary use’ of the street.11 The City Council also enacted, at the railroad’s request, laws regulating the behaviour of citizens in the presence of trains and tracks. It criminalised unauthorised movement of railcars and instructed all vehicle drivers to pass on the right-hand side when travelling in railed streets. It called for the loading and unloading of cars only at designated depots or by permission of nearby property owners. Because private property owners could build branch lines from the Pratt Street track to their warehouses and wharves, these regulations applied to streets throughout the city.12 The city adopted this suite of regulations in an effort to adapt an already crowded street to the presence of a new type of vehicle and infrastructure. While Pratt and other streets had long accommodated a variety of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, trains and tracks functioned in distinct ways, compelling others using the street to adjust their behaviour. Tracks posed an impediment to the free use of the street, limiting the space available for wagons to unload at the curb and forming an obstacle to all vehicles trying to cross. Trains adhered to different patterns of movement than other vehicles; the minimal friction and fixed path of the rails left them unable to swerve out of the way or stop quickly. Though one municipal committee praised the new tracks for introducing order to once-chaotic traffic patterns by forcing vehicles to keep ‘on opposite sides as they pass in Different Directions’, less sanguine observers chastised the railroad for monopolising public space and violating customary ad hoc traffic patterns. As one petition explained, ordinarily two vehicles meeting each other would ‘mutually give way… to allow each other to pass’, but the railroad car, ‘confine[d] to the rails by the flanges of its wheels’, could not ‘give way; every thing else must yield to it’. As another report put it, drivers often had to scramble to clear the track as a railway car approached; trains ‘hurried’ along the tracks ‘with irrisistible [sic] force to the demolition of every thing which obstructs its passage’.13 Particularly aggrieved by these impositions were those employed in Baltimore’s short-distance hauling trade: hackmen, draymen, and carters. Accustomed to using the street to conduct their business, they objected to the appropriation of public space for the exclusive use of a private corporation.

338  David H. Schley Railroads could occupy up to two-thirds of the space in the street. As one petition from carters and draymen to the City Council put it, a railcar unloading in the street could force a dray to ‘stand with a load on our Horses’ until the railroad granted ‘the privilege of passing’.14 Furthermore, the railroad’s capacity to deliver large volumes of goods straight to the docks threatened to deprive haulers of their livelihood, a transfer of wealth they deemed particularly galling since they had to purchase a licence from the city to conduct their trade while the B&O was exempt by its charter from local taxation. Haulers claimed that their business had been ‘transfered [sic] to a Monopoly who now enjoy exclusive priviledges [sic] over certain parts of the streets without contributing one dollar for taxation to the City’.15 This monopoly applied not just to the conduct of trade but to the use of the street; in light of its special privileges and regulations, the B&O seemed above the rule of law.16 By the mid-1830s, a number of complainants had decided that the problems the railroad posed to the free and unencumbered use of the street could only be remedied by its complete erasure from Baltimore’s built environment. Railroad opponents argued that the tracks had proven themselves to be an ‘impediment to the ordinary use’ of the street. Mass petitions seeking their removal called for the restoration of the street to its ‘original’ condition, so as to undo the spatial effects of the rails.17 Track removal efforts placed landowners in western Baltimore alongside working-class Baltimoreans whose businesses or routines had been interrupted by rail travel, including the draymen and carters. A candidate for City Council in 1833 pledged ‘to support the Mechanics’ and Working Mens’ Interest’ by removing the ‘worst of all nuisances from the city, the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road’.18 Where track removal advocates pinned their case on the railroad’s disruptions to established practices, opponents of track removal countered that Baltimore’s very existence as a commercial centre depended on enduring these inconveniences. While they denied the existence of serious obstructions in the first place, they also deployed the language of scale to trivialise concerns about the railroad. Impediments to free travel, such as they were, were merely local nuisances; the relevant question for policymakers was whether eastbound trade would be routed through Baltimore or not. Ensuring efficient transshipment in the city streets would encourage western merchants to ship their goods via the B&O and thus ensure Baltimore’s continued growth. Taking up the tracks would benefit only ‘a few spots and a few individuals at the expence [sic] of the community’.19 Instead of removing the tracks, they called on the municipal government to declare them permanent fixtures in the street. Even if defeated, repeated calls for track removal would create ‘injurious effects’ on the ‘general prosperity and welfare of the community’ by signalling to capitalists that their investments within Baltimore were subject to the approval of a capricious public. They declared it ‘of the first importance to put at rest for ever all doubts as to the continuance and permanency of the railways in our city’.20

The B&O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland  339 Embedded in arguments about the permanency or removal of Baltimore’s tracks were disagreements about the authority of public officials to regulate urban space. As a municipal report favourable to the permanent retention of the tracks noted, private individuals had received permission from the municipal government to erect their own branch lines from Pratt Street, the use of which was contingent on the continued operation of the B&O’s urban tracks. ‘So long as the main stem was the only rail way in the street, so long as the Lateral tracks were made without the authority of the corporation’, the city retained its right to remove the Pratt Street rails. But the investment of publicly-sanctioned private capital in the creation of an urban rail network had removed the matter from municipal jurisdiction, depriving the city of its absolute control of public streets by introducing new vested interests.21 Proponents of removal countered that divesting the city of its control of the streets would subject the community to ‘the perpetual dictation (…) of a moneyed corporation’. Should outside capitalists obtain a controlling interest in the B&O’s stock, the city’s avenues could ‘pass under the control of strangers’.22 City Council passed a resolution declaring the rails permanent fixtures on the city streets, but the mayor vetoed this measure, refusing to abandon the city’s safeguard.23 The tracks remained, along with the municipal right of removal. Over the coming decades, Baltimoreans intermittently continued to petition the city to take up the tracks, but with no more success.24 But as the calls for track permanency demonstrated, the use of street rails to distribute trade throughout the town had effectively integrated them into the city’s economic infrastructure even as they continued to impede what once had been the ordinary use of the street. With the tracks now embedded in urban space, the terms of the debate shifted, from questions of infrastructure to questions of public safety. In the public debate over the use of locomotives within the built limits of the city, B&O executives and municipal officials contested the boundaries of public and private authority. Baltimore’s regulation of railroad practices in the streets demarcated urban space as a unique environment, one that required a distinct set of cautions and procedures. One of the principal restrictions imposed on the railroad was a ban on the use of locomotive power within the built limits of the city. Trains approaching Baltimore from the West stopped at Mt. Clare Station to the west of downtown and switched to horsepower before entering Pratt Street to distribute goods to warehouses, ships, and other railroads. The municipal government presented steam engines as a threat to public safety. As one report put it, locomotives would ‘expose the (…) stores of our citizens to loss by fire, occasioned by the emission of sparks’; horses would take fright and injure riders and pedestrians.25 For Baltimore’s railroad companies, this precaution was a costly burden. Horses could carry far fewer cars than locomotives and their stables were expensive to maintain. The B&O estimated in 1843 that allowing steam engines to pull trains through the city would save $20,000 per year. Others disputed that locomotives posed a particular danger to the city. They could pull

340  David H. Schley more cars at a steadier pace than horses, reducing the number of trains in the street, and could be subject to restrictions to ensure their safe operation. One City Council proposal suggested permitting the use of locomotives at night, provided they run no faster than four miles per hour, burn only coal (which produces fewer sparks than wood), and be led by a man walking in front ringing a bell to warn pedestrians and drivers of the oncoming train.26 Mayor Solomon Hillen vetoed this proposal, calling it a violation of the public right to equal use of the street. Because ‘our streets are declared to be “public highways” for the equal accommodation of all’, it was important to ‘avoid a grant of power, which from its very nature is unequal; and in its legitimate operation, may become oppressive’. He dismissed the railroads’ financial complaints, noting ‘the life & property of the humblest of our fellow-citizens [is] a price too dear to be paid, for any amount of Corporate emolument’, adding that the proposed safety regulations were ‘subject to the corrosive influences of time’.27 Hillen’s objections turned on a belief that public streets could not accommodate vehicles that subjected the citizenry to particular danger. These concerns were weighed against mounting traffic concerns and the railroad companies’ desire for cheap and efficient transshipment. As the B&O extended further west it funnelled increasing volumes of trade into Baltimore, much of it destined for other locales. The railroad complained to the Council of the ‘impracticability of distributing by horse power (…) the vast amount of produce’ arriving daily.28 Within two years of Mayor Hillen’s veto, the City Council conceded to the B&O the right to use locomotives on Pratt Street between nine o’clock at night and five o’clock in the morning. Simultaneously, the Council allowed the B&O to build a new branch line, within the city limits but outside the inhabited urban core, to the waterfront at Locust Point. There, isolated from the bulk of the population, the B&O could use locomotives around the clock, running them straight up to the wharves for the easy transshipment of coal and other goods.29 Railroads’ desire for unhindered use of steam power within the city precipitated alterations in urban geography and law that some elite Baltimoreans feared would subordinate even the city’s sacred spaces to the logic of commercial development. Thus when in 1849 the Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad (B&S) requested permission from the city to use locomotives on North Street, a busy thoroughfare, local residents protested the imposition.30 The ‘smoking, puffing locomotive’ would terrify horses, putting funeral processions bound for nearby Greenmount Cemetery in danger. One petition imagined the disruption: ‘The terror, the dashing and plunging of the horses, the shrieks of the females, and your own hurried and impotent efforts to rescue, present an appalling scene!’ This threat to public safety would serve only ‘the gratification of a few, and the aggrandizement aggrandisement of a Corporation’.31 Those who supported the use of locomotives on North Street pointed to the transformative powers of the steam engine to dismiss these concerns about public safety. North Street would soon ‘be

The B&O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland  341 occupied by Depots, Warehouses, and Manufacturing establishments’, rendering it useless as ‘a thoroughfare for pleasure carriages’. Enabling the use of locomotives would ‘facilitate trade’, and in so doing remake the neighbourhood as a commercial centre.32 The City Council concurred in this assessment and voted to permit locomotives on North Street, arguing that experience elsewhere had proven their viability in thickly-settled areas.33 Baltimore’s dense settlement and sectional position posed distinct challenges for the management of railroads. The presence of steam engines in the street had unintended consequences for local mobility, exposing railroad corporations to another layer of local regulation. Long before the use of urban rails for local transportation, young boys in Baltimore made a game of hopping on passing trains to get around the city. Occasionally they stumbled onto the tracks by accident and suffered injury or death. The Sun noted in 1837 that while ‘the conductors are very cautious to keep the boys away from the cars, it is not strange such accidents frequently happen’.34 The increasing length of trains pulled by locomotives rendered it even more difficult for railroad employees to guard against misuse. Courts imposed stringent limits on railroad companies operating in cities, finding them negligent in the deaths of children even when the victims had been trespassing, arguing that ‘locomotives (…) should not be allowed to pass through the inhabited parts of our cities’ unless they could come to an immediate stop.35 It was not just children whose appropriation of the railroad movement vexed B&O management. Baltimore was located in a slave state, and as its facilities for transit multiplied so did the possible avenues for escape from bondage. Famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, for example, escaped from Baltimore on the PWB in 1839. State regulations held railroad companies liable for slaves who fled Maryland on their lines. Avoiding fines meant policing their customers, implicating railroads in the defence of slavery.36 Tracks in the street had become embedded in local patterns of movement and economic practices, hindering efforts to effect their removal; locomotives on the other hand remained a matter of active political debate in Baltimore into the 1870s, the right to their use becoming an arena conflict in the increasingly contentious relationship between the B&O and the municipal government. No inexorable logic of technological progress dictated the actions of local officials, though the politics of scale continued to shape municipal policy. During the American Civil War, the B&O successfully lobbied for permission to run locomotives on the Howard Street tracks linking their depot with that of the B&S for military purposes. The sectional conflict subordinated local disagreements over railroad prerogatives to the demands of the federal government for the efficient movement of supplies.37 With the end of the War, though, Mayor John Chapman ended this concession and tightened regulations in the process, calling for the end of locomotive power not just on Howard but on Pratt and Monument streets as well. The use of steam engines was to the detriment of ‘the business, comfort, and safety of Citizens’ and was ‘only tolerated by the necessities

342  David H. Schley of the General Government’.38 The B&O had by 1865 become a large corporation spanning several states, one of the four major trunk lines connecting the East and West of the United States, but within Baltimore, its policies remained subject to local oversight. Nineteenth-century observers regarded the railroad as a transformative technology, but this chapter has tried to suggest that the changes it fostered in the city were contested, uneven, and contingent. For the municipal government, imposing the needs of a systematised corporation on the urban fabric entailed granting that company particular privileges while exacting from it particular concessions. For the B&O, staging operations in the city required accommodating the infrastructure of long-distance transportation to the conditions of a densely-populated urban centre. The result was a clash between different systems of movement, as the railroad’s coordinated schedules, fixed path, and frictionless travel collided (sometimes literally) with the ad hoc traffic patterns of the antebellum city. As the railroad company, urbanites, and municipal government negotiated the proper use of the street and the railroad’s position in it, the identity of the city itself shifted in subtle ways. The railroad’s vision of the city as a site of communication and through travel contrasted with public officials’ and property owners’ understandings of the city as a differentiated space of neighbourhoods. The use of Baltimore’s streets was shaped by these two visions, the city’s form and culture forged by competing ideas about commerce and the public good.

Notes 1 Sun of 2 June 1841. 2 On railroads and communication networks see A. R. Pred, Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities, 1790–1840 (Harvard 1973); W. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (Norton 1991); D. W. Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (Oxford 2007), chapter 14. On railroads and cities in a European context see John R. Kellett, The Impacts of Railways on Victorian Cities (London and Toronto 1969), Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: Trains and Travel in the 19th Century, trans. by A. Hollo (Urizen 1979 [Orig. 1977]), esp. chapters 11–13, Ralf Roth and Marie-Noelle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003); S. Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, 5th ed. (Cambridge, MA 1967), part VII; the literature in the American context is more limited. See C. Condit, The Railroad and the City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of Cincinnati (Columbus, OH 1977); R. L. Einhorn, Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872 (Chicago 1991), 216–224; J. Schwartz, ‘‘To Every Man’s Door’: Railroads and the Use of Streets in Jacksonian Philadelphia,’ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 128, 2004, 36–61. 3 F. Bedarida and A. Sutcliffe, ‘The Street in the Structure and Life of the City: Reflections on Nineteenth-Century London and Paris,’ Journal of Urban History, 6, 1980, 379–396. 4 My thought on overlapping infrastructures has been influenced by works in urban studies, geography, and philosophy. See particularly S. Graham and S. Marvin, Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and

The B&O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland  343 the Urban Condition (London 2001); D. Harvey, The Urban Experience (Baltimore, MD 1985); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. by D. Nicholson-Smith (Oxford 1991). 5 Nineteenth-century U.S. cities were hotbeds of regulation. See W. J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill, NC 1996). 6 S. R. Hoyle, ‘The First Battle for London: The Royal Commission on Metropolitan Termini, 1846.’ London Journal, 8, 1, 1982, 140–155. 7 Proceedings of the Sundry Citizens of Baltimore, Convened for the Purpose of Devising the Most Efficient Means of Improving the Intercourse between that City and the Western States (Baltimore, MD 1827). 8 Maryland State Law, Ch. 209, ‘A Supplement to the Act, entitled, an Act to incorporate the Baltimore ad Ohio Rail Road Company’, in Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Laws and Ordinances Relating to the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company (Baltimore, MD 1850), 30; Baltimore City Archives (BCA), Mayor’s Papers (MyP), WPA 1828:1234. See also Baltimore Patriot of 6 June 1828; Niles’ Weekly Register (hereafter NWR) of 28 June 1828, 282. 9 Lt. Col. S. H. Long and Capt. Wm. Gibbs McNeill, Narrative of the Proceedings of the Board of Engineers of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company (…) (Baltimore, MD 1830), 20. 10 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, ‘First Annual Report of the Board of Engineers to the Board of Directors (…)’, in Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Second Annual Report of the President and Directors to the Stockholders of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (Baltimore, MD 1828), 5–7; Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Communication from the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. Presented 7 February 1831 (Baltimore, MD 1831), 6 and 12. 11 1831, Ord. No. 18, ‘An Ordinance Relating to the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company’, in Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Laws and Ordinances, 134–135. 12 Minute Book (MB) B, 26 March 1832; 1832, Ord. No. 40, ‘An Ordinance to regulate Rail Road Cars within the City of Baltimore’, in Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Laws and Ordinances, 137, 138; 1833, Ord. No. 25, ‘An Ordinance to regulate the loading and unloading of Rail Road Cars, within the limits of direct taxation’, in Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Laws and Ordinances, 142; for an example of a branch track request see BCA City Commissioners’ Records (CCR), WPA 1832, 89. 13 BCA City Council Records (CC), WPA 1835, 887; BCA CC WPA 1834, 635. 14 BCA MP, WPA 1833, 382. 15 BCA CC, WPA 1835, 618A. 16 BCA MP, WPA 1833, 1075. 17 BCA CC, WPA 1835, 800; BCA CC, WPA 1834, 657; BCA CC, WPA 1835, 702; BCA CC, WPA 1835, 618A. 18 American of 12 October 1833. 19 BCA CC, WPA 1835, 887; American of 24 March 1834; Gazette of 26 June 1834. 20 BCA CC, WPA 1835, 618. 21 BCA CC, WPA 1835, 887. 22 BCA CC, WPA 1835, 799. 23 NWR of 11 April 1835, 89; of 25 April 1835, 129. 24 See for example BCA CC, WPA 1840, 337; BCA CC, WPA 1845, 315. 25 BCA CC, WPA 1839, 929; Sun of 28 December 1838. 26 BCA CC, WPA 1843, 809–810; BCA CC, WPA 1843, 563; BCA CC, WPA 1839, 929; Sun of 10 March 1843, of 12 December 1846, and of 19 May 1847.

344  David H. Schley 27 BCA CC, WPA 1843, 436. 28 Sun of 12 February 1847. 29 1845 Ord. No 21, ‘An Ordinance to Provide for the Encouragement of Trade, in the City of Baltimore’, in Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Laws and Ordinances, 164–168. 30 BCA CC, WPA 1849, 522. 31 BCA CC, WPA 1849, 526; also see BCA CC, WPA 1849, 525. 32 BCA CC, WPA 1849, 524 (first quote); BCA CC, WPA 1849, 531 (second quote). 33 BCA CC, WPA 1849, 1250; Sun of 4 April 1849. 34 Sun of 17 Nov. 1837. 35 J. H. B. Latrobe to John W. Garrett, 30 January 1861. Garrett Papers Collection (GPC), Box 63, Folder 3136.1, B&O Museum. Barbara Welke describes the gradual shifts in railroad liability in Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920 (Cambridge 2001). 36 Sun of 5 November 1842; F. Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time (Whitefish, MT 2004 [original 1883]), 235–240. 37 S. Cameron and J. W. Garrett, Correspondence between the Secretary of War and the President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (…) (Baltimore, MD 1862), 8; An Ordinance to authorize the construction of a new Rail Road Track on Howard street, No. 12, approved 4 Apr. 1862. GPC, Box 26 Folder 380, B&O Museum. 38 John Lee Chapman, Mayor, to John W. Garrett, 29 Sep. 1865. GPC, Box 63, Folder 3137, B&O Museum.

Literature Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, ‘First Annual Report of the Board of Engineers to the Board of Directors (…)’, in Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Second Annual Report of the President and Directors to the Stockholders of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (Baltimore, MD 1828), 5–7. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Communication from the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. Presented 7 February 1831 (Baltimore, MD 1831), 6 and 12. Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Laws and Ordinances Relating to the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company (Baltimore, MD 1850). Bedarida, F., and Sutcliffe, A., ‘The Street in the Structure and Life of the City: Reflections on Nineteenth-Century London and Paris,’ Journal of Urban History, 6, 1980, 379–396. Cameron, S., and Garrett, J. W., Correspondence between the Secretary of War and the President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (…) (Baltimore, MD 1862). Condit, C., The Railroad and the City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of Cincinnati (Columbus, OH 1977). Cronon, W., Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (Norton 1991). Douglass, F., The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time (Whitefish, Mt 2004 [original 1883]), 235–240. Einhorn, R. L., Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872 (Chicago 1991). Giedion, S., Space, Time, and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, 5th ed. (Cambridge, MA 1967).

The B&O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland  345 Graham, S., and Marvin, S., Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (London 2001). Harvey, D., The Urban Experience (Baltimore, MD 1985). Howe, D. W., What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (Oxford 2007). Hoyle, S. R., ‘The First Battle for London: The Royal Commission on Metropolitan Termini, 1846.’ London Journal, 8, 1, 1982, 140–155. Kellett, J. R., The Impacts of Railways on Victorian Cities (London and Toronto 1969). Lefebvre, H., The Production of Space, trans. by D. Nicholson-Smith (Oxford 1991). Long, Lt. Col. S. H., and McNeill, Capt. Wm. Gibbs, Narrative of the Proceedings of the Board of Engineers of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company (…) (Baltimore, MD 1830). Novak, W. J., The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill, NC 1996). Pred, A. R., Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities, 1790–1840 (Harvard 1973). Proceedings of the Sundry Citizens of Baltimore, Convened for the Purpose of Devising the Most Efficient Means of Improving the Intercourse between that City and the Western States (Baltimore, MD 1827). Roth, R., and Polino, M.-N., eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003). Schivelbusch, W., The Railway Journey: Trains and Travel in the 19th Century, trans. by A. Hollo (Urizen 1979 [Orig. 1977]). Schwartz, J., ‘‘To Every Man’s Door’: Railroads and the Use of Streets in Jacksonian Philadelphia,’ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 128, 2004, 36–61. Welke, B., Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920 (Cambridge 2001).

18 Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve in Belgium’s Splintered Body Micheline Nilsen

Introduction The emerging architectural firm, V+, named after the slogan for the Brussels Junction, Vers plus de bien être (toward greater well-being), focused on the Junction for their thesis project at the Architecture School of La Cambre in 1997. Born in 1973, well into the post-Junction era of the capital, the two principals of the firm, Jörn Bihain and Thierry Decuypere, opted to assume the Junction as a potential rather than as a stigma.1 Attempting to transcend the negative aura of the Junction, they envisioned it operating on three scales: local in the La Chapelle area, urban in the Cité Administrative, and as a world metropolis around the Central Station or Quartier de l’Europe (European Quarter).2 They proposed discrete projects for each of these areas, to maximise multivalent potential. For instance, in the Cité Administrative, left partly vacant due to administrative restructuring, V+ advocated recycling the tall modern structures into 24-hour use with residential, day care, and other functions. The publication of V+’s programme also included a satirical and fictitious timeline of events that were taking place while an imaginary wall was being built around the Junction, and its various areas were being severed from the city.3 The caustic fable highlights to what extent the Junction has become an integral part of Brussels.4 As an un-extricable component of the urban fabric, the Junction has performed its role as a connecting link between the two halves of the Belgian territory. Most studies on the Junction have focused on this joining function of the rail connection. Paradoxically, the Junction has also played a significant role in the evolution of Belgium from a unified country into a Federal State. The impact of this underground tunnel under the country’s capital acting as a dividing wedge has been overlooked. This essay argues that Brussels’ Junction played a significant role in facilitating the ethnic particularism and commuting patterns that supported the country’s evolution into a federal monarchy (Figure 18.1).

Brussels’ Junction, 1839−1952 A hub on international trade routes since the Middle Ages Brussels became the centre of the first railway network on the European Continent as of 1835.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-23

Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve  347

Figure 18.1  Frédéric Bruneel. Project for the Brussels Junction, 1893. Source: Frédéric Bruneel, ‘Avant-project de chemin de fer métropolitain avec Gare Central à Bruxelles’, Annales de l’Association des Ingénieurs sortis des Ecoles Supérieures de Gand, 16, 4, 1893, 339–345, plan.

The project to join the two terminal stations of Brussels Nord (North) and Brussels Midi (South), begun in 1839, was completed in 1952. The diagram of Brussels’ ‘rail knot’ illustrating Ulysse Lamalle’s chapter on the Jonction Nord-Midi in his Histoire des chemins de fer belges reveals how the short distance between the two main Brussels termini was a genuine gap.5 In 1913, the British architect and town planner Patrick Abercrombie described this gap as, ʻa failure of contact in an electric circuitʼ.6 In the Lamalle diagram, the thin rectangles of exaggerated scale emphasise the rupture between the two poles of railway activity at the periphery of Brussels’ core, commonly referred to as the pentagon. In the diagram’s configuration, the trains from Antwerp (and the Netherlands), Liège (and Germany), or Namur (and Luxemburg, Switzerland or Italy) reached Brussels by the Gare du Nord (north station), on the territory of the Commune of Saint-Josseten-Noode, whereas those from Ghent and Ostend (and London) or from Charleroi, Mons (and Paris, hub to the rest of France), rode into the Gare du Midi (south station) on the territory of the Commune of Saint-Gilles. Integral to the original concept for railway development in Belgium is the international scope of the destinations for the lines darting out from the capital: the development of a state-owned railway system was intended to protect and promote the newly independent country’s economy and its commerce at home and abroad. A number of above-ground connections between the North and South stations were attempted during the nineteenth century and proved unsatisfactory. Originally planned in 1893 as an underground tunnel, the Junction NordMidi was carried out as a cut and cover construction which required demolition of over a thousand buildings in populous old neighbourhoods at the heart of the capital. Conceived primarily as an engineering and financial

348  Micheline Nilsen operation, the project left an urban scar more extensive than the damage of two World Wars.7 Although Belgium participated in the international conversations on urbanism of the first half of the twentieth century, the theory of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne or CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) was not implemented in Brussels. Rather than the absence of riverbanks that typically open metropolitan vistas for capital cities, the Junction continues to be blamed for Brussels’ failure to rival other capitals. In addition to invoking the idea of the modern city to justify sanitising demolitions, drastic engineering intervention, and urban reconfiguration, a recurring component of Junction rhetoric was that it would greatly improve access throughout the city for travellers and, most particularly, for workers to reach their workplace. The connection between the two halves of the network was to increase workers’ mobility and their ability to respond to available employment. Within the Belgian context, the limited geographical expanse of the country combined with the densest rail and tramway networks in the world, workers’ rail passes, and policies encouraging working-class home ownership all contributed to stem the growth of the capital. From a population of 110,000 in 1830, the date of the country’s foundation, the metropolitan area population has grown to just over one million today.

Commuting in Belgium before 1910 Commuting had a unique history in Belgium where it is commonly referred to by the Belgicism faire la navette or “shuttle”. As of 1840, night trains were put in service to bring workmen daily to Brussels from the Hainaut province. By 1900, one out of five workers was commuting by train and, as the American scholar Janet Polasky has remarked, commuting is so common in Belgium that it does not invite scholarly attention.8 A milestone study was published in 1910 by the Liège-trained sociologist Ernest Mahaim.9 His findings on the impact of reduced-fare workers’ passes on commuting provide significant documentation for what, by 1910, ʻhad become a social phenomenon of prime importanceʼ.10 Based on data collected between 1906 and 1910, his study also examined the social implications of reduced fares for workers in Belgium. By 1909, 41 per cent of journeys on state lines were made with workers’ passes.11 Made possible by a state-run railway system, where social welfare could be accommodated with less stringent focus on the bottom line, workers’ passes gradually permeated the country’s economic system.12 Unlike workers’ trains operated in other countries, workers’ passes were granted for travel on regular trains to individuals who met specific conditions and for specified numbers of journeys.13 From 14,233 tickets issued in 1870, the reduced fares reached a peak of 6,693,036 in 1907, accounting for 42.85 per cent of travellers for that year, between one-fifth and a quarter of the working population.14

Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve  349 Mahaim’s findings revealed a blue-collar working population with shifting patterns, closely reflecting annual industry statistics.15 Although the industry was primarily localised in the provinces of Liège, Hainaut, and Antwerp, most workers’ passes were issued for Brussels and the surrounding Brabant province, where workers came from every area of the country.16 In language that is almost poetic, and reveals his sympathy for the working class, Mahaim described the activity and ties of this population to the native soil: It is the humming hive where our workers, bees in constant motion, go to and fro, arriving and departing in tight ranks. They are peasants, or former peasants, whom the earth − though as rich as one could wish − refuses to feed, as there are too many of them. They rush to the public works, to the workshops, to the stores in the big city, they crowd into the factories of heavy industry, or into the coal mines. All of these are within close proximity and exert an irresistible attraction. But it is to come back, every evening or every Saturday, to the village where the family hearth is huddled.17 Beyond retaining closeness to the rural lifestyle, within earshot of the village church bells, workers’ passes enabled families to cultivate a garden and benefit from fresh produce, poultry, and livestock. Such additions to the diet were commonplace in the rural setting and reduced the hardships of low salaries. Even very modest housing in the country provided healthier surroundings than the city or industrial districts for the workers and their families.18 Daily commuting, as opposed to seasonal or permanent emigration, enabled pass holders to travel away from their residences without abandoning them. This was especially true for the majority of occasional commuters, as regular commuting to steady employment was a more limited occurrence. Mahaim stated that workers’ passes slowed down the migration out of rural areas into cities and reduced rapid urban growth and overpopulation.19 He suggested a connection between access to reduced-fare commuters’ passes and the 25 per cent of the population residing in towns of 5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants in Belgium as opposed to 11 per cent in France and 13 per cent in Germany. Mahaim did not account for the fact that substantial migration occurred during the period when workers’ passes were available. Between 1846 and 1900, the population of the country grew by 54 per cent.20 During that time, communities of less than 2,000 inhabitants lost population; all others gained from 29 per cent for communities with between 2,000 and 5,000 inhabitants to 240 per cent for those over 100,000 inhabitants, gains increasing progressively with the size of the communities.21 However, the percentage of the country’s population in towns of over 100,000 inhabitants grew less in Belgium that in other Western European countries.22 The comparatively limited growth of cities in Belgium, coeval with continued growth of the rural population, did occur within the context of a dense rail network, short distances, and heavily used workers’ passes.23

350  Micheline Nilsen

Commuting and the Junction Working from data collected in collaboration with the railways and industry, Mahaim provided a detailed picture of commuting at the beginning of the twentieth century. No such data was collected when the Junction was put in service in 1952, but the annual reports of the SNCB do include data on workers’ passes.24 As the figures reported in the society’s annual reports indicate, workers’ passes accounted for between 32.5 per cent (1938) and 38 per cent (1932 and 1934) of passenger kilometres on the network before World War Two. After the war, these figures were between 33 per cent and 34 per cent from 1945 to 1948, jumping to 41.3 per cent in 1949, and hovering between 42.5 per cent and 46.6 per cent from 1950 to 1960.25 The percentage of passenger kilometres accounted for by reduced fares indicates a consistent progression from 55.5 per cent in 1933 to 65 per cent in 1960, with a dip to 50 per cent in 1940, attributable to the war. During 1958, year of the World Exposition, there is a logical 2.5 per cent increase in non-commuter pass activity. The total number of passengers increased from 190 million (in 1932 and 1938) to 260 million by 1960, or by 37 per cent. Combined increase in the number of passengers and proportion of workers’ passes indicates that the number of commuters conveyed by rail was increasing between 1932 and 1960. In 2001, commuter pass holders accounted for 45 per cent of passenger kilometres on the domestic rail network, 50 per cent of them originating or ending in Brussels (Tables 18.1–18.3).26 Working with data from the 1961 census the geographer Herman Van der Haegen supports this reading of the SNCB statistics.27 Commuters increased from 40 per cent of the employed population in 1947 to 48 per cent in 1961.28 Between 1947 and 1961, the active population in Brussels grew from 555,000 to 582,500 and commuters to Brussels from 133,000 to 190,300 or from onefifth (22 per cent) to one-third (32 per cent) of the active population of the capital.29 Of the 582,500 workers in the Brussels area in 1961, 37.7 per cent were active in blue-collar work, 62.2 per cent in white-collar professions.30 The 42 per cent (57,300) growth of the number of commuters between 1947 and 1961, which occurred as the country’s working population decreased by 14,000, consisted primarily of white-collar workers.31 The substantial growth in the percentage of commuters among the workforce in Brussels between 1947 and 1961 (22–32 per cent) is attributable to a number of factors, among them, improved transportation, which includes the opening of the Junction.32 In his 1961 study of the Junction and its impact on the urban geography of Brussels, Marcel Mathieu established a more direct connection between the inauguration of the Junction and commuting patterns.33 The coupling of lines from the northern and southern networks made possible by the Junction encouraged commuters to modify their routes and destinations, most frequently to the Midi and Central stations. Mathieu compared the number of tickets and passes obtained in 1949 and 1954 in a number of stations which would have been directly affected by the Junction.34 His figures show a sudden growth of up to 100 per cent on lines, such as Antwerp-Charleroi,

Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve  351 Table 18.1  Passengers in Total and with Regular Fare (1913–1960) Year

1913 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952* 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960

Passengers in mill.

190.9 185.2 176.8 181.7 n.a. 202.4 194.8 175.1 87.7 110.0 177.6 233.0 *232.1 231.1 221.4 216.9 224.7 227.8 226.7 227.3 233.3 245.2 251.2 263.5 255.1 261.4

Passenger/km in mill. 4,878 5,780 6,270 6,365 6,521 5,810 5,157 5,058 4,873 5,109 n.a. 6,148 5,965 5,394 2,804

6,776 *7,167 7,088 7,116 7,047 7,253 *7,435 7,528 7,561 7,845 8,333 8,555 9,057 8,519 8,577

Regular fare passenger/km in mill.

Regular fare passenger/km in per cent

2,250 2,064 2,248 n.a.

44.50 42.40 44.00

1,124 972 629

18.85 18.01 22.46

20.20 21.40 20.50 20.50 19.60 19.40 20.70 19.90 20.00

Source: SNCB. Annual Reports Statistics collected from annual reports between 1932 and 1960. *Note: For 1947 also 236.3 mill. passengers and 7,210 passenger/km and for 1952 229.8 and 7,546.

which had been reconfigured at the opening of the Junction, but parallel light railway lines (vicinaux) did not indicate significant fluctuations over the same period.35 His comparison of itineraries between railways and light railways revealed time savings of up to one hour each way for train commuters on lines affected by the Junction. In 1952, daily passenger traffic through Brussels’ stations was 185,000; in 1959 it had grown to 275,000, which represents a 48.6

352  Micheline Nilsen Table 18.2  Passengers with Reduced Fare and Passes (1933–1960)* Year

Reduced-fare passenger/km in mill.

1933 1934 1935 1936 to 1937 no data available 1938 1,239 1939 1,304 1940 762 1944 to 1951 no data available 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960

Reduced-fare passenger/km in per cent

20.75 24.18 27.16 18.40 17.70 17.40 17.30 16.30 15.40 16.70 15.70 15.10

**Pass passenger/km in mill.

**Pass passenger/km in per cent

952.418 966,946 983,419

18.80 19.80 19.30

1,660,148 1,325,170 567,824

27.84 24.57 20 18.50 18.20 18.50 18.30 18.10 18.70 19.40 21.60 22.40

Note * Data’s related to Table 18.1. ** excluding Workers’ passes (see Table 18.3). Source: SNCB. Annual Reports Statistics collected from annual reports between 1932 and 1960.

per cent increase with 85 per cent of these passengers holding work passes. More specifically between 1952 and 1960, the Central station became the most heavily used passenger station in the country, with an increase from 18,000 to 102,000 daily users. In March 1960, Mathieu documented peak activity between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. for a passenger count of 102,589, 90 per cent of them pass holders. He further documented the direction taken by these commuters out of the Central station in 1958: 70 per cent of them headed for the banking and government offices of the upper city. This pattern would gradually change as the real estate on the Junction’s boulevards was developed into tertiary sector facilities. Mathieu thus documented both a connection between the Junction and increased commuting activity with the primacy of white-collar activity in the Junction area.36 More recently, three of the papers presented at a colloquium celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the inauguration of the Junction maintained the primordial role of the Junction, although they suggest that it should now be envisioned within a regional, rather than an urban context. Christian Vandermotten established that commuting to work by train in Brussels remains at least four times higher than to any other location in the country, and the Junction remains the connecting link for a network centred on the capital.37

Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve  353 Table 18.3  Passengers with Workers’ Passes (1932–1960)* Year

Workers’ passes passenger/km in mill.

Workers’ passes passenger/km in per cent

1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960

1,950 1,855 1,842 1,877 n.a. 2,056 1,942 1,793 845 1,082 1,685 2,245

37.80 36.70 37.80 36.70 n.a. 33.40 32.56 33.24 30.13 33.90 33.00 33.00 34.00 41.30 43.30 44.10 42.90 42.70 43.60 43.90 46.00 46.50 43.20 42.80 42.50

Source: SNCB. Annual Reports Statistics collected from annual reports between 1932 and 1960. Note *Data related to Table 18.1.

François Befahy asserted that 90 per cent of the 1,200 trains coming through Brussels (one-third of all trains circulating on the network) pass through the Junction, with a peak hour frequency of one train every 40 seconds.38 Both he and Frédéric Dobruszkes made pro-active recommendations to position rail transport as an expanding component of an urban, regional, national, and international network capable of relieving the saturation of vehicular traffic.39 Their recommendations emphasise mobility and access, over urban reconfiguration and residential adaptation. They address the imbalance of rail access to the district where European Union facilities are located, that privileges rail lines from the south and east over those from the west and north, and they propose developments that circumvent or parallel the Junction with tunnels, Réseau Express Régional or RER (rapid urban transit system) and re-routing

354  Micheline Nilsen of access to the Brussels airport. These proposals have the twofold purpose of positioning Brussels as a convenient international city and ensuring that the railways retain or increase their competitive share of the commuting market.

Conclusion After the inauguration of the Junction and of the Central Station located on its route in 1952, urban re-development catered to tertiary sector activity attracted by the proximity of convenient rail access. According to Junction advocates, the link that closed the gap between the two parts of the country’s rail network was expected to offer greater commuting flexibility for a national labour market and reinforce the unity between the two linguistically and ethnically distinct parts of Belgium. Primed by a long-established national commuting pattern allowing workers to remain rural residents while working in the cities, commuters came to the Junction by the thousands. They streamed through the underground passages, propelled by the arrival of a train every 40 seconds at peak hours, flowing into nearby offices for the day to be funnelled again through the monumental staircase of the Central station, draining life and animation from the streets of the capital into the provincial towns and villages for the night.40 Their swift motion in rapid waves through the arteries of underground corridors resonated through the station with the pulsating echo of their feet and voices. However, the flow of their motion has ceased to animate a single heart: the attachment to local communities nurtured by daily commuting has encouraged the linguistic, ethnic, and regional sectionalism which has resulted in the country’s reconfiguration into a Federal State. The 1831 Constitution, which established the country as a constitutional monarchy, was revised in 1893, 1899, and 1921. More recently, four successive constitutional reforms of 1970, 1980, 1988–1989, and 1993 (signed 17 February 1994) have made the country a federal monarchy with a complex structure of distinct and overlapping communities and regions. The aftermath of these constitutional reforms underscores a trajectory toward more autonomy between the two main regions of the country, Flanders and Wallonia. It would be inaccurate to state that the Junction is responsible for the political restructuring of Belgium into a Federal State. However, inasmuch as the Junction and the Central station fostered the growth of the tertiary activity in their immediate vicinity, they contributed to the urban reconfiguration of the capital. Furthermore, their impact on commuting patterns in a dense rail network had implications for settlement and demographics in the entire country, one of the most densely populated in the world. By facilitating the ability to reside in and retain allegiance to an ethnically and linguistically divided and particularistic landscape of small communities, the hundreds of commuters’ trains that pass through the Junction every day have foiled social integration and fostered the ethnic polarisation of the country. The hundreds of thousands of commuters who pass daily through the Junction and the more recent components of the capital’s transportation

Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve  355 network, which have been appended to and have expanded the Junction’s reach, remain attached to their native communities where they speak and vote with dissenting voices. By facilitating daily transit, the Junction has, ironically, thwarted the expectations of its unifying potential and, instead, supported the divisive impact of linguistic and ethnic allegiance. By countering the nation-building work of generations of politicians and historians, such as Henri Pirenne, the Junction’s commuters have contributed to steering the country toward subversion of its nationalism.41

Notes 1 This project was exhibited as a large-scale model at the Asbl Recyclart, housed in the Chapelle station on the Junction. The Asbl Recyclart was founded in 1997 by the City of Brussels, in collaboration with, among others, the SNCB and with funding from the European Union. Housed in the Bruxelles-Chapelle station, it organises projects and workshops intended primarily for the youth in its neighbourhood. Bart van der Herten, Michelangelo van Meerten, and Greta Verbeugt, Un Tunnel Sous Bruxelles: Les 50 Ans de la Jonction Nord-Midi (Brussels 2002), 28. 2 The Quartier de l’Europe included the now defunct Sabena headquarters. 3 Undated document produced by Jörn-Aram Bihain, Thierry Decuypere, Antoine Warin and others. 4 After this initial proposal, the young firm continued to be invited to participate in urban debates. Somewhat discouraged by the glacial pace of change, the firm remains in practice with commissions for public as well as residential buildings and it was awarded the 2008 Bruxelles Horta Prize for Architecture. Meeting with Jörn Bihain, 30 September 2002, see website of V+ http://www.vplus.org (last accessed 14 March 2013). I owe the introduction to the work of this imaginative group to Marc Brunfaut, faculty member and librarian at the Institut Supérieur d’Architecture de l’Etat, La Cambre. 5 Ulysse Lamalle, Histoire des chemins de fer belges, 3rd ed. (Brussels 1953), fig. 96, 189. 6 Patrick Abercrombie, ʻBrussels: A Study in Development and Town Planningʼ, Town Planning Review, 3–4, January 1913, 258–272, 259. 7 Chloé Deligne, ʻDiscours Politique et Urbanisme: Réflexion à partir du cas de la Jonction Nord-Midi Bruxelles 1900–1960ʼ, Revue Belge de Géographie, 122, 1, fascicule 63, new séries, 1998, 29–54, 30. 8 Janet Polasky, ʻUn Phénomène typiquement belge: Les Trains ouvriers et leur impact socio-économiqueʼ, in Bart van der Herten, Michelangelo van Meerten, and Greta Verbeugt, eds., Le Temps des trains: 175 ans du train, 75 anniversaire S.N.C.B. (Louvain, 2001), 322–334, here 322; Janet Polasky, ʻTransplanting and Rooting Workers in London and Brussels: A Comparative Historyʼ, Journal of Modern History, 73, 3, 2001, 528–560, fn. 62. 9 Ernest Mahaim, Les Abonnements dʼouvriers sur les lignes de chemins de fer belges et leurs effets sociaux (Brussels 1910). 10 Ibid., vii. 11 Ibid., 8. 12 According to the Belgian Socialist politician Emile Vandervelde, they would, 20 years later, lead to ʻpossibly the deepest revolution in the regime of labour in Belgiumʼ. See Emile Vandervelde, LʼExode rural et le retour aux champs, 2nd ed. (Paris 1903), 155. 13 Conditions included performing manual labour. Mahaim, Les Abonnements, 11–13. 14 In 1908, the figures were 6,384,243 or 40.98 per cent. See Carl Strikwerda, A House Divided: Catholics, Socialists and Flemish Nationalists in Nineteenth-Century

356  Micheline Nilsen Belgium (Lanham, MD 1997), 274, concurs with this estimate. Laurent Dechesne, Histoire économique et sociale de la Belgique depuis les origines jusquʼen 1914 (Liège 1932), 478, gives the figures: 1870: 14,000; 1880: 355,000; 1900: over 1,500,000; 1908: 6,300,000. See the contribution of Donald Weber in this volume. 15 Mahaim, Les Abonnements, 32–67. 16 Ibid., Cartogramme no. 1 and Carte no. 3, 80. 17 Ibid., 68. 18 Ibid., 194–195. André-Claude Content, ʻLʼHabitat ouvrier à Bruxelles au XIXe siècleʼ, Revue Belge dʼHistoire Contemporaine, 3–4, 1977, 501–517, here 515. 19 Mahaim, Les Abonnements, 145–153. 20 From 4,337,196 to 6,679,282 inhabitants. 21 Between 1846 and 1900, communities between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants increased by 79 per cent, those between 10,000 and 25,000 inhabitants by 164 per cent and those between 25,000 and 100,000 inhabitants by 186 per cent. Marcel Smets, LʼAvénement de la cité-jardin en Belgique: Histoire de lʼhabitat social en Belgique de 1830 à 1930 (Liège 1977), 9. 22 Between 1866 and 1910, growth in towns of over 100,000 inhabitants in Belgium was from 8.1 per cent to 11 per cent, in Britain, 23.9 per cent (1861) to 37 per cent (1911), in France 7.7 per cent (1861) to 14.8 per cent (1911), in the Netherlands 14.4 per cent (1879) to 23.4 per cent (1909), and in Germany 4.8 per cent (1871) to 21.3 per cent (1910). Jack Simmons, The Victorian Railway (London 1991), 343. 23 Robert Delstanche, ʻAspects de l’influence de la Jonction Nord-Midi sur l’'agglomération bruxelloise’ Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut d’Urbanisme, Mémoire de fin d’étude (thesis), 1950, 18; Dechesne, Histoire économique, 477. Rural population figures were: 1846: 1,084,000; 1880: 1,199,000; 1895: 1,209,000; 1910: 1,552,000. 24 The S.N.C.B./N.M.B.S. claims to have no statistics that could be used to examine the connection between the Junction and commuting pattern. A staff member from the S.N.C.B. statistics department could only trace activity as far back as 1997 (telephone communication, 27 September 2002). 25 Running at a deficit before World War Two, the railway administration documented the number of tickets it was mandated to issue at a reduced rate. The peak figures of 46 per cent and 46.5 per cent in 1956 and 1957 may reflect increased building activity in preparation for the 1958 World’s Fair. The years of the inauguration of the Junction and the following year, 1952–1953, show a slight decrease: 42.9 per cent and 42.7 per cent from 44.10 per cent in 1951. The other category of season tickets, the non-worker passes, hovers in the 18 to 19 per cent range between 1934 and 1958, with peak figures of 27.8 per cent in 1938 and 24.6 per cent in 1939 and an increase up to around 22 per cent in 1959 and 1960. See tables 18.1–18.3. 26 François Befahy, ʻLa Desserte ferroviaire de Bruxelles: Aujourd’hui et demainʼ, paper delivered at the colloquium Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi: Histoire, Architecture et Mobilité Urbaines, Brussels, 1–2 October 2002. In 1998, 57 million of the 133,923,000 passengers, or 44.8 per cent, used commuters’ passes. See Polasky, ʻUn Phénomèneʼ, 332. 27 The census data includes place of residence, place of work, profession, mode of transport, frequency of commute if not daily, and time spent commuting. Herman Van der Haegen, ʻDe Actuele toestand van de binnenlandse pendel in België en meer in het bijzonder deze naar Brusselʼ, Bulletin de la Société Belge d’Etudes Géographiques, 34, 1, 1965, 171–216, here, 172. 28 Or from 1,399,000 to 1,632,000 commuters compared to 3,512,000 to 3,497,500 employed individuals. See ibid., 171–172. 29 Out of 582,500 people employed in Brussels, this was 17.3 per cent of the country’s employed population of 3,375,000, 190,300 or 32 per cent were commuters.

Brussel’s Jonction as the Heart Valve  357 See Van der Haegen, ʻDe Actuele toestandʼ, 178, 192. In 1990, commuters still accounted for one-third of Brussels’ active population. 30 White collar professions included commerce (17.2 per cent), banking and insurance (6.6 per cent), transport (8.5 per cent), and services (29.9 per cent). The percentages of office workers and blue collar workers were 46.1 per cent and 36.5 per cent of the work force in Brussels but 27.4 per cent and 47.3 per cent in the country. Among the 17.3 per cent of the national workforce active in Brussels, office workers accounted for 28.8 per cent of the national workforce, blue collar workers for 13.2 per cent. See Van der Haegen, ʻDe Actuele toestandʼ, 193. 31 Ibid., 212–213; Walter De Lannoy and Christian Kesteloot, ʻLes Divisions sociales et spatiales de la villeʼ, Contradictions (Brussels), 58–59, 1990–1991, 153–190, esp. 181. 32 Van der Haegen also lists, as factors in this development, increased schooling, which prepared a younger workforce for white rather than blue collar labour, shorter workdays (with reduction of lunch to 45 minutes), five-day workweeks, preference for a green living environment, linguistic conflicts, and high rents in the capital. See Van der Haegen, ʻDe Actuele toestandʼ, 216. 33 Marcel Mathieu, ʻLa Jonction Nord-Midi: Ses conséquences pour la géographie urbaine de Bruxellesʼ, Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge de Géographie, 84, fasc. 3–4, 1961, 161–224, esp. 205. 34 E.g., Antwerp-Brussels-Charleroi or Liège-Brussels-Ostend. Ibid., 206, 223. 35 He also indicated that electrification had been in progress on this line during that time period. Ibid. 36 Ibid., 207–208. 37 Christian Vandermotten, ʻLa Navette de Travail vers Bruxellesʼ, in Serge Jaumain and Chloé Deligne, eds., Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi (Brussels 2004), 99–113, here 110. 38 François Befahy, ʻLa Desserte de Bruxelles par les Trains du Service Intérieur de Voyageurs: Aujourdhui et Demainʼ, in Serge Jaumain and Chloé Deligne, eds., Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi (Bruxelles 2004), 195–205, here 198–199. 39 Ibid. See also Frédéric Dobruszkes, ʻLe Positionnement de la Jonction NordMidi face à l’Evolution régionale Bruxelloiseʼ, in Serge Jaumain and Chloé Deligne, eds., Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi (Bruxelles 2004), 207–218. 40 Yvon Leblicq, ʻL’Urbanisation de Bruxelles au XIXe et XXe siècles (1830–1952)ʼ, in Villes en mutation, XIXe–XXe siècles (Brussels 1982), 333–394, here 385. 41 Among the historians who attempted to create a Belgian nation and to foster nationalism, Henri Pirenne was the most renowned. Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, 7 vols. (Brussels, 1902–1932).

Literature Abercrombie, Patrick, ‘Brussels: A Study in Development and Town Planning’, Town Planning Review, 4, January 1913, 258–272. Befahy, François, ‘La Desserte ferroviaire de Bruxelles: Aujourd’hui et demain’, paper delivered at the colloquium Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi: Histoire, Architecture et Mobilité Urbaines, Brussels, 1–2 October 2002. Befahy, François, ‘La Desserte de Bruxelles par les Trains du Service Intérieur de Voyageurs: Aujourdhui et Demain’, in Serge Jaumain and Chloé Deligne, eds., Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi (Bruxelles 2004), 195–205. Bruneel, Frédéric, ‘Avant-project de chemin de fer métropolitain avec Gare Central à Bruxelles’, Annales de l’Association des Ingénieurs sortis des Ecoles Supérieures de Gand, 16, 4, 1893, 339–345.

358  Micheline Nilsen Content, André-Claude, ‘L’Habitat ouvrier à Bruxelles au XIXe siècle’, Revue Belge d’Histoire Contemporaine, 3–4, 1977, 501–517. De Lannoy, Walter, and Kesteloot, Christian, ‘Les Divisions sociales et spatiales de la ville’, Contradictions (Brussels), 58–59, 1990–1991, 153–190. Dechesne, Laurent, Histoire économique et sociale de la Belgique depuis les origines jusquʼen 1914 (Liège 1932). Deligne, Chloé, ‘Discours Politique et Urbanisme: Réflexion à partir du cas de la Jonction Nord-Midi Bruxelles 1900–1960’, Revue Belge de Géographie, 122, 1, fascicule 63, N. séries, 1998, 29–54. Delstanche, Robert, ‘Aspects de l’influence de la Jonction Nord-Midi sur l’agglo­ mération bruxelloise’, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut d’Urbanisme, Mémoire de fin d’étude (thesis), 1950. Dobruszkes, Frédéric, ‘Le Positionnement de la Jonction Nord-Midi face à l’Evolution régionale Bruxelloise’, in Serge Jaumain and Chloé Deligne, eds., Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi (Bruxelles 2004), 207–218. Herten, Bart van der, Meerten, Michelangelo van, and Verbeurgt, Greta, Un Tunnel Sous Bruxelles: Les 50 Ans de la Jonction Nord-Midi (Brussel 2002). Lamalle, Ulysse, Histoire des chemins de fer belges, 3rd ed. (Brussels 1953). Leblicq, Yvon, ‘L’Urbanisation de Bruxelles au XIXe et XXe siècles (1830–1952)’, in Joyce Ellis, John Walton, Anthony Sutcliffe, eds., Villes en mutation, XIXe–XXe siècles (Brussels 1982), 333–394. Mahaim, Ernest, Les Abonnements d’ouvriers sur les lignes de chemins de fer belges et leurs effets sociaux (Brussels, 1910). Mathieu, Marcel, ‘La Jonction Nord-Midi: Ses conséquences pour la géographie urbaine de Bruxelles’, Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge de Géographie, 84, fasc. 3–4, 1961, 161–224. Nilsen, Micheline, Railways and the Western European Capitals: Studies of Implantation in London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels (New York, 2008). Pirenne, Henri, Histoire de Belgique, 7 vols. (Brussels 1902–1932). Polasky, Janet, ‘Un Phénomène typiquement belge: Les Trains ouvriers et leur impact socio-économique’, in Bart van der Herten, Michelangelo van Meerten, and Greta Verbeurgt, eds., Le Temps des trains: 175 ans du train, 75 anniversaire S.N.C.B. (Louvain 2001), 322–334. Polasky, Janet, ‘Transplanting and Rooting Workers in London and Brussels: A Comparative History’, Journal of Modern History, 73, 3, 2001, 528–560. Simmons, Jack, The Victorian Railway (London 1993). Smets, Marcel, L’Avénement de la cité-jardin en Belgique: Histoire de l’habitat social en Belgique de 1830 à 1930 (Liège 1977). Strikwerda, Carl, A House Divided: Catholics, Socialists and Flemish Nationalists in Nineteenth-Century Belgium (Lanham, MD 1997). Van der Haegen, Herman, ‘De Actuele toestand van de binnenlandse pendel in België en meer in het bijzonder deze naar Brussel’, Bulletin de la Société Belge d’Etudes Géographiques, 34, 1, 1965, 171–216. Vandermotten, Christian, ‘La Navette de Travail vers Bruxelles’, in Serge Jaumain and Chloé Deligne, eds., Bruxelles et la Jonction Nord-Midi (Brussels 2004), 99–113. Vandervelde, Emile, LʼExode rural et le retour aux champs, 2nd ed. (Paris 1903).

19 Birth of a Commuter Society Workingmens’ Trains in Belgium, 1870–1914 Donald Weber

Introduction In 1870, the so-called workingmen’s trains made their appearance on the Belgian railway network, special trains that ran in the morning and in the evening and that took thousands of labourers from the countryside to the factories in the big cities. For very little money, a worker could buy a weekly pass for such trains, and bring high industry wages home to his family without having to move to the depraved cities. Around 1900, one out of five Belgian industrial workers was using the workers pass. With state support, the whole country was thus reshaped into one large labour market. But there was an unexpected ricochet: the unskilled worker from the countryside took a deep breath of city air, got to know how train stations and suburbs worked, cashed in on industry wages, and listened to socialist propaganda on the way back home. What had been started as a measure to protect and preserve a rural lifestyle, over time led to the emergence of another kind of lifestyle: the modern-day middle-class commuter in his or her suburbian-kitchen garden.

Sleepwalkers On 5 December 1905, a remarkable invitation was addressed to the Catholic minister of Railways, Julien Liebaert, by MP Adolf Daens in the Chamber of Representatives. Daens invited the minister to come to a meeting the next day at the station of Dendermonde, at 4:30 a.m. He described the spectacle that should be expected: a train, a very long one, actually a convoy of 18 coaches pulled by two locomotives. In the train, there would be thousands and thousands of workers from Dendermonde, Baasrode, Buggenhout, Malderen, Londerzeel, Gijzegem, and many others nearby small towns, all on their way to work in the arsenal of Mechelen. That train would be so crowded with workers that there would be no place to sit. People would be standing between the seats, in the aisles, even on the platforms, outside, exposed to the scourges of wind, rain, and snow. This was how passengers were being transported in the so-called workingmen’s trains. And then the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-24

360  Donald Weber minister should move on to the station of Aalst, to see how cattle was being transported to the market of Anderlecht. These cows and oxen were in comfortable wagons where they could stand quietly, even with room to sleep and to move freely. Animals were getting better transportation than workers.1 Three years later sociologist Ernest Mahaim paid a home visit to a commuting miner in Hoepertingen near Sint-Truiden, who travelled every day to the Saint-Nicolas mine in Montegnée near Liège in order to work the night shift. The man was about 40. He left home every day at 2:00 p.m. and returned the following morning at 7:30 a.m. He had at most six hours a day to be with his family, sleep included. Sometimes he did what was called ‘the quarter’; he then worked an extra quarter of a day and did not return home until 9:30 a.m. When Mahaim arrived at the labourer’s cottage, his wife opened the door. The man was sleeping in the backroom, the door to which was open. The woman spoke in a loud voice. A four-year-old child was playing in the room, a little red-haired rascal that repeatedly banged a metal spoon violently against the tile floor in order to scare the cat. But none of this was able to wake up the man, who was sleeping deeply, as though unconscious. At one time the couple had moved to Montegnée because this daily journey was too exhausting. But the woman could not settle in there, and they had returned. There were times that the man became too tired. Then he would stay in Saint-Nicolas for 14 days. For a few cents he would rent a place to sleep, had his miner’s outfit washed, and paid for his daily coffee. Food was brought from home, big loaves of bread and potatoes for lunch. But this was a bad life, and the man would soon prefer his daily commute again. Mahaim leaned over the bed of the sleeping man. He saw the ash-grey skin, the eyes sunken into their sockets, the thin cheeks, and the thinning, greying hair. And he knew: this unfortunate man was using up his own body, slowly wasting away to let his family live; in a heroic way that would prove to be fatal.2 The misery of some of the commuting workers was proverbial in Belgium at the time of the Belle Epoque. It brought an endless flood of stories about lives in distress. The socialists understood the propaganda value of all this misery only too well. The socialist writer August De Winne dedicated a chapter to the commuters in his famous tale Door arm Vlaanderen (Through Poor Flanders), in which he unveiled the poverty of the Flemish countryside. Some did exaggerate, however, as illustrated by this story published in 1905 by Louis De Brouckère: In the suburbs west of Brussels there are people who work for the railway companies in Luxembourg. Some of them live more than seven kilometres from the station. Recently several among them have told a friend of mine that, in order to get a minimum of sleep, they had learned to sleep while walking! On the road they keep watch in turns. When a car approaches the watchman awakes the others to step aside. Then they carry on and fall asleep again.3

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  361

Workingmens’ Trains as Social Policy In the 1860s, there was a great demand in Belgium for a reform of railway fares and tariffs. The Belgian railway network had matured since its establishment in the 1830s, and its economic potential was obvious to everyone. But its management was lagging behind. There was an urgent need for roundtrip tickets, season tickets, and other fare packages with discounts for frequent users. In 1863 Minister Vanderstichelen finally announced reforms, and the following year progressive rates were introduced for the shipment of goods, known as ‘tariff per zone’. This policy was successful, and in 1865 a bill was voted that made it possible to apply the new system to passenger transport as well. The report of the Chamber of Representatives made it clear that the reform was aimed at two categories of passengers: on the one hand the businessman who would be better able to visit his companies and construction sites, and attend business meetings, and on the other hand, the working class from the countryside who would now be able to offer their labour to the country’s industrial centres. In other words, the intention to create a new kind of traveller – the commuting worker who would make himself available to industry – was already explicitly present in 1865. But despite repeated questions in the press and in parliament the government hesitated to introduce the new fare system.4 With the arrival in 1868 of the liberal Alexandre Jamar as minister of Public Works, the reform policy was taken up again. That same year the school pass was introduced: a railway ticket, good for four to six trips back and forth each week, and valid during the entire school year. The school pass was offered at a rate that was calculated to be cheaper than a student room for a whole year, allowing students to take lessons at remote schools – ranging from primary schools to universities – without having to rent a room.5 But even more so than students, workers were a target group that eminently qualified for cheap fares. This approach would be good for the country’s economy, which would benefit from a wider labour market, as well as for the morale of working-class people, who would improve their financial situation without having to give up their homes in the wholesome countryside. It was not a new idea: since 1864 local railway companies in London had been required to establish low fares for working people. France had workingmen’s trains, and as early as in the 1840s workingmen’s trains had been running in Britain, too. In Belgium, parliament had been asking for such trains for years.6 Eventually, the matter was settled. The ministerial decree of 8 September 1869 made it possible to have special trains running on the state railway network to transport workers to their daily jobs. Such a train could be requested by entrepreneurs, workers’ housing societies, or even individuals. However, a guarantee had to be given that the train would not be losing money. Regular trains could also be made accessible to workingmen’s

362  Donald Weber weekly tickets, especially the first and last train of the day. The workers’ pass was valid from Monday to Saturday, but only in the third class. It was personal and was not to be passed on to others. And it could only be sold to people who did manual work.7 The workingmen’s weekly tickets were not an immediate success. In the first year, no more than 14,000 passes were issued. That number increased tenfold in the next four years, but all in all, remained disappointingly low. Then, from 1879 on, the success of the cheap pass rather suddenly took off. There was a steep growth and one million tickets were issued in 1889. In the 1890s the number of tickets issued rose even to four and a half million. The workers pass became a social phenomenon, and growth continued: in 1906 more than six million workers passes were sold.8 Over the years the scope of the workers’ weekly tickets was constantly expanded. In the original decree of 1869, the maximum distance which the pass could cover was limited to 25 kilometres. This was eventually extended to 100 kilometres. Such a distance allowed factories in Brussels or Charleroi to recruit workers in virtually the whole country. Whether such long train journeys benefited the health of commuters was, of course, doubtful. From 1877, workers from the public sector were also allowed to buy the cheap weekly pass, and in 1887, tickets were introduced for seven round trips per week, to benefit the steel industry where the furnaces were never extinguished. Perhaps the most significant increase came under Minister Vandenpeereboom in 1896: now tickets would be sold for a roundtrip that would be valid one week. This served the so-called week workers, who left home early on Mondays, before dawn, and returned late Friday night. For these week workers distance was not an issue anymore, which substantially helped transform the Belgian labour market from a regional into a national one. By 1908, over a million workers passes of this category were sold, accounting for one-fifth of the total. Real workingmen’s trains, in the sense of trains dedicated exclusively to the transportation of workers, had long vanished by the 1890s. In the beginning, there had been separate workers’ coaches and even separate trains, but soon weekly ticket holders were allowed access to the regular third-class coaches, especially on those lines where there were too few of them for a separate train. But social contacts between middle-class passengers and workers gave rise to numerous complaints: These people want for their six pennies, apart from being transported, the right to blow smoke in your face an hour long, to spit on your shoes, to sing the most unheard muck, to speak in a very cheeky way, to keep the windows closed whilst smoking until you almost choke, and to open them on both sides when you are having a cold, to fart in turns and to force you to find this funny, and to beat you up if are not prepared to tolerate the above-mentioned.9

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  363 Such comments led the railway administration to deny workers access to the regular compartments and to transport them instead in special coaches, mostly old, discarded third-class carriages. Despite the fact that workingmen’s trains were already internationally known in 1869, Belgium was a pioneer in organising a general, national system of workers passes. It was not until much later that the Belgian example was followed, by the United Kingdom in 1883 with the Cheap Trains Act, and by France in 1884. In Germany’s larger cities, worker passes were introduced in the 1890s.10 Even so, the Belgian case remains unique: in no other country, the effect of the workers’ fares was as massive and profound as in this small, densely populated, heavily industrialised, and hyper-capitalist nation. The workers’ trains were a social phenomenon, on a massive scale from the 1890s on, to the extent that the entire Belgian labour market was fundamentally changed. In 1908, it was calculated, one out of four industrial workers was using the cheap weekly pass.11 The socialist leader Emile Vandervelde argued in 1903 that if he were asked what had been the most important measure by a Belgian government in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, he would not point to such events as education reform or electoral reform, but to the creation of workers trains, a measure that unwittingly had triggered a social revolution.12

An Emerging Commuter Lifestyle The workers’ pass was so successful that it became a social phenomenon of the first order and eventually caught the attention of the Institute of Sociology in Brussels. One of its researchers, Ernest Mahaim, was charged with an investigation of this phenomenon, however humble from an academic perspective. In what follows we will review some of Mahaim’s findings.13 The Belgian railway network transported almost as many commuting workers as all of the other categories of passengers together. In 1908, more than 40 per cent of all railway passengers were using a workingmen’s weekly ticket, averaging nearly 200,000 per day, an army of workers showing up, day in day out, at the 1,200 Belgian railway stations.14 Remarkable, however, was the low number of passes used on average per year. As a worker’s pass was valid for one workweek only, one would have expected people to buy up to 50 or more weekly passes per year. Yet only a tiny minority, barely 1 per cent, used a workingmen’s weekly ticket throughout the year. The majority bought a pass only five times or less per year. Contemporary witnesses such as railway personnel, when questioned on the irregular use of the workers’ pass, gave several explanations: • •

It was very common for unemployed workers to buy one or a few passes in order to go and look for a job in the city. Construction workers used the workers’ pass temporarily when they were sent to a construction site outside their village.

364  Donald Weber • •

Among the workers there were quite a few misérables who were often dismissed or who would quit for another job. Even good workers had to cope with periods of unemployment, caused by sickness, or voluntarily when there was something to celebrate at home or enough work on the land.15

Given the irregular nature of the use of the workers pass it was too early to conclude that a commuter culture had taken shape. The workingmen’s weekly tickets in this period should rather be seen as a gateway to labour migration. The largest group of users were workers who travelled to factories in the city in order to find a job. Only a small minority used the weekly ticket continuously to commute between home and factory; the great majority used it for occasional travel. Remarkably, no seasonal variation was observed; the number of workers passes issued remained more or less stable throughout the year. Phenomena such as seasonal work during the harvest period, school vacations, or the winter break in construction could not be read from the statistics. What was clear, however, was that in years of economic crisis and decline in industrial activity, the sale of weekly tickets fell sharply. The number of commuting workers had grown so large that its behaviour actually mirrored macroeconomic fluctuations (Figures 19.1 and 19.2).16

Figure 19.1  S  tate Railway Network (Daily Worker Passes sold in 1906). Sources: Created by Donald Weber with the assistance of Mahaim, Les abonnements, annexes; HISSTAT. http://www.hisstat.be/en/hisstat_start.php (last accessed on 13 March 2013).

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  365

Figure 19.2  S  tate Railway Network (Total Number of Worker Passes sold in 1906). Sources: Created by Donald Weber with the assistance of Mahaim, Les abonnements, annexes; HISSTAT. This map of the province of East Flanders shows the correlation between the number of workers’ passes sold and the industrial employment rate. In municipalities with little industry, few workers’ passes are sold. Fears of a ‘sucked dry’ countryside are not confirmed; rather, workers tend to commute from smaller to larger industrialised places.

The average distance of displacement was 15–20 kilometres. Apparently, this was considered too far for a daily bike ride, although at that time practical and affordable bicycles did exist. For distances of less than five kilometres sometimes a one-way weekly ticket was preferred, workers returning home on foot in the evening. We should keep in mind that only workers doing manual labour were eligible for these tickets, i.e., a group of workers who had to cope with a limited reserve of physical energy. Long bike rides or long walks in the morning to get to work would consume a lot of energy, which would make it extra hard to make it to the end of the day. Available physical energy was a decisive factor in the choice of the means of transport. Equally important was the amount of time spent on the journey. In 1908, a 20-kilometre ride did not need to take more than approximately an hour, but in practice, the trains stopped at many places in order to allow workers to get on or off. The workingmen’s trains often ran late in the evening, due to the long and irregular working hours. Even so, in many cases, the boss was forced to allow workers to leave earlier so they could catch their train.17

366  Donald Weber Among the users of the pass, two professions stood out: factory workers and construction workers, each accounting for a third of the commuters. Another one-tenth were miners, and workers in the public sector also accounted for a one-tenth share. The most striking aspect of the spatial distribution of workingmen’s weekly tickets was their universality. Thanks to the dense structure of the Belgian rail network, there was no region in the country where the workers’ pass had not penetrated. From all over the country people were taking the train to work: of the 1,206 railway stations in 1908, no fewer than 1,128 were selling workingmen’s tickets. Rural railway stations served as magnets to the surrounding rural communities, dragging out a cheap labour force and draining it to the cities. All Belgian cities attracted commuters, with the notable exception of Ghent, which seems to have had a saturated local labour market. Brussels was by far the most popular destination, attracting labour from all over the country.18

The Jette Riot of 1905 The enormous success of the workers’ pass and its profound effect on the Belgian labour market was a cause of political concern at the turn of the century. The workingmen’s trains had been created three decades earlier by a liberal minister to benefit the factories in the cities. But their impact on the other side of the economic spectrum, i.e., the rural economy, was devastating. Workers in the countryside went, by the hundreds of thousands, to the factories in the city, which led to shortages in rural employment and put rural wages under heavy pressure. At the Agricultural Congress of Namur in 1901 the workingmen’s trains were sharply condemned. Several speakers pointed out that, with tax money, workers were abducted from rural to urban industry, causing losses to the agricultural economy that deeply disturbed the economic balance. This was something the Catholic party, whose followers mainly lived in the agricultural countryside, was not entirely happy with. Although the Catholic government did not dare or wish to take direct action against the workers’ pass, several government measures were clearly making life difficult for the commuting workingmen. A number of incidents followed in the next few years, eventually culminating in a riot in Jette near Brussels in 1905.19 For some time the government had been working on a policy to make some of the main and most prestigious railway stations ‘worker free’. Thus it had been decided that the newly renovated and highly conspicuous North Station of Brussels was in theory open to everyone, but a passenger with a worker’s pass could only enter the station between 8:00 a.m. and 4:20 p.m., and then again after 8:00 in the evening. Since the plants in Brussels all started well before 8:00 a.m. and did not stop before 4:00 p.m., this amounted to an entry ban for workers. On the Tour & Taxis site, a mile further away from the city centre, a new railway station was opened as an alternative for the large numbers of workingmen passengers.

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  367 From then on workers who used to take the train in the North station were forced to walk an extra mile to get home after a long day’s work.20 Next on the list was Jette. On Friday 10 November 1905, a message was displayed at the railway station of Jette: as of the following Monday, a number of trains would no longer be accessible to passengers with workers passes. Nevertheless, like on any other day, on Monday 13 November after 5:00 p.m. more than 2,000 workers showed up at the station entrance. The workers, exhausted after a 12-hour-long hard day of work, saw that the new measures would prolong their journey home by several hours or even make it impossible. Riots broke out. In the hustle and bustle that followed, five policemen who tried to stop the workers were knocked down. The glass roof over the entrance was shattered and a shower of stones destroyed 67 large windows as the angry mob stormed the trains. The police were called in, but by the time they arrived at the station, half an hour later, it was already over: most workers were somewhere on a train – accessible to them or not – on their way home.21 The next day, the socialist leader Emile Vandervelde confronted Minister Liebaert in parliament with the situation. He asked the minister to respond to the events in Jette because he feared new riots that evening. The minister refused, despite the strong insistence of other MPs, among whom Adolf Daens, and instead accused his opponents of sedition. For the socialists, the opportunity was almost too good to be true. Meetings were held in Jette the next evening over the new restrictive measures. According to the socialist daily paper Vooruit more than 1,000 workers effectively took part in the gatherings. More meetings were being planned for the days and weeks to follow, as well as another intervention in parliament. But the minister gave in. On Friday 17 November 1905, exactly one week after the imposition of the restrictive measures, all trains were made available again to the workers, and to ensure that there would be no new uprising several extra trains were added.22 Such conflicts illustrate how a new type of modernity began to take shape regarding workers’ mobility. Originally intended as a special means of transport – labour to factory – indeed comparable to the special transport of cattle to the cattle market, the workers’ passes slowly evolved towards a more general form of transport, a democratic kind of mobility in a new industrial modernity. No matter how strong the aversion of the higher classes, more and more common working people began to occupy a place of their own in the civil cathedrals the railway stations used to be. Their large-scale utilitarian commutes became the standard and pushed away the elegant picture of the genteel bourgeois travelling by train for business or leisure activities. Similarly, the commuting workers more and more saw themselves as regular passengers, who for the cost of their weekly tickets had a right to mobility on the same conditions as ‘normal’ passengers. Therefore, workers refused to accept restrictions in the accessibility of stations and trains, and they demanded adequate space in the waiting rooms and train compartments, a ticket distribution without patronising controls, and modern, clean

368  Donald Weber coaches. Why did railway stations that issued 500 workers passes per week have a waiting room that could hold no more than 20 people? Why did the workers – and they alone – have to wait outside until their train arrived, or wander along the streets, eventually ending up in a pub to escape the cold? Why did a worker’s pass not allow a passenger to bring along packages or luggage, or to interrupt the trip, like other tickets or passes did? Certainly not because of the ‘grace of the low fares’ as the government had once put it. The socialists had long calculated that the price per kilometre with a regular season ticket was actually lower than with the week pass of the workingmen. But the problem was that a season ticket, valid for a whole year, had to be paid in advance, and a worker just could not afford such a sum.

Good for the Workers or Good for the Boss? The original Act of 1865, which enabled the government to reform railway passenger fares, had made no effort to hide its intentions. Offering low fares to workers had been explicitly mentioned in the report of the Chamber of Representatives as one of the principal options, in order to enable the working class of the countryside to offer its labour to the country’s industrial centres. Apart from the remark that workers could purchase the passes ‘to their own benefit’, there was nothing to indicate that the authorities were being guided by humanitarian motives.23 That the workers’ passes would benefit industrial interests may have been obvious to any observer; admitting this from the parliamentary rostrum was quite a different thing. Politics needs a legitimising discourse that transcends private interests and emphasises public interests being served. Joseph Kervyn de Lettenhove conveyed nothing less than this when in 1869 at the end of a long parliamentary speech he called upon the minister to establish workingmen’s trains. The Catholic MP had nothing but humanitarian motives in mind. Working people who went to work in the big cities, he claimed, should get the opportunity to own a house of their own in the countryside: Where they can be on their own, where they can show the self-respect that goes together with independent living, where cleanliness – coquettish even in its simplest form – reflects the orderliness and frugality of the household, where a workingman can experience the happiness of what the English call home.24 The socialists, when they entered the political scene 25 years later, had a good laugh at so much humanitarian idealism. Emile Vandervelde made no secret of his thoughts when, in 1903, he dedicated a chapter to the workingmen’s trains in his book The Rural Exodus. In his view, in the 1860s the economy was booming and the trade unions were advancing. The captains of industry, looking for cheap manual labour, asked the government for workingmen’s trains to run on the entire railway network at extremely reduced fares around

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  369 the opening and closing hours of their industrial plants. The government had done so, and that way the capitalists had been able to keep wages down with state support and push back the trade unions. Workingmen’s trains were not ‘humanitarian’, but they were a source of misery to the working class: These people, uprooted from their native land, driven out of the countryside by the agricultural crisis, claimed by barracks, shop and factory, blinded by the bright lights of the City, like seabirds, once the evening has fallen, flying lost in the glow of a street light.25 This, in turn, was strongly denied by Ernest Mahaim, who emphasised in a reaction to Vandervelde’s arguments that he did not believe that the workers’ pass had been created under industrial pressure or to obstruct the trade unions. According to Mahaim, the motivation had been to allow workers to steer away from the moral, hygienic, material, and social dangers of a prolonged stay in the city. The liberal-minded sociologist had found no reference in his investigation to an industrial motivation and no sign of interference or pressure from industry.26 Actually, he added, capitalists did not like commuting workers at all. They much preferred a belt of small cottages surrounding the factory that tied the workers firmly to the company, whereas a commuting worker always had the ability to switch to another factory in some other part of the country.27 Yet Mahaim admitted that due to the workers passes wages in Belgium were much lower than in neighbouring countries. The competition for jobs made it much harder to strike and to enforce wage increases. Furthermore, the workingmen’s trains had slowed down the growth of the unions. It was much harder to get a grip on commuters than on local people. Yet, precisely because of their daily contacts on the trains a section of the miners union had arisen in the city of Geraardsbergen. It was an unexpected consequence of the workers’ pass. The increased transportation opportunities would in the future allow the formation of national unions: along with the trains propaganda was spreading like wildfire across the land. Social contacts among the commuting workingmen became the main distribution channels of new ideas from the big city to their villages, making socialism – until then a predominantly urban phenomenon – omnipresent in the country.28 Emile Vandervelde did not fail to notice this aspect. But the socialist leader was not very happy with these developments. In his opinion, the ideas that were exchanged were very superficial, and the urban culture and civilisation the commuting workers were in daily contact with did not really come across. The women and families who stayed behind in the villages were exposed even more to the influence of their local priests. The urban intellectual Vandervelde preferred the emancipating influence of the liberal city culture, where the contrasts between the classes were much more significant and potentially more revolutionary.29 However, the socialists’ hesitant attitude did not stop the workingmen’s trains from becoming part of the lives of the working class, significantly improving

370  Donald Weber the living conditions of many families. Flemish workers who at home would earn 1.5 francs per day, went to work in Charleroi and earned 3.5 francs per day. This allowed them to live in the countryside and still earn high city wages. And simultaneously it put pressure on the rural labour market, resulting in a wage increase for local agricultural labourers who were not commuting. The socialists therefore were in favour of the cheap workers’ pass in a somewhat opportunistic manner: its potential was greater than its threat. In the end, it was up to the socialist movement to organise resistance against industrial wage pressure and to unite the commuting and local workforce under a red flag. The workers’ pass was an opportunity, for the ordinary worker to improve his income, as well as for the socialist movement whose ideas were now being propagated down to the smallest hamlets.

The Suburban Condition Unskilled labour was very sensitive to competition and the introduction of the workers pass had the effect of creating a single, large, nationwide manual labour market. At the same time, the passes took away manpower from agriculture: Peasants from Flanders, Brabant, the Haspengouw, from the Campines, they were born to work in the fields, and see now how the workingmen’s train carries them far away, to turn a pale grey deep in the mine shafts, to roast on the fire of the furnaces, to sprinkle with their sweat the cobbles, terraces and buildings of the big cities.30 As stated before, the workers’ passes clearly led to market expansion. Thanks to the tight railway network and the low cost of weekly tickets, large companies were able to recruit workers from across the country. A big steel plant such as Cockerill near Liège attracted commuting workers all the way from Ostend and Essen, at the other side of the country. Only 55 per cent of the workers at the Cockerill plant in Seraing also lived in that village; most of the others came to the factory using workers’ passes.31 But the employees, too, could gain from the system. The cheap workers’ passes offered choices of employment to workingmen and allowed them in times of crisis to temporarily search for a better-paying job. As a mine director in Liège put it, after having observed the system so many times: low wages in the countryside, influx of agricultural labourers; agricultural wages on the rise, labour shortage in mining.32 In this respect, too, the workers’ passes had a soothing effect; they allowed workers to look for temporary solutions in hard times without ultimately being forced to move to the city. Of course, a major downside was the impact on health. As the distances were greater, the tiring journey was longer, and the time available for sleep and recovery shorter. In 1903, the liberal Goblet d’Alviella again dramatically denounced in the Senate the inhumane conditions that long-distance commuters experienced daily. At four o’clock in the morning, they rolled

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  371 out of bed. With mechanical steps and blank looks, they fought their way through the darkness, rain, and wind, endless miles long, to the nearest station. There they piled into coaches, for a long journey, only to get locked up in a mine or a factory, which they would not leave until late in the evening. Then, the long way back home, arriving home late at night, a few bites for dinner and slumping into bed, exhausted, still in work clothes, only to start all over again a few hours later, without any chance for distraction, with no way out of that life than another Sunday alcohol poisoning in the pub. What was left, in such conditions, of a family life, of necessary recreation, of elementary hygiene, of any sense of human dignity at all?33 But no matter how deeply such stories of profound human misery and distress affected the audience, the statistics told a different story. Very long travel times were actually very rare, even marginal. In terms of health, in reality, the higher pay made it possible to buy better food, and life in the countryside was healthier and better suited for raising a family. One impact the workers’ passes had was to soften the transition to a modern industrial society in Belgium. Unlike migration, commuting had both positive and negative effects at the same time. The commuter was not uprooted from his native soil, did not contribute to overcrowding in cities, and could enjoy the benefits of an inexpensive and healthy rural life. But every day he was carried into modernity, in the big city, where new friends, higher wages, and a tougher, more secular world were waiting. As well as an extension of village life, the workers’ pass could be the prelude of a move to the city, and by itself, it was something of both. Mahaim, who took the trouble to do fieldwork and home visits, sketched surprising and often beautiful portraits of the lives of the commuters: A. W. is a good example of a Flemish man, ruddy, stocky and always cheerful. We meet him on a Sunday morning, right in the garden of his home in Edegem, near Antwerp. He is 28, married, and father of two children. He has been working for nine years in Antwerp, in a curtain factory. He is a former farm worker, but he will not return to the field. I ask him why he does not settle in Antwerp. You should see the grin on his face – almost contemptuously – when he answers the city bird that asks such a question. He says he can live here for 14 francs a month, whereas in Antwerp he would be paying a small fortune. Enough has been said, he turns around and walks into his kitchen, his arms filled with a magnificent savoy, gigantic pears and a beautiful head of lettuce.34 The workers’ pass was at the intersection of two eras. A new modern lifestyle was appearing on the horizon. Young families, tired of digging in the ground, broke with the old rural lifestyle and moved to the city, looking for a different kind of work: technical, industrial, and better paid. In their marriages family planning was applied, and they lived in a house of their own, without large numbers of relatives – grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts, and so

372  Donald Weber on – residing under the same roof. They preferred to live in a village or a suburb instead of in the crowded city centres, not out of nostalgia for their rural homeland or for an old, traditional way of life, but because of lower rents and a pleasant, green environment. They grew their own food, but not on pastures and fields as before; a kitchen garden and a small orchard were sufficient. The ideal of the majority of the commuters on the workingmen’s trains as it emerged from the statistics was the suburban condition: a middle-class modern lifestyle, a nuclear family in a house with a kitchen yard in newly built neighbourhoods in the suburbs, less than 20 kilometres from the workplace. Thus, the cheap workers’ passes, intended to preserve a rural lifestyle in which the peasantry supposedly was ‘rooted’, eventually led to a new way of working and living: a commuter existence as a third way between near-starvation in the countryside and desperate exploitation in the metropolitan core.

Notes 1 Parliamentary Annals Chambre, 5 December 1905, 109. 2 Ernest Mahaim, Les abonnements d’ouvriers sur les lignes de chemins de fer belges et leurs effets sociaux (Workers Passes on the Belgian Railway Network and Their Social Effects) (Brussels 1910), 181–182. 3 Auguste De Winne, A travers les Flandres (Through Flanders) (Ghent 1902), 80–82; Camille Huysmans, Louis De Brouckère, and Louis Bertrand, 75 années de domination bourgeoise 1830–1905 (75 Years of Bourgeois Domination 1830– 1905) (Brussels 1905), 200. 4 Bart Van der Herten, België onder stoom: transport en communicatie tijdens de 19de eeuw (Belgium under Steam: Transport and Communication during the Nineteenth Century) (Leuven 2004), 355–358; Parliamentary Documents Chambre, nr. 123, 7 March 1865, and nr. 165, 11 May 1865; Parliamentary Annals Chambre, 8 June 1865, 1119–1120; Parliamentary Annals Senate, 26 June 1865, 462–465. 5 Royal Decree, 12 September 1868, in Pasinomie, 1868, 233–234; Royal Decree, 15 October 1868, in Pasinomie, 1868, 268. 6 Janet Polasky, ‘Transplanting and Rooting Workers in London and Brussels: A Comparative History’, Journal of Modern History, 73, 2001, 528–560, here 544; Anthony S. Wohl, The Eternal Slum: Housing and Social Policy in Victorian London (London 1977), 287; Diane Drummond, ‘The Impact of the Railway on the Lives of Women in the Nineteenth-Century City’, in Ralf Roth and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003), 237–255, here 253; Mahaim, Les abonnements, 5–10. 7 Moniteur belge (Belgian Official Journal), 15 September 1869, 3504. 8 Mahaim, Les abonnements, 34–35. 9 Vooruit, 16 November 1905, 1. 10 Wolfgang Kramer and Siegfried Münzinger: ‘Die Gesellschaft für den Bau von Untergrundbahnen G.m.b.H. – Berliner Ostbahnen’, Berliner Verkehrsblätter, 11, 1962, 94–95. 11 Emile Vandervelde, L’exode rural et le retour aux champs (The Rural Exodus and the Return to the Fields) (Paris 1903), 132–138. 12 Ibid., 203. 13 See also Eric Vanhaute and Donald Weber, ‘De einder wenkt, de horizon getemd’ (Open Road, Tamed Horizon), in Hendrik Ollivier, ed., Met licht geschreven: Foto’s uit een eeuw dagelijks leven (Written in Light: Pictures From a Century of Everyday Life) (Ghent 1994), 171–178; Janet Polasky, ‘Een typisch Belgisch fenomeen:

Birth of a Commuter Society in Belgium  373 de werkmanstreinen en hun sociaal-economische impact’ (A Typical Belgian Phenomenon: Workingmen’s Trains and Their Social and Economic Impact), in Bart Van der Herten, ed., Sporen in België: 175 jaar spoorwegen, 75 jaar NMBS (Rails in Belgium: 175 Years of Railways, 75 Years of the National Society of Belgian Railways) (Leuven 2001), 322–334. 14 Mahaim, Les abonnements, 38. 15 Ibid., 46–48. 16 Ibid., 40. 17 Ibid., 49–53. 18 Ibid., 63, 103. 19 Ibid., 170–171. 20 Parliamentary Annals Chambre, 28 November 1905, 48. 21 Ibid., 43; Vooruit, 5 November 1905, 1. 22 Vooruit, 18 and 20 November 1905; Parliamentary Annals Chambre, 14 November 1905, 3–4, and 28 November 1905, 43. 23 Parliamentary Documents Chambre, 11 May 1865, nr. 165, 3. 24 Parliamentary Annals Chambre, 21 April 1869, 753, and 22 April 1869, 765. 25 Vandervelde, L’exode rural, 131–132, 19. 26 Mahaim, Les abonnements, 8. 27 Ibid., 162. 28 Ibid., 178. 29 Vandervelde, L’exode rural, 204–213. 30 Mahaim, Les abonnements, 170. 31 Ibid., 156–158. 32 Ibid., 175. 33 Parliamentary Annals Senate, 22 January 1903, 130. 34 Mahaim, Les abonnements, 140.

Literature De Winne, Auguste, A travers les Flandres (Ghent 1902). Drummond, Diane, ‘The Impact of the Railway on the Lives of Women in the Nineteenth-Century City’, in Ralf Roth and Marie-Noëlle Polino, eds., The City and the Railway in Europe (Aldershot 2003), 237–255. Huysmans, Camille, De Brouckère, Louis, and Bertrand, Louis, 75 années de domination bourgeoise 1830–1905 (Brussels 1905). Mahaim, Ernest, Les abonnements d’ouvriers sur les lignes de chemins de fer belges et leurs effets sociaux (Brussels 1910). Polasky, Janet, ‘Een typisch Belgisch fenomeen: de werkmanstreinen en hun sociaal-economische impact’, in Bart Van der Herten, ed., Sporen in België: 175 jaar spoorwegen, 75 jaar NMBS (Leuven 2001), 322–334. Polasky, Janet, ‘Transplanting and Rooting Workers in London and Brussels: A Comparative History’, Journal of Modern History, 73, 2001, 528–560. Van der Herten, Bart, België onder stoom: transport en communicatie tijdens de 19de eeuw (Leuven 2004). Vandervelde, Emile, L’exode rural et le retour aux champs (Paris 1903). Vanhaute, Eric and Weber, Donald, ‘De einder wenkt, de horizon getemd’, in Hendrik Ollivier, ed., Met licht geschreven: Foto’s uit een eeuw dagelijks leven (Ghent 1994), 171–178. Wohl, Anthony S., The Eternal Slum: Housing and Social Policy in Victorian London (London 1977).

20 Can We Find Historical Evidence of the Existence of Wider Benefits From Urban Rail Projects? The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway John Dodgson Introduction/Motivation This paper is concerned with the impact of urban railways on the cities that they serve.1 This is a topic of major concern at present in the United Kingdom. A number of major extensions to the urban rail system are presently under construction, including the major west-to-east mainline Crossrail system in London. Crossrail will provide services across central London through the West End and the City and a link to the major financial centre at Canary Wharf. Crossrail could not be justified by conventional cost-benefit analysis which includes as a benefit time savings to travellers, but its economic case has included what are termed ‘wider economic benefits’ (or simply ‘wider benefits’). A major motivation for this paper is to see if there are any historical lessons in regard to the estimation of such wider economic benefits. The paper uses as a case study an urban railway not in London, but in another British city, Liverpool. This railway is the Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR) a pioneering elevated electric passenger railway opened in 1893. Liverpool was the most important British port after London, and the city centre was the location of the headquarters of many major shipping companies, and of banks, insurance companies, shipbrokers, the corn exchange, the cotton exchange, and the Liverpool stock market.

The Liverpool Overhead Railway The LOR was an independent railway company constructed with private capital and no government subsidy. The major motivation for construction of the railway was to avoid congestion on the dock road which ran northto-south along the line of enclosed docks along the River Mersey in Liverpool. This road suffered from congestion because most of the goods passing through the port used rail freight facilities provided by the different main line railways serving Liverpool. Most of this freight needed to be conveyed across the dock road in rail wagons using the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB) system of rail lines (or using road carts), thereby conflicting with horse-drawn traffic along the road.2 Passengers along the road were DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-25

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  375 conveyed in horse-drawn omnibuses which were able to use the MDHB rail lines but which were required to leave the rails to give way to rail freight.3 The main section of the LOR was constructed between 1889 and 1893. The double-track railway was constructed on iron decking 4.9 metres above street level. The first 9.5 kilometres section to be opened ran from Herculaneum in the south to Alexandra in the north, passing through the city centre with stations at Pier Head and James St close to the commercial heart of the city. Most of the line was located inside the Dock Estate, with stations within that estate. Electric traction was used from the start, and signalling was automatic and operated by the trains. The official opening of this first section took place on 4 February 1893. Public service started on 6 March. There were three extensions to the line, north to Seaforth Sands on 30 April 1894, and south, mainly in the tunnel, from Herculaneum to Dingle on 21 December 1896. Both these extensions brought the LOR within the range of middle-income residential districts.4 Finally, the line was linked to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s (LYR) electrified suburban route from Liverpool to the residential town of Southport by an extension on a conventional railway embankment from Seaforth Sands to the LYR’s Seaforth and Litherland station on 2 July 1905. The LOR also operated a four-kilometre feeder street tramway system north from Seaforth Sands to the residential districts of Waterloo and Great Crosby between 1900 and 1925. When the LOR opened it used a flat fare system, two pence for the third class, and three pence for first class, with some reduced fare tickets for workmen. These flat fares lasted until 1905 when they were abandoned in favour of a graduated system in the face of low fare competition from Liverpool Corporation’s electric tramcars. The LOR retained its independence both in the 1923 grouping of railway companies into the ‘Big Four’ private railway companies, and in the nationalisation of Britain’s railways in 1948. The line closed at the end of 1956, and the structure was dismantled in the following two years. The LOR was purely a passenger railway, and it never carried freight. It is important to consider the relationship between the LOR and other public transport services. The horse-drawn buses using the MDHB rail tracks were withdrawn when the LOR opened, though they were replaced by horse-drawn omnibuses along the dock road.5 In the 1890s, Liverpool was served by a network of horse trams. These ran from the city centre past the southern LOR terminus at Dingle, and on a route parallel to the dock road but further inland north of the city centre. This network was purchased from its private owners by the Liverpool Corporation in 1897.6 The tram network was converted to electric traction around the turn of the century: electric trams were introduced on the southern route along Park St and past Dingle station in November 1898, while the northern route followed suit in 1900.7 The northern section of the LOR was paralleled by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s (LYR) Southport route, further away from the dock road than the trams. This rail route terminated at

376  John Dodgson Exchange Station in the commercial district (and about 500 metres from the LOR Pier Head station). This line was electrified in 1904 and provided faster service than the trams.8 The link to the LYR at Seaforth and Litherland provided the LOR with connections (and through ticketing) to and from the north of the city, both by interchange with LYR trains and through a direct service that was operated between Southport and over the LOR to Dingle using lightweight electric trains built by the LYR. These provided hourly service between 1905 and 1913/1914, though the service does not seem to have been regarded as very successful and was not re-introduced after the First World War. In the centre of the city, both the LOR and the underground cross-river Mersey Railway had stations at James St, with entrances located some 150 metres apart. Both Pier Head and James St were located close to the Pier Head terminus of most of Liverpool’s tram routes and the cross-river ferry services. In the south, LOR passengers could transfer at Dingle to tram routes to Liverpool’s southern suburbs of Aigburth and Garston. Some through ticketing were also available.

Data Availability Because the LOR was an independent company, detailed data on the company’s activities exist. The company produced half-yearly reports up to 1912, and yearly reports from 1913 onwards. These include both financial information and information on traffic levels and train miles operated. The company was also obliged to supply regular information to the government. This was published in the Board of Trade Railway Returns up to 1913 (and in less detailed form up to 1923), and in the Ministry of Transport’s Railway Statistics between 1924 and 1938. There was one company history written shortly after the railway closed, by Charles Box, whose father was General Manager and Chief Engineer from 1934 to 1943.9 This book includes some statistics, plus material on fares and service levels. As well as these sources, I have also used the collection of material on the Overhead, and Liverpool Corporation tramways, held at Liverpool City Library in William Brown Street, and the extensive literature on public transport in Liverpool. I have also drawn on the present-day debate in Britain on the estimation of wider economic benefits, and on material on the economy of Liverpool in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Figure 20.1).10 The available data have been used to construct ex post estimates of the costs and benefits of the LOR. In the next section, I consider the financial case for the railway by calculating financial net present value (NPV) and financial benefit-cost ratios (BCRs).11 In the following section, I calculate social cost-benefit returns using social NPVs and BCRs by adding time savings to travellers and considering other benefits in the form of benefits of increased reliability and reduced congestion. In the penultimate section, I consider the possibility that there were wider economic benefits by considering current

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  377 LOR total journeys (million) 25.00 20.00 15.00 10.00

LOR total journeys (million)

5.00 0.00 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960

Figure 20.1  LOR Rail Journeys from 1890 to 1960. Source: Created by the author.

Department for Transport advice on how these should be measured, and by considering how relevant these methods are in the historic context and given the availability of historical data. The final section provides a general conclusion with regard to the benefits created by the LOR.

The Financial Justification This section presents the results of my financial calculations. My aim is to look at the case for the railway alone, and not consider benefits of the Crosby tramway. The company’s reports provide information on capital expenditure by half year up to 1912 and separating out expenditure on the tramway. This gives a valuable profile of annual capital expenditure. The reports also provide information on working expenses and revenue. Between 1893 and 1899, and between 1926 and 1956 these relate to railway activities only, but between 1900 and 1925, it is necessary to exercise care that tramway costs and revenues are excluded. For some years, there are separate data, for some years not. I have converted all financial figures to constant 1913 prices using the British Retail Price Index (RPI).12 These figures are then converted to present values using a financial discount rate of 4 per cent. This figure of 4 per cent is taken from Acworth, the distinguished late nineteenth/early twentieth-century railway economist.13 Table 20.1 shows financial NPVs and BCRs over different time periods, over 20 years of operation (1893–1913), over 30 years (1893–1923), over 40 years (1893–1933), over 50 years (1893–1943), and over 60 years (1893–1953). It shows that financial returns were negative even when benefits less costs were measured over the 60 years from 1893, nearly the whole of the Railway’s life, while the benefit/cost ratios were less than one (the minimum value of BCR to recover the assumed 4 per cent cost of capital).14 This shows that, as is well-known, the railway cannot be judged a commercial success and

378  John Dodgson Table 20.1  F  inancial Returns of the LOR from 1893 to 1953 Years

Net Present Value (NPV) PVB-PVC (£m) Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) PVB/PVC

20

30

40

50

60

−0.58

−0.48

−0.49

−0.49

−0.48

0.60

0.71

0.73

0.73

0.75

Source: Author’s calculations. Note: 1913 prices discounted to 1889.

shareholders were disappointed. In his memoirs, published in 1910, LOR Chairman Sir William Forwood records: ‘it is heartbreaking work to run a railway that does not earn a dividend.’15

Conventional Cost-Benefit Analysis Justification In this section, I try to quantify the cost-benefit case for the LOR. I consider the following categories of benefit: • • • • •

Time savings to LOR passengers and benefits to generated traffic; Reliability benefits to LOR passengers; Benefits of reduced congestion to passengers on other modes and to freight traffic; Impact on accidents; Impacts on the environment.

As with financial benefits, I also convert all figures to 1913 values using the British RPI. For time savings it is necessary to identify counterfactual public transport services in the absence of the LOR. For the period up to 1899, I presume that the counterfactual is the line of docks horse tram.16 After that date I consider the counterfactual to be the electric tram services that operated on the routes closest to the railway. These tram services remained in operation until tram services in Liverpool were replaced by buses in the 1950s. I have measured additional access walk time to tram routes using the 1906 Ordnance Survey 1:2500 (15 inches to the mile) maps of Liverpool, and an assumed walk speed of four kilometres per hour. I do not assume any difference in waiting times because of the high frequency of both LOR and tram services. Following the approach used by Tim Leunig, I value a minute’s time savings by reference to hourly earnings and to present-day work on the value of travel time savings.17 Walking time is valued at twice the value for in-vehicle (train or tram) time. Unfortunately, I only have anecdotal information on journey purpose. When the LOR Bill was being investigated by the House of

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  379 Lords Select Committee, Mr. Pember QC, in support of the Bill, said the line was likely to be used principally by merchants and their clerks who had business to conduct at the various docks, but in early 1895 LOR Chairman Sir William Forwood complained that not enough use of the LOR was being made by merchants, brokers, and shippers as he thought them capable.18 In any case, increased use of the telephone reduced the need for this type of travel.19 Speaking largely of the period after the Second World War, Adrian Jarvis remarks the ‘fact remains that the railway served mainly as a way for dock workers to get to and from work and to move from one job on the Dock Estate to another’.20 Another journey purpose was sightseeing: from its early days, the railway encouraged people, via its publicity material and round trip fares, to use the railway to view the docks and its shipping. There is however information on the proportions of third and first-class passengers, and of workmen’s tickets, which must bear some relationship to journey purpose and which I use in the calculation of the value of time savings. I use two values for earnings, one for third-class passengers, and a higher one for first-class ones. Earnings for third-class passengers are based on dock worker wages, at five shillings per day between 1870 and 1914.21 I assume that first-class passengers had greater earnings than third-class ones, and take as a ‘central case’ a ratio of three. I assume as a ‘central case’ that non-working time is valued at one-half of hourly earnings. I take as my ‘central case’ that 20 per cent of thirdclass journeys and 25 per cent of first-class journeys took place in working time. I allow for generated travel using the conventional ‘rule of a half’. I take journey numbers in the absence of the LOR as the LOR’s estimate that the line of docks’ horse trams was carrying 2,300,000 passengers a year before the LOR opened, and I assume that these would have risen in line with the annual growth of LOR traffic thereafter.22 Travellers are interested not just in the time a journey takes, but also in the expected variability of that trip. Since we generally assume that they are risk-averse, if two alternatives have the same expected mean journey time, travellers will prefer the method with the lower variability. It appears that the LOR did provide a reliable method of travel. In the half-yearly meeting of the Company for the first half of 1893, 94 per cent of LOR trains were recorded as being on time, and of the remaining 6 per cent half were said to have been irregular only to the extent of a few seconds.23 High levels of reliability were maintained: in the first half of 1900, 97.3 per cent punctuality was recorded.24 However the line of dock trams would have suffered from unreliability because the vehicles had to give way to goods trains, while the Corporation’s electric trams would have been affected by congestion from other traffic on Liverpool’s streets. However, measurement of reliability benefits from use of the LOR requires some information (such as standard deviation of journey times) on how great unreliability on other modes would have been, and I do not have any such information. So I use a rule of thumb: reliability benefits are likely to be related to the total value of time savings, and I take them to be a fixed proportion, namely 20 per cent.

380  John Dodgson The prime reason for construction of the LOR was to relieve congestion on the dock road. Passengers using the LOR would benefit from faster journey times because they had avoided dock road congestion, and we have already measured these benefits by making estimates of their time savings. However, removal of passenger traffic from the dock road might have provided additional benefits to the remaining users of the dock road because congestion on the road was reduced. The extent to which this would happen would depend on how far the line of dock trams caused congestion to horse-drawn road traffic and to rail traffic. I have no information on this, other than that the trams were required to give way to goods trains. If they did this effectively, then their removal when the LOR opened may not have speeded up rail access to the docks very much. In addition, it is not clear to me how far the line of dock trams interfered with the (horse-drawn) road traffic. Again, if it did not, then that road traffic may not have been speeded up much when the trams were withdrawn. In regard to accidents one might assume that, by reducing the potential for street-level conflicts between movements, the LOR would have reduced accidents. I do not have any information on accidents along the dock road, but the LOR did not have an unblemished accident record. In particular six people (two passengers, and four members of LOR staff), lost their lives in a fire in Dingle underground station at the end of 1901, while five passengers had been injured in a collision there in 1897.25 Two employees died in accidents in 1899, and there were other accidents in the company’s history.26 Consequently, and in the absence of information on accident rates involving trams, I do not include any figure for accident savings. Any modern assessment of a transport investment would include some discussion, quantification, and possibly valuation of environmental effects, and elevated railways might be expected to be particularly intrusive. However, the Liverpool Overhead passed through an area of very poor environmental quality in an era when environmental quality did not have a high priority. On one side the Overhead was bounded by the Dock Estate, where the prime activity was the loading and unloading of ships. Only in the city centre, where the Overhead passed on the seaward side of three major buildings constructed after 1893, the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building, and the Dock Building, did the railway create possible noise impacts on employees in offices.27 On the landward side, the railway passed along the dock road for most of its length. An analysis of land use recorded on 1906 Ordnance Survey maps shows the following breakdown of activities on the landward side of the Overhead by distance: railway goods depots and sidings 48 per cent; warehouses about 30 per cent; timber yards and sawmills 8 per cent; iron works and other engineering works 3 per cent; public houses 5 per cent; domestic housing only about 2–3 per cent; and other (St Nicholas Church and churchyard, the Custom House, Stanley Dock) 3 per cent. So I do not include any monetary valuations for the environmental decline.

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  381 I also consider the question of the appropriate discount rate to use in a social cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The social discount rate (or ‘social time preference rate’) might be lower than the private commercial discount rate. I have tested sensitivity of the results to use of a social discount rate lower than excess of the private rate of 4 per cent used in the financial present value calculations. However, for direct comparison with Table 20.1, Table 20.2 shows cost-­ benefit returns discounted at 4 per cent. The difference between the results for Table 20.2 and those for Table 20.1 is that in Table 20.2 time savings and reliability benefits are added to capital costs, operating costs, and revenues.28 The net present values from the project are positive, even when benefits are only measured over the first 20 years of the Railway’s life. BCRs therefore all exceed one, and the BCR is equal to 1.52 when calculated over 60 years. This shows that the project was justified on social grounds, before the calculation of any wider economic benefits.29

Evidence on Wider Economic Benefits In this penultimate section, I consider the question of whether a conventional CBA of the type conducted in the previous section can capture all the benefits of the project. It is generally accepted that such an approach which correctly measures benefits to users, and external benefits in the form of impacts on congestion and the environment, will correctly measure total benefits to the economy as long as the economy is perfectly competitive and all external costs have been measured.30 Contemporary material gives only very general information on the expected impact of the line. When the Committee of the House of Lords met in 1888 to hear evidence on the LOR Bill, Mr. Robert Alexander, a senior member of the firm of Alexander and Sons, merchants and steamship agents (and a Director of the LOR) said he was convinced that the railway would be a great advantage to the commercial community of Liverpool.31 The Mayor of Liverpool, at the opening ceremony in 1893, noted that the railway would be of the greatest advantage to every section of the community, and more particularly would be in the fullest degree useful to the shipping, the commercial, and the trading community.32 Table 20.2  S  ocial Returns of the LOR 1893–1953 Years

Net Present Value (NPV) PVB-PVC (£m) Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) PVB/PVC Source: Author’s calculations.

20

30

40

50

60

0.11

0.57

0.71

0.82

0.99

1.08

1.34

1.40

1.44

1.52

382  John Dodgson By 1900, Sir William Forwood thought that the LOR had done a great deal for the trade of the port, had given increased facilities for moving about the docks, and had removed the congestion on the streets.33 Recent work sponsored in the main by the UK Department of Transport has considered additional types of wider economic benefit not captured in a conventional CBA.34 Chief amongst these are agglomeration economies, which arise when Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is enhanced when more activities are located close together. A transport investment can facilitate such agglomeration, for example, if enhancement of commuter rail capacity increases the labour supply to a particular location. The English economist Alfred Marshall identified a certain type of impact of industrial development which he termed ‘external economies’.35 These can take a number of forms: close proximity of firms means they face lower transport costs, and can obtain inputs more speedily; use of a common labour market means access to a wider range of skills: firms located close together can share knowledge; firms have more scope to specialise and take advantage of economies of specialisation; central city location enables firms to access public goods, particularly in the form of municipal services. In his book on the contribution of service industries to productivity growth, Broadberry identifies shipping and financial services as industries characterised by external economies (particularly in regard to reputation and trust) and refers to Cottrell, who documents the importance of Merseyside sources in the finance of early steamship companies serving the port.36 In regard to the 1850s and 1860s, Graeme Milne observes: Liverpool business relied on complex information networks brokered by important local figures. Participation in these networks enabled small firms to establish reputations and levels of credit-worthiness which, especially in the case of younger traders, allowed them to develop faster than they would have done solely on the basis of their capital. The information web also enabled the community to reach decisions about success and failure, showing a great capacity for sympathy and altruism in some cases while rushing to condemn others.37 Estimation of agglomeration economies requires information on: • • •

the impact of the transport investment in reducing transport costs; the relationship between a reduction in transport costs and TFP (i.e. output per unit of input) in the affected sectors, which can be described as the agglomeration elasticity; the size of the affected sector in the city under consideration.

Transport costs in this type of exercise are generally measured using some index of accessibility or economic potential (or ‘effective density’). A number of researchers, including in particular Dan Graham, have investigated the

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  383 relationship with agglomeration.38 Major conclusions of this work are that (1) there is evidence of a significant relationship, i.e. reductions in transport costs can increase productivity by increasing agglomeration, (2) the strength of this relationship varies between sectors, with the highest elasticities in modern economies being observed in financial services, and transport and communications (3) returns to agglomeration are not constant, but decline in certain industries (4) congestion, including urban road congestion, can serve to reduce benefits of agglomeration as cities get larger. Department for Transport (draft) advice initially gave values for agglomeration elasticities of 0.116 in financial services and 0.168 in transport storage and communications. However, a subsequent paper by Graham, Gibbons, and Martin gives new estimates of agglomeration elasticities which adjust for statistical problems (particularly endogeneity between TFP and agglomeration) in the earlier work.39 This study, based on Annual Respondent Database data (which allows for use of intermediate inputs as well as labour and capital), estimates agglomeration elasticities as follows: manufacturing 0.021; construction 0.034; consumer services 0.024; and business services 0.083. The study also estimated the value of the parameter on the distance decay function as: manufacturing 1.097; construction 1.562; consumer services 1.818; and business services 1.746. These parameter values (though to two decimal places) have been incorporated into draft Department for Transport (DfT) spreadsheets to be used in the estimation of agglomeration effects.40 Financial and business services were an important activity in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Liverpool, linked in particular to the shipping sector. The top of Liverpool’s service economy was characterized by a relatively small but strategically important group of merchants and shipping companies which were, in turn, supported by a range of financial and information-providing intermediaries such as banks, insurance companies, and brokers. In their breakdown of occupational change in nineteenth-century Liverpool, Lawton and Pooley showed that commercial services expanded rapidly over the seventy year period from mid-century to the First World War, reflecting Liverpool’s pre-eminence as a port, the commercial functions of which, in their view, were almost on a par with those of London.41 In regard to merchanting/broking Anderson notes ‘the cultivation of strong personal and business contacts was an important prerequisite for business success’.42 Information on occupation was collected in the 1901 population census, for local authority areas with a population in excess of 5,000. The relevant local authority areas for the LOR are Liverpool City and Bootle. In 1901 there were 14,039 males over the age of ten in these two areas employed as ‘commercial or business clerks’, and 76,286 employed in the ‘conveyance

384  John Dodgson of men, goods and messages’. There may have been a few (but not many) women employed in these occupations, but their numbers are not separately recorded. In addition, some of the men employed in these two occupations in Liverpool and Bootle would have commuted in by train or tram from other local authority areas from north of Bootle and Liverpool, or by train or ferry across the Mersey from the Wirral, and so would not appear in Census occupation figures in the areas where they worked. A separate estimate of employment in the Dock Estate is available from the work on the dock labour market by Eric Taplin. He estimated that total employment on the Liverpool Dock Estate was around 25,000 – this includes dockers, ship repairers, tugboat men, and seamen, all of whom can be said to be employed broadly in the transport and communications sector.43 For purposes of estimating agglomeration economies from the LOR, I assume employment in transport and communications at 30,000 and in financial/ business services at 17,500.44 The effect of opening of the LOR on accessibility will depend on the reduction in the cost of travelling along the north-south corridor served by the railway, and on the relative importance of all other corridors in the city. I have calculated accessibility indices in Liverpool (plus Bootle, Litherland, Waterloo-with-Seaforth, and Crosby) before and after opening of the LOR using 1911 population by ward from the 1911 Census of Population as the basis of mass, and public transport generalised costs based on fares and travel times as the measure of impedance. As a result of the opening of the Overhead, I estimate that accessibility of the centre of Liverpool increased by some 3.9 per cent. The final piece in this particular calculation is the level of output per unit of input. The first Census of Production in 1907 provides a figure for average annual net output per worker in manufacturing in England of 102 British Pounds, but the Census does not cover the services sector.45 Frank Geary and Tom Stark provide estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added (GVA) per worker by British regions in 1901, 1911, 1920, and later years for services, manufacturing, and agriculture, and for the North West region, which contains Merseyside.46 Their methodology is explained in Geary and Stark.47 This means that I only have an estimate of net output per head in services in the North West in 1907 (106.54 British Pounds), rather than sector-specific figures for Liverpool. I have then calculated net output per worker in other years between 1894 and 1913 by adjusting my 2007 figure by indices of national output and employment in the specific sectors of transport and communications and financial services published in the study of Stephen Broadberry.48 Table 20.3 shows cost-benefit results when my estimate of agglomeration benefits over the period from 1894 to 1913 has been included. This increases the net present values and the BCRs. Thus when benefits are only calculated over the first 20 years the BCR increases from 1.08 to 1.19, while when benefits are calculated over 60 years the BCR increases from 1.52 to 1.61.

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  385 Table 20.3  S  ocial Returns with Agglomeration of the LOR 1893–1953 Years

Net Present Value (NPV) PVB-PVC (£m) Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) PVB/PVC

20

30

40

50

60

0.27

0.74

0.88

0.99

1.15

1.19

1.44

1.49

1.53

1.61

Source: Author’s calculations. Note: 1913 prices discounted to 1889.

Conclusions This paper has shown that the LOR failed to cover its cost of capital, as the financial NPV was negative. The company was never forced into bankruptcy, but the ordinary shareholders did not earn an adequate return on capital nor even recover all of their capital. This much was known already, especially by the shareholders themselves! What this paper has also shown is that the social returns from the railway did cover the cost of capital so that the railway did produce net social benefits to transport users in Merseyside. This is the case even before wider benefits to the local economy in the form of agglomeration effects are measured. But such agglomeration effects may have increased the social returns from the Overhead. I have calculated them as a proportion of total benefits (including revenue as well as time savings and reliability benefits). Over the 20 years from 1894 to 1913, discounted agglomeration benefits account for 9.5 per cent of total discounted benefits.49

Notes 1 I should like to thank Frank Geary for providing access to his and Stark’s detailed data on regional incomes per head, Graeme Milne for providing information on the economy of nineteenth century Liverpool, and Steve Gibbons, Henry Overman and Michael Spackman for valuable comments on an earlier draft. I alone am responsible for the contents of this paper and methods used. Information was obtained from the following libraries: British Library of Political & Economic Science, London School of Economics; Crosby Library, Local History Collection; Liverpool and Merseyside Record Office, City of Liverpool Library; Merseyside Maritime Museum; National Railway Museum, York; and Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool. 2 The MDHB was the operator of the Port of Liverpool, which also included docks on the opposite bank of the Mersey in Birkenhead. 3 Henceforth I refer to these as the ‘line of docks horse trams’. 4 The LOR estimated that 66,000 people lived within half a mile of the new Dingle terminus. Liverpool Mercury of 8 February 1895. 5 It was reported at the first second-yearly meeting of the LOR in 1893 that these dock omnibuses were carrying passengers at the rate of about 2,500,000 a year. They were charging one penny, whereas the LOR charged two pence. Liverpool Mercury of 14 February 1894.

386  John Dodgson 6 B. D. White, A History of the Corporation of Liverpool (Liverpool 1951), 161. 7 The LOR believed that they had lost traffic at Dingle to the trams. Liverpool Mercury of 16 August 1899. 8 See N. N. Forbes, B. J. Felton, R. W. Rush, Electric Lines of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Sutton Coldfield 1976). 9 C. E. Box, The Liverpool Overhead Railway, 1893–1956 (London 1959). 10 Figure 10.1 shows figures of annual passenger journeys on the LOR in each year of its operation. These figures exclude season ticket travel which was nevertheless not of great significance. Since the chart only shows journeys on the railway and not the Crosby tramway, I have estimated journeys for the years 1900 to 1913 by assuming that rail journeys accounted for 75 per cent of overall LOR (rail plus tram) journeys. Figures for 1915, 1919, 1920, and 1921 were published separately for rail and tram services by the Board of Trade. Figures for the years 1924 to 1938 were calculated by adding the monthly passenger figures for each year published by the Ministry of Transport in their Railway Statistics. I believe that the figures for the years 1922 to 1925 exclude tramway passengers. See Box, The Liverpool Overhead Railway, 138, contains separate passenger figures for the Crosby tramway for the years 1919 to 1925. Figures for 1939 to 1956 are from the LOR’s own Annual Reports. Finally I have simply interpolated journey figures for 1914, and for 1916 to 1918 from the figures for adjacent years. 11 The financial Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) is defined as the ratio of discounted revenue to the discounted sum of capital costs and working expenditure. The social BCR is defined as the ratio of the discounted sum of revenue plus other benefits, to the discounted sum of capital costs and working expenditure. 12 www.measuringworth.org/datasets/ukearncpi/result.php (last accessed in March 2010). 13 W. M. Acworth, The Elements of Railway Economics, 1st ed. (Oxford 1905), 13. 14 The fact that the present values and BCRs barely improve when the period of the calculations increases from 30 to 40 and 50 years reflects the impact of the inter-war period when financial returns in the form of revenue minus working expenses were negative in many years. 15 W. B. Forwood, Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840–1910 (Liverpool 1910), 175–176. 16 See J. B. Horne, J. and T. B. Maund, Liverpool Transport, vol. 1: 1830–1900 (London 1995), 19–22 for details of this service. 17 T. Leunig, ‘Time Is Money: A Reassessment of the Passenger Social Savings from Victorian British Railways’, Journal of Economic History, 66, 2006, 635–672. 18 Liverpool Mercury of 28 April 1888, and of 13 February 1895. 19 A. Jarvis, Portrait of the Liverpool Overhead Railway (Shepperton 1996), 86, notes that by 1910 the telephone was having an impact on LOR travel. 20 Ibid., 97. 21 E. L. Taplin, ‘Dock Labour at Liverpool: Occupational Structure and Working Conditions in the Late-Nineteenth Century’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 127, 1977, 133–154, here 146, and C. H. Feinstein, ‘New Estimates of Average Earnings in the United Kingdom, 1880–1913’, Economic History Review, 43, 1980, 595–632, here 624–625). 22 Liverpool Mercury of 14 February 1894. 23 Liverpool Mercury of 8 August 1893. 24 Liverpool Mercury of 15 August 1900. 25 Liverpool Mercury, of 19 February 1898, and Box, The Liverpool Overhead Railway, 165. 26 Liverpool Mercury of 17 June 1899.

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  387 27 The Dock Building was eventually shielded from the Overhead by the Mersey road tunnel ventilation building, constructed in 1934. 28 Using a lower social discount rate of 3 per cent increases social BCRs from 1.08 to 1.12 over 20 years, from 1.34 to 1.43 over 30 years, from 1.40 to 1.50 to over 40 years, from 1.44 to 1.55 over 50 years, and from 1.52 to 1.67 over 60 years. 29 In the absence of capital rationing. 30 J. S. Dodgson, ‘External Effects and Secondary Benefits in Road Investment Appraisal’, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 7, 1973, 169–185. 31 Liverpool Mercury of 1 May 1888. 32 Liverpool Mercury of 6 February 1893. 33 Liverpool Mercury of 15 August 1900. 34 See literature references to Department for Transport, and N. Crafts, ‘Transport Infrastructure Investment: Implications for Growth and Productivity’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 25, 2009, 327–343. 35 A. Marshall, Economics of Industry (London 1892), 150–155. 36 S. N. Broadberry, Market Services and the Productivity Race 1850–2000: British Performance in International Perspective (Cambridge 2006), 82–83, 215, and P. Cottrell, ‘The Steamship on the Mersey, 1815–80: Investment and Ownership’, in P. L. Cottrell and D. A. Aldcroft, eds., Shipping, Trade and Commerce: Essays in Memory of Ralph Davis (Leicester 1981), 137–163, here 152–156. 37 Milne, G. J., Trade and Traders in Mid-Victorian Liverpool: Mercantile Business and the Making of a World Port (Liverpool 2000), 220. 38 See D. J. Graham, ‘Agglomeration, Productivity and Transport Investment’, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 41, 2007, 317–343. 39 D. J. Graham, S. Gibbons, and R. Martin, Transport Investment and the Distance Decay of Agglomeration Benefits (London 2009). 40 Of course the big unknown is that of whether these values would also have applied back in the 1890s and 1900s. 41 G. Anderson, ‘The Service Occupations of Nineteenth-Century Liverpool’ in B. L. Anderson and P. J. M. Stoney, eds., Commerce, Industry and Transport: Studies in Economic Change on Merseyside (Liverpool 1983), 77–94, here 79. 42 Ibid., 80. 43 E. L. Taplin, ‘Dock Labour at Liverpool: Occupational Structure and Working Conditions in the Late-Nineteenth Century’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 127, 1977, 133–154, here 134. 44 For transport and communication I think it is appropriate to consider those workers located in and around the Dock Estate. For financial services I make a rough allowance for workers commuting into Liverpool from outside the city. In both cases I used figures in C. H. Lee, British Regional Employment Statistics 1841–1971 (Cambridge 1979) to make allowance for the small numbers of female workers using figures in these sectors (only about 2 per cent of male workers). 45 See Board of Trade, Final Report on the First Census of Production of the United Kingdom (1907) (London 1912), 19. 46 F. Geary and T. Stark, ‘Estimates of regional GDP (GVA) in the United Kingdom, 1901–2001’. Paper presented at the Economic History Society Annual Conference, University of Durham, 26–28 March 2010. 47 F. Geary and T. Stark, ‘Examining Ireland’s post-famine economic growth performance’, Economic Journal, 112, 2002, 919–935. 48 Broadberry, Market Services. 49 It has not been possible to measure agglomeration economies directly by looking at what actually happened to TFP in Liverpool after the LOR was in operation, since such data were not collected. However, even today, when detailed

388  John Dodgson micro data on costs are avalable for individual firms, it has still proved difficult to identify the ex post impacts of particular transport investments on TFP. See S. Gibbons and H. Overman, Productivity in Transport Evaluation Studies. London School of Economics, report for UK Department for Transport, 2009, published at www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/evaluation/evaluationguidance/evalprodimpacts/ productivityintransport.pdf (last accessed on 7 March 2013), and Graham, Gibbons, and Martin, Transport Investment.

Literature Acworth, W. M., The Elements of Railway Economics, 1st ed. (Oxford 1905). Anderson, G. ‘The Service Occupations of Nineteenth-Century Liverpool,’ in B. L. Anderson and P. J. M. Stoney, eds., Commerce, Industry and Transport: Studies in Economic Change on Merseyside (Liverpool 1983), 77–94. Board of Trade, Final Report on the First Census of Production of the United Kingdom (1907) (London 1912). Board of Trade, Returns of the Capital, Traffic, Receipts and Working Expenditures of the Railway Companies of the United Kingdom (the ‘Railway Returns’), annual, (London 1893–1923). Box, C. E., The Liverpool Overhead Railway, 1893–1956 (London 1959). Broadberry, S. N., Market Services and the Productivity Race 1850–2000: British Performance in International Perspective (Cambridge 2006). Cottrell, P., ‘The Steamship on the Mersey, 1815–80: Investment and Ownership’, in P. L. Cottrell and D. A. Aldcroft, eds., Shipping, Trade and Commerce: Essays in Memory of Ralph Davis (Leicester 1981), 137–163. Crafts, N., ‘Transport Infrastructure Investment: Implications for Growth and Productivity’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 25, 2009, 327–343. Department for Transport, NATA Refresh: Appraisal for a Sustainable Transport System (London, 2009). Department for Transport, Wider Impacts and Regeneration: TAG Unit 2.8, August 2012, published at www.dft.gov.uk/webtag/documents/projectmanager/pdf/u2_8-wider-impacts-120723.pdf (last accessed on 7 March 2013). Dodgson, J. S., ‘External Effects and Secondary Benefits in Road Investment Appraisal’, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 7, 1973, 169–185. Feinstein, C. H., Statistical Tables of National Income, Expenditure and Output of the U.K. 1855–1965 (Cambridge 1976). Feinstein, C. H., ‘New Estimates of Average Earnings in the United Kingdom, 1880–1913’, Economic History Review, 43, 1980, 595–632. Forbes, N. N., Felton, B. J., and Rush, R. W., Electric Lines of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Sutton Coldfield 1976). Forwood, W. B., Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840–1910 (Liverpool 1910). Geary, F., and Stark, T., ‘Estimates of regional GDP (GVA) in the United Kingdom, 1901–2001’. Paper presented at the Economic History Society Annual Conference, University of Durham, 26–28 March 2010. Geary, F., and Stark, T., ‘Examining Ireland’s Post-Famine Economic Growth Performance’, Economic Journal, 112, 2002, 919–935. Gibbons, S., and Overman, H., Productivity in Transport Evaluation Studies. London School of Economics, report for UK Department for Transport, 2009,

The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway  389 published at www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/evaluation/evaluationguidance/evalprodimpacts/ productivityintransport.pdf (last accessed on 7 March 2013). Graham, D. J., ‘Agglomeration, Productivity and Transport Investment’, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 41, 2007, 317–343. Graham, D. J., ‘Variable Returns to Agglomeration and the Effect of Road Traffic Congestion’, Journal of Urban Economics, 62, 2007, 103–120. Graham, D. J., Gibbons, S., and Martin, R., Transport Investment and the Distance Decay of Agglomeration Benefits (London 2009). Horne, J. B., Maund, J. and T. B., Liverpool Transport, vol. 1: 1830–1900 (London 1995). Jarvis, A., Portrait of the Liverpool Overhead Railway (Shepperton 1996). Lee, C. H., British Regional Employment Statistics 1841–1971 (Cambridge 1979). Leunig, T., ‘Time Is Money: A Reassessment of the Passenger Social Savings from Victorian British Railways’, Journal of Economic History, 66, 2006, 635–672. Marshall, A., Economics of Industry (London 1892). Milne, G. J., Trade and Traders in Mid-Victorian Liverpool: Mercantile Business and the Making of a World Port (Liverpool 2000). Ministry of Transport, Railway Statistics (London 1924–1938). Taplin, E. L., ‘Dock Labour at Liverpool: Occupational Structure and Working Conditions in the Late-Nineteenth Century’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 127, 1977, 133–154. White, B. D., A History of the Corporation of Liverpool (Liverpool 1951).

21 The Experience and Image of American Elevated Railways Rapid Transit Infrastructure in the Urban Consciousness Gordon Benedict Hansen Introduction: Elevated Railways in the United States At the turn of the twentieth century, elevated railways or ‘Els’ in the United States were built out of a practical need to ‘elevate’ commuter traffic above congested streets. Inspired by New York City’s early elevated railways several cities across the nation built similar urban rail systems between 1892 and 1920 (Figure 21.1). While elevated rail lines were proposed in St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, only three cities besides New York built and maintained large-scale systems of elevated railways: Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Still, given the versatility and popularity of the new technology, smaller cities such as Hoboken, New Jersey, and Sioux City, Iowa also built elevated trolley structures to provide rapid transportation in the face of physical constraints at ground level. In part because New York’s elevated railways have been the subject of much scholarship, this chapter examines how Els in the second tier of cities – Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia – came to be seen as much more than rapid transit infrastructure; in fact, among neighbouring communities, the elevated railways collected a wide range of metaphors, symbols, and images that evolved over time. Elevated lines were utilitarian but often featured distinctive station and structure designs. Although negative effects were universal – Els were noisy, blocked sunlight, and contributed to urban “blight” – responses to the elevated lines in the three major cities differed among people who used, operated, and lived near the elevated lines. While for some citizens the elevated served as a backbone of community commerce, identity, or memory, for others in the city the railway came to be seen as a symbol of political marginalisation or the downfall of a neighbourhood. Although Boston has torn down its El, recent renovation projects in Chicago and Philadelphia reveal that some cities continue to recognise the practicality and importance of elevated railways. This chapter distils the essential lessons from each case study. These lessons are meant to inform transportation and urban planning projects dealing with either the renovation of existing elevated structures or the construction of new ones altogether. To begin, I offer a brief overview of the common roles that elevated railways shared in the United States (Figure 21.2).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-26

Rapid Transit system in the Urban Context  391

Figure 21.1  Above the Frankford El in Northeast Philadelphia, 2009. Source: Photographs courtesy of the author.

Figure 21.2  Below the Frankford El in Northeast Philadelphia, 2009. Source: Photographs courtesy of the author, Gordon Benedict Hansen.

392  Gordon Benedict Hansen

Elevated Railways as Land Developers & Redevelopers New York City built the country’s first elevated railways in the 1870s after a trial line generated interest as early as 1867. Here, urban elevated railways increased the density of downtown while enabling faster and cheaper access to surveyed land ripe for development uptown. At least according to their promoters, the elevated railways were also part of a progressive civic mentality: in the early 1860s, Cyrus Field of the New York Elevated Railroad Company predicted that the elevated railways (would) take (the) working class out of the tenement houses, the breedingplaces of cholera, where they sicken and die, and give them neat little homes, where they can have pure air, and a bit of green grass before the door.1 In Chicago and Philadelphia, though the Els provided efficient transport from existing commercial centres to inner city neighbourhoods, the railways also helped speed the development of second-ring suburbs. In fact, they can be seen as early agents of transit-oriented development, which is clearly not a contemporary innovation. Along the Market Street Elevated in West Philadelphia, the elevated simultaneously encouraged land development as well as neighbourhood redevelopment. In some areas, the elevated helped to create entirely new communities. Historian Margaret Marsh explained that Southern West Philadelphia ‘was virtually undeveloped until the El opened it to mass settlement in 1907’, after which time this area ‘(became) almost fully urbanized’.2 By contrast, in existing neighbourhoods to the north and west of Market Street, new development spurred by the El encouraged a shift in the ethnic makeup of community populations: the El had a domino effect on land development that led to the transformation of northern West Philadelphia from a group of middle-class, native-white suburbs into more urban but still residential communities for somewhat less affluent but nevertheless upwardly mobile black and white, ethnic Americans.3 Marsh concluded that in West Philadelphia, ‘if the El succeeded as a symbol of physical unification, it served to promote fragmentation and divisiveness as well’.4 This summary aptly describes polarities that elevated railways created in American cities.

The El as Uniter and Divider Because of their significant presence – though elevated automobile expressways would dwarf them in the mid-twentieth century – elevated railways in the United States presented cities, residents, and their users with several opposite experiences and images. Indeed, elevation itself separated the

Rapid Transit system in the Urban Context  393 primary experiences of the elevated railways. Riders in railcars ‘above’ the city along the elevated rails were (and are) treated to unparalleled views of a city’s active life – public squares and streets, industry, and recreation  – as well as its residents’ domestic lives, briefly glimpsed through passing upper-story windows. In late Victorian New York, guidebooks celebrated the elevated’s promise of ‘wonderful changing panorama of the Empire city (…) in a fresh and wholesome atmosphere’.5 Below (and beside) the elevated railways, complaints about the elevated were universal, and not out of place: the Els were loud, dirty, rumbling, and blocked light from reaching houses and streets. At the same time, in cities like Boston and New York, elevated stations were beautiful architecture in the sky, signifiers of a city’s wealth, culture, and modernity. In Philadelphia, a 1909 postcard depicted the elevated station at 40th and Market streets, offering the message, ‘Greetings from Philadelphia’, confirming that even postcard manufacturers saw the city’s elevated as a positive, if not wholly defining, element of the city.6 Of course, these portrayals were to change over time as the nature of cities changed, especially as first and second-generation elevated users fled the inner city and improved subway technology (seemingly) rendered elevated lines obsolete. In the public eye, as architectural tastes changed, the oncegrand sky architecture quickly became anachronistic relics on rickety stilts. Furthermore, as second- and third-ring suburbs grew and traditional downtowns struggled to regain a sense of purpose, inner city neighbourhoods served by the elevated railways began to deteriorate as well. As a result, in Boston and Chicago in particular, the elevated came to be seen as a symbol of the citywide decline. By the 1960s, the continued negative effects of the elevated railways, together with increasing association of the elevateds with the crumbling neighbourhoods they served, coalesced into a national cultural memory: elevated railways were indisputably bad. However, this perception was not shared by many of those living in the neighbourhoods and the Els continued to serve.

Boston: Politics, Demolition, and Memory Boston is unique among the three case studies in that it has torn down its El: conversely, both Philadelphia and Chicago have, for the most part, retained and rehabilitated their elevated lines. As a consequence, Boston’s elevateds live on only in the memories of former riders and resident abutters, and in videos posted to YouTube or disseminated among transit enthusiasts. With the exception of an intricate copper canopy now in use as a ground-level bus station, the El’s physical legacy has largely been forgotten. Circa 1920, Boston had an extensive, though not expansive, system of elevated railways. The Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy) operated trains along the ‘Main Line Elevated’ from Everett and Charlestown north of downtown and south to Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. On its way to Roxbury, the El followed one of the oldest thoroughfares in the city, Washington

394  Gordon Benedict Hansen Street which once connected Boston to the mainland before the tidal flats that isolated the colonial city were filled and developed. An additional loop route operated along the waterfront, passing through the heart of the Chinatown neighbourhood, though this line was demolished in the 1940s and was never replaced. Dubbed the Orange Line in 1965, the rest of the elevated line was demolished in stages between 1975 and 1989 as the new operating agency, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) sought to replace the aging infrastructure. By 1987, the final year that trains ran over the Washington Street Elevated, there was a pervasive sense that the El’s days in Boston were truly finished. The city of Boston, in cooperation with the Massachusetts state government, was putting the finishing touches on a replacement line some distance away, and politicians heralded the demolition of the ‘ugly orange wall dividing Boston’s neighbourhoods’.7 Still, in neighbourhoods that depended on the old elevated, communities recognised that despite its detriments and annoyances, the El was a significant historical relic. In Roxbury in particular, the line was both a symbol of current community solidarity and a record of the city’s diverse historic legacy. After all, it was the last remaining portion of Boston’s old Main Line Elevated, and as such, one of the longest continually operating pieces of infrastructure in the city. Though the critics’ voices were the loudest, community activists saw true potential for the El. In 1987, Byron Rushing, a state representative from Roxbury, presented a hypothetical scenario: If you didn’t have (the El; G. B. H.), go to an artist and say, ‘We would like to figure out a way to connect three or four neighborhoods in Boston. We want an artistic statement that would sort of just hold these neighborhoods together, that in itself is neutral, that doesn’t really speak to the Chinese or black people or rich people or poor people, but will hold everybody together.’ Now, someone’s going to come along and do that, you know, ten years from now, and they’re going to sit around, they’re going to draw it up and it’s going to look like the El.8

Lessons from Boston First: Elevated railways that feature distinctive architectural station and trackway designs have the potential to become both neighbourhood and citywide assets. The original design of Boston’s elevated stations was determined by an architectural competition, and the winning architect, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr., used this mandate to craft stations of ‘early French renaissance’ design that ‘combin[ed] classical and Gothic features in true Beaux-Arts fashion’.9 Beyond their architectural qualities, Boston’s elevated terminal stations were also unique elements of the urban landscape. At Dudley Square in Roxbury and at Sullivan Square in Charlestown, these terminals were what planners now call ‘multimodal’, incorporating

Rapid Transit system in the Urban Context  395 cross-platform transfers between the trunk route and local trolley lines. These stations were also local monuments to modern transportation: while Sullivan Square resembled a large, Victorian-era railroad station trainshed with its airy atrium of brick and glass, Dudley maintained a gallery of copper atria and detailed ironwork. Second: Encourage constructive discussions of an El’s social, political, and cultural contexts to find common ground among divergent groups, thereby allowing a more balanced and complete history to emerge. In Charlestown, there came to be an unspoken gulf between the communities that lived alongside the El and those who saw lasting historical value in the structure (like transit hobbyists). As had been planned for many years, the MBTA demolished the El as part of a relocation project extending transit service to suburban commuters. In the case of the Washington Street El, the Southwest Corridor relocation project was described publicly in polarising terms. Regardless of the different opinions of the elevated line, the MBTA and city officials held that the El ‘blighted’ the neighbourhood – and that the new line would heal these divisions. The negative rhetoric catalysed citywide disdain for the El, effectively silencing community leaders like Byron Rushing, who sought to retain the line as a unifying public space. In the end, Boston lacked a public dialogue about the El where both negative and positive opinions, experiences, and meanings could be discussed openly among a variety of actors and interested parties. Learning from Boston’s example, cities must realise that elevated infrastructure is more than just steelwork and concrete, and that relationships between users and urban railways are far more nuanced than political rhetoric suggests.

Chicago: Reclaiming an Image In many respects, including as a transit hub, Chicago lived up to its nickname of America’s ‘Second City’ behind New York. Indeed, Chicago installed its first elevated railway in 1892, 25 years after New York, nine years before Boston, and nearly 20 years before Philadelphia. Chicago’s first elevated rail line, running from just south of downtown to newly developed southern suburbs, was distinctive in its urban form due to restrictive Illinois and Chicago city statutes. As a result of these standards, the South Side elevated was forced into a route that skirted the backyards of buildings, running above city alleyways rather than existing streets, leading to the term ‘alley L’ being granted to many of the Second City’s elevated railways.10 Chicago still calls its elevated the ‘L’. In 1893, a loop elevated railway opened at the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was America’s first electrically powered El.11 This ‘Intramural Railway’ met the city’s South Side L at a temporary multimodal terminal constructed especially for large Exposition crowds. The same year, an elevated line built above Lake Street allowed neighbourhoods to the west to quickly access downtown, and in 1895, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated

396  Gordon Benedict Hansen began operation as Chicago’s first electric city L service. In 1897 the elevated Loop – a massive piece of elevated infrastructure encircling the dense downtown core – opened for revenue service. Finally, the Northwestern Elevated opened to Wilson Avenue to the north in 1900 and an extension to Ravenswood in the northwest followed in 1908. By that year, all elevated companies shared operations in the Loop, a unique practice that continues today under the operation of the Chicago Transit Authority. In the last two decades, Chicago (like Philadelphia, as will be discussed) has ensured the long-term viability of the L by undertaking several major infrastructure refurbishment and replacement projects. As in Boston, significant demographic and socioeconomic changes occurred in neighbourhoods along the L partly due to its overshadowing presence. In its early years, the L was a barrier to some and a boon to others, and as the city realised that the L was a truly useful and historic resource, communities sought to recapture its role as a (re-)development tool. In Chicago, the physical definition of ‘elevated’ has also changed in recent years, due to downtown and neighbourhood L reconstruction projects. Nevertheless, that Chicago continues to use the term ‘elevated’ rather than ‘aerial’ is further proof of a renewed sense of pride in their unique urban railway.

Lessons from Chicago First: Address community needs through the station and trackway design, and encourage transit-oriented development that interacts with elevated structures. In its original design, the L was responsive to ‘City Beautiful’ movement aesthetics by installing detailed accents and decorative steel bents at crossings over new city boulevards. Later, during reconstruction of the Green Line (the former Lake Street and South Side L lines, routed through the Loop and renamed in the early 1990s), community groups enlisted the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a national urban design policy group, to help redesign public spaces around elevated stations. Among other development recommendations, the ULI ‘panel urge[d] the city to make the new California/Lake station a centrepiece and celebration of its neighbourhood’.12 Built in the past decade, Rem Koolhaas’ McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology includes as its ‘most remarkable feature, a 530-foot oval tube made of concrete and steel’ that ‘encloses and muffles the el as it passes over the student centre’.13 Certainly, the design helps to curb the negative effects of the L, but it also symbolically integrates the L into the surrounding campus. Second: Recognise that elevated transit structures can hold multiple symbols over time, especially as neighbourhood economic, demographic, and cultural contexts change. For many on the South Side of Chicago, the L stood as an emblem of a ghettoised, severely impoverished, and marginalised community, especially where it formed one of the walls of a ‘Black Belt’. This infamous black urban

Rapid Transit system in the Urban Context  397 ghetto was enclosed on two sides by rails: ‘[t]he broad embankment of the Rock Island Railroad sealed it from the working-class immigrant communities to the west, and the South Side Elevated Railroad walled it off from “the white belt of aristocracy and wealth” to the east.’14 The trend emerged elsewhere in Chicago as railroads (including the Ls) were ‘simply (convenient places; G. B. H.) to draw the line’.15 The L’s negative connotation was so strong in one particular housing settlement, Douglass Center, ‘few blacks went beyond the el tracks except to go to work in white people’s homes’.16 As a testament to evolving symbolism (and increasingly homogenised demographics), some black communities are reclaiming the South Side L as a neighbourhood anchor and a symbol of connectivity, access, and redevelopment. Third: Over time, railway infrastructure that continues to provide a reliable service can develop a positive reputation despite ongoing negative environmental effects. In the third quarter of the twentieth century, calls grew louder for the Loop L’s demolition in favour of the quiet convenience of subways. The venerable structure, which had for decades served as an anchor for transit connections to the north, west, and south, seemed to be on its deathbed. But cost overruns, delays, and strengthening historic preservation interest in the structure eventually killed the modernisation plans. In fact, the Loop began to gain symbolic status as a city landmark in part because it simply worked: despite the ongoing noise, dirt, and shadows, and in the face of constant plans to tear it down, it had remained a significant and enduring piece of the Chicago experience. In time, the Chicago Transit Authority and the city embraced the Loop L, renovating stations with a more careful eye for architectural detail and working to extend the useful life of the structure. Fourth: Due to their visual impact, loudness, and historical legacy, elevated railways lend a unique quality to cities that may be amplified through media representation. Over the past 40 years, the L has become an international symbol of Chicago, in part because films and television programmes use the elevated railway to establish a sense of place. In 1980, a historic preservationist noted that whenever Hollywood wants to characterize the Windy City, it heads (…) for the doughty old elevated. As the cable car represents San Francisco, as the double-decker bus speaks for London, so the El gives shape and distinction to this place called Chicago.17 Still, out of all the films that feature the L, perhaps John Landis’ 1980 comedy film The Blues Brothers uses it best.18 The film, which features many different shots of the L, recognises that the elevated railway is essential to citywide connectivity and fraternity. In a musical scene featuring pianist Ray Charles, dancers fill the street and a nearby South Side L station to the brim. The result is joyous, and depicts the L as being fully integrated into the city – neither a barrier nor an anachronism, it is simply one more place to dance.

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Philadelphia: Renewing the ‘Backbone’ From its earliest days, Philadelphia has been an innovator in elevated railway construction. A report celebrating the completion of the Market Street Subway-Elevated in 1908 named New York, Boston, and Chicago, exulting its technical prowess in comparison: Philadelphia was the first (city; G. B. H.) in which the subways were built by private capital, and she has profited by the experience and mistakes of other cities, and today presents the finest specimen of elevated and subway construction in the world.19 Today, Philadelphia’s Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated (MFSE) stretches from 69th Street in West Philadelphia, near the village centre of Upper Darby, through Center City Philadelphia, and northeast to Frankford through historic neighbourhoods such as Fishtown and Kensington. In planning studies from the 1970s onwards, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) describes the elevated line as the ‘backbone’ of the system, regularly carrying 100,000 passengers per day. In the last 20 years, the entire elevated route (including stations, signals, and track-work) has been rehabilitated and/or entirely replaced. Along Market Street in West Philadelphia, the original latticed steel superstructure has given way to a new type of urban elevated structure with T-shaped supports made of both concrete and steel. Over the past century, Philadelphia’s sense of pride in its El has evolved. Now that users are dependent on the elevated for access and prosperity, the reconstruction reflects a steady determination to make the ‘backbone’ of the city work more effectively – and meaningfully.

Lessons from Philadelphia First: Communities dependent on elevated railways for neighbourhood economic prosperity learn to live with negative effects such as noise, dirt, and shadows. Along the Frankford El in particular, the elevated has been essential to neighbourhood businesses. The transit service was a conduit for potential clientele, and some Kensington and Frankford businesses served crosstown customers. Many business owners saw the El as vital to their success. Indeed, speaking about business rather than aesthetics, a veteran jeweller in Frankford explained that he ‘(didn’t) know what Frankford Avenue would look like if we didn’t have the El’.20 To him, it would be too costly to brighten the street or silence the noise. To others in the neighbourhood, the El served not only as a backbone of business, but also as an anchor for shared memories. One book of historical photographs and memoirs, ‘The Jewish Community Under the Frankford El’, could alternately have been titled ‘The Jewish Community in Frankford’.21 Instead, the authors (nostalgically) describe the history of the community known as ‘Jewtown’, or ‘Little Jerusalem’, in northeast Philadelphia in terms of the El. Today, they write,

Rapid Transit system in the Urban Context  399 the vacant buildings and residences hold tales of a bygone era when little voices could echo and be heard for some distance under the superstructure where the sun rarely shined into business owners’ display windows.22 Second: Transit-oriented development projects built alongside elevated railways should mitigate adverse impacts through innovative designs of adjacent buildings and public spaces. The Philadelphia Planning Commission’s Frankford Avenue and Market Street transit-oriented development (TOD) plans were drafted in 2006 to provide ‘ideas and design strategies that address shade, noise and vibration problems for buildings along the corridor and adjacent to [the] El’.23 The proposals include siting new buildings farther back from the elevated to reduce noise intrusion and increase sunlight exposure, and developing ample public spaces and parks. Though honest in their acknowledgement of the El’s negative effects on surrounding communities, Philadelphia’s plans also see great value in the elevated as a catalyst for neighbourhood improvement and redevelopment. The plans’ responsible urban design proposals serve as models for a better future alongside the Market-Frankford El. Third: In future elevated railway renovation projects, planners and designers should conduct outreach to local businesses, cultural groups, artists, and the youth community to encourage symbiosis between neighbourhoods and the El. Unlike in Boston, the Market-Frankford line had no cost-effective relocation options, and SEPTA ultimately decided it should rebuild what it had. Recognising that each step of reconstruction in both Frankford and West Philadelphia hurt businesses dependent on the line, SEPTA offered timely project updates directed at both users and business owners. SEPTA also engaged local artists to add neighbourhood character to its stations and infrastructure, encouraging West Philadelphia users to reclaim the El as a community canvas. With its Arts-in-Transit programme, SEPTA hoped that West Philadelphians would develop a more personal relationship with the elevated railway. The agency expected that with this programme, each station (would) have its own unique personality expressed in the artwork, and, in turn, the characteristics that contribute to the personality of each piece (would) be a reflection of the community.24 SEPTA also developed partnerships with community groups to beautify the new elevated at street level: for one project, SEPTA painted murals on 175 of the new elevated supports with help from local students. A press release from 2008 confirmed that this beautification project is intended to enhance the overall riding experience for passengers and create a sense of ownership within each community where the murals are to be painted.25

400  Gordon Benedict Hansen Serving as a model for other cities and railways, SEPTA’s outreach programme for the Market Street El project succeeded in creating a more symbiotic relationship between Philadelphia neighbourhoods, transit riders, and the elevated railway.

Conclusion: Aerial Guidance Elevated rapid transit lines, now usually referred to as ‘aerial’ structures or guideways, continue to be built around the world. In some respects, not much has changed since 1867: elevated lines continue to be cost-effective, especially when constructed alongside the existing highway and railroad infrastructure, and in areas such as industrial and office parks where they will have minimal adverse effects on residents. As a result, newer American transit systems in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area all feature elevated structures. In New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the seemingly simple idea to elevate railroads onto steel structures to avoid ground congestion forever changed the cities’ urban fabric. Upon completion, the Els were celebrated as symbols of modernity, efficiency, and the ability of technology to conquer common urban problems. Over time, their negative side effects reduced the value of land and buildings alongside them, and to many, the Els were instruments and symbols of blight. During post-war suburbanisation, the Els increasingly served the urban poor, and especially in Boston’s Roxbury, Chicago’s South Side, and West Philadelphia neighbourhoods, building stock near the elevated rapidly deteriorated rapidly. But the historical record shows that each city responded very differently to the El. While Boston took steps to ‘remove’ all of its elevated routes, Chicago decided to ‘reclaim and restore’ the image of its L, and Philadelphia chose to ‘renew’ the ‘backbone’ of the city, the Market-Frankford El. The essential lesson from these three cities is that elevated rapid transit infrastructure means much to its users and to surrounding neighbourhoods. As in Philadelphia, it can be a canvas on which cities and communities paint their shared memories, hopes, and fears. Recognising this, planners and transit agencies responsible for elevated railways should conduct historical and sociological surveys of individual, community, and institutional perceptions of an elevated line, whether for research purposes or in preparation for future renovation projects. Such a survey would take the form of a dialogue between users, neighbours, community groups, and local institutions to discuss the meaning of the line and to what extent local history, culture, and artwork can manifest in station or infrastructure design. In Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, elevated railways withstood monumental changes in the form and function of the city, and (with the exception of Boston) have remained constant despite shifting populations and shifting opinions. Going forth, planners and historians alike should not

Rapid Transit system in the Urban Context  401 marginalise American elevateds, for their stories offer vital insights into cities, communities, users, and their railways.

Notes 1 R. M. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950 (New Haven, CT 2001), 67. 2 M. S. Marsh, ‘The Impact of the Market Street “El” On Northern West Philadelphia: Environmental Change and Social Transformation, 1900–1930’, in W. W. Cutler and H. Gillette, eds., The Divided Metropolis: Social and Spatial Dimensions of Philadelphia, 1800–1975 (Westport, CT 1980), 169–192. 3 Marsh, ‘The Impact’, 190. 4 Marsh, ‘The Impact’, 169. 5 M. Kings, King’s Handbook of New York City 1893 (New York 1972), 138. 6 R. M. Skaler, West Philadelphia: University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, SC 2002), 90. 7 Boston Globe of 3 May 1987. 8 C. Lydon, Orange Line Tracks and Stations (Boston public television station Western Great Blue Hill, WGBH), TV news report of 30 April 1987. 9 C. Zaitzevsky, Historical Documentation: Boston Elevated Railway Company: Washington Street Elevated Mainline Structure. Ed. by U.S. Dept. of the Interior (Washington, DC 1987). 10 B. J. Cudahy, Destination Loop: The Story of Rapid Transit Railroading in and around Chicago (Brattleboro, VT 1982), 11. 11 According to T. R. Bullard, The Columbian Intramural Railway: A Pioneer Elevated Line (Oak Park, IL 1982), 5, the Liverpool Overhead Railway was the ‘world’s first (...) revenue, third-rail service’ upon opening in March 1893. 12 Urban Land Institute, The New Green Line, Chicago, Illinois: Recommendations for the Transit-Oriented Redevelopment of Neighbourhoods along Chicago’s Rehabilitated Green Line “L” (Washington, DC 1995), 18. 13 Refer to http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/mccormick/index.htm (last accessed on 16/3/13). 14 T. L. Philpott, The Slum and the Ghetto: Immigrants, Blacks and Reformers in Chicago, 1880–1930 (Belmont, CA 1978), 147. 15 Philpott, The Slum and the Ghetto, 148. 16 Philpott, The Slum and the Ghetto, 320. 17 T. Huth, ‘Chicago’s El Rattles on – and Outlasts Its Critics,’ Historic Preservation, 32, 1980, 2–9, here 7. 18 Including The Sting, Risky Business, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. 19 The Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, Philadelphia Rapid Transit: Construction and Equipment of the Market Street Subway and Elevated (Philadelphia 1908). 20 Philadelphia Inquirer of 30 July 1989. 21 Refer to A. Meyers and C. Nathans, The Jewish Community Under the Frankford El (Charleston, SC 2003). 22 Meyers and Nathans, The Jewish Community. 23 Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Frankford Avenue Corridor: Transit Oriented Development Plan and West Market Street Corridor: Transit Oriented Development Plan (Philadelphia 2006). 24 Refer to http://www.theelseptaatwork.com/ArtInTransit.html (last accessed on 4/7/09). 25 ‘Pillars of Beauty and Strength; SEPTA’s El Columns in West Philadelphia to Depict Various Murals’, US Newswire of 19 November 2008.

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Literature Anonymous, ‘Pillars of Beauty and Strength; SEPTA’s El Columns in West Philadelphia to Depict Various Murals’, US Newswire of 19 November 2008. Bullard, T. R., The Columbian Intramural Railway: A Pioneer Elevated Line (Oak Park, IL 1982). Cudahy, B. J., Destination Loop: The Story of Rapid Transit Railroading in and around Chicago (Brattleboro, VT 1982). Fogelson, R. M., Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950 (New Haven, CT 2001). Huth, T., ‘Chicago’s El Rattles On – and Outlasts Its Critics,’ Historic Preservation, 32, 1980, 2–9. Kings, M., King’s Handbook of New York City 1893 (New York 1972). Marsh, M. S., ‘The Impact of the Market Street “El” On Northern West Philadelphia: Environmental Change and Social Transformation, 1900–1930’, in W. W. Cutler and H. Gillette, eds., The Divided Metropolis: Social and Spatial Dimensions of Philadelphia, 1800–1975 (Westport, CT 1980), 169–192. Meyers, A., and Nathans, C., The Jewish Community under the Frankford El (Charleston, SC 2003). Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Frankford Avenue Corridor: Transit Oriented Development Plan and West Market Street Corridor: Transit Oriented Development Plan (Philadelphia 2006). Philpott, T. L., The Slum and the Ghetto: Immigrants, Blacks and Reformers in Chicago, 1880–1930 (Belmont, CA 1978). Skaler, R. M., West Philadelphia: University City to 52nd Street (Charleston, SC 2002). The Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, Philadelphia Rapid Transit: Construction and Equipment of the Market Street Subway and Elevated (Philadelphia 1908). Urban Land Institute, The New Green Line, Chicago, Illinois: Recommendations for the Transit-Oriented Redevelopment of Neighborhoods along Chicago’s Rehabilitated Green Line “L” (Washington, DC 1995). Zaitzevsky, C., Historical Documentation: Boston Elevated Railway Company: Washington Street Elevated Mainline Structure. Ed. by U.S. Dept. of the Interior (Washington, DC 1987).

Part V

Railways in Troubled Waters and Their Return at the End of the Twentieth Century

22 The German Federal Railway (Deutsche Bundesbahn) and the Process of Suburbanisation After 1945 Christopher M. Kopper

The process of suburbanisation in developed Western nations is often associated with images of sprawling suburbs and thousands of cars on their way to the central business districts (CBD). The United States is often seen as the role model and prototype for motorised suburbanisation, a nation where suburban living and commuting by car became common lifestyle patterns of the white middle class in the 1950s. Images of detached homes or row houses in suburbia and clogged traffic arteries during the main commuting hours became more and more typical for Western European metropolitan areas in the course of the 1960s. The congestion of urban streets turned into the main problem for traffic and transportation planners. German and other Western European urban planners evoked the horror scenario of a subsequent “Los Angelisation”, of unrestricted (sub) urban sprawl, depopulated inner cities, an unmanageable growth of individual travel by car, the construction of extensive freeway networks, and the filling up of the last open space on the edges of towns.1 Contrary to some pessimistic expectations of the 1960s, European cities and metropolitan areas have not turned into one-to-one copies of American suburbanism. Despite the fact that the level of individual car ownership in Western European nations equals the rate of the United States in the 1980s, European cities have not been totally subjugated by the car like the American cities. Unlike the United States., public transport has managed to maintain or even increase its percentage of the modal split. By looking at (Western) Germany from the end of World War II to the late 1960s, this article will examine how public transport – and the railways in particular – has maintained a substantial part of the modal split despite growing car ownership. The study will demonstrate that the process of suburbanisation was not entirely induced by the affordability of cars and greater individual mobility. Blue- and white-collar workers started to use public transport in the first decade of the twentieth century when tramway companies (both privately and publicly owned) and the state-owned railway companies introduced discounted weekly and monthly commuter tickets (Arbeiterwochenkarte, Angestelltenmonatskarte). A growing number of commuter trains with schedules DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-28

406  Christopher M. Kopper adapted to the regular working hours transported a growing percentage of the urban workforce in Germany’s larger cities. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Deutsche ­Reichsbahn Gesellschaft (German State Railway Company) built a state-of-theart electric train network (S-Bahn) with a high passenger capacity and an overall length of 290 kilometres for the city of Berlin and some nearby towns. However, comprehensive statistical material about the scope and scale of commuting in Germany before 1945 is limited. The Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft did not break down the total of sold commuter tickets to specific metropolitan areas and their rural vicinity. Bavaria was the only German state (Land) where a total count of commuters was taken at the last pre-war census in 1939.2 But this total count did not include all commuters. To this day, commuting within city or town limits continues to be excluded from the German commuter statistics because of the official definition of the term “commuter”. The Allied air raids against German cities in World War Two led to the first wave of suburbanisation in terms of a population transfer from the cities to suburban towns. Especially in 1943 and 1944, city dwellers who had lost their apartments in air raids or were in danger of being bombed were transferred to temporary lodgings outside city limits, but often kept their jobs in the urban industry. Since the air raids had damaged many homes beyond repair, numerous evacuees were forced to stay at their rural lodgings after the end of the war. In Bavaria alone, right after the beginning of the reconstruction era in 1949, 181,000 temporarily evacuated Bavarians were still living in their provisional housing.3 In some heavily damaged cities like Würzburg, the percentage of involuntary suburbanites amounted to 15 per cent of the entire pre-war population.4 The involuntary suburbanisation of city dwellers coincided with another case of forcible displacement: the expulsion of Germans from former German territory east of the Oder and Neisse rivers (now Poland) and German settlement clusters in Czechoslovakia and other Central European countries. In many instances, expelled persons (Vertriebene) with blue- and white-collar jobs were denied residency in the heavily damaged cities and had to find housing in villages and small towns because the municipal housing authorities gave priority, well into the early 1950s, to evacuated city dwellers and people with essential job skills for the local economy. As a result, the number of residents in non-urban counties grew overproportionally. Refugees and evacuees with industrial and service jobs were forced to bridge the distance between their rural home and their urban workplace by commuting. Compared to the pre-war situation, the number of commuters living in rural counties (Landkreise) grew considerably. According to the census of 1950, the number of commuters in rural Bavarian counties from 1939 to 1950 increased by 71 per cent (250,000 to 427,000), and 75 per cent of this increase (134,000 of 177,000 additional commuters) could be attributed to expelled persons.5 Germany overcame the huge housing shortage in heavily damaged cities through an ambitious housing programme that was implemented in the

The Process of Suburbanisation After 1945  407 course of the 1950s. Many evacuees returned to the cities, but an unspecified number of them opted for suburban life and turned their temporary residence into a permanent place. The war-related population shift to suburban areas proved to be an irreversible process, despite the fact that the population in big cities started to grow again. In rural areas, expelled persons with an urban background and an urban workplace benefited from the improved availability of urban housing and gladly traded their unwanted rural residence for an urban apartment. But the partial transformation of the workforce in rural areas left a permanent mark on their social structures and contributed to the industrialisation of formerly predominantly rural areas. The steep rise in the number of commuters around the cities resulted in a considerable increase in transport demand. For example, the number of commuters in a 20-kilometre circle around the city of Munich grew from 8,600 in 1939 to 23,800 in 1950. The growth beyond the 20-kilometre circle around Munich from 4,600 to 19,900 was even more pronounced.6 In the 1950s, the last decade before the onset of mass motorisation, long-distance commuters needed a fast means of transport and depended on quick and dependable connections by train. Unlike the pre-war era, most of the rural communities around the larger cities housed a substantial number of commuters. A growing number of them lived in villages with a greater distance to the next station. Before the war, most of the commuters to Munich (11,400 out of 12,200) lived in villages and small towns with a distance of less than three kilometres from the next train station. In the period until 1950, the number of commuters living at a distance of three kilometres or more from the next station exploded from 800 to 6,000.7 The steep growth on the demand side of transport was responsible for the extension of suburban and rural bus lines. After the severe fuel shortages had ended in 1949 and newly built buses became available, private and public bus companies quadrupled the length of the national inter-urban and rural bus lines. From 1936 to 1951, the West German bus network expanded from 52,000 to 206,000 kilometres, providing many villages and small towns for the first time with public transport services.8 The number of bus passengers grew even more and sextupled between 1936 and 1951, while the overall number of person-kilometres grew by a factor of seven as a result of an extended average commuter distance.9 The private and public bus operators such as the Deutsche Post (German Postal Service) did not limit the opening of bus lines to towns and rural areas without a railway connection. A growing number of bus operators established lines parallel to the railways and managed to lure away train passengers. Despite the fact that bus fares for commuters were higher than the weekly commuter tickets of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railway), a substantial number of former train commuters preferred the bus to the train. The constantly rising nominal wages in the boom years of the 1950s enabled a growing percentage of commuters to pay a comfort

408  Christopher M. Kopper surcharge for a bus ride. Bus lines did not only profit from their systemic advantages like a greater number of stops, a flexible grid, and a closer distance to the starting points (residential areas) and the destinations of commutes (town centres, factories, and secondary schools); they also enjoyed a positive public image of modernity in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1950s, many commuter trains still consisted of steam locomotives and outdated passenger cars that often dated back to the age before World War I. In the 1930s, the National Socialist government had prevented the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft from issuing bonds to finance a modernisation programme for its regional passenger service. Finally, in 1957, the Bundesbahn started a major refurbishment programme for its outdated passenger cars, replaced the old wooden frames by steel frames, put the frames on modern axles, and provided them with a modern interior. But these reconstructed cars (Umbauwagen) proved to be a thrifty second-best solution, inferior to newly built cars. Even Bundesbahn officials criticised their outdated design which could not meet the passengers’ expectations of state-ofthe-art railway technology. Furthermore, the continuing use of steam traction for regional trains contributed to the growing losses for these services. The introduction of diesel-propelled railcars (Schienenbus) as a more efficient and modern traction mode on secondary railway lines helped contain the rising operation deficits, but could not close the growing gap between rising costs and stagnant revenues. As a commonweal carrier by German federal law, the Bundesbahn had to subordinate its concerns about operational profitability to its social obligations. Unlike the period before 1948, the Bundesbahn could not balance its operating deficits in regional passenger services through surpluses in freight and long-distance passenger services. The growing competition of road haulage resulted in growing losses of market share on the freight market. The high-priced shipments of manufactured goods in particular were often lost to the truck. The cross-subsidisation of low-priced commuter tickets was no longer possible. The Bundesbahn could only maintain the low price level for commuter tickets by accepting a growing operational deficit. The federal government (Bundesregierung) approved the adaption of commuter fares to the rising operational costs rather reluctantly and with a delay of several years. As a result, the debts incurred by the Bundesbahn continued to grow, which impeded its ability to invest. The scale of investments in capital-intensive modernisation programmes such as the electrification of major railways was slowed down for lack of capital. At the end of the 1950s, electric traction, a technical prerequisite for fast commuter connections with a high capacity, had only been installed in the metropolitan areas of Munich and Stuttgart. In economic terms, the commuter trains of the Bundesbahn provided passengers with a growing external benefit. The prices for commuter tickets increased more slowly than the general price level, which means that the Bundesbahn subsidised suburban and rural commuters. In the second part

The Process of Suburbanisation After 1945  409 of the 1950s, the increase in commuting was sustained by the industrialisation of regions that had been dominated by agriculture and traditional trades. In the metropolitan areas, the employment reserves within the male population were steadily shrinking during the economic boom of the 1950s. Industrial employers opened new plants in formerly rural areas to tap their labour reservoir. The de-agrarianisation of rural areas was a gradual process. As the monetary revenues of small farms were stagnant and insufficient to sustain a modern lifestyle, a growing number of farmers accepted full-time jobs in the industry in order to support their family income and continued farming as a part-time occupation.10 Federal subsidies for investments in economically underdeveloped areas and along the border with the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and Czechoslovakia were powerful pull factors for the establishment of branch factories. In some industrially underdeveloped regions like the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) in eastern Bavaria, about twothirds of all new industrial jobs were created in branch factories whose headquarters were located outside this region.11 The steady growth of employment in the industrial sector had substantial repercussions on commuting. Between 1950 and 1961, the number of commuters in Bavaria increased by 125 per cent (from 456,000 to 1,028,000).12 During the 1950s, the increase of commuters affected the metropolitan areas and mid-size cities equally. But in the second half of the 1950s, metropolitan areas faced the beginning of a new wave of suburbanisation. This time, both migrants from rural regions and former city dwellers opted freely for a suburban residence. The availability of inexpensive building lots, tax benefits for home owners, and the individual preference for a suburban lifestyle were the main factors of this new wave and of the constant growth of the suburbs. Between 1939 and 1961, the suburbs of metropolitan areas grew by 61 to 77 per cent, exceeding the growth of metropolitan areas (plus 20 per cent) by far.13 Between 1950 and 1961, 1.2 million people migrated from rural to metropolitan areas and contributed to the increasing transport demand in cities and suburbs.14 Still, individual car ownership was not the primary means of transport to suburbia. Since fewer than 20 per cent of all West German households owned a private car in 1961, a substantial percentage of suburban dwellers relied on public transport for their commute. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Bundesbahn did not encounter capacity problems in commuter transport. In 1950, the average seat load factor on major railways and secondary railways did not exceed 44 respectively 40 per cent, a considerable increase compared to 1938 (40 respectively 34 per cent). But the increase in commuter traffic between the pre-war years and 1950 was not the only reason for the rising seat load factor, since the number of trains was still affected by war damages. The normalisation of passenger traffic after the war was not fully completed until 1953 when the Bundesbahn reached the pre-war high of passenger train kilometres.15 But at the end of the 1950s, the Bundesbahn was confronted with steadily growing

410  Christopher M. Kopper competition from the bus and private ownership of motorised vehicles. Unlike before the war, the Bundesbahn had no state-of-the-art reference project for transport in metropolitan areas. The sophisticated S-Bahn network of the divided and isolated city of Berlin was now operated by the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn and had lost its status as a role model for other cities in Germany. In the early 1960s, the biggest metropolitan areas started to cope with growing traffic problems in and around the CBD. Between 1950 and 1961, cities like Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, and Frankfurt experienced the doubling of the numbers of daily commuters. Frankfurt and the adjacent city of Offenbach were the most important destinations for inbound commuters, 148,000 in 1961. In Munich, commuters nearly tripled from 43,700 to 114,300. Commuters on public transport systems were confronted with organisational and capacity problems every day. Commuters who used the Bundesbahn trains to go into the city often needed connecting buses and streetcars to continue their way to work. But the federal Bundesbahn and the municipal urban transport companies had neither introduced single-fare rates nor sufficiently coordinated their services. Commuters were unhappy that they had to buy two separate commuter passes, which increased the cost of their commute to work. The Bundesbahn and the municipal transport companies anticipated that a growing number of commuters would sooner or later buy cars and make a choice between their car and public transport. The latter needed a user-friendly development strategy to defend its share of the modal split against the more convenient car. In 1965, the Bundesbahn and the municipal underground, bus, and streetcar company (Hamburger Hochbahn AG) in the city of Hamburg were the first transport enterprises to establish a single-fare area with coordinated networks and timetables. Since the S-Bahn network of Hamburg was facing increasing competition from the growing underground network of the Hamburger Hochbahn, the Bundesbahn and the Hamburger Hochbahn agreed to establish the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (Hamburg Transport Association) as the first joint metropolitan transport authority in Germany. With a population of 1.8 million, Hamburg was not only Western Germany’s largest city, it also benefited from the double status of a municipality and a state (Bundesland) and was the recipient of municipal and state tax revenues. In the early 1960s, Hamburg was the only city with sufficient financial means to operate and extend an underground network. A city like Munich, which had recently crossed the symbolically important threshold of one million inhabitants was still incapable of financing the construction of underground lines. Research, everyday experiences, and forecasts of transport planners demonstrated that the inauguration of underground networks was overdue in cities with a high traffic density – particularly in Munich and Frankfurt. The growing number of cars had negative repercussions on the average speed of travel and on the punctuality of buses and streetcars.

The Process of Suburbanisation After 1945  411 The major downtown streets and traffic arteries were increasingly clogged during the main hours of traffic, slowing down buses and streetcars. The construction of underground networks for pure-bred underground railways or underground streetcar lines was the only feasible solution to solve the capacity problems for both individual cars and public transport and to create a fast and dependable mass-transport system. Underground lines promised to be a remedy against the growing competition for space between cars and public transport. Cars and streetcars would be separated on different levels and would not be forced to share the limited space on the surface. In 1961, the federal German parliament (Bundestag) recognised the growing importance of this issue and established a committee of experts to prepare a detailed report on how to improve traffic and transportation in cities. The report, completed and published in 1964, was unambiguous about the prospects of traffic in cities and the adequate means to solve current and future congestion problems.16 The experts agreed unanimously that uncontrolled and unrestricted suburbanisation such as in the United States would cause highly undesirable results like the de-urbanisation of inner cities, unlimited sprawl, and the decay of public transport. The traditional urbanism of the European city should not be sacrificed to the automobile, but be preserved. Modern German cities should improve their accessibility to cars, but should not allow the car to transform them into inhospitable grids of parking garages and urban freeways. Instruments of urban planning such as zoning, building restrictions, minimum requirements for population densities in housing areas, the protection of open spaces, and the provision of public transport systems should limit the danger of suburban sprawl. This comprehensive solution to urban traffic problems required equally hugescale investments in urban streets and in public transport. Investments in the latter should not be limited to urban transport networks such as underground lines but also include suburban railway systems. The committee of experts agreed that viable solutions to urban traffic problems required a comprehensive concept for urban and suburban traffic. The trend towards suburbanisation would generate growing commuter traffic and require new technological solutions for public transport to and from suburbia. In the metropolitan area around Munich, planners expected a population increase from 274,000 in 1960 to 900,000 in 1975. The anticipated growth of the number of commuters required a high-capacity network, trains with a high average speed and a fast acceleration, and a frequency of three trains per hour in each direction. Urban planners, transport experts, and railway engineers of the Bundesbahn agreed that S-Bahn networks would be the optimum solution. City and regional planners calculated that a fast S-Bahn network would extend the 60-minute commuting radius in the Munich area from 500 to 1,600 square kilometres and triple the potential number of rail commuters.17 An S-Bahn network would help suburbanites choose a residence in a wider distance to the city – and reduce housing demand in the city and the inner suburban perimeter. The electric

412  Christopher M. Kopper S-Bahn networks in Berlin and Hamburg were potential examples to copy – with important technological and budgetary restrictions to mind. In Berlin and Hamburg, the S-Bahn trains operated on separate tracks with electric third or fourth rails. In order to save on construction costs, the newly planned S-Bahn networks of Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich would have to share the tracks with inter-urban trains. Instead of building DC (Direct Current) trains with third-rail pickup, as in Hamburg or Berlin, the Bundesbahn engineers made a technological path decision for S-Bahn trains operating with AC (Alternating Current) and 15 kV – the regular voltage of electrified railway lines in Germany. In cities like Munich, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, the main railroad stations were located outside the perimeter of the inner city and off the CBD. Their location vis-à-vis the CBD was far from optimal for commuters, who had to walk a longer distance to their destination or transfer to slow streetcars and buses. The construction of many new S-Bahn stations in the big cities and adjacent suburbs was a necessity to improve the accessibility of trains for the daily commute. Since 90 per cent of all train rides were shorter than 50 kilometres, travellers’ experiences with the Bundesbahn and its public image were strongly shaped by the regional train services. A major improvement in transport quality created positive effects for the overall appearance of the Bundesbahn. In Munich, Western Germany’s second-largest city, plans to construct underground railway tracks from the main station towards the city centre and beyond had already been developed in 1963 by the municipal planning office. But until 1965 implementation had not been feasible. The Bundesbahn yielded permanent deficits and was too short on money to finance such a capital-intensive investment. In 1965, the city of Munich, the state of Bavaria, and the Bundesbahn struck a deal to fund an S-Bahn tunnel line between the main station (Hauptbahnhof ), the city centre (Marienplatz), and the Ostbahnhof as the core element of the future S-Bahn network in Munich’s metropolitan area18. This underground line was built with substantial funding from the federal government and co-funded by the state of Bavaria and the city of Munich. In Hamburg, the Bundesbahn and the city administration negotiated a similar deal for an underground S-Bahn connecting the main station and the Altona station. Only one year later, this pledge of funds for the Munich S-Bahn network would contribute to a spectacular success with high symbolic significance for Munich in particular and for Germany in general. In April 1966, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 1972 Olympic Summer Games to Munich – the first Olympic Games in Germany after those held in Berlin in 1936. The forthcoming completion of an S-Bahn and an underground network was not a unique selling point for Munich, since the city’s competitors Montreal and Madrid were also building underground networks. But without these investments, Munich would not have been on par with its competitors in terms of convenient, fast, and dependable

The Process of Suburbanisation After 1945  413 transportation. The IOC decision elevated the construction of the S-Bahn and the underground network in Munich to projects of national importance with showcase significance. The main problem for the implementation of these plans was funding. Until 1966, the federal government had only occasionally funded metropolitan transport systems with grants. Munich was the only city where federal funds were already flowing to S-Bahn projects. The federal ministry of Transport (Bundesverkehrsministerium) needed some time to realise that the Bundesbahn did not have the financial means to fund major investments in metropolitan transport. Burdened by a chronic and progressively growing deficit, the Bundesbahn lacked the ability to keep pace with the demand for public transport and the growing traffic problems in metropolitan areas. The federal government did not challenge the expertise of urban and regional planners, but was unwilling to lay the foundation for solid funding and raise taxes for long-term projects. The federal secretary of the Treasury denied the ministry of Transport a sufficient budget increase and restricted the ministry to incremental changes of public transport policies. In the course of a minor recession in 1966 and because of a new political coalition, the political environment for long-term investment projects in metropolitan areas changed for the better. The first post-war recession in Germany triggered a change in economic policies. The new federal centre-left government (Great Coalition) of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats switched from a strict austerity and anti-inflation policy to an anti-cyclical stimulation programme and Keynesian deficit spending. Investments in public infrastructures were selected as quick ways to accelerate the investment cycle in the construction and manufacturing industries. A gasoline tax hike of only three Pfennig (0.03 DM) per litre provided additional federal tax revenues of 660 million DM. This was a sufficient amount to co-fund ambitious municipal construction programmes for streets and public transport systems. These funds were not only earmarked for municipal street and underground projects but could also be spent on the S-Bahn projects of the Bundesbahn. The tax reform of 1966 came close to a revolution in German transport policies. Until 1966, the federal government had only occasionally pledged co-funding for municipal transport projects. From 1967, investments in urban streets and public transport projects in cities were entitled to a 60 per cent funding by the federal government. The states were involved with a 20 to 25 per cent co-payment, while the municipalities only had to assume 15 to 20 per cent of the total costs.19 These generous financial conditions were also available to the Bundesbahn, whose share of the construction costs for S-Bahn networks was limited to 20 per cent. The steep increase in post-war commuting was a growing challenge for the evolution of transport policies. When the forecasts about growing traffic in metropolitan areas predicted that the wave of commuters would become unmanageable in the long run, the gradual upgrade of existing

414  Christopher M. Kopper infrastructures proved to be an insufficient remedy. But the concepts for commuter railways and underground networks had to overcome institutional obstacles before they could be implemented. Thanks to the high degree of awareness among the political elite, a minor recession sufficed to trigger major investments in urban public transport. But this political change was not achieved by the railway managers, traffic planners, and transport politicians alone and needed a macroeconomic rationalisation to be passed by the federal parliament.

Notes 1 J. Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York 1961); K. MüllerIbold, ‘Die Stadtregion’, in Deutscher Städtetag, ed., Die Stadt und ihre Region (Cologne 1962), 14–42. 2 Bayerisches Statistisches Landesamt, Die Pendelwanderung nach der Volks- und Berufszählung 1939 (Munich 1943). 3 K. Klee, Im Luftschutzkeller des Reiches. Evakuierte in Bayern 1939–1953 (Munich 1999), 186–187, 251. The empirical evidence is focused on Bavaria, since the statistical evidence about evacuees in Bavaria is better than in any other states in Germany. 4 Ibid., 261, 265–271. 5 Bayerisches Statistisches Landesamt, Die Pendelwanderung in Bayern. Ergebnisse der Volkszählung vom 13. September 1950 (Munich 1953). 6 H. Staubach, Pendelwanderung und Raumordnung (Cologne and Opladen 1962), 35, 44. 7 Calculated from the 1939 and 1950 census data. 8 ʻDie Entwicklung des Personenverkehrs in Deutschlandʼ, in Wirtschaft und Statistik, 4, 1952, 267–271. 9 Statistisches Bundesamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Wiesbaden 1955), 313. 10 A. Eichmüller, Landwirtschaft und bäuerliche Bevölkerung in Bayern. ­Ökonomischer und sozialer Wandel 1948–1970 (Munich 1997), 108–130, 287. 11 Kurt Gerlach and Peter Liebmann, ʻKonjunkturelle Aspekte der Indu­ strialisierung peripherer Regionen – dargestellt am Beispiel des ostbayerischen Regierungsbezirks Oberpfalzʼ, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 187, 1972/1973, 1–24. 12 Bayerisches Statistisches Landesamt, Volks- und Berufszählung am 6. Juni 1961 in Bayern. Ergebnisse der Pendelwanderungszählung (Munich 1965). 13 ‘Erster Raumordnungsbericht der Bundesregierung (First regional planning report of the federal government), October 1, 1963’, in Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksachen, 4. Wahlperiode, no. 1492. 14 Ibid. 15 Explanations of the Bundesbahn main administration about the Bundesbahn Development Programme from 1957, in Federal Archives Koblenz, Record Group Bundesbahn, no. 889, annex 6 (Expertise from the Institute for Finance and Taxes, July 1955). 16 ‘Bericht der Sachverständigenkommission des Bundes über die Verbesserung der Verkehrsverhältnisse in den Gemeinden, August 24, 1964’, in Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksachen, 4. Wahlperiode, no. 2661. 17 W. Lettau, ‘Die Verbindungsbahn München’, Die Bundesbahn 1964, 728–735. 18 K. Zimniok, Eine Stadt geht in den Untergrund. Die Geschichte der Münchener U- und S-Bahn im Spiegel der Zeit (Munich 1981) 36, 63, 94. See also the memoirs

The Process of Suburbanisation After 1945  415 of Hans Jochen Vogel, Die Amtskette (Munich 1972), passim. Vogel was mayor of Munich from 1960 to 1972. 19 See C. Kopper, Die Bahn im Wirtschaftswunder. Deutsche Bundesbahn und Verkehrspolitik in der Nachkriegsgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main 2007), 399–419.

Literature Bayerisches Statistisches Landesamt, Die Pendelwanderung in Bayern. Ergebnisse der Volkszählung vom 13. September 1950 (Munich 1953). Bayerisches Statistisches Landesamt, Die Pendelwanderung nach der Volks- und Berufszählung 1939 (Munich 1943). Bayerisches Statistisches Landesamt, Volks- und Berufszählung am 6. Juni 1961 in Bayern. Ergebnisse der Pendelwanderungszählung (Munich 1965). ‘Bericht der Sachverständigenkommission des Bundes über die Verbesserung der Verkehrsverhältnisse in den Gemeinden, August 24, 1964’, in Deutscher Bun­ destag, Drucksachen, 4. Wahlperiode, no. 2661. ʻDie Entwicklung des Personenverkehrs in Deutschlandʼ, Wirtschaft und Statistik, 4, 1952, 267–71. Eichmüller, A., Landwirtschaft und bäuerliche Bevölkerung in Bayern. Ökonomischer und sozialer Wandel 1948–1970 (Munich 1997). ‘Erster Raumordnungsbericht der Bundesregierung, October 1, 1963’, in Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksachen, 4. Wahlperiode, no. 1492. Gerlach, Kurt and Liebmann, Peter, ‛Konjunkturelle Aspekte der Industri­ alisierung peripherer Regionen – dargestellt am Beispiel des ostbayerischen ­Regierungsbezirks Oberpfalz’, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 187, 1972/1973, 1–24. Jacobs, J., Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York 1961). Klee, K., Im Luftschutzkeller des Reiches. Evakuierte in Bayern 1939–1953 (Munich 1999). Kopper, C., Die Bahn im Wirtschaftswunder. Deutsche Bundesbahn und Verkehrs­ politik in der Nachkriegsgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main 2007). Lettau, W., ‘Die Verbindungsbahn München’, Die Bundesbahn 1964, 728–735. Müller-Ibold, K., ‘Die Stadtregion’, in Deutscher Städtetag (ed.), Die Stadt und ihre Region (Cologne 1962), 14–42. Statistisches Bundesamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, (Wiesbaden 1955). Staubach, H., Pendelwanderung und Raumordnung (Cologne and Opladen 1962). Vogel, Hans Jochen, Die Amtskette (Munich 1972). Zimniok, K., Eine Stadt geht in den Untergrund. Die Geschichte der Münchener U- und S-Bahn im Spiegel der Zeit (Munich 1981).

23 Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities Urban Mobility Agenda and City Renewals Massimo Moraglio Transport’s outcomes, and their massive interaction with the social, energy, and political spheres, are becoming more evident and are gaining momentum on the political agenda.1 The issue of transport is obviously related to formidable economic issues: in the case of the European Union, the transport sector accounts for about 7 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and about 5 per cent of EU employment, which represents around ten million jobs. Mobility emerges as ‘an essential element to industrial competitiveness and European services’, with an impact on energy issues: ‘The transport sector consumes 30 per cent of the total energy consumed in the EU. Transport depends on oil for 98 per cent’. Moreover, mobility is perceived as ‘a fundamental citizens’ right’.2 Although the perception of transport is changing, some performances show long-term constancy: according to the so-called Zahavi conjecture, time budget, mobility budget, and number of daily trips do not change, either geographically or historically.3 What is changing, even dramatically, is the distance covered by travellers, which is increasing steadily, mainly due to faster transport systems and devices. This means that we use ‒ for travel purposes ‒ the same amount of time as one hundred years ago, but we cover greater distances, reaching further destinations. This trend requires additional transport networks and systems that are able to cope with these increased and still increasing demands, and it has already led to massive changes over the past decades.4 In this vein, urban mobility appears to be the most critical area. As reported in the 2007 European Union’s Green Paper: Towards a New Culture for Urban Mobility, ‘throughout Europe, increased traffic in town and city centres has resulted in chronic congestion, with the many adverse consequences that this entails in terms of delays and pollution’.5 As historians know, traffic congestion, transport pollution, and mobility problems are not new to urban areas,6 although in the past years we have witnessed a new interest in such issues. Today, cities are often seen as enormous polluters, traffic jams’ playgrounds, while private automobile mobility is (slowly) losing its appeal. As a starting point for this ‘new’ look at the city, we could say that during the 1960s the city crisis emerged as a cultural topic, focusing on the ‘alienated’ urban spaces and the destruction of community relations, DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-29

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  417 foreseeing a future of isolation and neurosis as predicted by the works of Jane Jacobs, Colin Buchanan, Lewis Mumford, Alexander Mitscherlich, or Alfred Sauvy, to mention just a few.7 These powerful criticisms of the destruction of urban spaces gained momentum and opened a wider debate on city identity, involving broad social participation and a more diffused attention towards the urban future. Those movements provoked a general rethinking of the urban arena, pushing for new ideas of the city, of its future, of its planning actions. As a parallel trend, there was also a decline of the traditional political and technical cultures. In the past, generally speaking, the city and its organisation were seen as a laboratory for the construction of a desirable social order, driven by political or technological inspirations. In the late 1960s, those counterculture movements, the advent of public participation, and the failure of many technocratic urban projects empirically placed city users (e.g., citizens), instead of urban utopias (or dystopias, if you prefer), at the centre of the political debate. As a result, more and more often (and not only in the transport field) public decisions were no longer the exclusive and socially accepted prerogative of selected political and technical actors.8 In particular, technology developers and transport planners have to consult their customers, because post-industrial society has became more starkly divergent, and because engineers and planners themselves often no longer reflect the mainstream of society.9 Critics and failures also touched mobility policies, and urban areas worldwide suddenly were seen as serious mobility bottlenecks, as reported above. In other words, the post-war urban transport models, that is the car culture, failed ‘to deliver its promises’.10 In this framework, it is very interesting to note that ‘traffic infrastructure was seen as the main culprit of the urban space reorganisation, destroying all the social and communitarian uses’.11 In addition to urban renewal, after the 1973 oil crisis, urban mobility policies also faced an energy problem, an issue that compounded the already wellknown topic of traffic congestion, not to mention the pollution menace, the inefficiency of individual mobility, community segmentation, and cultural and social barriers. All of these problems soon reached the political agenda.12 In this situation, with policy makers’ and technicians’ loss of authority, and with the failure of their utopias and traditional tools, somehow user involvement presented itself as an alternative process to build the city, and policy makers widely claimed that they were putting users on the stage.13 Although public participation theory is often seen as the realm of ­designers, architects, and engineers, it is rarely sought or utilised when planning and analysing transport infrastructure. New activities, such as citizens’ juries, consultations, referenda, investigations on users’ needs, interviews, are still niche activities in the public transport realm.14 This situation creates a lack of communication, an imprecise consideration of passengers, a low level of customer satisfaction, and a misunderstanding of social needs. One should

418  Massimo Moraglio always keep in mind that determining when a need becomes ‘social’, or which needs are more important, is a slippery slope. On a bigger scale, it means that an important part of urban needs, like transport planning, is often based on computerised calculations of fluxes, more so than on citizen surveys, ­behaviours, and requests. Promoting participation does not produce, in the long run, just a socially shaped transport system, but also better resource allocation and even better economic performance for transport companies. The situation is made more complex because public and private funds seem to be less readily available, exactly at a time when classic urban technical answers appear inadequate, useless, or unable to give any response. As the complexity of modern life continues to grow, transportation problems will multiply, the range of technical solutions will increase, and public resources will decrease. As a result, the demands of the public and the various stakeholder groups to become involved in decision-making will become ever more insistent.15

Light Rails as an Answer In the past decades, urban public transport has experienced a widespread relaunch and for several reasons, as listed below, light rail transit has become one of the preferred tools of this revival.16 Light rail has been defined as ‘tracked, electrically driven local means of transport, which can be ­developed step by step from a modern tramway to a means of transport running in tunnels or above ground level’.17 Although this definition seems a bit ambiguous, we can state that light rail transit consists mainly of electric-powered wagons with a length of 18–65 metres, often but not necessarily running on segregated track lanes. Light rail passenger capacity is therefore lower than proper underground transit systems, and of course, light rail has signalling systems, safety procedures, and track networks which are different and separated from those for ‘heavy’ rail (e.g., trains).18 Beyond definitions, surely the ‘old’ tram technology has been suddenly rediscovered, and the general feeling about such a transport means has changed completely. Tram transport, which until the 1970s was seen in the social imagination as a poor transit mode, often associated with low-income commuters (or even with a dusty Soviet Union-style transport), repositioned itself as an attractive, well-designed, secure transport means.19 Already in the 1960s and early 1970s, i.e., before the 1973 oil crisis, new transit projects were being planned in Canada, the USA, and Western Europe, while light rail systems were implemented or renewed in the late 1970s and 1980s.20 Edmonton in Canada21 and Nantes in France22 were the first groundbreaking samples of ‘new style’ light rail. In this vein, the tram was completely re-envisioned, rebranded, and redrawn in order to meet the new urban desires and requests. The classical tram was baptised ‘light rail transit’ or, with a slightly different, evocative

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  419 name, ‘métro léger’ in French; streetcars were given a new and ‘stylish’ design. Although the core technology of tram propulsion remained more or less the same, its large technical system changed dramatically and so did people’s perception of it. The ‘new’ tram (or better, light rail) has a different public image and a new position in the urban space, which can fluctuate from segregated tracks to pedestrian areas. The same wagon’s construction was informed closely by user needs; for instance, the low-floor wagon made light rail more comfortable and easily accessible for all kinds of users. This revival evoked different technical and academic forms of scrutiny and frequently led to opposite sentiments: an unquestioned approval of its beneficial effects for urban areas and its positive social effects were juxtaposed to a view of a massive investment that fails to perform.23 All these approaches make good points but, beyond their assertions, they often do not help us understand the reasons behind this revival. Nor do they explain the technical and social evolution of the tram system. Whichever way we judge the light rail renaissance, we have to understand why trams became so widely popular ‒ from Ireland to Canada, from Australia to Poland. Most certainly, the tram has re-entered the scene, and its rebirth is a composite and complex phenomenon, which summarises in itself urban needs and inertias, city revitalisation, and social demands.24 We need a better comprehension of this phenomenon because it covers more than just transport technology, people fluxes, or positive social actions; it also comprises identities, behaviours, and urban issues. Put in this perspective, the light rail renaissance emerges as an attractive crossover case study, involving large-scale urban policy, mobility management, social demands for efficient mass transport, and widespread concerns about pollution and traffic (im)mobility.25

Old is Fashionable? Using Trams to Create City Identity It was with great pleasure that in January 2010 I again visited Australia, landing at the Melbourne airport and then picking up a trolley to carry my suitcases. On it I saw a Vodafone advertisement which promoted the company, linking it with city landmarks. In the case of Melbourne, the city landmark chosen was a tram. Actually, Melbourne is the only Australian city that maintained a working tram network throughout the twentieth century, and nowadays this legacy is a familiar sight of the city, or better, an identity object of the urban personality.26 It is interesting to note that despite the image of a modern-day, booming city in the background, it is the old-fashioned ‘historical’ tram that has been chosen to best evoke Melbourne’s cultural atmosphere, linking the city’s past and present affluence. If we adopt a technological point of view, we see how a transport means, like the streetcar, can have several uses beyond the basic one. That is, trams are not used simply to move people or goods, but society, politics, and marketing have used and continue to use these objects for many other goals. Vodafone, for instance, uses the tram to declare itself as real Melbournian;

420  Massimo Moraglio French politicians – with slight differences between the left-wing and conservatives – in the 1970s used new-generation trams, véhicule automatique léger, metro system, and Personal Rapid Transport to enhance national competitiveness and pride.27 Or, another example, Florentines saw the tram not as a mobility device but as a large technical system which would decrease the available space to drive freely by car into the city centre.28 Even more, the tram – as well as other, if not all transport means ‒ seems to have a symbolic value with material evidence. These elements confirm how the material evidence, formed by technologies of steel, plastic, and copper, embodies values, imaginations, and desires which go beyond its ‘simple’ use. In the case of the tram, we might analyse how an ‘old’ technology suddenly passed from being considered obsolete, heavy, inefficient, and noisy, to being acclaimed as proficient, perfectly city-shaped, cool, and, in a word, ‘modern’.29 I am open to changing my mind, but so far it seems to me that the improvements of light rail compared to classic trams lie not in the hardcore of its equipment but, instead, in its social uses and public perception, that is to say, in its large technical system. It means that the tram’s large technical system is not just ‘a new technology but the development of a new socio-technical configuration on a large scale, which requires a whole set of changes, such as new vehicles, new services, new infrastructures, new user patterns, new regulations, etc’.30 Schatzberg, discussing American tram renewal, went further, saying that ‘in political struggle over new infrastructures, both technology and culture were up for grabs; that is, both the physical technology itself and the cultural meaning attached to it could be changed in the process’.31 So, it is necessary to go beyond singular concepts and ensure that the political, social, and technical aspects work seamlessly together. I really think that current broadly diffused ‘categories such as the “technical”, the “social”, or the “political” are deemed too crude’ to create a meaningful picture.32 The revival of urban public goods and infrastructure, that is, the city configuration, seems to be the main outcome of this new deal, of a new social compromise. If we accept this statement, the idea itself of technical ‘rationality’ in urban choices appears to be a very weak way of understanding city layouts and transport infrastructure policies. It is true that politicians and planners often still present their projects as rational and economically shaped for urban needs. But it is also evident that mobility research has landed in a cul-de-sac due to the predominance of engineering, economic, and planning approaches. For this reason, transport structures ‘cannot be understood solely in terms of their technological components but as complex systems’.33 Among the ‘system builders’ of such a structure, the users – or, better, here we could say citizens – are truly involved: Within the possibilities and constraints set by system building processes and intrinsic system proprieties, users may use large technical systems in multiple, sometimes surprising ways. Users, too, are agents of Large Technical System-related societal changes.34

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Using Trams to Reshape Cities I already referred to the quotation that ‘technology developers and transport planners have to consult their customers, because post-industrial society has become more starkly divergent, and because engineers and planners themselves often no longer reflect the mainstream of society’.35 This consultancy can have different outcomes, of course: we can have proper public participation, or lip service. However, the light rail case study shows us to what extent the new urban feelings and atmospheres have forced even unwilling experts, policy makers, and industry to consider users’ needs and feelings to ensure successful outcomes. Other times, light rail projects did have little or superficial attention to public participation. Sometimes cities´ inhabitants, or at least its noisiest advocates, were against the implementation of the light rail lines. At this stage of the research, it is difficult to determine properly the role of public participation, although it is possible to investigate how the renewed wagons and lines were able to meet citizens’ needs. As a way to analyse the depth and effectiveness of this change, I investigated the advertising of mass transport, especially for the tram or light rail, in international reviews such as the International Railway Journal, the Revue générale des chemins de fer, and Transport Public. Advertising not only gives us an idea about the industry’s marketing, but tells us also how those messages were adapted to the general expectations and feelings of decision-makers and public transport managers, i.e., the readers of those magazines. Industry advertising mirrored, indeed, experts’ and managers’ thoughts and expectations, and, vice versa, managers’ and experts’ behaviours were formed by industry marketing. So, marketing analysis was a way to explore light rail descriptions which clearly went beyond industry interests only and involved larger groups of experts and, eventually, even social expectation and imagery. As a first statement, I would say that reading those reviews’ advertising pages from 1980 to 2010 revealed significant shifts in tones and targets. The tram’s wagons and its complex system appeared, year after year, as more attractive, with a smoother design, were depicted as seamless, much more appealing, in a word ‘cool’. Aesthetics and the word ‘aesthetic’ itself, as some advertising indicates, e.g., in the February 2009 issue of Transport Public, was part of the light rail renaissance and figured as an important tool to reposition tram imagery. Streetcars were no longer portrayed as cumbersome and bulky things made from steel, but as light and smooth objects, as the name – expressly – suggests. Looking at the tram’s environment, the advertising suggests several atmospheric changes over the years. Trams in the early 1980s were seen in an extra-urban scenario, taking care of noise pollution as the SAB NIFE advertisings for ‘low-noise on rail’ claim repeatedly.36 Or trams are positioned on a city map in order to represent any given city (see Figure 23.1).

422  Massimo Moraglio

Figure 23.1  Light Rail in the Early 1980s, as Urban Transport Solution. Source: IRJ May 1984 – Courtesy Siemens.

The wagon could be placed in a historical context, where the tram is, with the historical building, the only other object in the layout. A short step segregates the track area, revealing a traditional separation between the wagon area and the urban street, as in the SAB NIFE advertising in February 1987.37

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  423 A little bit later, according to Cogifer advertising, the scenario is now a fully pedestrianised location, in a walker-friendly atmosphere,38 where the tram is presented as an urban landscape mate. In the next decade, this new pedestrianised setting is taken for granted and the tram is presented in a world of walkers, bikers, and, of course, tram tracks (as shown by a rendering in Transport Public, in the May 2009 issue). The new wagon outline reaches its visual peak in the light rail system design of Reims (in the Champagne region of France), where the rendering of the front of the coach is designed in order to recall a champagne flute. So effective was this shift that public transport (with the bus as its main tool), for so long perceived as poor, soon became ‘modern’. Additionally, after a half-century of primacy, the bus was no longer seen as the best choice in transit, giving way to light rail. According to Vukan R. Vuchic, urban rail is viewed as a more attractive service to passengers than other modes of urban transit.39 Specifically, the long-held perception, in some places, of the city bus as the ‘loser cruiser’ or ‘proletariat chariot’ is replaced by the sleek, modern image of urban rail, thus making rail systems more able to attract passengers than other modes of public transit. The fixed nature of rail lines is also a catalyst for mutual reinforcement of land uses, such as high-density residential and commercial developments.40 Summarising, and in accordance with these pictures, the main target of light rail projects in the 1970s–1990s was to reposition the tram in an attractive and pleasant way, with particular emphasis on re-drawing the city urban landscape, changing previous social utilisations of the urban space, and creating room for new ways to use city streets. The actual development of light rail in the 1980s and 1990s shows us how the images quoted above were, simultaneously, a proposal for the future and a statement about the present. In other words, the re-introduction of trams in the city was not just laying tracks in the streets, but shifting the meaning of urban space, struggling against the established car dominance, and having the main target to rebuild streets as social arenas.41 As has often been noted, particularly in European cities, policy makers took the opportunity to generously pedestrianise their city centres while laying tracks and achieved huge improvements in the quality of urban space as well as their commercial viability. The flexibility of modern trams to blend in with these rejuvenated environments as well as their ability to serve them at street level can be regarded as crucial ingredients to this process.42 As happened to the automobile in its early years, such a shift in uses needed a new social ethic and a new dominant urban value, easy to create in an era where car culture was experiencing its crisis and new urban attitudes (listed previously) were gaining in strength. As we reported above, the light rail was, in this respect, the material evidence of a new symbolic significance. No

424  Massimo Moraglio wonder that policy makers, technicians, and politicians asked for grants, en masse all over Europe (and elsewhere), from central governments to install light rail. Urban renaissance was declared to be the main target behind tram proposals, eclipsing all other aims in importance.43 The promise of light rail relates to the synergetic combination of aspects of train and tram […].Because of the lesser weight and smaller scale operating and construction costs are lower than for heavy rail. The smaller scale means light rail can penetrate into city centres without the need for heavy investments in underground infrastructure as is required for the subway. This gives medium-sized urban centres the chance to create direct links between the inner city, the outlying districts, and the surrounding population centres. Through the lighter operating requirements (like a tram), transport service can be denser in terms of time (higher frequency) and space (more lines and stops), according to specific needs. It can be operated at grade and is faster than [traditional] trams. All these factors mean that light rail provides stronger links within a metropolitan district and thus contributes to a more cohesive metropolitan district.44 Light rail tracks therefore embodied an innovative urban landscape, new social use of public space, moving deliberately to the expulsion of cars from urban streets which, in these plans, had to be devoted to people. The tram was seen as a mover not just of people but as a hauler of urban vitality and new vibrant social and economic atmospheres. Generally speaking, these aims met with positive public reactions and were seen as a good response to social demands advanced after the 1960s.45 Nevertheless, light rail proponents exploited the bright side of trams in their proposals. On the symbolic side, trams were presented as a city heritage, often, but not everywhere, removed from the urban roads during the car culture peak. The fury of automobile dominance explained this loss, and exactly for this reason trams were presented and represented as an ecological alternative. It was rather easy to show the evidence of traffic-jammed cities where after the 1960s the individual mobility promised by the automobile had switched to collective immobility. Here the job for the advertising agencies was easy. In their view, reflecting larger behaviours, the solution to car congestion did not lie in more (expensive) infrastructures for automobiles or further traffic engineering, but in accepting the failure of the model, i.e., in reducing – or even eliminating – cars themselves. The only credible alternative, therefore, was public transport, especially underground and light rail systems, as Robert Cervero reports.46 Trams were ‘transporting your city into the future’ (see Figure 23.2), or to put it simply, ‘if the subway projects are stopped many people are stopped’ (see Figure 23.3). This led, naturally, to a reversal of the general imagery about speed and efficiency: ‘Moving fast, moving by train’, as SEL-Alcatel advertising suggested in March 1990.47 This framework led to the tracks’ victory in the city streets. But in the next paragraphs, we will see how extensive this process actually was.

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  425

Figure 23.2  Light Rail as a Flag Bearer of Modernity. Source: IRJ Jan 1983 – Courtesy Bombardier.

Wagon, Users, and Social Accessibility The renaissance of tram/light rail was described as a low air-polluting and ecologically friendly transport means (see Figure 23.4). These topics, more and more popular in recent decades, were associated with the social inclusion

426  Massimo Moraglio

Figure 23.3  Light Rail as a Valuable Traffic Solution. Source: IRJ Oct 1988 – Courtesy Ansaldo.

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  427

Figure 23.4  Light Rail as Environment-Friendly Device. Source: Eurotransport May 2009 – Courtesy Bombardier.

428  Massimo Moraglio generated by light rail programmes. Car mobility itself had created an ideology of freedom and sovereignty for the individual, which was available only above a certain income level and required good physical conditions. The retreat of public transport had excluded a (large) part of the population from full mobility, creating an army of ‘convicted’ people, forced to be without transport or to accept the poor level offered by declining public services. Light rail was also charged with the duty, through new favourable conditions creating a socially friendly transport system, to provide for low-income classes and people with other restricted forms of mobility. Again, to reach such a target meant creating a new, large technical system in which people with prams and wheelchairs were able to ride. This task forced engineers to rethink first the wagon, which was a big challenge in itself. Next, the whole tram system and its large technical system needed to be reframed: the platforms had to be easy to reach, while the signs at each stop should give accurate and complete information.48 But moving ahead, the tram also had to be competitive with the automobile, and therefore tram tracks were put into exclusive lanes, or in a car-free environment, or they received priority at intersections. Naturally, all these actions could be taken together.49 Of course, the wagon itself had to be redesigned. The old classical tram had the passengers’ floor at 95 centimetres above ground level. To travel in those wagons involved climbing onto high steps in order to get on, and the same to get off. This is a very simple, banal operation for persons without a mobility problem. It becomes a lot more difficult, or completely impossible, when the trip involves a baby stroller, or a person in a wheelchair, or simply an older or convalescent person. The point here is that transport’s ‘convicted’ people are often those who have different mobility requests and so, for light rail to meet its targets (i.e., social inclusion), the whole system – including the wagons –must be redesigned.50 This task was given attention later than others, but in the late 1980s, low-floor wagons were presented as the solution. Low-floor wagons naturally have to fit with platforms set at a convenient level above the ground; or, alternatively, as in Strasbourg, the sidewalk remains at the same level and the tram track sinks alongside the platform. Bars and other obstacles put in the traditional tram doors have to be removed, in order to allow easy access to the wagon. One or more parking spaces for a wheelchair/pram/stroller have to be made available in each convoy, as well as conveniently located push buttons to request a stop. These items all required a technology that was well known (though expensive) and changed the wagon’s interior, while, as we have seen, there already were significant design efforts for the exterior. The larger part of this complex and profound re-invention of the tram system lay in its totality rather than in singular parts and was more important on a social-system scale than as technological evolution. Of course, the application of electronic technologies from the 1960s allowed better performance in terms of engine acceleration and deceleration51; low-weight wagons meant higher speed and easy starts, and reduced energy use. Satellite detectors

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  429 could trace every single convoy, estimate its arrival at the next stops, and, above all, through the development of informatics, offered real-time information to the users. Information to passengers was indeed another important aspect of the light rail (and more extensively of urban transit) renewal. Social inclusion and favourable conditions for travelling included better-informed users, who could easily receive data about their route, both with regard to expected waiting and travelling times, as well as information about connections, arrival times, exits, fares, payments, and so forth. Another way to analyse this phenomenon is to study how the industries depicted the user. Again, as for other topics, there was a radical shift in the representation of passengers from the early 1980s to today. In 1983 customers were seen as a painful problem for the transport company, and there seemed to be reciprocal hostility: in the UK ‘Control Systems Limited’ advertising dated May 1983 and published in the International Railway Journal, two young punks (presumably ready to vandalise transit wagons and stops and to scare old ladies) need to be monitored and controlled. Ten years later, the picture changed radically to customers who needed to be well served (see Figure 23.5): now we have a cute little baby (apparently named David) in his pram and the industry’s main effort seems to be to allow his mom (or his dad) to have friendly access to light rail wagons, without any of the trouble caused by the no-longer-existing tram steps. So adults can have a nice ride with their babies, and even if they are in a hurry, they can be in a ‘relaxed’ atmosphere (see Figure 23.6).

What Are We Speaking About? As reported, the trend of constructing new light rail systems in medium-size and small cities in Western Europe [but also in Romania, Turkey, Poland, the Czech Republic, and other countries; M.M.] has become progressively stronger since the first trailblazer system was opened in Nantes, France, in 1985.52 According to European Rail Research Advisory Council data, for the E-25 members, tram and light rail services in 2004 numbered some 137 systems, with 797 lines and 7,033 kilometres. The increase of the light rail and tram system was predicted to be about 1,500 kilometres, the majority coming to France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal.53 In his important book on the success of electric streetcars at the dawn of the twentieth century, John McKay pointed out the importance of streetcars to enhance urban transport and to multiply the number of passengers in public transport.54 It was indeed a revolution in urban mobility, because of the lower price and higher speed of electric trams compared with previous transport means. Such an enormous enhancement realised by the tram was

430  Massimo Moraglio

Figure 23.5  Light Rail as Customer-Friendly Device. Source: IRJ Apr 1993 – Courtesy Bombardier.

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  431

Figure 23.6  Light Rail as Facilitator of a Relaxed Journey. Source: IRJ Apr 1994 – Courtesy Bombardier.

432  Massimo Moraglio not repeated by light rail. Despite numerous achievements, light rail has not reached a large enough scale to entice people in large numbers to switch away from traditional individual automobile urban mobility. And this is not just the case for light rail but more widely for mass transit as a whole.55 Automobiles maintain their immense role in urban mobility. Light rail itself had to compete with other public transport means which also received strong attention and were depicted as having the same positive effects as light rail. Buses (guided or not-guided), VAL underground systems, monorails, and trolleybuses were strong competitors. But ‘old’ and basic transport tools were also considered as ‘alternative’ devices, such as the bike, which is seen as a city- and environment-friendly transport tool. The development of the light rail, in other words, struggled with several competitors, classical ones still full of charm (like the car), or, like light rail, shaped for social improvement (such as buses and underground systems).56 Of course, we cannot speak of the failure of light rail but, instead, of a powerful attempt to reshape cities. Moving to the technological side, it is noticeable how light rail was also able to present itself in new forms and always kept a certain allure in both the expert and non-expert worlds. The light rail revival history shows how, after the first outcomes in the 1970s and early 1980s, the social imagination on this topic was directed to new improvements (like accessibility), seamless journeys, or further extensions of service, like the tram-train solution.57 Even today, after more than 30 years of resurgence, light rail is depicted as an indispensable device, ‘good for people, good for cities’, according to the UITP presentation of its ‘10th light rail conference’. The achievements of the past and the present’s confidence in light rail mean that the tram has left (and is leaving) a conspicuous footprint in the history of mobility.

Notes 1 The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under REA grant agreement n° 252489. 2 Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS), The Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development 2007– 2013 (FP7) of the European Commission. ‘Ensuring Sustainable Urban Mobility’ (SST-3) http://old.managenergy.net/indexes/I527.htm (last accessed 2 March 2011). 3 On these points, see the seminal work of Y. Zahavi and A. Talvitie, ‘Regularities in Travel Time and Money Expenditures’, Transportation Research Record, 750, 1980, 13–19. About a slight increase in time budget, as recorded in the past decade, see V. Kauffmann, Rethinking the City: Urban Dynamics and Motility (Lausanne 2012), esp. chapter 2. 4 See J. Urry, Mobilities (Cambridge 2007), esp. the first two chapters. See also the provocative work of D. Metz, ‘The Myth of Travel Time Saving’, Transport Reviews: A. Transnational Transdisciplinary Journal, 28, no. 3, 2008, 321–336. 5 European Commission, Green Paper: Towards a New Culture of Urban Mobility (Brussels 2007), 3.

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  433 6 See among others, C. McShane and J.A. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD 2007). 7 J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York 1961), C. Buchanan and G. Crowther, Traffic in Towns (London 1963), L. Mumford, The Highway and the City (New York 1964), A. Mitscherlich, Die Unwirklichkeit unserer Städte. Anstiftung zum Unfrieden (Frankfurt am Main 1965), A. Sauvy, Les quatre roues de la fortune. Essai sur Pantomobile (Paris 1968). 8 For an overview, see M. Schiefelbusch and H.-L. Dienel, eds., Public Transport and Its Users: The Passenger's Perspective in Planning and Customer Care (Aldershot 2009). 9 H.-L. Dienel, ‘Introduction’, in Schiefelbusch and Dienel, Public Transport and Its Users, 1–3, here 2. 10 See on this theme J. Scheurer, P. Newman, J. Kenworthy, and T. Gallengher, Can Rail Pay? Light Rail Transit and Urban Development with Value Capture Funding and Joint Development Mechanisms (Perth 2000), 2–10. 11 P. Capuzzo, ‘Dalla città all’automobile e ritorno: un percorso del Novecento’, Parolechiave, 32, 2004, 79–92, here 88. 12 See P. Rosen, ‘Towards Sustainable and Democratic Urban Transport: Constructivism, Planning and Policy’, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 13, no. 1, 2001, 117–135. 13 See H.-L. Dienel, ‘Citizens’ Juries and Planning Cells: Deliberative Democratic Processes for Consultation and Conflictual Problems’, in Ping Liu and Rudolf Traub-Merz, eds., Public Participation in Local Decision-Making: China and Germany (Shanghai 2009), 139–153. 14 See Dienel, ‘Citizens’ Juries and Planning Cells’, 139–153, as well as T. Wakeford, ‘Citizens’ Juries: A Radical Alternative for Social Research’, Social Research Update, 37, 2002, 1–4. 15 J. Kelly, Successful Transport Decision-Making: A Project Management and Stakeholder Engagement Handbook (Aachen and London 2005). 16 For an overview, see H. de Bruijn and W. Veeneman, ‘Decision-making for Light Rail’, Transportation Research Part A, 43, 2009, 349–359; B.W. Lane, ‘Significant Characteristics of the Urban Rail Renaissance in the United States: A Discriminant Analysis’, Transportation Research Part A, 42, 2002, 279–295; D. Kerwer and M. Teutsch, ‘Transport Policy in the European Union’, in A. Héritier et al., eds., Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policymaking (Lanham, MD 2001), 23–56; R.L. Mackett and M. Edwards, ‘The Impact of New Urban Transport Systems: Will the Expectation Be Met?’, Transportation Research Part A, 32, 1998, 231–245; J. Pucher and Ch. Lefèvre, The Urban Transport Crisis in Europe and North America (Houndmills 1996). 17 European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC), Light Rail and Metro Systems in Europe (Brussels 2004), 6. 18 V.R. Vuchic, Urban Transit: Operation, Planning, and Economics (Hoboken 2005), esp. 577–582. 19 See De Bruijn and Veeneman, ‘Decision-making for Light Rail’, 349–359. 20 D.W. Jones, Mass Motorization + Mass Transit: An American History and Policy Analysis (Bloomington, IN 2008). 21 G.L. Thompson, ‘Jumping the Pond: How Canadian Activists Appropriated Northern European Light Rail Technology and Adopted It to Their Own Ends in Edmonton’, paper presented at T2M conference, Berlin, October 2011. 22 F. Laisney, Atlas du tramway dans les villes françaises (Paris 2011). 23 For a valuable review of such a debate, see M. Siemiatycki, Return to the Rails: The Motivations for Building a Modern Tramway in Bilbao, Spain. Research Paper 60 (Glasgow 2006).

434  Massimo Moraglio 24 For a good (and optimistic) survey, see R. Cervero, The Transit Metropolis: A Global Inquiry (Washington, DC 1998). 25 See L. Steg and R. Gifford, ‘Sustainable Transport and Quality of Life’, Journal of Transport Geography, 13, no. 1, 2005, 59–69. 26 Scheurer, Newman, Kenworthy, and Gallengher, Can Rail Pay? 27 B. Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology (Cambridge 1996). 28 Regione Toscana, Piano Regionale della mobilitá e della logistica. Allegato 10 (Florence 2003). 29 International Association of Public Transport (UITP), Confort des véhicules de métro léger et adaptation à l’environnement, 47th UITP congress, Lausanne (Brussels 1987); UITP, Ease of Use of Light Rail System, 51st UITP congress, Paris (Brussels1995). 30 B. Elzen, ‘Taking the Socio-Technical Seriously: Exploring the Room for Change in the Traffic and Transport Domain’, in H. Harbers, ed., Inside the Politics of Technology: Agency and Normativity in the Co-Production of Technology and Society (Amsterdam 2005), 171–197, here 191. 31 E. Schatzberg, ‘Culture and Technology in the City: Opposition to Mechanized Street Transportation in Late-Nineteenth Century America’, in G. Hecht and M. Allen, eds., Technology and History: Essays in Honour of Thomas Park Hughes and Agatha Chipley Hughes (Cambridge, MA 2001), 57–94, here 62. 32 E. van der Vleuten, ‘Understanding Network Societies: Two Decades of Large Technical System Studies’, in E. van der Vleuten and A. Kaijser, eds., Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (Sagamore Beach, MA 2006), 218–222, here 218. 33 T. Moss, ‘Unearthing Water Flows, Uncovering Social Relations: Introducing New Waste Water Technologies in Berlin’, Journal of Urban Technology 7, no. 1, 2000, 63–84, here 65. 34 Van der Vleuten, ‘Understanding Network Societies’, 294. 35 Dienel, ‘Introduction’, 2. 36 International Railway Journal, August 1983. 37 Revue générale des chemins de fer, February 1987. 38 International Railway Journal, April 1990. 39 Vuchic, Urban Transit: Operation, Planning, and Economics, esp. 577–582. 40 Siemiatycki, Return to the Rails, 4. 41 Mackett and Edwards, ‘The Impact of New Urban Transport Systems’, 231–245. 42 Scheurer, Newman, Kenworthy, and Gallengher, Can Rail Pay?, 3–28; see also A. Budoni, ed., Tutti in tram. Trasporti collettivi e progetto della città (Rome 1997). 43 See Mackett and Edwards, ‘The Impact of New Urban Transport Systems’. 44 De Bruijn and Veeneman, ‘Decision-making for Light Rail’, 351. 45 Cervero, The Transit Metropolis, esp. chapter 2. 46 Ibid., 62–81. 47 As published in the International Railway Journal, March 1990. 48 UITP, Confort des véhicules de métro léger et adaptation à l’environnement. 49 R. Nahuis, The Politics of Innovation in Public Transport: Issues, Settings and Displacements (Utrecht 2007). 50 R. Witter and H.-N. Maksim, ‘Mobility and Social Exclusion: The Need of a Comprehensive Research Approach’, in G. Mom et al. eds., Mobility in History: Themes in Transport. T2M Yearbook 2011 (Neuchâtel 2010), 225–233. 51 B. Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology (Cambridge 1996). 52 G.D. Bottoms, ‘Continuing Developments in Light Rail Transit in Western Europe: United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy’, Proceedings of the 9th National Light Rail Transit Conference, November 16–18, 2003, Portland, OR, Transportation Research e-circular E-C058, 2003, 713–728, here 727. 53 ERRAC, Light Rail and Metro Systems in Europe.

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  435 54 J.P. McKay, Tramways and Trolleys: The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe (Princeton, NJ 1976). 55 Cervero, The Transit Metropolis, esp. chapter 2. 56 Lane, ‘Significant Characteristics’, esp. 279–295. 57 Cervero, The Transit Metropolis, esp. 343–361.

Literature Bottoms, G.D., ‘Continuing Developments in Light Rail Transit in Western Europe: United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy’, Proceedings of the 9th National Light Rail Transit Conference, November 16–18, 2003, Portland, OR, Transportation Research e-circular E-C058, 2003, 713–728. Bruijn, H. de, and Veeneman, W., ‘Decision-Making for Light Rail’, Transportation Research part A, 43, 2009, 349–359. Buchanan, C. and Crowther, G., Traffic in Towns (London 1963). Budoni, A., ed., Tutti in tram. Trasporti collettivi e progetto della città (Rome 1997). Capuzzo, P., ‘Dalla città all’automobile e ritorno: un percorso del Novecento’, Parolechiave, 32, 2004, 79–92. Cervero, R., The Transit Metropolis: A Global Inquiry (Washington, DC 1998). Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS), The Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development 2007–2013 (FP7) of the European Commission. ‘Ensuring Sustainable Urban Mobility’ (SST-3) http://old.managenergy.net/indexes/I527.htm (last accessed 2 March 2011). Dienel, H.-L., ‘Citizens’ Juries and Planning Cells: Deliberative Democratic Processes for Consultation and Conflictual Problems’, in Ping Liu and Rudolf TraubMerz, eds., Public Participation in Local Decision-Making: China and Germany (Shanghai 2009), 139–153. Dienel, H.-L., ‘Introduction’, in Schiefelbusch and Dienel, eds., Public Transport and Its Users, 1–3. Elzen, B., ‘Taking the Socio-Technical Seriously: Exploring the Room for Change in the Traffic and Transport Domain’, in H. Harbers, ed., Inside the Politics of Technology: Agency and Normativity in the Co-Production of Technology and Society (Amsterdam 2005), 171–197. European Commission, Green Paper: Towards a New Culture of Urban Mobility (Brussels 2007). European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC), Light Rail and Metro Systems in Europe (Brussels 2004). International Association of Public Transport (UITP), Confort des véhicules de métro léger et adaptation à l’environnement, 47th UITP congress, Lausanne (Brussels 1987). International Association of Public Transport (UITP), Ease of Use of Light Rail System, 51st UITP congress, Paris (Brussels 1995). Jacobs, J., The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York 1961). Jones, D.W., Mass Motorization + Mass Transit: An American History and Policy Analysis (Bloomington, IN 2008). Kauffmann, V., Rethinking the City: Urban Dynamics and Motility (Lausanne 2012). Kelly, J., Successful Transport Decision-making: A Project Management and Stakeholder Engagement Handbook (Aachen and London 2005).

436  Massimo Moraglio Kerwer, D. and Teutsch, M., ‘Transport Policy in the European Union’, in A. Héritier et al., eds., Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policymaking (Lanham, MD 2001), 23–56. Laisney, F., Atlas du tramway dans les villes françaises (Paris 2011). Lane, B.W., ‘Significant Characteristics of the Urban Rail Renaissance in the United States: A Discriminant Analysis’, Transportation Research part A, 42, 2002, 279–295. Latour, B., Aramis, or the Love of Technology (Cambridge 1996). Mackett, R.L. and Edwards, M., ‘The Impact of New Urban Transport Systems: Will the Expectation Be Met?’, Transportation Research Part A, 32, 1998, 231–245. McKay, J.P., Tramways and Trolleys: The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe (Princeton, NJ 1976). McShane, C. and Tarr, J.A., The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD 2007). Metz, D., “The Myth of Travel Time Saving”, Transport Reviews: A. Transnational Transdisciplinary Journal 28, no. 3, 2008, 321–336. Mitscherlich, A., Die Unwirklichkeit unserer Städte. Anstiftung zum Unfrieden (Frankfurt am Main 1965). Moss, T., ‘Unearthing Water Flows, Uncovering Social Relations: Introducing New Waste Water Technologies in Berlin’, Journal of Urban Technology 7, no. 1, 2000, 63–84. Mumford, L., The Highway and the City (New York 1964). Nahuis, R., The Politics of Innovation in Public Transport: Issues, Settings and Displacements (Utrecht 2007). Pucher, J. and Lefèvre, Ch., The Urban Transport Crisis in Europe and North America (Houndmills 1996). Regione Toscana, Piano Regionale della mobilitá e della logistica. Allegato 10 (Florence 2003). Rosen, P., ‘Towards Sustainable and Democratic Urban Transport: Constructivism, Planning and Policy’, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 13, no. 1, 2001, 117–135. Sauvy, A., Les quatre roues de la fortune. Essai sur Pantomobile (Paris 1968). Schatzberg, E., ‘Culture and Technology in the City: Opposition to Mechanized Street Transportation in Late-Nineteenth Century America’, in G. Hecht and M. Allen, eds., Technology and History: Essays in Honour of Thomas Park Hughes and Agatha Chipley Hughes (Cambridge, MA 2001), 57–94. Scheurer, J., Newman, P., Kenworthy, J., and Gallengher, T., Can Rail Pay? Light Rail Transit and Urban Development with Value Capture Funding and Joint Development Mechanisms (Perth 2000). Schiefelbusch, M. and Dienel, H.-L., eds., Public Transport and Its Users: The Passenger's Perspective in Planning and Customer Care (Aldershot 2009). Siemiatycki, M., Return to the Rails: The Motivations for Building a Modern Tramway in Bilbao, Spain. Research Paper 60 (Glasgow 2006). Steg, L. and Gifford, R., ‘Sustainable Transport and Quality of Life’, Journal of Transport Geography, 13, no. 1, 2005, 59–69. Thompson, G.L., ʻJumping the Pond: How Canadian Activists Appropriated Northern European Light Rail Technology and Adopted It to Their Own Ends in Edmontonʼ, paper presented at T2M conference, Berlin, October 2011. Urry, J., Mobilities (Cambridge 2007).

Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities  437 Vleuten, E. van der, ‘Understanding Network Societies: Two Decades of Large Technical System Studies’, in E. van der Vleuten and A. Kaijser, eds., Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (Sagamore Beach, MA 2006), 218–222. Vuchic, V.R., Urban Transit. Operation, Planning, and Economics (Hoboken 2005). Wakeford, T., ‘Citizens’ Juries: A Radical Alternative for Social Research’, Social Research Update, 37, 2002, 1–4. Witter, R. and Maksim, H.-N., ‘Mobility and Social Exclusion: The Need of a Comprehensive Research Approach’, in G. Mom et al., eds., Mobility in History, Themes in Transport. T2M Yearbook 2011 (Neuchâtel 2010), 225–233. Zahavi Y. and Talvitie, A., ‘Regularities in Travel Time and Money Expenditures’, Transportation Research Record, 750, 1980, 13–19.

24 A Symbiotic Relationship The Delhi Metro Rail and the National Capital Region Anupama Mann

Introduction Shahdara lies on the northeast side of the river Yamuna. I only became aware of its existence when my sister’s medical college moved from its cramped location in the heart of Delhi to a state-of-the-art campus in Shahdara. It took two and a half hours to get there from Kalkaji, where we lived, the southernmost tip of the capital city at the time. Shahdara is one of the oldest settlements of Delhi, but for me, it was always a place far, far away. In 1995, when the central and Delhi governments commissioned the metro rail, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation chose Shahdara as the testing ground, and today it is possible to reach it in less than an hour, of which the metro ride forms 15 minutes. This shortening of distances is one of the key contributions of the Delhi metro. Even more than Shahdara, which is a part of Delhi, it is the National Capital Region surrounding the city that has suddenly become much more accessible with the construction of the metro rail. The National Capital Region (NCR) is formed by the National Capital Territory of Delhi and its adjacent areas from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. It was included in the Delhi Master Plan 1962 and in the subsequent national five-year plans. The NCR was driven by the Delhi government to curb the inflow of migrants and gain more power and resources from the central government. This strategy was actively adopted by the surrounding states for the perceived benefits of proximity to the capital. The national plans that viewed regional development as a collection of satellite towns, where industries acted as nodes of growth absorbing migrants headed for Delhi, have had to adjust to changes in the economic conditions of the region. Development in surrounding areas of Delhi now takes the form of residential high-rises, commercial complexes, model industrial estates, and special economic zones. The current economic activity and fiscal policy of the NCR are to ‘[f]acilitate a value-added high-tech service sector in Delhi in the context of its emergence as a global city in the world economy’.1 The vision is of a global city linked to the regional metro centres through highways and a regional rail network via the Delhi metro rail.2 As a result, the routes of the Delhi metro rail linking to the NCR that were to be

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-30

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  439 built in phases three and four, have been expedited and even though there are plans to build a separate Regional Rail Transit System (RRTS), it is more likely that the Delhi metro rail will be fulfilling those plans. This article attempts to show how regional development and the Delhi metro rail were tied right from their inception. However, lack of funding initially did not allow either to develop. It was only after the economic reforms of the early 1990s that opened up the country to external funding and foreign direct investment, that both were implemented. The Delhi metro rail took off thanks to a financial and administrative commitment by the Delhi and central governments along with a loan from the Japan Bank of International Cooperation. The NCR developed thanks to private and municipal entrepreneurial initiatives. Consequently, the state governments of the NCR invested in extending a capital-intensive transport infrastructure like the Delhi metro rail to their jurisdictions. The initial development of the Delhi metro rail bypassed the phase of planned development where railways would have been built to connect cities, towns, and villages in the region with the aim to stimulate growth – it was built after planned and unplanned growth had already taken place. The metro rail project is, in the end, largely based on a vision of economic development of the NCR, whether in the past to curb the migrant influx into Delhi or in the present to participate in Delhi’s economic growth. This is no doubt related to the recent availability of resources in a developing country like India, but it also indicates that railways as a mode for mass transit and regional development are inextricably linked, planned, or otherwise.

History of the Delhi Metro Rail Development and National Capital Region in the National and State Development Plans In 1956, the Town Planning Organization published the interim master plan for greater Delhi, and its assumptions included among others, ‘planning on a regional basis, and the concentration of population and achieving a balanced distribution of land uses’.3 It also proposed the formation of a national capital area planning commission. The Delhi Development Authority and the Town Planning Organization, both under the purview of the central government, prepared the Master Plan for Delhi 1962. It called for planning of Delhi in the context of its region with the development of six ring towns as part of the Delhi Metropolitan Area. To avoid urban sprawl, these were to be developed as independent planned units but nevertheless economically, socially, and culturally connected to the centre. They would be able to ‘deflect some of the population’ headed for Delhi. The economic base of the ring towns was to be strengthened with industrial development and local government offices.4 Regional connectivity was sought by increasing the frequency of the existing suburban rail service. Though mentioned very briefly, a mass transit proposal was envisaged for the future.5 The Town Planning Organization also conducted detailed studies for regional development around Delhi in the mid-1960s up to the early 1970s.6 When the

440  Anupama Mann Delhi Development Authority proposed the Delhi Master Plan 2001 in 1990, its preamble stated that Delhi should be planned as an integral part of its region and restructuring of settlement patterns and transportation networks should be used to limit rapid growth.7 It referred to a multi-modal mass transport system for Delhi and introduced the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) as a solution for high-density corridors to meet a demand for public transport that was not being met by city buses. At the national level, the idea of an NCR emerged in the national five-year plans in the 1960s when the Planning Commission undertook collection of technical, economic, and social data, as well as surveys of the Delhi Metropolitan Area, among other cities, to understand the problems and possibilities of regional development for future planning.8 It also conducted traffic and transportation studies for major cities in India, including Delhi.9 The national transport plans proposed a land-use transport strategy through the development of counter-magnets in the NCR.10 The railways budget made financial allocations for the metropolitan rail transport scheme that were increased in subsequent plans.11 By the mid-1980s, mass transit systems for cities became part of the national plans for development and it was proposed that ‘[i]n large metropolitan towns, grade-separated mass transit systems would be set up to improve the mobility of intra-city commuter traffic.’12 These plans emphasised the need to strengthen and expand the public transport system in the form of ‘electricity-based mass transit systems in major cities’,13 saying that this would be more energy-efficient than personalised motor transport. From the 1950s onwards, different organisations at the state and central levels were pursuing simultaneous development of both the NCR and the metropolitan rail transport scheme with overlapping objectives of regional development and connectivity. There was an effort to consolidate these objectives, which came to fruition in 1985 when the central government’s Ministry of Urban Development constituted the National Capital Region Planning Board, as a statutory body that would look into studies for schemes for the entire region.14 Its members included Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. It received financial support from the central government and initially did a number of studies including a carrying capacity study that was aimed at deconcentrating Delhi and promoting growth in the surrounding region.15 It also conducted a transport study for the region that proposed ‘to build an efficient transport network within the NCR and link it to a mass transit system in the city of Delhi’.16 The NCR Planning Board prepared its Regional Plan 2001 in 1988 that promoted growth in other cities and towns, in the NCR, especially the ring towns of Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Gurgaon, Bahadurgarh, Ghaziabad, and Narela surrounding Delhi that subsequently became known as the Delhi Metropolitan Area (see Figure 24.1).17 Despite the formation of the NCR Planning Board and perhaps also because of it, other organisations continued to pursue regional development and mass transit projects. In 1986, the central government transferred planning and coordination of urban transport to the central Ministry of Urban Development,

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  441

Figure 24.1  The Map Shows the Major Urban Areas, Rural Villages, Existing and Proposed MRTS, and Proposed RRTS. It Does Not Include Districts Incorporated in the NCR in 2013. Source: Created by the author on information from the National Capital Region Planning Board, Regional Plan 2021 and DMRC Master Plan 2021 and Functional Plan on Transport for National Capital Region-2032.

which became responsible for overseeing both regional development and urban transport projects. In 1988–1989, it created an Urban Transport Consortium Fund to ‘assist State Governments in taking up feasibility studies for Urban Transportation Systems’.18 Using the fund, the Delhi government and

442  Anupama Mann the Ministry of Urban Development contracted Rail India Technical and Economic Services, a Government of India enterprise, to conduct a feasibility study for an MRTS for Delhi.19 In this study, transport demand projections and systems analysis took into account inter-city trips that would be generated because of increased development in satellite towns around Delhi. Connectivity in the NCR as a whole was the basis for the chosen alternative. The assumptions were that mobility levels would increase with a rise in socio-economic status and better transportation facilities. The proposal based on the study included surface rail, metro corridors, and a high-capacity bus system.20 Meanwhile, in July 1992, the NCR Planning Board set up a Metropolitan Transport Coordination Committee, and a month later it constituted the Core Group on Transport to study the MRTS extension plan. This group proposed a concept plan for transport-related requirements for the NCR in 1993 with respect to the Integrated Multi-Modal Rapid Transit System (IMMRTS) for Delhi. The plan envisaged extension of the radial spurs up to DMA towns with the help of dedicated rail tracks between the proposed four directional terminals of Delhi and the DMA towns, so that the complete system may provide more ridership to Delhi MRTS and encourage people and economic activities to shift from Delhi to outside areas.21 It discussed this approach with the Ministry of Urban Development and agreed that the plan was complementary to the IMMRTS. It would also make it cost-effective while developing the NCR. National and state objectives, research, and feasibility studies may have kept alive the vision of developing the NCR and the Delhi metro on paper, but it was also the broad political support that they received from representatives of the state governments that propelled and intertwined the two projects from the start. From 1969 to 1984, there was a steady voice for regional development in the National Development Council meetings – the forum where the prime minister, members of the Planning Commission, central ministers, chief ministers of states, and administrators of union territories provided guidelines for the five-year plans prepared by the Planning Commission, assessed their progress on a regular basis, and deliberated over the allocation of resources and social and economic policies affecting national development.22 Delhi’s status as a state versus union territory underwent many changes from being governed by the central government to having its own legislative assembly.23 As a result, the chief executive councillor (CEC), an elected member of the legislative assembly with a particular political party affiliation, and/or the lieutenant governor who was nominated by the president, represented the capital in the NDC meetings. No matter who spoke for Delhi or what their political affiliation was, there was a united voice for the development of the NCR and the Delhi metro rail.24 While discussions were taking place in the National Development Council, economic and political changes were taking place in the country that

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  443 would impact the NCR. In 1992, India had introduced economic reforms and the eighth five-year plan was geared towards transitioning from a centrally planned to a market-led economy. This opened up the country to external funding and foreign direct investment. In 1993, the central government adopted the 74th constitutional amendment called the Nagarpalika Act. It gave constitutional status to urban local bodies – municipal corporations in the case of large cities. In Delhi, there was a shift in the economy from primary to tertiary sectors, and conditions improved on all fronts. Major economic indicators of the city show that employment in Delhi was primarily in the service sector by 2001.25 Overall, Delhi’s surrounding western and northern states of Haryana, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh also experienced high growth, whereas Uttar Pradesh on the east had a low rate of growth. According to an analysis by the Planning Commission, this growth in the 1990s can be attributed to two possible reasons; the decreasing role of redistributive centralised planning and the entrepreneurial role of states under the new economic policies.26 These changes had the impact of the Delhi government taking on a more ambitious role towards development – in this case, both regional development and transportation infrastructure. Delhi’s surrounding states also used the economic reforms, the constitutional amendments, and Delhi’s excellent market conditions to initiate development that supports the tertiary sector: business, professions, services, high technology, and government.27 However, the narrative explaining the need for an MRTS did not change till almost a decade later when the ‘need for connectivity to the NCR’ replaced the ‘need to decongest Delhi’. To recap and summarise, by this time representatives of Delhi and its surrounding states were pursuing the ideas of an NCR and the Delhi metro rail. Planning organisations at the state and national levels had conducted numerous studies for the development of the two projects. It came to fruition when in the 20th meeting of the NCR Planning Board, held on 19 August 1996 under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda, the central government assigned 220 billion rupees for the development of the NCR even though newspapers reported that this was an ‘Rs 11,000 crores scheme to decongest Delhi’. The MRTS would cover all satellite towns of Delhi.28 A month after the NCR Planning Board meeting, the Union Cabinet cleared the MRTS or the Delhi metro rail project. The Ministry of Urban Development initiated the loan for the Delhi metro rail with the Japan Bank of International Cooperation. Since Delhi was not a full-fledged state, the central and Delhi governments set up an administrative and implementing body, called the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), as a joint venture. This allowed the Delhi metro rail to receive 60 per cent of its funding through a soft loan by the Japan Bank of International Cooperation via the central Ministry of Urban Development. Central and city financial assistance and levies, subsidies, and revenue-generating schemes supplemented the loan. By 2002, the first section of the Delhi Metro Rail Phase 1 was completed according to schedule.

444  Anupama Mann

Connection between Delhi Metro Rail and NCR At the same time, in 2002, the states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana approved the first phase of the Regional Rapid Transit System called the Integrated Rail cum Bus Transit System (IRBTS). The Indian Railways would be responsible for building these suburban lines. The Union Cabinet also approved the project and announced that a special-purpose vehicle on the lines of the DMRC, handling the Delhi metro rail, would be developed to implement the project. The rail system was to connect Delhi to NCR satellite cities, with interchanges at the Delhi metro stations and an ancillary bus network. Since the entire project was thought to be too expensive, initially only three corridors covering 53 kilometres and connecting the capital to Gurgaon, Sahibabad, and Ghaziabad in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were chosen for development out of a total of 23 corridors proposed.29 The Delhi government anticipated problems because of the lack of a single regulatory authority and funding contributions needed from the three states.30 In the 50th NDC meeting, in December 2002, the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, announced the allocation of two billion rupees towards the IRBTS project and said: We are keen that this IRBT project is taken up immediately as it would lead to a decongestion of roads and multi-options for passengers undertaking intra-state travel with purely professional purposes. It would also enhance the connectivity factor and discourage people from travelling by their private vehicles.31 The conversation regarding the development of the NCR had shifted from decongestion of Delhi to connectivity with Delhi. By 2005, when the first phase of the Delhi metro was completed, the NCR Planning Board had formulated its Regional Plan 2021, and the emphasis in this plan was on the region taking advantage of Delhi’s economic development rather than helping curb migration to the capital.32 While the NCR Planning Board was developing plans for the IRBTS, individual states and respective municipal authorities were pursuing parallel plans to connect Delhi by the Delhi metro rail to Noida and Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Gurgaon in Haryana. Gurgaon and Noida developed very differently, though both aimed to attract businesses and residents who could not afford Delhi’s real estate. Whereas Gurgaon flourished after the 1992 economic reforms primarily because of private entrepreneurial development with minimum interference from the Haryana Urban Development Authority, Noida was a mix of planned and private development. This difference in approach is most obvious in the infrastructure for the two cities. In Gurgaon, the Haryana government gave free rein to private entrepreneurs to develop individual sites without any emphasis or system in place to ensure that the supporting infrastructure was also built. As a result, the fastpaced development of these sites relied on alternatives like private power

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  445 generators, taxi fleets, and well drilling to replace a common infrastructure of power, transport, and water. In Noida and Greater Noida, the municipal authorities took an active role in providing infrastructure power, roads, and water through development taxes and fees levied on a private development. There was also a difference in the kind of development that took place, with Gurgaon becoming home to offices of multinational firms, malls, commercial and high-end residential complexes, and Noida catering more to government retirees. It is only in the last few years that Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad have been making efforts to attract multinational firms and to build more malls and commercial sites.33 It was Noida and Greater Noida that first started negotiating directly with the DMRC to bring the Delhi metro rail into their jurisdiction because of their previous experience in building and funding infrastructure in the city. For the Greater Noida Authority, it was part of a grand plan to develop Greater Noida. It was pursuing private and foreign funding and had already invested 100 billion rupees in developing the area; for example, by building an optic-fibre network in the region. The Authority saw Greater Noida as a major residential area for people working in Delhi and had allocated space for commercial enterprises that Delhi had removed.34 In April 2003, newspapers announced that the Delhi metro rail would extend to Noida’s Sectors 5 and 21.35 By September, the central government had approved the second phase of the metro, which would connect Noida, Vasant Kunj, and Azadpur. The DMRC was to prepare a detailed project report and subsequently get clearance of the route from the centre. Though both the state and central governments would contribute financially towards the project, the DMRC would pursue additional funding for this phase, through a loan from the Japan Bank of International Cooperation.36 Meanwhile in Haryana commercial interests dominated, as witnessed by the Gurgaon Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s suggestion to extend the metro corridor to Gurgaon because of increased commercial development in the area.37 In February 2003, S.C. Choudhary, commissioner cum secretary, Department of Industry, Haryana Government, had announced that the Haryana government had paid the central government 380 million rupees to extend the metro rail to Gurgaon.38 By September, the Haryana government-commissioned Rail India Technical and Economic Services to conduct a study (at a cost of 7.6 million rupees) and to prepare a detailed project report for a metro rail corridor to Gurgaon. The connection to Gurgaon was part of Phase IV of the Delhi Metro Rail Plan to be completed in 2025. In an attempt to expedite development of the line, the Haryana government approached the DMRC and agreed to pay for the section of the line that would be located in the state of Haryana.39 The idea of connecting the metro rail to the NCR was taking precedence. The NCR Planning Board was still working out the earlier plan for an IRBTS and Delhi Metro Rail started taking the position of fulfilling those plans.40 Yet, the IRBTS failed to take off, and in the NCR Planning Board

446  Anupama Mann accomplishments – in the 2007–2008 Ministry of Urban Development Annual Report – it had been dropped. Instead, the report said that the metro rail extension to NCR towns had been pursued with the Delhi metro and had subsequently been approved.41 Major coordination had been required between Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, the National Capital Region Planning Board, the Indian Railways, and the Government of India in developing plans for the IRBTS. Given these conditions, it would have been fairly difficult to start yet another implementing body like the DMRC, and one that would have had an even more difficult task of coordination between the different states and their respective organisations. The DMRC was a central and Delhi government enterprise and had already proven its worth with the successful completion of the first phase of the Delhi metro rail and its ability to negotiate with different agencies at various levels. The state governments and municipal authorities could negotiate directly with the DMRC to provide mass transit into their jurisdictions. It was similar to working with a private corporation, without political and bureaucratic delays, instead of pooling their resources without the assurance that the IRBTS would be built as each state desired individually. The DMRC had also introduced new urban rail transit technology that was not available with the Indian Railways, and it was the only corporation in the country to be able to do so. The Indian Railways had made it clear that they did not want to enter into urban railway projects because these involved huge losses. The DMRC had worked with the Japan Bank of International Cooperation to fund the MRTS and could negotiate financial support for the new routes in the NCR. Hence it was in a position to take over connections to the capital’s satellite towns, and then extend lines further into the NCR. The NCR Planning Board Regional Plan 2021 achievements included the MRTS for connecting Delhi to the NCR. However, the states kept pushing the railways to build rapid-rail transit along these lines.42 Most recently, the NCR states and the central Railways and Urban Development Ministries have signed a memorandum and articles of association for the National Capital Region Transport Corporation that will oversee the implementation of the RRTS.43 As seen in Figure 24.1, the RRTS routes are along existing suburban railway lines in the NCR.44 In the NCR Planning Board’s Functional Plan for National Capital Region 2032, the RRTS is ‘to connect regional towns to Delhi and sub-regional sectors’ and the Delhi metro to connect Delhi and central NCR, though it also shows proposed MRTS routes leading to all the regional towns.45 Whether both the RRTS and the MRTS will constitute the rapid transit network for the NCR remains to be seen. It is possible that the successful implementation of the MRTS may spur the development of the RRTS. Meanwhile, the Delhi Metro Rail in Phase III is building further into the NCR and will now connect to Greater Noida, Faridabad, and Ghaziabad.46 It plans to increase its network to include Bahadurgarh in Haryana, where unlike the previous towns, the Haryana government is planning new development along the

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  447 47

metro corridor. Similarly, in early July 2013, the central government and the NCR Planning Board added three more districts from Haryana and Rajasthan to the NCR, thereby considerably expanding its boundaries.48

Conclusion In the planning history of the Delhi metro rail, we see that both the national and local plans were focused on development of the NCR and an urban rail transit system in Delhi connecting to the NCR. They promoted railways as a suitable mode of transport for the distances in the region. There was confidence in the railways, which have a prestigious history in India as they have provided cheap and affordable mass transit for a growing population in a poor country. There were various actors and organisations at play in the NCR and Delhi Metro Rail plans. The forum where they overlapped and where open discussion and debate could take place, were the National Development Council meetings. The political representation of each level of government in the NDC had the same aims in mind – centrally planned development for economic growth while maintaining the imperatives of a socialist, democratic state. Even though there was unanimity on all fronts for the implementation of the Delhi metro rail and the development of the NCR, a lack of resources made it impossible for either to progress. Ironically, the member states of the NCR could only initiate and facilitate rapid development in their respective NCR areas with the enactment of constitutional amendments that gave municipal governments more authority, and with the involvement of the private sector and foreign direct investment after the economic reforms. Similarly, the Delhi metro rail only became a possibility when a loan became available from the Japan Bank of International Cooperation. The formation of the NCR Planning Board provided a forum for the grand vision of developing the NCR that then allowed different organisations at the state and national levels to pursue their agendas within the framework of this common goal when conditions became favourable. The Delhi Metro Rail project has been progressing rapidly with the second phase connecting to Delhi’s major satellite towns. The states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are negotiating directly with the DMRC to bring rapid mass transit to new urban developments in the NCR. The vision of the NCR as a well-connected system has been crucial in the unfolding of the Delhi metro since the NCR is a large enough geographical area to fit the scale and trip characteristics required for a rail-based MRTS.49 Hence the initial vision of regional development is now being fulfilled, but the initial reason that had been given for its pursuit – stopping the influx of migrants to Delhi – is no longer relevant. The focus now is on regional connectivity. Even as the economic conditions surrounding the development of the NCR and the Delhi Metro Rail have changed, resulting in very different kinds of urban development from what had been envisaged in the five-year plans (from centrally planned to private entrepreneurial to a combination of both), the

448  Anupama Mann objectives of regional development and connectivity through a rail-based mass transit system have remained unchanged from the 1950s to the present day. The language in the central and state government plans, as well as that of their politicians and bureaucrats, was simply adjusted to take into account the changing ground conditions surrounding the two developments. Though this observation is supported by other studies that say that ‘projects “live on” in the planning process despite major declines in viability’, it alone can hardly explain the project’s endurance.50 In politics and planning, transport infrastructure and regional development have remained constant objectives, necessary for the rapidly urbanising areas that surround major cities in India, even though the narratives surrounding them have changed. Though roads and personal transport provide an alternative, rail-based mass transit is in keeping not only with the socialist agenda of the country after it gained independence but also with a more capitalist agenda that the country adopted at the end of the twentieth century. It is not only the child of centrally planned development but also of decentralised market-driven forces. It provides an alternative to a majority section of the population that is without, or unable to use, private transport. The NCR is a mega-region in the Indian subcontinent. If currently, the national and state plan is to develop this region as a major economic urban centre in the country and possibly in the world, a fast railbased mass transport system is a viable strategy.51 This is especially true if such a strategy is implemented judiciously, based on the resources available to the centre and states in those areas that have already shown economic growth. The most significant impact of urban railways is the increased accessibility of distant areas, which leads to their economic development.52 The NCR is a compelling example of the use of urban railways to develop a region. Moreover, cities across the country are trying to emulate its example. In 2012, the Ministry of Urban Development and the central government announced that they would provide financial assistance to metro rail projects in cities all over the country with a population of over two million. The result was that some 19 urban agglomerations all over India decided to undertake Detailed Project Reports for metro rail projects. What is significant about them is that more than 90 per cent of these projects connect cities within the larger region or the urban agglomeration as it is called. This is significant evidence of the role of metro rail projects as harbingers of increasing boundaries of urban development.53 As the editors of this book have written in the introduction, the idea of railways being built to accelerate development in cities, towns, and villages is not new. What is new in this case and in the case of a number of regions in Europe and the USA, where high-speed rail is being upheld as the optimal mode of transport for connecting ‘mega-regions’, is that railways are now being introduced after urban development has taken place.54 In a sense, it is the return of the railways after a period of being out of favour with the public and academia. For mega-regions that are to defy nation-states as the new political units of the global economy, transport infrastructure that includes

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  449 high-speed railways, and urban rail connectivity are now being seen as important and necessary for further economic growth, and as an essential service for existing urban agglomerations.55 Nowhere is this more obvious than in the construction of the Delhi metro rail and the development of the NCR. My sister now lives in Gurgaon and works in Delhi. The metro rail provides her with an alternative to driving in the city’s increasing traffic and provides me with the alternative to visit her without feeling that I am going to a distant location beyond Delhi. She is so much more accessible because of this urban rail project.

Notes 1 National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Brochure on RP2021, site: Economic Activity and Policy Measures, http://ncrpb. nic.in/brochurerp2021.php (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 2 National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Regional Plan 2021, ch. 3: ‘Aims, Objectives and Policy Zones’, 18, http://ncrpb.nic. in/pdf_files/E07_CH03aims,%20objective%20&%20policy%20zones.pdf (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 3 G. Breese, Urban and Regional Planning for the Delhi–New Delhi Area: Capital for Conquerors and Country (Princeton, NJ 1974), 22. 4 R.G. Gupta, Master Plan for Delhi, prepared by the Delhi Development Authority and approved by the central government under the Delhi Development Act, 1957 (Delhi 1962), ch. I: ‘The Land Use Plan’, 11, http://rgplan.org/delhi/MasterPlan-For-Delhi_1962.pdf (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 5 Gupta, Master Plan, 91–93. 6 Breese (Urban and Regional Planning, 42) states that the Town Planning Organization’s National Capital Regional Plan proposed ‘a national spatial development strategy’ for ‘decentralisation of economic activity to check the rural exodus’ and the ‘development of linkages between metropolitan cities, medium-sized towns and the rural hinterland’. 7 Delhi Development Authority, Master Plan for Delhi Perspective 2001 (New Delhi 1990). 8 Planning Commission, Government of India, Third Five-Year Plan 1961–1966 (New Delhi 1961), ch. 9: ‘Balanced Regional Development’, paragraphs 18 and 25, http://planningcommission.gov.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/index9.html (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 9 N.S. Srinivasan, I. Chandra, Y. Suryanarayana, B.L. Suri, and A. Prakash, Rapid Transit System for Delhi. Central Road Research Institute (New Delhi 1975), reprinted from the Journal of the Institution of Engineers, 54, 3 January 1974. 10 Planning Commission, Government of India, Sixth Five-Year Plan 1980–1985 (New Delhi 1981), ch. 17: ‘Transport’, paragraph 17.24. 11 Planning Commission, Government of India, Fifth Five-Year Plan 1974–1979 (New Delhi 1976), ch. 5: ‘Plan Outlays and Programmes for Development’, paragraph 5.103, and Planning Commission, Government of India, Sixth Five-Year Plan 1980–1985, ch. 17: ‘Transport’, table 17.4. Planning Commission, Government of India, Seventh Five-Year Plan 1985–1989 (New Delhi 1985), vol. II, ch. 8: ‘Transport’, table 8.7. For all references to five-year plans see http://planningcommission. gov.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/index9.html (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 12 Planning Commission, Government of India, Seventh Five-Year Plan, vol. I, ch. 2: ‘Development Perspective: Towards the Year 2000’, paragraph 2.75.

450  Anupama Mann 13 Ibid., vol. II, ch. 8: ‘Transport’, paragraph 8.14. 14 National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, History (n.d.), http://ncrpb.nic.in/history.php (last accessed on 23 March 2013); Breese, Urban and Regional planning, 35; P.B. Rai and O.P. Gupta, Planning of the National Capital Region: Objective and Strategy for Development. Town and Country Planning Organization (New Delhi 1967), and Planning Commission, Government of India, Seventh Five-Year Plan, ch. 12: ‘Housing, Urban Development, Water Supply and Sanitation’, paragraph 12.38d. 15 National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Plans, Regional Plans 2001 (Delhi 1988), 25–26, http://ncrpb.nic. in/pdf_files/RP-2001.PDF (last accessed on 29 March 2011); T. Banerjee, ʻRole of Indicators in Monitoring Growing Urban Regions: The Case of Planning in India’s National Capital Regionʼ, Journal of the American Planning Association, 62, no. 2, 1996, 222–235; ABI/INFORM Global. Business Database by Proquest, 222. 16 S. Verma, Modalities of a Public Private Partnership in Implementation of Delhi’s Mass Rapid Transit System, 1, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/21001756/Modalitiesof-a-Public-Private-Partnership-In-implementation-of (last accessed on 23 March, 2013). 17 National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Regional Plan 2001, ch. 2: ‘Policy Zones’, 9. http://ncrpb. nic.in/regionalplan2001.php (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 18 Planning Commission, Government of India, Eighth Five-Year Plan 1992–1997 (New Delhi 1992), vol. II, ch 13: ‘Urban Development’, paragraph 13.5.27–29. 19 See RITES Ltd., Profile: ‘Three Decades of Global Experience: A Trusted Partner in Business’, http://www.rites.com/web/index.php?option=content&task=view& id=49&Itemid=93 (last accessed on 24 February 2011); RITES was under the aegis of the Indian Railways, established in 1974 and a Public Limited company. See also A.N. Bajpai, ʻJapanese Experts Coming to Finalize Rs. 10,000 Crore MRTS Projectʼ, The Observer, New Delhi, 6 July 1996. 20 A.C. Sarna, N.L. Bhatia, A. Prakash, D. Mukhopadhaya, and H.H. Suthar, Planning of Mass Rapid Transit System: A Case Study of Delhi, Central Road Research Institute Journal, Paper No. 418, vol. 53-3 (Delhi 1992). The surface rail was to connect Delhi’s central business district with the regional towns of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ballabhgarh, Sonepat, and Loni. The metro rail was to run along east-west and north-south corridors and the high-capacity bus system was to be developed along some of the congested corridors. Interchanges were planned between the systems at various places. 21 Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports, 1993– 1994 (New Delhi 1994), ch. 16: ‘Statutory and Autonomous Bodies’, 79, http:// www.urbanindia.nic.in/quickaccess/ann_report/1993-1994/English/16.pdf (last accessed on 29 March 2011). 22 See the ‘Preface to All NDC Reports’ by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, 2005, at Planning Commission, Government of India, National Development Council Reports (New Delhi 2005), http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/ index9.html (last accessed on 17 October 2007). 23 In 1952, the central government declared Delhi a Part C state. It meant that it was allowed to have a legislative assembly with a council of ministers. In 1956, this status was revoked and Delhi became a union territory, which meant that it came under the administration of the president and the central government. In 1992, it regained a legislative assembly, with 70 directly elected officials who held all power over decisions concerning Delhi except Public Order, Police, and Land, which came under the jurisdiction of the central government.

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  451 24 Thus, in the 26th and 27th meetings in 1969–1970, Vijay Kumar Malhotra (CEC), Delhi, from the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, first proposed that a metropolitan fund be created for Delhi and its surroundings, which would include the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, saying that ‘at least an amount of Rs. 25 crores should be earmarked for the development of the national capital region as a central plan programme’, Planning Commission, Government of India, National Development Council Reports, vols. 26–27, 32, 55, 56. Curbing the migrant influx was repeatedly cited as a reason to develop the NCR. From the 28th to the 31st NDC meetings, Radha Raman, the new CEC of Delhi, who was affiliated with the Congress Party, emphasised regional planning and requested inclusion of schemes for the NCR in the Fifth Five-Year Plan. See NDC Reports 28–31, p. 95. D.R. Kohli, lieutenant governor of Delhi, in the 32nd NDC meeting in March 1978 underscored the importance of regional development with growth centres that would help relieve migration and growth pressure on Delhi. See Planning Commission, Government of India, National Development Council Reports, vol. 32, 264–265. In the 35th NDC meeting in February 1981, the lieutenant governor, Shri Jagmohan, expressed satisfaction at the resource allocation for Delhi and said that a statutory board for the NCR would help regulate and direct investment in the entire region. See Planning Commission, Government of India, National Development Council Reports, vol. 35, 450. The CEC, Delhi, Jag Parvesh Chandra, from the Congress Party that had won the Delhi Metropolitan Council elections in 1983 [Election Commission of India, 1983], in the 38th meeting in November 1985 pointed to the problem of a growing population in Delhi. He emphasised the importance of implementing plans for the National Capital Region with major assistance from the centre to balance this growth. See Planning Commission, Government of India, National Development Council Reports, vol. 38, 107. This, as previously noted, led to the formation of the National Capital Region Planning Board in 1985. In the 44th National Development Council meeting in May 1992, Shri Bhajan Lal, the chief minister of Haryana, proposed that a peripheral railway be built around Delhi for daily interstate commuters. See Planning Commission, Government of India, Reports, Summary Records of Discussions of 50 NDC Meetings (New Delhi 2005), vol. IV: ‘Forty-Fourth Meeting of the National Development Council, 22–23 May 1992’, 388–389. The lieutenant governor of Delhi, P.K. Dave, asked for autonomy of the NCR Planning Board in order for it to formulate and execute projects at a regional level. He said that ‘in the modern world, when countries had selectively surrendered their sovereignties to regional groupings, this was not a strange concept’, ibid., 403–404. In the 46th meeting, he asked the central government to expedite investment decisions for projects in the NCR and the Delhi metro rail, saying that the development of the region was dependent on the development of the NCR. See Planning Commission, Government of India, Reports, Summary Records of Discussions of 59 NDC Meetings, vol. V: ‘Forty- Sixth Meeting of the National Development Council, 18 September 1993’, 68. 25 Delhi had a high rate of growth in the 1970s, a lower rate in the 1980s, and in the 1990s the rate increased much more than in most other states. The tertiary or service sector in Delhi then employed over 70 per cent of the population – the only city amongst 23 states to do so. See Planning Department, Government of NCT of Delhi, ‘Socioeconomic Profile of Delhi 2003–04’, http://delhiplanning. nic.in/Socioecoprofiles/finalsocioecoprofile.pdf (last accessed 25 March 2013). 26 Planning Commission, Government of India, Tenth Five-Year Plan 2002–2007 (New Delhi 2002), vol. III: ‘State Plans –Trends, Concerns and Strategies’, ch. 3: ‘Development Trends’, 37, http://planningcommission.gov.in/plans/planrel/ fiveyr/10th/volume3/10th_vol3.pdf (last accessed on 9 March 2011).

452  Anupama Mann 27 Jim Yardley, ‘India’s Way: In India, Dynamism Wrestles with Dysfunction’, New York Times, 8 June 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/world/asia/09gurgaon. html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss (last accessed on 8 July 2011). The article discusses the development of Gurgaon by private developers and their focus on specific sites rather than the necessary infrastructure. 28 Other decisions included having a common pin code, 50 per cent captive power to be made available to satellite towns of the NCR by the participating states, setting up a committee to standardise taxes, setting up a regional centre office in Delhi for relocation of commercial activities into other areas of the NCR, involvement of the private sector for infrastructure development. See A. Anand, ‘11,000 cr NCR Scheme to Decongest Delhi’, The Hindustan Times, Delhi, 20 August 1996. For transportation connection of the entire region, the chief minister of Delhi, Sahib Singh Verma, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian Peopleʼs Party), proposed a peripheral urban expressway connecting to the four national highways that would relieve Delhi of heavy traffic, and the speedy implementation of the MRTS. The chief minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal, stated that extending the NCR boundaries would help decongest Delhi, and said that the Mass Rapid Transit System did not cover other towns in the NCR, which were crucial in the plan to decongest Delhi. It was also decided that a transport committee was to be set up with the chairman of the Railway Board and chief secretaries of participating NCR states as members. The committee met on 24 September 1996 and suggested preparation of immediate, intermediate, and long-term plans for the development of rail infrastructure in the NCR. Based on this meeting the board initiated two studies for ‘Development of Integrated Plan of Rail Transport in NCR’ and ‘Identification of Rail Development Schemes for NCR Priority and DMA Towns, duly Integrated with MRTS System Proposed for Delhi’, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports. 1996–1997 (New Delhi 1997), ch. 13: ‘Statutory and Autonomous Bodies’, http://www.urbanindia.nic.in/quickaccess/ ann_report/1996–1997/English/13.pdf (last accessed on 29 March 2011). 29 S. Mehdudia, ʻNew Rail-bus Transit System on the Anvilʼ, The Hindu, Delhi, 22 January 2002. 30 G. Veda, ʻProject Teams Trains, Buses for Half-a-Million Commutersʼ, The Indian Express, Delhi, 9 August 2002. 31 ʻDecks Cleared for Integrated Transit Systemʼ, The Hindu, Delhi, 11 August 2002. 32 Its aims were ‘to promote growth and balanced development of the National Capital Region (…) through (…) providing suitable economic base for future growth by identification and development of regional settlements capable of absorbing the economic development impulse of NCT-Delhi (…) to provide efficient and economic rail and road based transportation network (including mass transport systems) well integrated with the land use patterns, to support balanced regional development in such identified settlements’, National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, National Capital Region (NCR). Regional Plan-2021 (Delhi 2005), ch. 3: ‘Aims, Objectives and Policy Zones’, 18, http://ncrpb.nic.in/pdf_files/E07_CH03aims,%20objective%20 &%20policy%20zones.pdf (last accessed on 18 March 2011). 33 Arati R. Jerath and Prabhakar Sinha, ʻNoida vs Gurgaon: Battle of “Burbs”ʼ, The Times of India, The Crest Edition, 5 November 2011, http://www.timescrest.com/ opinion/noida-vs-gurgoan-battle-of-burbs-6588 (last accessed on 20 April 2012). 34 A. Bhati, ʻPlan to Extend Delhi’s Metro to Agraʼ, The Hindu, Delhi, 16 May 2002. 35 ʻGovts Get Proposal for Metro’s Run till Noida’, The Indian Express, Delhi, 19 April 2003. 36 A. Sasi, ʻDelhi Government Okays Phase-II of Metroʼ, Business Standard, Delhi, 20 September 2002; Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports, 2007–2008 (New Delhi 2008), ch. 7: ‘Urban Transport’, 46–58,

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  453 http://www.urbanindia.nic.in/quickaccess/ann_report/2007_2008/2007_2008. pdf (last accessed on 29 March 2011). 37 ‘According to GCCI (Gurgaon Chamber of Commerce and Industry) Secretary S.K. Ahuja, Gurgaon is presently passing through a phase in which the cream of the industrial and corporate sector are shifting their place to the city or its suburbs.’ S. Bhattacharya, ‘Extend the Delhi Metro all the way to Gurgaon: Panel’, The Indian Express, Delhi, 4 June 2001. 38 ‘Dilli-gurgaon marg par metro rail ka khaka kuch he mahinon mein (Metro Rail Plan for Delhi-Gurgaon Route in a Few Months)’, Navbharat Times, Delhi, 28 August 2003. 39 R. Rao, ‘Gurgaon Smells Metro, Sanctions Report’, The Indian Express, Delhi, 3 September 2003. 40 A. Mukherjee, ‘Links to NCR on the Cards’, The Times of India, Delhi, 7 August 2003. 41 ‘In order to provide the connectivity of Delhi Metro to NCR towns, namely, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Bahadurgarh of Haryana Sub-region and Noida & Ghaziabad of U.P. Sub-region, the matter was pursued with the Delhi Metro and the proposals for providing Mass Commuter System to NCR towns through extension of Delhi Metro to these towns has been approved. Work on Delhi-Gurgaon and Delhi-Noida corridors is in progress’, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports, 2007–2008, ch. 15: ‘Autonomous and Statutory Bodies’, 180. 42 ʻExpand Railways in Gurgaon on the Lines of Metro: MPʼ, The Times of India of 9 March 2011, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-09/gurgaon/ 28672294_1_ncr-planning-ncr-region-railway-minister (last accessed on 29 March 2011). 43 Manveer Saini, ʻRegional Rapid Transit System for NCR finally Takes Off’, The Times of India, of 1 August 2013, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/201308-01/chandigarh/40960657_1_ncr-planning-board-corridors-urban-development (last accessed on 11 September 2013). 44 Rajiv Jayaram, ʻDedicated Rail Network Plan for NCR on Track’, The Economic Times of 16 May 2012, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-16/ news/31726995_1_rail-corridors-ncr-planning-board-national-capital-region (last accessed on 11 September 2013). 45 Functional Plan on Transport for National Capital Region-2032, National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, 11 November 2009, p. 2 http://ncrpb.nic.in/pdf_files/Functional%20 Plan%20on%20Transport%20for%20NCR-2032.pdf (last accessed on 11 September 2013). 46 S. Ray, ʻMetro Phase 3 Proposal: Fresh Plan to Cover Ring Road, Add New Linesʼ, The Hindustan Times of 31 January 2011, http://www.hindustantimes.com/ News-Feed/newdelhi/Metro-phase-3-proposal-Fresh-plan-to-cover-Ring-Roadadd-new-lines/Article1-656938.aspx (last accessed on 29 March 2011). S. Ray, ‘National METROpolitan Region’, The Hindustan Times of 25 January 2012. 47 ʻNow Metro to Link Bahadurgarh too’, The Hindu of 3 February 2013, http:// www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/now-metro-to-linkbahadurgarh-too/article4374132.ece (last accessed on 16 September 2013). 48 ‘National Capital Region to Include 3 More Districts’, The Hindu, ‘Business Line’, 1 July 2013, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/states/national-capitalregion-to-include-3-more-districts/article4869931.ece (last accessed on 25 July 2013). 49 This is also supported by the fact that existing Indian Railways Inter-State and Inter-City trains connecting to Delhi are running full and need more capacity. See P. Birla, ʻRing Rail Nothing More than a Merry-go-wrongʼ, The Indian Express, Delhi, 18 April 2002.

454  Anupama Mann 50 B. Flyvbjerg, N. Bruzelius, and W. Rothengatter, Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition (Cambridge 2003), 42. 51 R. Florida, T. Gulden, and C. Mellander, ʻThe Rise of the Mega-Regionʼ, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 1, 2008, 459–476, http://www. lombardglobal.com/attachments/The_Rise_Of_MegaregionsTim_Gulden.pdf (last accessed on 29 March 2011). I found this website: http://lombardglobal. com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/The_Rise_Of_MegaregionsTim_ Gulden.pdf (last accessed on 23 March 2013). 52 Robert Cervero, ʻBeyond Travel Time Savings’, Department for International Development, The World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011, http://siteresources.worldbank. org/INTTRANSPORT/Resources/336291-1239112757744/5997693-1294344242332/ Traveltimesaving.pdf (last accessed on 10 October 2013). 53 Anupama Mann, ʻIndian Metro Plans Will Boost Growth of Mega-regions’, Oxford Analytica Asia Pacific Daily Brief, 31 July 2013, https://www.oxan.com/ display.aspx?ItemID=DB184931 (last accessed on 16 September 2013) © 2013 Oxford Analytica Limited. 54 Y. Hagler and P. Todorovich, ʻWhere High-Speed Rail Works Best – America 2050ʼ, http://www.america2050.org/pdf/2050_Report_Where_HSR_Works_Best. pdf (last accessed on 29 March 2011). 55 Florida, Gulden, and Mellander, ʻThe Rise of the Mega-Regionʼ. Also see Alan Ehrenhalt, ‘The Rise of the Megaregion’, Governing, Economic Development, January 2010, http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/The-Rise-of-the. html (last accessed on 14 September 2013).

Literature Anand, A., ‘11,000 cr NCR Scheme to Decongest Delhi’, The Hindustan Times, Delhi, 20 August 1996. Bajpai, A.N., ʻJapanese Experts Coming to Finalize Rs. 10,000 Crore MRTS Projectʼ, The Observer, New Delhi, 6 July 1996. Banerjee, T., ʻRole of Indicators in Monitoring Growing Urban Regions: The Case of Planning in India’s National Capital Regionʼ, Journal of the American Planning Association, 62, no. 2, 1996, 222–235. Bhati, A., ʻPlan to Extend Delhi’s Metro to Agraʼ, The Hindu, Delhi, 16 May 2002. Bhattacharya, S., ‘Extend the Delhi Metro all the Way to Gurgaon: Panel’, The Indian Express, Delhi, 4 June 2001. Birla, P., ʻRing Rail Nothing More than a Merry-go-wrongʼ, The Indian Express, Delhi, 18 April 2002. Breese, G., Urban and Regional Planning for the Delhi-New Delhi Area: Capital for Conquerors and Country (Princeton, NJ 1974). Cervero, Robert, ‘Beyond Travel Time Savingsʼ, Department for International Development, The World Bank (Washington, DC 2011). ʻDecks Cleared for Integrated Transit Systemʼ, The Hindu, Delhi, 11 August 2002. Delhi Development Authority, Master Plan for Delhi Perspective 2001 (New Delhi 1990). ‘Dilli-gurgaon marg par metro rail ka khaka kuch he mahinon mein (Metro Rail Plan for Delhi-Gurgaon Route in a Few Months)’, Navbharat Times, Delhi, 28 August 2003. Ehrenhalt, Alan, ‘The Rise of the Megaregion’, Governing, Economic Development, January 2010.

The Delhi Metro Rail and the NCR  455 ʻExpand Railways in Gurgaon on the Lines of Metro: MPʼ, The Times of India of 9 March 2011. Florida, R., Gulden, T., and Mellander, C., ʻThe Rise of the Mega-Regionʼ, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 1, 2008, 459–476. Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N., and Rothengatter, W., Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition (Cambridge 2003). ʻGovts Get Proposal for Metro’s Run till Noida’, The Indian Express, Delhi, 19 April 2003. Gupta, R.G., Master Plan for Delhi, prepared by the Delhi Development Authority and approved by the central government under the Delhi Development Act, 1957 (Delhi 1962). Hagler, Y. and Todorovich, P., ʻWhere High-Speed Rail Works Best – America 2050ʼ, http://www.america2050.org/pdf/2050_Report_Where_HSR_Works_Best. pdf (last accessed on 29 March 2011). Jayaram, Rajiv, ʻDedicated Rail Network Plan for NCR on Track’, The Economic Times, Delhi, 16 May 2012. Jerath, Arati R., and Sinha, Prabhakar, ʻNoida vs Gurgaon: Battle of “Burbs”ʼ, The Times of India, The Crest Edition, 5 November 2011. Mann, Anupama, ’Indian Metro Plans Will Boost Growth of Mega-regions’, Oxford Analytica Asia Pacific Daily Brief, 31 July 2013. Mehdudia, S., ʻNew Rail-bus Transit System on the Anvilʼ, The Hindu, Delhi, 22 January 2002. Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports, 1993–1994 (New Delhi 1994). Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports, 1996–1997 (New Delhi 1997). Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Annual Reports, 2007–2008 (New Delhi 2008). Mukherjee, A., ‘Links to NCR on the Cards’, The Times of India, Delhi, 7 August 2003. National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Functional Plan on Transport for National Capital Region-2032 (Delhi 2009). National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Plans, Regional Plans 2001 (Delhi 1988). National Capital Region Planning Board, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Regional Plan 2001 (Delhi 1988). National Capital Region to Include 3 More Districts, The Hindu, Business Line (Delhi, India), 1 July 2013. ʻNow Metro to Link Bahadurgarh Too’, The Hindu, Delhi, 3 February 2013. Planning Commission, Government of India, Third Five-Year Plan 1961–1966 (New Delhi 1961). Planning Commission, Government of India, Fifth Five-Year Plan 1974–1979 (New Delhi 1976). Planning Commission, Government of India, Sixth Five-Year Plan 1980–1985 (New Delhi 1981). Planning Commission, Government of India, Seventh Five-Year Plan 1985–1989 (New Delhi 1985).

456  Anupama Mann Planning Commission, Government of India, Eighth Five-Year Plan 1992–1997 (New Delhi 1992). Planning Commission, Government of India, Tenth Five-Year Plan 2002–2007 (New Delhi 2002). Planning Commission, Government of India, Reports, Summary Records of Discussions of 50 NDC Meetings (New Delhi 2005). Rai, B. and Gupta, O.P., Planning of the National Capital Region: Objective and Strategy for Development. Town and Country Planning Organization (New Delhi 1967). Rao, R., ‘Gurgaon Smells Metro, Sanctions Report’, The Indian Express, Delhi, 3 September 2003. Ray, S., ʻMetro Phase 3 Proposal: Fresh Plan to Cover Ring Road, Add New Linesʼ, The Hindustan Times, Delhi, 31 January 2011. Ray, S., ʻNational METROpolitan Region’. The Hindustan Times of 25 January 2012. Saini, Manveer, ’Regional Rapid Transit System for NCR Finally Takes Off’, The Times of India, Delhi, 1 August 2013. Sarna, A.C., Bhatia, N.L., Prakash, A., Mukhopadhaya, D., and Suthar, H.H., Planning of Mass Rapid Transit System: A Case Study of Delhi, Central Road Research Institute Journal, Paper No. 418, vol. 53-3 (Delhi 1992). Sasi, A., ʻDelhi Government Okays Phase-II of Metroʼ, Business Standard, Delhi, 20 September 2002. Srinivasan, N.S., Chandra, I., Suryanarayana¸ Y., Suri, B.L., and Prakash, A., Rapid Transit System for Delhi. Central Road Research Institute (New Delhi 1975). Veda, G., ʻProject Teams Trains, Buses for Half 1 Million Commutersʼ, The Indian Express, Delhi, 9 August 2002. Verma, S., Modalities of a Public Private Partnership in Implementation of Delhi’s Mass Rapid Transit System, 1, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/21001756/Modalities-of-aPublic-Private-Partnership-In-implementation-of (last accessed on 23 March, 2011). Yardley, Jim, ‘India’s Way: In India, Dynamism Wrestles with Dysfunction’, New York Times of 8 June 2011.

25 Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict The Case of the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project in India Ramachandraiah Chigurupati Introduction Growing vehicular pollution, increased congestion, reduced speeds, and growing stress in urban commuting have become the order of the day in India’s megacities. Public transport systems, non-motorised modes, and pedestrians have been receiving low priority and are now getting squeezed out on the roads. A rapidly growing economy, availability of modern vehicles within the reach of the middle class, and easy options of vehicle financing have contributed to a phenomenal growth of private vehicles. Since the opening of the Delhi Metro Rail in 2002, similar projects have been initiated in other major cities with heavy investments. While there is an urgent need in Hyderabad city to strengthen the existing bus and train systems that are carrying some three million passengers daily and to design an integrated mass rapid transit system, the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP), instead, has taken up an expensive megaproject, Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR). This elevated rail corridor covers 71.16 kilometres on three routes and necessitates large-scale demolition of buildings in the core city. Promoted under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode in the neoliberal economic framework, the concession agreement for this project entails allocation of land and a series of favours to the private bidder, Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T). The inevitability of metro rail and the claim to provide ‘world-class’ transport to the public in Hyderabad, while simultaneously weakening the existing public transport systems, have been carefully orchestrated in the last few years. By signing the concession agreement without even issuing land acquisition notices and preparing a resettlement and rehabilitation package, the HMR, as a strategy, has tried to create a fear psychosis in the people along the proposed metro routes regarding the inevitability of giving up their properties on the ground that, since the government has already signed the contract, it will not reconsider. What has been singularly lacking in the proposed project is transparency and civic engagement. The demands made by political parties, intellectuals, and civil society groups to get the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) and

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204749-31

458  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati initiate an informed debate, went in vain. The Citizens for a Better Public Transportation in Hyderabad (CBPTH), a coalition of civil society organisations and individuals, conducted a series of activities to highlight several negative dimensions of the HMR, exposed the concession agreement, and raised serious objections to this project in its design, scale of demolitions, defacement of the city and its heritage buildings including the Legislative Assembly.1 The CBPTH followed several methods in advocacy, including legal options, to raise awareness and stop this project. Even while the legal issues are pending, work on the HMR has been started several months back and 5 July 2012 was declared as the starting date for the construction of the project. From this date, there will be a five-year construction period and a 30-year lease period for the project. The present essay discusses these issues.

The City and the Project Hyderabad is the sixth-largest city in India with about eight million people. In recent decades the city has grown at a much faster rate in the peripheries than in the core. In April 2007 the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH with 172 square kilometres) was enlarged to constitute the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) with an area of 658 square kilometres. In August 2008, the physical boundaries of the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) with 1,865 square kilometres were enlarged to a vast area of 6,856 square kilometres to form the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA). While the GHMC is the local government, the HMDA is a planning authority. The HMR project comprises three routes for a length of 71.16 kilometres: Line 1 from Miyapur to Lal Bahadur Nagar (29.87 kilometres); Line 2 from Jubilee Bus Station (JBS) to Falaknuma (14.78 kilometres); and Line 3 from Nagole to Shilparamam (26.51 kilometres). The entire project is an elevated corridor along the central meridian of roads with two parallel tracks of rails, and 66 stations which will have long additional platforms with staircases, escalators, lifts, et cetera. The elevated track will be at a height of 35–50 feet (15.24 metres), at some places as high as 70–100 feet (21.34–30.48 metres) in the thickly built core city. Huge shopping complexes and malls are likely to be developed at several metro stations. The estimated traffic demand is about 1.5 million passengers per day in 2014 and 2.2 million by 2024. The lease period of 35 years can be extended for another 25 years. This project has been touted as the biggest PPP project in India (at times even in the world!) in which the central government has a share in the form of viability gap funding. The infrastructure company L&T emerged as the lowest bidder on 14 July 2010 seeking 1.450 crore rupees (254.4 million US dollars) as viability gap funding from the government, which was the lowest amount compared to other bidders.2 The project cost was pegged at 12,132 crore rupees (2,128.4 million US dollars). The L&T can undertake real-estate development up to 18.5 million square feet in the allotted land. The total land available to

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  459 the concessionaire is 269 acres at three terminal points – Miyapur, Falaknuma, and Nagole – and 57 acres at 25 stations in the core city. In addition, ten prime properties of the GHMC worth twelve acres are also listed to be transferred to the L&T. The GoAP and L&T Hyderabad Metro Rail Private Limited (floated by L&T as a special-purpose vehicle) signed the concession agreement for the HMR project on 4 September 2010. Prior to L&T getting this project, a consortium in which Maytas Infra was a major partner, acquired the project in the so-called global bidding in July 2008. It was a firm owned by a son of Satyam Computers’ former chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju. This consortium, while rejecting viability gap funding from the government, offered to pay in return to the state government a royalty of 30,311 crore rupees (5,317.7 million US dollars). It was even exclaimed that Hyderabad was going to get the metro rail ‘for free’, at ‘zero cost to governments and city administrations’.3 Due to the economic recession and accounting fraud at Satyam Computers, Maytas Infra could not achieve financial closure and the agreement was eventually cancelled on 7 July 2009. There were suspicions that the acquisition of the metro project by Maytas and Ramalinga Raju’s failed attempt to take over the firms managed by his two sons were all related.4 Fresh tenders were called on 14 July 2009. After several postponements, the L&T was finally selected for this project taken up on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis as a PPP project.

Implications and Concerns Large-Scale Demolitions and Defacement This is the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in Hyderabad’s history and yet its details have been least known to the public. The physical skyline of the city is set to get defaced by the elevated corridors crisscrossing the busy streets, by large-scale demolition of buildings, and by damage to historic heritage precincts. Large portions of the old and pedestrian shopping areas on narrow roads from Kacheguda crossroads through Badi Chawdi, Sultan Bazaar, and Koti (hereafter called Sultan Bazaar) will have to be demolished for metro rail construction. Sultan Bazaar is also known as a heritage bazaar. It has evolved over 200 years since the British set up their residency in an adjacent area during the Muslim rule. The road from Greenlands via Ameerpet to Krishnanagar (hereafter called Ameerpet area) will face large-scale demolitions. In a cleverly camouflaged argument, these are passed off as required under the road-widening plan of the master plan and not for the HMR. This is to minimise the negative reaction against the HMR. The buildings adjacent to four flyovers on Line 3 (near Patney, Paradise, Begumpet airport, and Begumpet railway station) will face large-scale demolition to provide space for the parallel rail corridor. The metro corridors will have to cross over the existing flyovers at three places and the corridors will have to intersect each other at three places, all in the thickly built core areas.

460  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati Threat to Heritage Buildings and High Noise Levels Heritage buildings represent the past and remind present and future generations of history, culture, architecture, and political systems. Hyderabad has a number of such buildings. The elevated metro is going to deface several heritage precincts in the city. The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Hyderabad Chapter, has felt that the project would spell doom for Hyderabad’s heritage if implemented in the present form. In front of the Assembly, a building of monumental importance to the city, the elevated corridor will pass at a height of about 45 feet (13.72 metres) with a station in the front, thus totally dwarfing not only the building but the entire precinct of the adjacent public gardens.5 The noise level of up to 85 dB generated by the metro rail would seriously hamper the peacefulness of the residential and silence-zone areas where noise levels should not exceed the limits set by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Government of India.6 Thousands of middle-class and low-income people live in close proximity along the proposed metro routes.7 The silence-zone areas – like hospitals, educational institutions, and religious places, where the noise levels should not exceed 50dB (A) during the day and 45dB (A) at night – will face serious disturbances. In a quick survey, we noticed about 320 places falling in the silence-zone category on either side of the three metro routes. Their number may increase if the survey covers a distance of up to 100 metres within which the CPCB’s Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules of 2000 are applicable. Cost Escalation Evidence for thirteen metro rail projects shows that six of them had cost overruns exceeding 50 per cent, with two of them in the range of 100–500 per cent. And three metros had overruns in the 20–50 per cent range.8 An analysis of 258 transportation infrastructure projects in different countries revealed that ‘the cost estimates of such projects were highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is lying’.9 For the HMR, even before work began, the cost had escalated by more than 100 per cent in three years during 2005–2008, from about 6,000 to over 12,000 crore rupees (1,052.6 million to over 2,105.3 million US dollars). When the L&T was selected, the cost was pegged at the same figure (12,132 crore rupees or 2,128.4 million US dollars) as had been the case with Maytas. However, in May 2011 the L&T announced a cost escalation of the project by 2,000 crore rupees (350.9 million US dollars) and an additional 2,243 crore rupees (393.5 million US dollars) towards real-estate cost. That raised the total project cost to 16,375 crore rupees (2,872.8 million US dollars). As of June 2012, the total project cost is estimated to exceed 20,000 crore rupees (3,508.8 million US dollars).10 In light of international experience, the project cost may reach or

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  461 exceed 25,000 crore rupees (4,386 million US dollars), i.e., about 350 crore rupees per kilometre (61.4 million US dollars) by the time of its completion.

Civic Conflict Lack of Transparency The HMR project has been taken up under the Andhra Pradesh Municipal Tramways (Construction, Operation, and Maintenance) Act of 2008. Under this Act, upon receiving a request from a municipal authority (Section 3), the GoAP should publish an order inviting objections or suggestions from the public, and publish a final notification after duly taking into consideration those objections resp. suggestions (Section 4). The GoAP has denied the public this right by taking shelter under Section 5, which says that the government may enter into an agreement or any other arrangement through an open bidding process for any municipal area. Thus, the GoAP has made the options of informing the public and also of denying the right to know dependent on who initiates the project! In the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed between the Government of India, GoAP, and the MCH for Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) funds, the claim is made that the MCH will take up the HMR project.11 The occasional briefings to the media and a few official gatherings are sought to be passed off as public consultations by HMR authorities. This project in its entirety has not been debated on a public platform even once. Until Maytas was selected in late July 2008, the HMR officials refused to provide DPRs, despite the Right to Information Act of 2005, on the ground that they ‘contain valuable technical data, designs and other information which have high commercial value’ and that ‘the BOT tender process is still on’.12 Several requests made under the Right to Information Act by different applicants were not even answered before the bidding was over. The officials refused to share information despite several efforts made by political parties, intellectuals, and civil society groups to get the documents and initiate an informed debate.13 Information was provided selectively after the bidding was over. The only debate that has occurred on this project was the result of the efforts of CBPTH. To highlight the negative consequences of this project and also to present the available alternatives to improve public transportation in the city, the CBPHT has primarily adopted these four methods: (1) dissemination through media (print and electronic); (2) outreach to different groups of people; (3) direct actions; and (4) legal remedies. Dissemination through Media There are a number of newspapers and television channels in Andhra Pradesh state which bring news and analysis to the people all the time. Dissemination is done primarily by holding ‘press meets’, with a prior notice, at one of the two

462  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati designated places where such ‘meets’ are held in the city – the press club and the news services syndicate. A written ‘press statement’ is circulated to media reporters, the contents are explained, and questions answered. Generally, a team of three to five members is present to brief the media. This team may include an important person who is not necessarily part of the CBPTH but agrees with its perspective. The whole ‘meet’ lasts one hour at most. Additionally, television channels ask for ‘voice/byte’ separately. ‘Press statements’ can also be sent to the media without directly addressing them, but coverage is better when they are directly addressed. We have conducted a number of such ‘press meets’ in the past few years. The issue received good coverage because we were not only critical of the HMR but also indicated which measures needed to be taken urgently to improve public transportation and provided low-cost alternatives to the elevated metro rail as well. In the very first instance, we published a two-page leaflet entitled ‘Citizen declaration for a better public transport in Hyderabad’ in English and Telugu (local language in Andhra Pradesh) and released it to the media. Later on, whenever we became aware of some aspect of the HMR that was detrimental to the public or to the city, we held ‘press meets’. Our approach was not to blindly oppose the HMR project but to question why such and such measures were, or were not, taken.14 Slowly we started to become more visible in the media and we were identified with a viewpoint that holds that this elevated metro is not at all desirable and that much is hidden from the public. We emphasised the fact that the DPRs were not being shared with the public despite the Right to Information Act, and asked why these documents were not accessible if the metro project were so good for the public. We raised suspicions about this project. We also held the view, tactfully, that if the metro was required at all, it should be underground. Our ‘press meet’ with representatives of five opposition political parties on 6 June 2008 was hugely successful in terms of media coverage. Lack of transparency in the project and, hence, an implicitly scandalous nature was highlighted. The demand was made that the project be kept on hold for six months, that all documents become public, and that a debate be held. A letter written to the HMR authorities based on this press meet did not elicit any response. Despite all this, the project was awarded to the Maytas consortium in July 2008. The CBPTH was the first to smell a scandal in this deal when Maytas was selected based on a return payment of over 30,311 crore rupees (5,317.7 million US dollars). Even before the successful bidder was made public in Hyderabad, the deputy chairman of the planning commission, Government of India, had written to the prime minister about the positive nature of this deal. The subject received more attention after the managing director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, who had until then been the prime consultant to the HMR, withdrew in September 2009. He made several scathing remarks on the bidding process for this project in a letter to the deputy chairman of the planning commission, Government of

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  463 India, on 11 September 2008. He explained that this could lead to a political scandal in the future and that real-estate interests had been prominent in this project. Based on his letter, an English financial daily published a news item on 21 September and two Telugu newspapers had front-page headlines of the same topic in Andhra Pradesh the next day. Thus, several issues of the HMR were brought to centre stage. Shaken by the exposure from their own consultant – a man known as the godfather of metro rails in India – the HMR officials reacted strongly, demanded an unconditional apology, and threatened to file a defamation suit against him. Sreedharan refused to apologise and the DMRC and the GoAP parted ways.15 After this, the nature of the debate turned heavily against the metro rail. The views held by the CBPTH gained credibility in a significant way and the media started seeking the views of the activists (especially the present author) on various dimensions of this project (see Figure 25.1). The government’s image was dented severely after the Satyam Computers scandal which eventually led to the scrapping of the concession agreement with Maytas in July 2009.16 We have written several analytical articles in the vernacular media on the HMR project. Television channels have conducted discussions in which the present author was a key participant. We have also used the internet and social media for our campaign.17 In the process of

Figure 25.1  A Collage of Some of the Titles of Media Coverage of the Issues Raised by CBPTH. Source: Authorʼs collection.

464  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati interacting with or using the media, we have brought many of the concerns expressed above into the public domain. We have also exposed several provisions of the concession agreement that are detrimental to the public interest and are blatantly favourable to private parties. For instance, the clause on Competing Facility enables L&T to exercise a monopoly on passengers on the three routes and empowers it to levy higher tariffs during peak hours. The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) may not be allowed in the future to introduce modern buses for public comfort on these routes. This clause sounds like a death knell to the APSRTC in the city where it is earning profits and needs strengthening.18 The responsibility of providing cheap mass public transport has been negated. We also seriously questioned the claims of HMR officials that 1.5 million passengers will travel by metro in 2015. In the concession agreements, the number of passenger kilometres has been reduced to 21.4 million per day by 1 October 2024 for L&T, compared to 27.5 million by 1 October 2021 for Maytas. It is scandalous that this number has been reduced, instead of increased, as the years pass by. Moreover, the proposed metro routes will not serve areas that are not currently served by the existing railway lines, except for a few places. Outreach to People To begin with, we prepared a PowerPoint presentation detailing the available alternatives to improve public transportation, the specificities of the city, and how the present model of HMR as an elevated corridor will not serve the purpose. We met with different political leaders and made presentations in colleges and universities, and to civil society groups and business associations, and we also conducted debates. We were open-minded, willing to answer all types of questions. We kept our integrity at impeccably high levels.19 Lack of transparency in decision-making and non-sharing of the DPRs by the HMR officials even under the Right to Information Act usually surprised the audiences and helped strengthen our viewpoints. In October 2010, a 44-page booklet entitled ʻHyderabad’s Elevated Metro Rail-The Undoing of the City and Its Public Transportʼ was published by the CBPTH. A number of issues connected with urban mobility and public transportation, the city’s heritage, harmful provisions of the concession agreement, and a detailed note (along with costs) on the alternative model suggested by the CBPTH vis-à-vis the HMR were presented in this booklet. It was released in a meeting attended by civil society activists, some financial experts, and media representatives. The booklet also contained photos of the elevated metro in Delhi and Bengaluru (under construction) to show what it would mean to have such structures on Hyderabad’s streets, and it demanded a strong political will to make public transport a comfortable and dignified experience in Hyderabad rather than this costly megaproject. With the efforts made in the last several months, the CBPTH has succeeded, at least partially, in bringing the HMR into the domain of public debate.

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  465 The CBPTH also received full support in this regard from several human rights and environmental organisations. In a significant move, under the banner of the National Alliance of Peoples Movements (NAPM), noted social activists addressed a letter on 26 March 2012 to the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, and the then Union Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, expressing concerns on the negative impact of the HMR project. Some of the leading activists who signed the letter were Medha Patkar, four Magsaysay awardees (Aruna Roy, Rajendra Singh, Arvind Kejriwal, and Sandeep Pandey), besides the former Union Power Secretary, E.A.S. Sarma, and the former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Pushpa Mittra Bhargava. They demanded that the HMR project be subjected to rigorous environmental and economic scrutiny, without which it is likely to become another scam. Direct Actions Several times we held silent demonstrations in front of the Metro Rail Bhavan. Though our number used to be small (15–50), our placards, banners, and the ‘press statement’ conveyed the significance of our protest. One of the important demonstrations against this project was conducted by the traders in the Sultan Bazaar area on Line 2. Civil society activists played a key role in educating the traders in this area.20 It should be noted that the latter got into direct action only after failing to get any satisfactory response from the various political leaders they had met in the previous weeks. At that time they had been issued land acquisition notices for the takeover of their properties for road widening. The areas of Kacheguda-Badi Chawdi-Sultan Bazaar-Koti-Putli Bowli (hereafter jointly called Sultan Bazaar) are linked to the history of the city, providing markets for middle- and low-income people and witness heavy pedestrian flows from morning till night. Despite the emergence of several shopping malls in the post-liberalisation period, the crowds in these older markets have not dwindled. At any given time, one can find more pedestrians in this area than vehicles. Every narrow lane in this area is a market of some kind. This heritage bazaar faces the threat of total demolition for road widening to facilitate construction of the metro. Traders in this area rose in revolt against the corridor with the slogan: ʻMetro either go underground or get outʼ. Their opposition was more against the demolition, and for protection of this heritage bazaar and their livelihoods, than against the HMR. They organised public meetings, held rallies, and observed bandhs (shut-down of shops) on three different days within a six-month span from January to June 2011. The issue has still not been resolved. The traders formed a joint-action committee and rejected the HMR’s proposal to build a commercial complex nearby to help the displaced traders relocate their businesses. Their agitation was about to take a pro-Hindu turn after a change in the alignment of Line 2 was

466  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati announced by the HMR in the Muslim-dominated old city due to pressure by the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party. The HMR has stopped making an official change in the alignment. The traders in the Ameerpet area on Line 3 organised protest actions against the HMR with demands similar to those of the Sultan Bazaar traders. One of their main demands was that the metro alignment be changed from this area, as was the original plan. They alleged that the alignment was shifted to this area to protect some vested interests on the earlier proposed route. Agitation in this area was less aggressive. Here, too, the traders formed a joint-action committee and later filed a petition in the Andhra Pradesh High Court.21 The students of three government schools in Chaderghat (on Line 1) protested against the metro project because it is going to demolish their schools. Legal Actions We tried, simultaneously, to challenge the HMR for not meeting the several environmental laws in the country. A writ petition (No. 18483 of 2008) was filed in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh in August 2008 as ‘public interest litigation’ (PIL) by the present author and Omim Manekshaw Debara, general secretary of the Forum for a Better Hyderabad.22 Since the 1980s, the PIL has altered the litigation landscape and the role of the higher judiciary in India. Instead of being asked to resolve private disputes, the Supreme Court and High Court judges are asked to deal with public grievances over flagrant human rights violations by the state or to vindicate public policies embodied in statutes. This form of litigation was initiated and fostered in India by a few judges of the Supreme Court, most notably by Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice Bhagwati. They relaxed the traditional rules governing ‘standing’ (locus standi) to redress public grievances. Traditionally, only the person whose own right was in jeopardy was entitled to seek a remedy through litigation. Both judges worked in various capacities to broaden the rule of locus standi as a means of encouraging PIL. This modification permits the volunteers to file petitions on behalf of others.23 The PIL on the HMR raised several issues. Arguments were held on a couple of occasions. Soon the Satyam scandal broke out and Maytas was not able to achieve financial closure. The PIL became confined to the list of pending cases. After the project was awarded to L&T, our efforts to get the petition heard or disposed of proved in vain.24 In the process of filing counter affidavits and rejoinders, valuable information was made available to the court. One example was the issue of environmental clearance of the HMR by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India. The MoEF first included ʻMRTS in Metro Citiesʼ for mandatory environmental clearance in the Draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification dated 15 September 2005 but excluded them in the final notification dated 14 September 2006. The only basis for their exclusion appears to be a letter addressed by Elattuvalapil

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  467 Sreedharan of the DMRC on 14 November 2005 to the Joint Secretary, MoEF, requesting exclusion of MRTS projects from the requirement of prior environmental clearance.25 The HMR officials have been claiming that they do not have to conduct public consultations since the metro rail projects are exempted from mandatory environmental clearances. A second PIL was filed in February 2011 (Writ Petition No. 2407 of 2011) by the state president of the Human Rights Forum. This petition questioned the legality of the HMR under the Andhra Pradesh Municipal Tramways (Construction, Operation, and Maintenance) Act, 2008 (Act No. 38 of 2008 passed by the state legislature), while similar projects in Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai have been taken up under the Metro Railways (Operation & Maintenance) Act, 2002 (Act 60 of 2002 passed by the Indian Parliament). The petitioner raised a fundamental issue asking whether the HMR is a tramway or a railway. The trams are listed under State, while the railways are listed under the Union (i.e., the central government) in the Indian constitution. The definition of railways excludes trams. The petitioner’s main contention was, among others, that the HMR is a railway project, which is in the exclusive domain of Parliament and hence cannot be taken up under Act No. 38 of 2008 passed by the state legislature. By implication, the GoAP has no constitutional power to build this rail project or enter into an agreement with a private company for such a project. Another contention was that such infrastructure projects within a city should be taken up by the urban local body (the GHMC in this instance) and not by the state government as per the 12th Schedule in the constitution. The petition was accepted with difficulty but not admitted. Notices were issued to the respondents to file their counters within two weeks and the petition was kept in the category of ‘notices for admission’, that is, admission will be decided based on the counters and arguments of the respondents. To date, the latter have not filed their counters. The petitioners made several attempts to get the petition heard but in vain. Meanwhile, several measures have been implemented for the HMR project, including bhoomi puja (ground-breaking ceremony) on 26 April 2012 and the announcement of the Appointed Date (i.e., the official starting date of construction) as 5 July 2012.26 This is a clear case of botched-up justice to the petitioners. And in India, one cannot express one’s frustrations publicly against the courts on issues like this. Another petition was filed (Writ Petition No. 532 of 2012) by the traders in the Ameerpet area on Line 3. But this was not a PIL. Their grievance was the loss of shops and livelihoods. They contended that Line 3 initially would follow a certain route, which was modified in such a way that it would pass through Ameerpet, for which there was no justification. They pleaded that the route so proposed was not only technically unviable but also would lead to demolition of vast numbers of residential and commercial buildings, and that public institutions would also be affected. The petitioners also submitted that the respondents did not invite any public opinion about such a gigantic project and only let the public know that the project was going to be

468  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati implemented, without making the details thereof available at all, and without any public hearing whatsoever, referable to any statute. This petition was heard by a bench consisting of a single judge in the High Court which deals with cases related to land acquisition, whereas a PIL is taken up by the bench consisting of the chief justice. They also contended that Line 3 was not feasible as an entirely elevated corridor. As evidence, they cited the DPR of 2003 (prepared for the HMR by the DMRC), which clearly mentioned that the Secunderabad-Hitech City corridor is not feasible as a fully elevated corridor from engineering point of view due to steep gradients, large number of ups and downs along the alignment and presence of four flyovers en route.27 It had been recommended that this corridor be built partly underground and partly overground. Why the DMRC changed this in 2006 to an all-elevated corridor and accordingly prepared a DPR, has never been explained.28 What is interesting in this instance is that, in the course of filing affidavits and counter affidavits, the HMR’s legal basis became a serious issue of debate in the court. The main contention raised in the second PIL became a subject matter in this case. Since the project was taken up under the Andhra Pradesh Municipal Tramways Act, 2008, the HMR was all at pains to convince the judge that it was indeed a tramway, not a railway. Based on the material submitted before the court and the arguments, the judge was not convinced. Even if one considers it a tram, the HMR has not followed the provisions of the pertinent Act of 2008. In a significant order passed on 15 March 2012, the judge made several critical remarks on the functioning of HMR officials and the state government, and stayed further work on the changed route of the alignment contended by the petitioners.29 The matter is now before the bench comprising the chief justice. It is worth mentioning here some of the important observations from the order of the single judge in this case. Regarding the importance of Section 4 of the Andhra Pradesh Municipal Tramways Act, 2008, it was said: There is nothing to suggest that in case the Government intends to take steps under Section 5, it is relieved of the obligation to publish a notice under Section 4(1), consider the objections under sub-section (2) order modifications, if any, under sub-section 3, and publish the final scheme under sub-section 4, in the Gazette. It is just unthinkable that Section 4, which is the only provision that creates avenue for expression of public opinion on projects of such magnitude would become relevant, when the proposal is mooted by a statutory authority i.e. the Municipality or Municipal Corporation or when the Government itself pushes it, but not when negotiations are undertaken with a private agency. Section 4, which is enacted to protect the public interest, is non-negotiable.

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  469 Acceptance of the contention of the respondents would lead to disastrous consequences. A scheme, which involves transfer of vast extents of Government land, acquisition of large number of private properties, dislocation of the road transport system for a considerable time, conferring of the largesse of a high magnitude upon a private agency, cannot take place without reference to any public opinion. The effort of the 1st respondent appears to be, to shield or immunise itself from any plausible objections, and unfortunately the State, in its anxiety to spread a red-carpet to a private agency, has chosen to violate and break the law, enacted by itself.30 Referring to the earlier granting of the project to Maytas and its fiasco, the order remarked that: It appears that the state government granted the rights for metro rail on an earlier occasion in favour of an agency, in a similar clandestine manner, keeping the entire project away from public scrutiny. At least when its decision turned out to be a blunder, it ought to have been careful and followed the procedure prescribed under the relevant provisions of law.31 As to whether the project in question is a tramway or a railway, the judge rejected the contention of the government and the HMR that what is being laid or constituted is a municipal tramway and that mere nomenclature cannot be a guiding factor. (…) There is a serious lacunae in the very launching of the project, under the A.P. Tramways Act; though it is almost a full-fledged railway. (…).When there is a phenomenal difference between various modes of transport, such as Railway, Trams, Metro rails, and when there are different enactments, governing their establishment and management, it is totally impermissible to establish a ‘Railway’, in name, structure and purport, under A.P. Tramways Act.32 It may be noted in this context that the petitioners submitted the booklet (mentioned above) written by the present author as a part of their petition to the court. The HMR’s managing director, in his counter affidavit, exhibited impatience and intolerance towards the booklet. In the course of the arguments the judge, however, expressed his appreciation for its scholarly content and balanced approach.

Conclusion Each city has its own history, skyline, street pattern, and traffic flows. Transport models should not be blindly copied and pasted from one city to the other as is the present case with the elevated metro. In fact, Hyderabad has an opportunity to learn from the destruction that has been going on in

470  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati Bangalore along the elevated metro construction areas. We have tried to promote an alternative model through our advocacy. This model is more inclusive in its approach and sustainable and will keep transportation within the reach of vast millions of common people. Our advocacy played a very important role in bringing to light several negative dimensions of the HMR project. Our efforts to stop this project and our inability to do so also indicate the limitations of such campaigns in halting megaprojects. One serious limitation has been the lack of a movement against this project by any significant political party. In fact, despite our exposure, all political parties in the state have been welcoming this project. A majority of the urban middle classes have a fascination for such megaprojects. The HMR promoters had an advantage by starting the project at the terminal points where the roads are already wide, whereas the protest by traders occurred at some other point. Then our reliance on courts had its own limitations. The courts, we understand, are unwilling to halt these projects despite flagrant violations of laws. As the HMR project gets implemented, first in construction and then in operation, we will continue to expose its aspects that are detrimental to the public interest.

Notes 1 The CBPTH was formed in February 2007 by a small group of civil society organisations and individuals. It was intended to be a platform for debate and advocacy on issues of public transportation in Hyderabad. Over the years it has come to be seen as anti-metro due to the several activities it has conducted against the adverse impact of the proposed elevated metro rail. The present author played a key role in this process and has become identified as a strong critic of this project. 2 The US dollar has become strong of late against the Indian rupee and has exceeded 60 rupees for one dollar. In the present essay, one USD is considered equivalent to 57 Indian rupees. 3 “Hyderabad to get 71-km metro ‘free of cost’”, www.business-standard.com, New Delhi, 8 August 2008. 4 For more on this, see C. Ramachandraiah, ‘Maytas, Hyderabad Metro and the Politics of Real Estate’, Economic and Political Weekly, 44, 2009, 36–40. 5 Roli Srivastava, ʻMetro Rail to Wipe Out City Landmarksʼ, The Times of India, Hyderabad, 9 August 2008. 6 Indicated by the managing director, HMR, in a presentation to Concerned Citizens, a civic group, on 6 July 2008. 7 Silence zones limit noise to 60dB (A) for hospital zones, 50–70 dB (A) for residential areas, and 75 dB(A) for business and commercial areas. See Counter Affidavit to the Writ Petition No. 18483 of 2008. 8 Bent Flyvbjerg, Nis Bruzelius, and Werner Rothengatter, Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition (Cambridge 2003), 15. 9 Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette Skamris Holm, and Soren Buhl, ‘Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?’, Journal of the American Planning Association, 68, 2002, 279–295, here 279. 10 B.V. Shiva Shankar, ‘Delay Drives Up Metro Rail Cost to 20K Crore’, Times of India, Hyderabad, 7 June 2012.

Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict  471 11 Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for Hyderabad, www.jnnurm.nic.in (last accessed on 30 October 2008). 12 Letter No. 083/CPRO/RTI/2008 dated 8 February 2008 from HMR Ltd. to an applicant under Right to Information. In possession of the author. 13 In different forms and on several occasions between June and August 2008, political parties, intellectuals, and civil society organisations demanded that all the documents be open for a public debate and that the project be kept in abeyance for six months. 14 For instance, the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), which is the backbone of public transportation, has been continuously weakened in the city, let alone given any priority. Similarly, the MMTS (local trains) phase-II has not been taken up though it was approved. Pedestrian sidewalks are literally non-existent. All this can be done with little expenditure but requires a strong political will. In this context, why is there such a strong interest to take up the HMR? 15 Letter by Dr. C.V.S.K. Sarma, principal secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Development Department, government of Andhra Pradesh, dated 22 September 2008 to Dr. E. Sreedharan; letter by Dr. E. Sreedharan to Dr. Sarma, dated 22 September 2008; and a news item entitled “Metro parts ways with DMRC” on Times of India website, www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, dated 24 September 2008 (last accessed 7 May 2014). 16 Chairman of Satyam Computer Services, Mr. Ramalinga Raju, admitted on 7 January 2009 to have committed a huge accounting fraud and resigned from his position. He was arrested two days later. Maytas was headed by his elder son. Maytas could not achieve financial closure for the metro rail project, which led to the eventual cancellation of the concession agreement. 17 We maintained a website for some time, have a googlegroup, a Cause on Facebook, and a blog to convey our views. 18 Several trade unions working in the transport sector unanimously passed a resolution on 10 December 2010 opposing this clause and demanded its revocation. But they have done nothing to press for their demand. 19 Nobody could attribute motives to us for the positions we have taken (some tried and failed miserably). One of the most satisfying aspects was that even some of those who were in favour of the project before our presentation, later changed their views. 20 The activists distributed leaflets highlighting the adverse impact of this project to shops in this area. Noted revolutionary singer in Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Gaddar, participated in the activity. The present author made a detailed PowerPoint presentation in a large gathering of the traders. This meeting was a starting point to galvanise the traders into action. 21 The present author addressed meetings of traders in this area and assisted them in drafting the petition to the High Court. 22 A civil society organisation, of which the present author was one of the founders in June 2000. 23 Shyam Divan and Armin Rosencranz, Environment Law and Policy in India (Oxford and New Delhi 2001). 24 The judicial process is very slow in India. Many a time, the case will be pending but the controversial project may take off. By the time the public interest litigation is disposed of favourably to the petitioner it may be very late and the project becomes a fait accompli. That seems to be happening in the case of the HMR also. 25 A copy of E. Sreedharan’s letter was provided by the HMR to the court. Such exclusion has been challenged in the subsequent affidavits by the petitioners. What is surprising is that the MoEF has not filed its counter at all to explain

472  Ramachandraiah Chigurupati its position. The court can take this very seriously but has not done so in this instance because the petition itself has not been taken up for hearing seriously. 26 Instead of announcing the date on which the works were actually commenced, the L&T and HMR announced 5 July 2012 as the official starting date for the project. That is, nearly eight months or so after actually commencing the works. This in itself is highly questionable. The project will have to be completed within five years from this date. 27 Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Detailed Project Report, Hyderabad Metro (Phase I), Delhi, 2003, Executive Summary, page vii. Also mentioned in Chapter 4, page 14. 28 Copies of the DPRs were handed over to the editor of a Telugu newspaper (Namaste Telangana) by HMR officials in June 2011 after it started publishing a series of critical stories (16 in all) on the HMR project. The present author managed to get a copy of the same from the editor and assisted the paper’s reporter who wrote stories based on these DPRs. The HMR officials are known to have requested the editor not to share the DPRs with the present author. In September 2011, the HMR’s managing director supplied copies of the DPRs to libraries of nine educational institutions (but not to the one in which the present author works) with a specific request/caution that they should not be allowed to be taken out of the library or reading rooms. The HMR officials evaded an answer to a specific query under the RTI Act regarding the basis on which those nine institutions were selected and why the present author’s institute was excluded, though it is a reputable publicly funded social science research institute. 29 Petitioners are Joint Action Committee of Greenlands-Ameerpet Madhuranagar Yusufguda SriKrishna Nagar traders and 20 others. 30 The first respondent in this case is the HMR. Observations from the order of the single judge, Justice L. Narasimha Reddy, dated 15 March 2012, in the Writ Petition No. 532 of 2012, High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. 31 Order dated 15 March 2012, in the Writ Petition No. 532 of 2012, High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. 32 Order dated 15 March 2012, in the Writ Petition No. 532 of 2012, High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad.

Literature Divan, S. and Rosencranz, A., Environment Law and Policy in India (Oxford and New Delhi 2001). Flyvbjerg, Bent, Bruzelius, Nils, and Rothengatte, Werner, Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition (Cambridge 2003). Flyvbjerg, Bent, Skamris Holm, Mette, and Buhl, Soren, ‘Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?’, Journal of the American Planning Association, 68, 2002, 279–295. Ramachandraiah, C., ‘Maytas, Hyderabad Metro and the Politics of Real Estate’, Economic and Political Weekly, 44, 2009, 36–40. Shiva Shankar, B.V., ‘Delay Drives Up Metro Rail Cost to 20K Crore’, Times of India, Hyderabad, 7 June 2012. Srivastava, Roli, ʻMetro Rail to Wipe Out City Landmarksʼ, The Times of India, Hyderabad, 9 August 2008.

Index

Aalst 360 Aalter 179 Abenobashi 279 Abercrombie, Patrick 54–56, 298, 347 Acapulco 256 Acworth, William Mitchel 377 Adapazarı 243 Adler Manufacturing 21 AEG 70, 78, 87 Africa 3, 24, 81, 137–138, 140 Agave 261 Agricultural Congress of Namur 366 Aguascalientes 257, 260–261 Ahmedabad 160 Ahmednuggur 32 Ahualulco 261 Aigburth 376 air pollution 425 airplanes 39, 207 Albany 144–145 Alcalde 261 Alexander and Sons 381 Alexander, Robert 381 Alexandra 375 Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus AG 64 Alternating current (AC) 68, 412 Altona 412 Altoona 209 ALWEG Railway 84–85 Amagasaki 278 Ambrosini, L. A. 138 Ameca 261, 266 Ameerpet 459, 466–467 America see United States of America (USA) American Civil War 65, 157–158, 202 Americas (North and South America) 3, 5, 15, 59, 81 Amtrak 206

Amur Railway 30 Anatolia 243, 246–252 Anatolian Railway 249–252 Anderlecht 360 Anderson, G. 383 Andhra Pradesh 235–236, 459, 461–463, 466–467 Andhra Pradesh Express 233 Andhra Pradesh Municipal Tramways Act 461, 467–468 Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) 464 Anglostan 164 Anhalter Station in Berlin 35, 66 animal transport 135 Ankara 245¸ 247, 250 Ans 178–179 Antwerp 11, 173, 178–179, 205, 347, 349–350, 371 Apaydın, İsa 242 Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries 89 Arabia 251 Arable Land Readjustment Act 292 Asakusa Station 279 Aschaffenburg 21 Asia 3, 15, 22, 26, 31, 33, 52, 59, 73, 81, 85, 90–91, 231, 241–246, 249 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 243, 252 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroads (Santa Fe) 147 Atenquique 261 Atequiza 50, 261 Atlanta 400 Atlantic seaports 144 Atlas 71 Atotonilco 261, 266 Atoyac 261 Atsugi 297, 301 Augier, P. 250

474 Index Augsburg 41 Augusta 144 Aurangabad 32, 237 Australia 419 Austria 72, 188–189, 191, 222, 251 Austria-Hungarian Empire 45, 194, 222 Automated Guideway Transit (AGT) 274 Automobile 2–3, 39, 79–81, 83, 85, 89–90, 94, 123, 151, 171, 198, 202, 207, 283, 313 Azadpur 445 Baasrode 359 Badi Chawdi 459, 465 Bagdad 242 Bagdad Railway 22, 48, 250–251 Bahadurgarh 440, 446 Bahnhof see railway station Bako, Ahmed 139–140 Balkan 214 Ballabhgarh 440 Baltic Sea 22 Baltimore 38, 65, 145, 201, 334–342 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) 65, 145, 201, 334, 334, 336–342 Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad (B&S) 340 Banco Nacional Mexicano 259 Bandh 231–232 Bangalore 470 Bárcena 261 Barkley, Henry C. 221 Barkley, John Trevor 217, 221 Baro 25, 134–135 Barr and Blue Island Yards 129 Barrancas 261 Battle of the Currents 68 Bavaria 14, 190, 406, 409, 412 Bebeji 134 Bedford Park 129 Befahy, François 353 Begumpet airport 459 Begumpet Railway Station 459 Belgian Railway 60, 172 Belgium 11, 36, 38, 59–61, 172, 179–180, 182, 201, 216, 257, 354, 346–349, 359–363, 366, 369 Bendikat, Elfi 60 Bengal-Nagpur Railway 160 Bengaluru 464, 467 Bensenville 129 Berlin 19, 24, 35–36, 41, 44–45, 49, 51–52, 55, 60, 62, 64, 66, 72–79, 86–88, 188, 196, 223, 308, 406, 412

Berliner Handelsgesellschaft 78 Bermondsey 328–329 Bezwada 161–162 Bhargava, Pushpa Mittra 465 Bhopal 160 bicycle 171 Bihain, Jörn 346 Bihar 237 Bischofsheim 20–21, 25, 33, 134 Bismarck, Otto von 66 Blackfriars 322 Board of Trade Railway 376 boats 241 Bockenheim 70 Bogaarden 179 Bohemia 251 Bohemian Western Railway/Böhmische Westbahn (BWB) 190–191, 193 Bolsheviki 22 Bombay (Mumbai) 31–33, 155–166, 229, 235 Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway (BB&CIR) 59, 160–161, 165–166 booking hall see railway booking hall booking office see railway booking office Bootle 383–384 Bosporus Straits (Marmaray) 22, 47–48, 241, 243 Boston Elevated Railway and South Side Elevated Railroad 74 Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy) 393 Boston 75, 144–145, 390, 393–396, 398–400 Botoşani 222 bottleneck see traffic jam Bowli 465 Box Elder 149 Brabant 370 Bragg, George Frederic 328 Brăila 222–223 Branchville 144 Brantl, Karl 190 Břeclav (Lundenburg) 190–191 Brezhnev era 31 Brighton 72 Britain see Great Britain British Empire see Great Britain British Railways 25 Broad Street Station 203–207, 209–210 Broadberry, Stephen 382, 384 Brobston, Dan 126 Bross, William 125 Bruges 73

Index  475 Brugge 179 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom 324 Brunel, Marc 324 Brünn 36, 38 Bruska 189, 191 Brussels 11, 59, 61, 172–174, 178–179, 346–354, 360, 362–363, 366 Brussels Midi Station 347 Bubny 191 Bubny Station (Buschtěhrader Bahnhof) 191, 195 Buchanan, Colin 417 Bucharest 37, 42, 46, 214–216, 218–219, 222–224 Budapest 196 Buenavista 262 Buffalo 144 Buggenhout 359 Bugren, M. A. 138 build-up 49 Bukovina 45, 222 Bulgaria 26, 251 bulk-shipment port 155 Bund Deutscher Architekten (Union of Germany Architects) 40 Bundesbahn see Deutsche Bundesbahn Burchard, Johann Heinrich 87 Burlington 149 Burlington & Missouri River Railroad 149 Burnham, Daniel H. 66 buses 1, 60–61, 73, 89, 125, 209, 231, 233, 236, 274, 322, 330–331, 375, 378, 407–408, 432, 442, 444 Buštěhrad Railway/Buschtěhrader Eisenbahn (BEB) 191, 193, 196 Camden 323–324 Campines 370 Canada 72, 89, 418–419 canals 144–145, 246, 323–324 Canary Wharf 374 Cannon Street Station 322 Capa 149 car see automobile car traffic see automobile Cardenas, Lázaro 264 cargo freight 93 Carmen 261 Carol I of Romania 43, 216–218, 221–224 carriages see railway carriages Castle Dwasieden 44 Castro 261 Centennial exhibition 202

Centennial station 202 Central America 258 Central Asia 243 Central Mexican Railway 261 Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) 460 Central station see main station Cervero, Robert 424 České dráhy (ČD) 196 Československé státní dráhy (ČSD) 194 Chaderghat 466 Challawa station 138 champagne 423 Chapala 261–262 Chapman, John 341 Charing Cross Station 322 Charleroi 347, 350, 362, 370 Charles Bridge 190, 191 Charles, Ray 397 Charleston 144–145 Charlestown 393–395 Chattanooga 146 Cheap Trains Act 363 Chennai 467 Chernivtsi 45 Chesapeake 336 Chesapeake & Ohio canal 145 Chesapeake & Ohio railway 145 Chevalier, Michel 220 Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus 235 Chiba 274, 313 Chicago 20, 25, 31, 33, 66–67, 74–75, 90, 92, 123–129, 144, 146–152, 205, 390, 392–393, 395–398, 400, 457 Chicago & Milwaukee railroad 128 Chicago & North Western railroad 146–148 Chicago & Rock Island railroad 127 Chicago railway 125–126 Chicago Transit Authority 396–397 Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad 148 Chigurupati, Ramachandraiah 91, 457 Chihuahua 257, 260 China 5, 33, 125, 161 Chinatown 394 Choudhary, S. C. 445 Chūō Main Line 57 Churella, Albert J. 36, 38, 65, 201 Cincinnati 25, 129, 145–146 Cincinnati Southern railway 146 Circle Line 64 Citizens for a Better Public Transportation in Hyderabad (CBPTH) 458, 461–465

476 Index City and Ring Railway Berlin 51–52, 60, 77 City and South London Line 75 City Beautiful Movement 66, 205 City Planning Act 292 City Planning Institute 302 City planning see urban planning City railways see urban railways Ciudad Juárez 259–260, 266 clearing yard see railways marshalling yard Cleveland 73, 129 coaches 127, 177, 220, 325 coal transportation 28, 33, 193, 274 coastal shipping 157 Cockerill company 370 coffee 164 Cogifer (today Vossloh Cogifer SA) 423 Colima 261 Cologne 21 Colonia Americana 263 Colonia Moderna 263 colonialism 24–26, 28, 31–33, 47, 82, 133–135, 137–140, 155–156, 160–163, 165, 229, 230, 235–236, 249, 258, 394 Colorado 147 Columbia 144 Comana 218 communication 26, 215, 222, 229, 234–236 commuter railways 33, 58–59, 62, 196, 206–207, 244, 313, 354, 382, 405, 408–409, 414 commuter tickets 60, 348–350, 359, 362–371, 366, 405–408 commuter traffic 1, 4, 58–61, 207, 244, 246, 283, 302, 307, 313, 346, 348–350, 352, 354, 359–371, 390, 405–406, 409–440, 457 commuter transport see commuter railways commuters 39, 47, 58–61, 80, 86, 89, 205, 207–208, 242, 244, 278–279, 282, 308–309, 311, 313, 331, 349–352, 354–355, 359–360, 362–365, 371–372, 406–408, 410–412, 366–367, 369–372, 406–413 commuting see commuter traffic Compagnie Francaise de lʼafrique Occidentale 138 Compagnie Générale des Omnibus 64 Compañia de Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico 261

Compañia del Ferrocarril Central Mexicano 260 Compañía Nacional Constructora de Carros de Ferrocarril 264 companies see railway companies concession see railway concession concrete 309 Condiescu, Ion 216 congestion 83, 205, 374, 376, 378, 380–383, 390, 405, 411, 416–417 Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne see International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) Constancia 261 construction see railway construction consumer culture 308 container transport 152, 245 Control Systems Limited 429 Conu, Helmuth 249 Conurbations 274 Cooper, Frederick 157, 163 Core Group on Transport 442 Cosmos 148 cotton 25, 32–33, 134, 157, 159–161 Cottonwood 149 countryside 359–361, 368–369 County of London Plan 54 Crimean War 27, 216 Cristero War (Cristiada) 264 Crosby 384 Crosby Tramway 377 crossrail 374 crossroads 243 Cuicillos 261 culture of railways 307, 316, 420 Cuza, Prince Alexandru Ioan 216 Czech Railways 196 Czech Republic 36, 38, 187, 189, 193, 196, 429 Czechoslovak State Railways 194 Czechoslovakia 194, 196, 406, 409 Czernowitz 222 Daburau 138 Daens, Adolf 359, 367 Damascus-Medina line 243 Dantata, Alhassan 138 Darmstadt 21 Dayton 145 De Brouckère, Louis 360 De Ridder, Gustave 175 De Winne, August 360 death by train 126

Index  477 Debara, Omim Manekshaw 466 Děčín (Tetschen) 191 Declaration of Independence 202 decongestion 444 Decuypere, Thierry 346 Deinze 179 Delhi 91–92, 162, 230, 233, 236, 438–449, 457, 464, 467 Delhi Development Authority 439–440 Delhi Master Plan 438, 440 Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) 91–92, 438–440, 442–449, 457, 462–463, 468 demographic transitions 82 Dendermonde 173, 179, 359 Den-en chofu 280, 283, 291, 296 Den-en toshi 281, 288–289, 303 Den-en Toshi Co., Ltd. 280, 288, 291, 296 Denisovo nádraží (Denis Station) 193, 195 Denman, Roy 275 Denver 147 Department store Japan Railway 273, 281–282 depot of stage coaches 172 depot see railway depot Deptford 323, 325, 327–329 Des Moines 151 Detailed Project Report (DPR) 462, 464 Detroit 123, 129 Deutsche Bahn AG (DBAG) 40–42 Deutsche Bank 43, 78, 250–251 Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) 40, 85–86, 89, 405–413 Deutsche Bundespost (German Postal Service) 407 Deutsche Reichsbahn of GDR 410 Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft 40, 86, 406, 408 Deutsches Reich 86 Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Technical Museum) 45 Dharwar 158 Diaz, Porfirio 258–260, 264 Dickens, Charles 329 diesel 33, 40, 264, 408 Digby, William 164 Dikshit, Sheila 444 Dingle 375–376, 380 Dingle Station 375 Direct current (DC) 68, 412 Disconto-Gesellschaft 43

Diyarbakır 45 Dobruszkes, Frédéric 353 dock 323–325, 329, 374 Dock Estate 375, 379–380 Dock trams 379–380 Dodgson, John 59, 61, 166, 374 Domažlice (Taus) 190–191 Douglass Center 397 Douglass, Frederick 341 Dover 323 Dresden 190 Dresdner Bank 78 Dudley 394–395 Duffel 179 Dupin, Charles 325 Durango 260 Düsseldorf 410, 412 Dwellers 52, 55, 81, 123, 125, 247–248, 280–281, 288–289, 294, 298, 302–303, 327, 406 D-Zug 23 earthquake 279–280, 284, 311 East Indian Railway 159 East Japan Railway 308 Easter 328 Ebara 288 Edegem 371 Edison, Thomas Alva 68 Edmonton 418 Eisenach 11 El Castillo 261 El Molino 257 El Paso 257, 260 El Paso del Norte 260 electric power 33, 68, 74 electric railways 66, 72–74, 311, 412 electric speed railways 74–75, 77 electric streetcar 72–73 electric traction 73–74, 375 electric trains see electric railway electric tram 71–73, 75, 274, 375, 378–379 electric underground railways 76 electric urban railway 4 electric urban speed railways 78 electricity see electric power electrification 204, 207, 275, 408 Electro-Motive Division of General Motors 129 Elektrotechnische Gesellschaft (Electrotechnical Society) 69–70 elevated loop 396

478 Index elevated metro 460, 462, 464, 469–470 elevated railway 72–76, 84, 87, 92, 374, 380, 390, 392–395, 397–400, 457–458, 460, 464, 468 elevated station 393–394, 396 elevated train (EL) 75, 390, 392–400 Embouteillage see traffic jam Emperor Franz Josef’s Railway/KaiserFranz-Joseph-Bahn (KFJB) 191–193 encarnación 261 engine sheds see railway engine sheds engineers 22, 36, 66, 78, 201, 214, 216, 221, 249, 259, 323, 325, 328 England see Great Britain environment 381 Erdoğan, R. Tayyip 243 Erie canal 144–145, 201, 336 Esperanza 261 Essen 370 Estancita 261 Etzatlán 261 EU see European Union Europe 2–3, 5, 11, 15, 18–19, 22, 24–27, 31, 34–36, 38–39, 41, 43, 49, 52, 54, 56, 59–60, 62, 65, 70–76, 80–83, 86, 90, 136–137, 159, 186, 188, 214, 216, 218, 220–221, 223, 225, 241–244, 247, 250–251, 259, 273, 275, 278, 308, 310, 346, 405, 416, 423 European Economic Community (EEC) 275 European Rail Research Advisory Council 429 European Union (EU) 186–187, 196, 353, 416 Euston Square 323 Everett 393 Exchange Station 376 Exposition Universelle (World Fair) 69 Express train 196, 312, 315 expropriation 457 Ezatlan 266 Falaknuma 458–459 Faridabad 440, 445–446 Farrington 64 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) 40 Feliciano 261 female passengers 316 Ferrocarril Central Mexicano 259–260 Ferrocarril Interoceanico 259 Ferrocarril Mexicano 258–259 Ferrocarril Sud Pacifico 261

Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico 262, 264 Ferry see railway ferry Ferry Port 23 Field, Cyrus 392 Filaret 218–220 Filaret station 221 Finland 22, 26 Fishtown 398 Flanders 171, 354, 360, 370–371 Florence 90 Florentines 420 Flores 261 Fomento de Chapala S.A. Company 261 forced labour camps 30–31 forced migration 30 foreign investments 28 Forshaw, John Henry 54 Fort Dearborn 146 Forwood, Sir William 378–379, 382 France 5, 11, 14–15, 21, 173, 188, 218, 250, 259, 277, 325, 347, 349, 361, 363, 418, 420, 423, 429 Frankford 398–399 Frankford El 391, 398–399 Frankfurt am Main 19, 21, 34–37, 49, 68–70, 75, 83, 86, 89, 410, 412 Frankfurter Systemstreit (Frankfurt System Dispute) 68 Frankfurter Zeitung 69 Franz-Josephs-Bahnhof 192–193, 195 freight carriages see railway freight carriages freight depot see railway freight depot freight operations see railway freight operations freight see railway freight freight station see railway freight station freight traffic see railway freight traffic freight trains see railway freight trains freight yards see railway freight yard French Revolution 15 Friedrich, Casper David 10 Fuchū 307 Fuhrmann, Malte 37, 42, 47–49, 241 Fukuoka 282 Functional Plan for National Capital Region 446 Fürth 12 Galata Bridge 48 Galaţi 223 Galena 129, 146

Index  479 Galena & Chicago Union Railroad (GCURR) 126, 128, 146, 129 Galerie des Machines 36 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 33, 47, 229, 235–236 Gandhi, Sonia 465 garden cities 54, 279–280, 288, 294, 301, 303 Gare du Midi 347 Gare du Nord 347 Garston 376 Garun Mallam 138 Geary, Frank 384 Generalverkehrsplan (General Transport Plan) 85 Gent 178–179 Georgia 144 Geraardsbergen 369 German Anatolia Baghdad Company 248, 250 German Democratic Republic (GDR) 40, 44, 409–410, 412 German Empire 5, 35, 43, 48 German Railways 14, 43, 217 German Union (Deutscher Bund) 15 German-French war 43, 49 Germany 4–5, 14–15, 19, 21–26, 33, 35, 40–41, 43–44, 49–52, 60, 65–66, 68, 70, 72, 78–79, 83, 85–86, 89–90, 134, 147, 180, 218, 223, 248–252, 259, 277, 347, 349, 363, 405–406, 410, 412–413, 405–408, 411, 413 ghat 161, 164–165 Ghat Railway 159 Ghaziabad 440, 444–446 Ghent 173, 347, 366 Ghica, Dimitrie 220–221 Gibbons, Steve 383 Gijzegem 359 Giurgiu 216, 218–220, 222 Glumer, Charles 123 Gmünd 191 Goa 159, 161, 163 Goblet d’Alviella 370 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 10–11 Gold 28 Gonzalez, Manuel 259 goods transport see railway goods transport Gora 134 Gotham 144 Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) 457, 459, 461, 463

Gowda, Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve 443 Graham, Dan 382–383 grain silos 250 Grand Railway Station 45 Grant, H. Roger 25–27, 144 gravel 309 Great Britain 11, 21, 32–33, 54–55, 72, 134, 157, 159–161, 164, 214, 217–218, 221–222, 230, 235–236, 250, 257, 275, 277, 280, 303, 324–325, 329, 361, 374–376, 384 Great Crosby 375 Great Dakota Boom 148 Great Depression 151, 207 Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) 32–33, 158–162, 164–166 Great Kantō Earthquake 292, 309 Great Northern Railway 150 Great Western Railway 331 Greater Berlin 78, 88 Greater Bombay 159 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) 458–459 Greater London 55 Greater London Plan 53, 55, 57, 298 Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation 155 Greater Noida 444–446 Greater Noida authority 445 Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Areas 52, 54, 288, 294 Greek 249, 251 greenbelts 298, 301–302 Greenlands 459 Greenwich 74, 323, 325–326, 328, 331 Groendreef 173 gross domestic product (GDP) 416 Gross-Lichterfelde 72 Ground Nut Pyramids 24 groundnut industry 138 groundnut trade 24–25, 134–135, 137–139, 141 Guadalajara 261–263, 266 Guanajuato 260–261 Guaymas 260 Gujerat 33, 159–161, 163 Gül, Abdullah 243 Gulag system 31 gum 32 Gurgaon 440, 444–445, 449 Gurgaon Chamber of Commerce and Industry 445

480 Index Habsburg Austrian Empire 189 Hachiōji 57, 275, 307 Haegen, Herman Van der 350 Hainaut 173, 348–349 Hakata 282 Hakone 291, 310 Hakone Land and Mitsui Trust 289 Halle 179 Hamburg 44, 86–89, 144–145, 205, 410, 412 Hamburg Station in Berlin 44–45 Hamburger Hochbahn Aktiengesellschaft (HHA) 87, 410 Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (Hamburg Transport Association) 410 Hamilton 145 Hanau 21 Hankaku Electric Railway 278, 291 Hankyu 273, 279, 280, 282–284 Hankyu railway 275, 278–279 Hankyu’s Head of Real Estate Operations 285 Hansemann, Adolph von 43–45 Hansen, Gordon Benedict 74–75, 390 Hanshin 284 Hanshin electric railway 275, 279, 289, 291 Hanwa electric railway 291 harbours 5, 32–33, 45, 48, 70, 159–160, 162–163 Harelbeke 179 Harrow Garden Suburb 280 Haryana 438, 440, 443–447 Haryana Urban Development Authority 444 Haspengouw 370 Hauptbahnhof see railway main station Haydarpaşa 37, 47–48, 241–250, 252 Herapath, John 328 Herculaneum 375 heritage 3–4, 33, 49, 266–267, 424, 457, 459–460, 464–465 Herold, Gustav 70–71 Hessische Ludwigsbahn (Hessian Ludwigs Railway) 21 Hidalgo 260 Higashiyamato 57 high-speed lines 243 high-speed trains 2, 243, 448–449 Higuera 261 Hillen, Solomon 340 Himachal Pradesh 443 Hindustan 164

Hino 57 Hinterbrühl 72 Hinterland 4, 31–33, 144, 155, 157–159, 161–165, 248 Hirooka, Haruya 54 Hitzig, Friedrich 44 Hlavní nádraží (Main Station) 192, 195 Hoboken 390 Hoch- und Untergrundbahn 86 Hochbahngesellschaf AG (Elevated Train Joint Stock Company of Siemens) 75–76, 86–87 Hoepertingen 360 Hogendorn, Jan 137 Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Carol von see Carol I of Romania Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Karl Eitel Friedrich zu see Carol I of Romania Hokkaido Colliery Railway 273 Holešovice 196 Holešovice Station 196 Hollywood 397 Holodomor 31 Holt, John 138 Holzmann, Philipp 250 horse omnibuses 54, 64, 66, 187, 191, 339–340, 375, 380 horse railways 66, 73, 202 horse tramways 64, 66, 73, 274, 375, 378–379 horses 339–340, 374–375 housing 51, 78, 279 housing development and construction 51–52, 54, 77, 275, 278, 280–281, 285, 289, 292 Howard, Ebenezer 279–280, 288, 294, 341 Howard’s Garden Cities 66 hub see railway hub Hubli 158 Huescalapa 261 Huguenin, Édouard 250 Hussain, Abdul 138 Hyderabad 32, 91–92, 161–162, 229, 234, 457–460, 462, 464, 466, 469 Hyderabad Metro Rail Private Ltd. (HMR) 92, 457–47 Hyderabad Metro Rail Project 91, 457, 470 Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) 458 Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) 458

Index  481 Iași 45–46, 216, 222 Ibadan 135 Ikebukuro 279, 282, 292 Ikeda Station 279 Ikeda-Muromachi 289, 291 Ikegami Electric Railway Company 297 Illinois 129, 395 Illinois & Michigan (I&M) Canal 146 Illinois Central Railroad 125 Illinois Institute of Technology 396 immigration 27, 50–51, 79, 140 imperialism 249 inauguration 46, 218, 222–224 India 5, 31–33, 42, 46–48, 91–92, 155–160, 162, 164–165, 229–238, 324, 439–440, 443, 447–448, 457–458, 460–461, 463, 466–467 Indian Midland Railway 160 Indian National Congress 235 Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) 460 Indian railways 33, 238, 444, 446 Indiana 145 Indigo 164 industrialisation 3–4, 21, 31, 43, 54, 70, 82, 278, 289 infrastructure project 336, 459, 467 Institute of Sociology 363 Integrated Multi-Modal Rapid Transit System (IMMRTS) 442 Integrated Rail cum Bus Transit System (IRBTS) 444–446 intercity train departures 243 International Association of Public Transport (UITP) 432 International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) 348 International Electrotechnical Exhibition 68–69, 84 International Railway Journal 421, 429 investments see railway investments Iowa 390 Irapuato 257, 261–262, 266 Ireland 329, 419 Ishikawa, Hideaki 297 Israel 89 Istanbul 37, 47, 241–248, 250 Isthmus railway 259 Italy 5, 85, 251–252, 347, 429 Ixtlahuacán 262 Iyer, Krishna 466 Izmir 248 İzmit 243, 245, 249

Jackson Park 75 Jacobs, Jane 90, 417 Jalisco 260–261, 265–267 Jamaica Plain 393 Jamar, Alexandre 361 James Station 375–376 Japan 2, 5, 27–28, 52–57, 89, 91, 273–275, 277–284, 288–289, 298, 302–303, 307–315, 317 Japan Government Railways (JGR) 273, 275 Japan Housing Corporation, the ministry of Construction 302 Japan National Railways (JNR) 273, 275, 282 Japan railway 52, 57, 273–275, 282, 284, 307, 314–316 Japan Railway Company (Nihon Tetsudō Gaisya) 309, 315 Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation (JRCC) 303 Japan Tourist Bureau 310 Japanese New Town Act 302 Jarvis, Adrian 379 Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) 461 Jette 366–367 Jihlava (Iglau) 191–193 JNR see Japan National Railway Jocotán 261 Jordan 243 Josef II of Austria 188 Joto Electric Tramway 292 JR see Japan railway Juarez 256 Jubbulpore 159, 162 Jubilee Bus Station 458 Juchtenkäfer (hermit beetle) 42 junction see railway junction jute 164 K.u.k Privilegierte Österreichische Staatseisenbahngesellschaft (StEG) 190–223 K.u.k Privilegierte Österreichische Staatseisenbahngesellschaft (StEG) 190–223 K.u.k. Nördliche Staatsbahn 190 Kacheguda 459, 465 Kadıköy 245 Kaido 301 Kalkaji 438 Kanagawa 274

482 Index Kanawha Canal 144 Kangwaso 134 Kann, Seiseki Kinen 311 Kano 24–25, 134–135, 138, 140 Kano Emirate 24, 133–135 Kano-Zaria road 134 Kansai Railway 273 Kansas 147 Kansas City 129, 147, 390 Kantō 275, 280, 291, 310–311 Kantō earthquake 311 Kasukabe 297 Kathiawar 160 Kawachi 279 Kawagoe 297 Kawaguchi 298 Kawasaki 298, 301 Keihin electric railway 291–292 Keihin Kyuko railway 275 Keihin Tohoku line 275 Keiō 282, 312 Keiō and Odakyū railway 275, 313–314 Keiō electric tramway 292, 311, 313–314 Keio Teito railway 302 Keio’s Takao line 281 Keisei electric tramway 291–292 Keisei railway 283 Kejriwal, Arvind 465 Kellett, John R. 3, 25, 329 Kensington 204, 398 Kentucky 146 Kerr, Ian 31, 33, 155 Kervyn de Lettenhove, Joseph 368 Keynesian deficit spending 413 Kgl. Bau- und Verkehrsmuseum 44 Kings Cross Station 64 Kintetsu 281 Kintetsu railway 279 Kita 57 Kladno 191 Kling, Vincent G. 207 knot see railway hub Knoxville railroad convention 145 Kobayashi, Ichizo 278, 291 Kobe 273–275, 278–279, 289–291 Kogălniceanu, Mihail 217–218 Koolhaas, Rem 396 Kopper, Christopher M. 86, 89, 405 Kortrijk 178–179 Koti 459, 465 Krakow 222 Kralupy (Kralup) 191 Krishnanagar 459

Kuala Lumpur 85 Kulaks 1 Kunitachi 307, 311 Kunj, Vasant 445 Kura District 24, 133–134 Kurds 251 Kvizda, Martin 36, 38, 41 Kwankwaso 24, 33, 133–138, 140–141 Kyobashi 282 Kyoto 273–274, 282, 289–291 Kyushu railway 273 L see elevated railway (EL) La Barca 261 La Capilla 261–262 La Chapelle 346 La Gavilana 261 La Grange 129 La Quemada 261 La Vega 261, 266 La Venta 261 Lagos 134, 140, 261 Lagos government railway 134–135 Lake Station 396 Lal Bahadur Nagar 458 Lamalle, Ulysse 347 Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR) 375–376 land developer see urban developer Landen 179 Landis, John 397 Landmann, George 324 Laporte, D. 250 Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T) 457 Latin America 43, 258 Lauffen am Neckar 68–69 Lawton, Richard 383 Lebanon 137 Lefebvre, Henri 156 Lehrte 44 Leipzig 36 Leisure traffic 278 Lemberg 222 Lenin, Wladimir Iljitsch 22, 45 Leon 257 Lerdo 256 Letchworth 280, 301, 303 Leunig, Tim 378 Leuven 173, 175, 179, 183 Levant 5 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 225 Libeň 195–196 Lichthammer, Friedrich 180–181

Index  483 Liebaert, Julien 359, 367 Liège 173, 347, 349, 360, 370 light railways 90, 351, 376, 416, 418–432 lime 309 Limon 261 Lincoln 147 lines see railway lines Litchfield 148 Litherland 375–376, 384 Liverpool 59, 61, 374–376, 378–379, 381–384 Liverpool and Manchester Railway 5, 11, 18, 324–325, 331 Liverpool Corporation 375–376 Liverpool Dock Estate 384 Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR) 59, 61, 374–385 local infrastructure see urban infrastructure local traffic see urban transport local trains see urban railways local transport see urban transport locomotive depots see railway sheds locomotive drivers 18 locomotive manufacturers 66 locomotives see railways Locust Point 340 Loma 261 Londerzeel 359 London 19, 36, 51, 54–56, 62, 64–65, 73–76, 135, 188, 204–205, 280, 301, 308, 322–326, 328–331, 336, 347, 361, 374, 383, 397 London & Birmingham Railway (LBR) 323–324, 331 London & Greenwich Railway (LGR) 65, 323–325, 327–332 London and Blackwall Railway 74 London and Greenwich Railway 65, 322, 328 London Bridge 322–326, 328–329, 331 London omnibus companies 64 London railway 64 London Transport Authority 76 London underground 204 London’s Circle Line 274 London’s Metropolitan Railway Company 62, 75 long-distance railway 2, 207–208, 231, 243–244, 315, 334, 336, 342, 408 Longfellow, Alexander Wadsworth Jr. 394 loop line 274, 397

Los Angeles 90, 390, 400 Los Salas 261 Louisville 145 Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road 144 low-floor wagon 419, 428 Luce Line 148 Luce, Erle 148 Luce, William 148 Lucknow 238 Lucknow division of the Northern Railways 238 Lucknow Railway Station 238 Lugard, Fredrick 134 luggage 172, 178–179, 181–182 Luther, Martin 10 Luxembourg (Luxemburg) 347, 360 Lyon 11, 14 MacKenzie 149 Madobi 24–25, 33, 133–141 Madobi Station 135 Madras 159, 161–162 Madras & Southern Mahratta Railway 159, 161 Madrid 187, 412 Magdalena 261 Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahngesellschaft 44 Mahaim, Ernest 348–350, 360, 363, 369, 371 Maharashtra 229 Maidstone 175 Main 195 Main line elevated 393–394 Main stations see railway main station maintenance and repair shops see railway maintenance and repair shops Mainz 21 Malderen 179, 359 Malwa 161 Manaise Brothers 138 Manchester 25, 161, 328 Manchuria 27–28 Manhattan 242 Manhattan railway 74 Mann, Anupama 91, 438 Mannheim 21 Manzanillo 261–262, 266 Manzano 261 Market Street Station 392, 398 Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated (MFSE) 392, 398–400

484 Index Marmagao 161 Marmaray Commuter Rail Line 48 Marmaray Tunnel 246 Marseille 18, 215, 247 Marsh, Margaret 392 Marshall Plan 243 Marshall, Alfred 382 marshalling yard see railway marshalling yard Marx, Karl 329 Maryland 334, 341 Masaryk 195 Masarykovo nádraží (Masaryk Station) 190, 195–196 Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) 91, 411, 439–443, 446, 448, 457 Massachusetts 145, 394 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) 394–395 Master Plan for Delhi 439 Mathieu, Marcel 350, 352 Matsumoto, Leiji 314 Matsuya department store 52 Matute 261 Matzerath, Horst 3 Maximilian I (Mexiko) 259 Mayer, Oliver 52–54, 56, 273, 307 Maytas Infra 459–464, 466, 469 Mazatepec 261 McCormick Reaper Works 124 McCormick Tribune Campus Center 396 McIntosh, Hugh 324 McIvers, W.B. 138 McKay, John 429 McLuhan, Marshal 307 Mechelen 11, 36, 38, 171–176, 178–180, 182–183, 201, 209, 359 Mechlin 182 Medina 243 Megalopolises 33, 56, 81–82, 91, 299, 307, 448, 457 Meguro 280 Meguro Kamata Dentetsu (Meguro Kamata Line) 292 Meguro Kamata Electric Railway Co., Ltd. 280, 288, 291 Meiji Tennō 311 Meitetsu 281 Mekama 291 Mekama railway 283, 292 Melbourne 90, 419 Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB) 374–375 Mersey railway 376 Merseyside 385

metamorphosis of railways 66, 73, 78 Métro léger 76, 419 Metro Rail Bhavan 465 Metro Railways Operation & Maintenance Act 467 Metropolises 4, 20, 31, 34–35, 38, 50, 53–56, 58, 62, 64, 73–76, 79, 81–82, 90, 124, 146, 148, 161–162, 256, 307, 323, 346 Metropolitan areas 405–406, 409–411, 413, 424 Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) 64 Metropolitan rail transport (Metros) 60, 91–93, 244, 438, 440, 442, 444, 447–449, 458–460, 462, 464–463, 466, 469 Metropolitan Railway Company, Ltd. (MCR) 38, 51, 62–64, 198, 280, 280, 303, 313, 348, 412–413 Metropolitan Transport Authority 410 Metropolitan Transport Coordination Committee 442 Metropolitan West Side Elevated 395 Mexican railway 265 Mexican Revolution 264 Mexico 37, 43, 49, 145, 256–259, 261, 264, 266–267 Mexico City 257–258, 260, 266 Miami & Ohio Canal 145 Michael the Brave 219 Michoacán 261 Midland 149 migration 3, 5, 20, 26–27, 50, 64, 81–82, 124, 138–140, 229, 252, 313 military transport 49 Miller Brothers 138 Milne, Graeme 382 Milwaukee 123, 147 Minami 57 mining 28, 256 Ministry Line Akabane Line 292 Ministry Line Chiba Line (Sobu Line) 292 Ministry Line Chuo Line 292 Ministry Line Keihin Line 292 Ministry Line Matsudo Line (Joban Line) 292 Minneapolis 148 Minnesota 148 Minoo-Arima Electric Tramway (later Hankyu Railway) 278–279, 289, 291 Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroads (Katy) 147 Mitaka 298

Index  485 Mitchell, Lisa 37, 42, 46–49, 229 Mitchell, Ted 20, 25–27, 123 Mitscherlich, Alexander 417 Mitsukoshi Department Store 52, 279 Miyako-jima land readjustment association 293 Miyamae 301 Miyapur 458–459 Mizonokuchi 281, 301 mobility 2–3, 39, 50, 60, 79, 80–81, 83, 89, 93, 171, 416 modal split 86 Mödling 72 Moldavia 214–215, 222 monorail trains 57, 85, 274, 432 Mons 347 Montana 151 Montegnée 360 Montgomery 72 Montreal 412 Moraglio, Massimo 90, 416 More, Levi 126 motor car see automobile motor car society (Automobilgesellschaft) 81 motor traffic see motorisation motorisation 2–4, 39–40, 55–56, 60, 79–81, 83, 85–86, 90, 282 Mt. Clare Depot 334 Mt. Clare Station 339 mule transport 256 Müller-Raemisch, Hans-Reiner 83, 86 Mumbai see Bombay Mumford, Lewis 80, 90, 417 Munich 86, 89, 407–408, 410–413 Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) 461 Musashino 298 Musashino Railway 291–292 Museum for Construction and Traffic 45 Nagarpalika Act 443 Nagatsuta 281 Nagole 458–459 Nagoya 273, 281–282, 284 Nagpoor 32 Nagpur 160, 162, 237 Nakata 284 Nákladové nádraží Žižkov (Žižkov Freight Station) 194 Namur 347 Nankai Electric Railway 289, 291 Nantes 418, 429 Napoleon I 188 Napoleonic wars 15

Narela 440 narrow-gauge line 189 Nasik 157–158 Nassuek 32 National Alliance of Peoples Movements (NAPM) 465 National and state development plans 439–440 National Capital Region (NCR) 54, 91, 303, 438–449 National Capital Region Development Plan 55 National Capital Region Improvement Law 299, 301 National Capital Region Planning Board 440, 442–447 National Capital Region Transport Corporation 446 National Capital Tama 302 National Capital Territory of Delhi 438 National Development Council (NDC) 91, 442, 447 National railways 196–197, 264, 313 Navarro 261 Nayarit 261 Nebraska 147 Negrelli Bridge 190 Nehru, Jawaharlal 235, 237 Netherlands 89, 347 New City Development Plan of the South-West of Tama River 301 New Hejaz Railway 243 New Housing and Urban Development Act 302 New Jersey 390 New Orleans 73, 129, 145, 336 New Silk Road 243 New towns 55, 57 New York 38, 74, 124, 144–145, 201–202, 204–207, 209, 335–336, 390, 392–393, 395, 398, 400 New York & Hudson River and New-York & Erie railroads 145 New York Central 201 New York Elevated Railroad Company 392 New York West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway 74 Niederschlesisch-Märkischen Eisenbahn 51 Niger Properties 138 Nigeria 24–25, 32–33, 133–135 Nigerian Railways 137, 141 Nikkō 309 Nilsen, Micheline 59, 61, 346 Nippon Railway 273

486 Index Nippori 289 Nishinomiya 289 Nizam’s Guaranteed State Railway 161 Noborito 301 Nogales 260–261 Nogawa Daiichi Land Readjustment Association 301 Noida 444–445 noise (caused by railways) 460 Nord-Midi Junction in Brussels 347 Nordwestbahnhof 193, 195 North America 26, 28, 56, 66, 71–73, 81–82, 125, 259 North Dakota 150 North Western and Creston Road 149 North Western and Milwaukee Road 148 Northampton 175 Northern Nigeria 134 Northern Railways 45, 234 Northern State Railway/k.k. Nördliche Staatsbahn–NStB 190 Nové spojení (new connection) 196 Novonikolayevsk 31 Novosibirsk 31, 33 Nuremberg 12, 190 Nwankwo, Michael 138 Nymburk (Nimburg) 191, 193 Obtschina 27 Ocotlán 261, 266 October Revolution 24 Odakyu 282, 312 Odakyu Railway 302 Odawara Express Railway 291–292, 302 Ofenheim, Victor von 222 Offenbach 410 Ogunlade, Abdul Rahimi 140 Ohio 127, 45 Ohio Railroad 38 oil crisis 2, 40, 89 oil embargo 89 oilseeds 162 Oji Electric Tramway 292 Okediji, Florence 137 Oklahoma 147 Okubo 289 Okusawa-Higashi 296 old railways 73 old technology 420 Ollivant, G. B. 138 Olomouc (Olmütz) 190–191 Olude Stores 138 Olympic Games 56, 89, 307, 313, 412

Omaha 129, 147, 151 Omiya 297 omnibus companies 64 omnibus see buses Oomrawutty 32 Oostende 178–179 Opel 21 opening ceremony see railway station opening ceremony opium 32–33 Orendain 261, 266 Oriental railways 251 Osaka 273–275, 278–280, 282, 289–291, 293, 294 Osaka Electric Railway (later Kintetsu) 279 Osaka Electric Tramway 291 Osaka Loop Line 274, 282 Osaka Railway 291 Oshin, Olasiji 139 Ostend 173, 347, 370 Österreichische Nordwestbahn (ÖNWB) 193, 195 Ottoman Empire 22, 26, 43, 47, 249–251 Ottoman railways 250 overhead 376, 380, 384 Oxford 175 Oyama 301 Özal, Turgut 243 Pacana 261 Paddington Station 64 Palatinate 14 Pandey, Sandeep 465 paradise 459 Paris 14, 19, 35–36, 41, 60, 62, 64, 69, 73–74, 76, 188, 247, 347 Parissien, Steve 171 parking spaces 2, 313 passenger see railway passenger passenger cars see railway passenger wagons passenger fares see railway passenger passenger ferry see railway ferry passenger hall see railway station passenger rail and railway see railway passenger passenger station and terminal see railway station passenger traffic see railway transport passenger trains see railway trains passenger transport see railway transport passenger travel see railway passenger

Index  487 passengers ticket see railway fares passholders 350, 363, 365–366 Patkar, Medha 465 Patney 459 pedestrians 77, 80, 327 Pedrito 261 Pember, Q.C. 379 Pennsylvania 201, 208–209 Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) 38–39, 41, 65, 145, 201–209 Pennsylvania Station in Philadelphia 206–207 Peoplemover 274 Perdonnet, Auguste 179 Perrot, E. 182 Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) 420 person-kilometres 407 Philadelphia 36, 38, 144–145, 201–210, 334–335, 390–393, 395–396, 398–400 Philadelphia & Reading Rail Road 204 Philadelphia Planning Commission 399 Philadelphia Station in Philadelphia 202 Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad (PWB) 201–202, 204, 334, 341 Philip 149 physically damage of railway lines 232 Pier Head 375–376 Pirenne, Henri 355 Pirotsky, Fyodor 72 Piteşti 223 Pittsburgh 145, 202 planners 66, 75, 79 planning 18, 38, 42, 54, 90–91, 175, 210, 250 plantations 164 Platanar 261 platform 182–183, 196, 242, 275, 428, 458 Ploieşti 223 Plzeň (Pilsen) 190–191 Podmokly (Bodenbach) 191 Podmokly (Děčín) 190 Poland 406, 409, 429 Polasky, Janet 348 Polino, Marie-Noëlle 2 pollution 416–417, 419, 421 Poncitlan 261 Pooley, Colin G. 383 Poona 160, 162 Poonah 32 ports 25, 134, 155, 157–159, 161–162, 165–166, 202, 205, 209, 215, 217–218,

222–223, 241–242, 244–248, 250, 256, 258, 261, 278, 284, 323, 374, 382–383 Portugal 89, 161, 324, 429 postcolonialism 47, 230 Prager Verbindungsbahn (PVB) 193 Prague railway junction 193 Praha-Smíchov/Smíchov Station) 190, 195 Praha-Vršovice (Vršovice Station) 194 Pratt 341 Pratt Street in Baltimore 334, 336–337, 339–340 Prince Carol 217–218, 221–223 prisoners 28, 30 private railway 52, 190, 196, 273–274, 278, 280–284, 289, 291, 309 Project Stuttgart 41 Proust, Marcel 171 Proviso 129 Prussia 15, 35, 43, 74, 173, 191, 222 Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation 45 Prussian House of Hohenzollern 43 Prussian railway 60 Public Private Partnership (PPP) 92, 457–459 public roads, streets and places 151, 334, 337, 339–340 public subways 281 public transport 40, 79, 83, 86, 89–90, 214, 375, 378, 384, 405, 407, 410–411, 413–414, 417, 423–424, 428–429, 432, 440, 457, 461–462, 464 Puebla 257 Puerto Vallarta 261 pulling up track see rail removing Pullman Company 129 Putli 465 Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railroad 150 Quartier de l’Europe 346 Queretaro 257, 260 Quinn 149 Quit India Movement 235 Quito 261 Raban, Jonathan 151 Raccah, S. 138 Raheja Mindspace 92 Raichur 159 Raidurg Metro Station 92 rail access 353–354 rail blockages 230, 232; see also rail roko Rail India Technical and Economic Services 442, 445

488 Index rail mania 191 rail removing 232, 236 rail roko 47, 229–237 railroad accidents see railway accidents railroad car see railway wagon railroad companies see railway companies railroad employees see railway workers railroad journey see railways travel railroad lines see railway lines railroad movement see railway movement railroad station see railway station railroad towns see railway towns railroad traffic see railway transport railroad yard see railway marshalling yard railroads see railways railroute see railway line and networks rails and railway tracks 1, 4, 20, 21, 26, 33–34, 42, 62, 66, 74, 82, 90, 125–126, 128, 160, 191, 196, 202, 205, 207–208, 223–224, 231, 226, 247, 260, 262, 274, 328, 332, 334, 336–339, 348, 374–375, 394, 396–397, 412, 418, 442, 458 railway 1–5, 17–26, 28, 31, 33–34, 36, 38–40–43, 46–47, 49, 50–53, 56–62, 64–66, 70, 73–75, 77–80, 86, 88–90, 94, 123–129, 133–136, 138–140, 144–149, 151–152, 155, 157–158, 160, 172–173, 175, 177, 182–183, 186–194, 195, 197, 201–202, 204–209, 214–216, 218–224, 230, 232–234, 237–238, 242–243, 246–249, 250–252, 256–266, 273–275, 278–281–282, 289, 291–292, 303, 307–317, 235, 322–331, 334–342, 348, 351, 359, 366, 374, 377, 378–379, 381, 384–385, 390, 392, 397, 400–401, 405, 407–409, 411, 423, 438–440, 446–448, 467–469 railway accidents 126–127 railway administration 33, 49, 363 railway age 3, 68, 124 railway architects 34–35, 40, 44, 180 railway blockage see rail roko railway booking hall see railway booking offices railway booking offices 178, 180–181, 322 railway bridges 65, 147, 190, 192–194, 196, 218, 221, 261, 322–324, 329, 331 Railway Bureau of Japan (Tetsudō-in) 309 railway carriages see railway wagons

railway companies 25, 38, 41, 43–44, 46, 53, 66, 76, 126, 147, 178, 188, 197, 250, 252, 264, 278, 280–281, 283–284, 290–292, 303, 307, 309, 312, 322, 330–331, 339, 341–342, 360, 375, 405 railway concession 260, 266–267, 342, 407 railway construction 5, 11, 15, 26–27, 31, 42–43, 46, 48, 52–53, 64, 72, 74, 85–86, 176, 204, 242–243, 247, 248–250, 258, 260–261, 302–303, 308, 323, 330 railway culture 52, 56, 307, 309–311 railway depots 196, 204 railway development 124–125, 127–128, 347 railway employees, officials, operators and workers 140, 149, 186–187, 233, 237, 251, 335, 341 railway engine sheds 181, 206 railway engineer 190, 205, 216, 247 railway enterprise and entrepreneurs see railway companies railway era see railway age railway ferry 21–24, 45, 244 railway freight depot 21 railway freight see railway good transport railway freight station 202 railway freight trains 21, 244 railway freight yard see railway marshalling yard railway goods transport 4, 14, 17, 26, 31, 33, 66, 93, 159, 172, 181, 186, 197, 202, 204, 207, 209, 215, 257–258, 262, 274, 374, 378–380, 408 railway heritage 266–267 railway hub 19–20, 26, 125, 191, 193, 278, 281 railway industry 186, 196, 198, 278, 309 railway infrastructure 19, 21, 33, 47–48, 65, 124, 187, 264, 397 railway investments 5, 257, 259 railway junction 59, 61, 144, 186, 193–194, 197, 202, 209, 292, 328, 346–348, 350–355 railway king see Bethel Henry Strousberg railway lines and networks 3, 5, 14, 17, 20, 25–26, 33, 38, 43, 49–50, 52–53, 55, 57, 61, 65–66, 93, 123, 129, 144–145, 160, 164, 178, 187–188, 190, 198, 215, 217, 222, 229, 237, 243,

Index  489 248, 259, 273, 279, 281–282, 288–289, 307–308, 322, 324, 334, 346, 354, 359, 361, 363–366, 368, 370, 416, 421, 423, 457, 464 railway main stations 34–38, 41–42, 44, 49, 66, 70, 171, 175–176, 188, 195–197, 231, 275, 346, 350, 352, 354, 412 railway maintenance and repair shops 33, 175, 181 railway marshalling yard 21, 33, 129, 194, 245, 248 railway movement 341 railway passenger 17–18, 33, 38–39, 52, 55, 60, 64, 127, 174, 177, 180–181, 186, 188, 194–195, 202, 204, 206–209, 219, 231, 234, 241, 244–245, 257–258, 260, 262, 265–266, 273, 278–279, 282–283, 308, 322–323, 330–331, 348, 350, 361, 363, 367–368, 375–376, 378, 380, 407, 429 railway policy 14, 43, 46, 214 railway project 291, 467 railway reforms 187, 282 railway rolling stock 38, 175, 182–183 railway sheds 21, 183 railway station 1, 4, 21, 27, 31, 33–44, 46–50, 57, 62, 64–66, 68, 70, 73, 77, 85, 92, 133–138, 157, 165, 171–175, 177–183, 188–191, 192–197, 201–202, 204, 206–210, 214, 218–220, 223, 229–230, 233–235, 237–239, 241–248, 250, 252, 256, 258, 260–263, 265–267, 273–275, 278–280, 282–284, 308, 310–312, 314–315, 317, 322, 325, 328–331, 347, 351–352, 359–360, 363, 366–368, 371, 375–376, 394–399, 407, 412, 458, 460 railway station opening ceremony 214, 218, 221–222, 224 railway ticket 47, 180, 224, 230–231, 236–238, 242, 350, 361–362, 365 railway timetable 410 railway towns 25, 144, 147, 149, 151 railway traffic, trains and transport 1–2, 4–5, 17–18, 20, 22–27, 31–32, 34, 38, 40, 42, 46, 52, 54–56, 60–62, 64–66, 71, 73–81, 83, 85–86, 89–91, 93–94, 123–129, 135–136, 156, 162–163, 171–175, 180, 183, 186, 188, 193–196, 198, 201–205, 207, 210, 214–215, 217–219, 220–221, 223–224, 229–234, 236–238, 242–248, 256–258, 260, 263, 265–267, 274–275, 278–279, 283, 292,

300, 308–312, 315, 322, 328, 330–331, 336–341, 351, 353, 359, 361, 375–376, 379–380, 407, 409, 411–413, 416, 418, 424, 443, 446, 458, 460 railway travel 4, 11, 17–18, 20, 22, 38–40, 47, 57, 124, 135, 178–183, 209, 219, 221, 231, 237, 243–244, 260, 307, 313, 315–317, 330–331, 361, 337, 384 railway tunnel 42, 61, 76, 84, 86, 88, 192–193, 196, 243–245, 324, 346–347, 353, 375, 418 railway viaduct 62, 64–65, 74, 204, 323–331 railway wagon 18, 26, 33, 64, 85, 127, 129, 187, 273, 325–326, 332, 337–338, 374, 421–422, 425, 428 railway war 36, 49 Railways and Urban Development Ministries 446 Rajasthan 438, 440, 443, 447 Rajputana-Malwa Railway 160 Raju, B. Ramalinga 459 Ramesh, Jairam 465 rapid mass transit 447 Rapid Train Abiko Line 294 Rathenau, Emil 78 Ratnagiri 163–164 Rauch, John 126 Ravenswood 396 Rea, Samuel 204–205 Real Cabaña de Carretería 256 Real-time information 429 Refugio 261 Regional Plan 2001 440, 444 regional railway 90 regional rapid transit system 439, 444 reims 423 Renaissance of railways 40, 90, 93 Rennie, John 323 repair shops see railway maintenance and repair shops Republic 194 Réseau Express Régional (RER) 353 resettlement 457 Revolution of 1848 15 Reyburn, John 205 Rhein-Main-Eisenbahn (Rhine-Main Railway) 21 Rhine valley 10 Rhine-Main region 21 Rhodesia 89 Richmond 73, 144–145 Richmond Union Passenger Railway 73

490 Index Rickards, Laurie 257 rickshaws 274 Rieger, František L. 190 ring railway line 49 Ritter, Otto 249 River Mersey 374 road 1, 2, 55, 62, 75, 80–82, 90, 125, 126, 151, 158, 161, 172, 175, 182, 187–188, 214, 216, 221, 243, 256–258, 279, 311, 313, 322–325, 327, 331, 335, 337–338, 342 road blockages 230 road congestions 83 road infrastructure 80, 175 road rook 233 road transport 65, 77, 79, 81, 89, 93 Roaring Springs 150 Robins, Anthony 52–53, 56, 273, 307 Rock Island Railroad 397 Roman 222–223, 249, 324–325 Roman Republic 188 Romania 26, 43, 45–48, 214–225, 429 Romanian railway 43 Rome 325 Romero 261 Roxbury 393–394, 400 Roy, Aruna 465 Ruhr region 5, 25 rural 349, 359, 366, 370–372, 407 rural areas 407 Rushing, Byron 395 Rüsselsheim 21 Russia 22, 24, 26–28, 30–31, 33, 45 Russian civil war 31 Russo-Japanese War 273 SAB NIFE 421–422 Sahibabad 444 Saint Petersburg 22, 72 Saint-Étienne 11 Saint-Gilles 347 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode 347 Saint-Nicolas 360 Saitama 274 salt 32 San Francisco 390, 397, 400 San Jacinto 261 San Luis Potosí 261 San Marcos 261 Sannomiya 275, 279, 284 Santa Ana Catarina 261 Santa Cruz de la Soledad 262 Santa Cruz el Grande 261

Santa Maria Encarnación 261 Sanyo Railway 273 Sarma, E.A.S. 465 Sasakibara, Go 315 Sassnitz 5, 11, 21–25, 33, 44–45, 48, 134 satellite cities 294, 298, 438, 442–444, 446–447 Satyam Computers 459, 463 Saudi Arabia 243 Sauvy, Alfred 417 Saxony 190 Sayula, Carmelita 261 Scandinavia 22, 24 Schatzberg, Eric 420 Schienenbus (bus on tracks) 408 Schimpff, Gustav 77 Schivelbusch, Wolfgang 128, 317 Schley, David H. 65, 334 Schnebbelie, Robert 330 Schwabe, Hermann 51–52, 55 Schwechten, Franz Heinrich 66 sea freight 26 Sea of Marmara 245 Seaforth Sands 375–376 Seattle 400 secondary railway lines 408 Secunderabad 233, 468 Segovia 324 Seibu 312 Seibu Railway 279 Seibu Railway (Takadanobaba) 292 Seibu Tramway (Omekaido) 292 Seiseki Sakuragaoka 311 Seki, H. 294 SEL-Alcatel 424 Selbie, Robert 280 Senzoku 291 SEPTA 399–400 Seraglio Point 244 Seraing 370 Serbs 26 Sestroretsk 72 settlement 20, 26–27, 50, 55, 77, 123, 134, 140–141, 144, 146–147, 149–150, 262, 281, 341, 354, 392, 397, 406, 438 Shahdara 438 Sharashka 31 Shibuya 282, 289, 292 Shilparamam 458 Shimbashi 53–54 Shinagawa 54, 275, 292 Shinjuku 275, 282, 292, 310 Shinjuku station 308, 313

Index  491 Shinkansen line 313 Shin-Keihan Electric Railway 291 Shinmachi 289 Shin-Maruko 301 ships and shippers 188, 202, 247 Shizuoka 284 Sholapoor 32 Shōwa Tennō 312 Shunter 20–21 Shunting Locomotive 21 Shunting station 21 Siberia 26–28, 31 Siemens & Halske AG 70, 72, 75 Siemens, Werner von 68, 72, 74, 76, 78 signalling 328, 234, 236, 398 Silicon Valley 70 silk 32 silos 248 Silvestru, Octavian O. 36, 42–43, 46, 48–49 Simmons, Jack 3 Singh, Manmohan 465 Singh, Rajendra 465 Sino-Japanese War 309 Sint-Truiden 179, 360 Sioux City 390 Sirkeci Station in Istanbul 47–48, 244 Slavic 251 Smarda 218 Smíchov Station 190, 195–196 Smíchovký Bridge 193 Société du Port de Haidar-Pasha 250 Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges (SNCB) 350 Sofia 187 Solórzano Gil, Mónica 37, 43, 49, 256 Somas, Michael 126–127 Sonnemann, Leopold 69 Soo Line Railroad 150 Sotetsu’s Izumino Line 281 South Africa 89 South America 258 South Asia 155 South Carolina Canal and Rail Road 144 South Central Indian Railways 232 South Central Railways 234 South Dakota 148 South Eastern Railway 322 South Kensington 64 South Side 395 South Side Elevated Railroad 397 South Side Rapid Transit Railroad 75

South Side, and Corwith Yard 129 Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority 206, 398 Southern Mahratta Railway (SMR) 159, 161–162, 164, 166 Southern Pacific of Mexico Company 261 Southport 375 Southwark 329 Southwark Bridge 323 Southwest Corridor 395 South-western Osaka 279 Soviet Republic of Ukraine 31 Soviet Union 31, 418 Spa Road Station 330 Spain 256, 324, 429 spas 11 speed railways (S-trains) 73, 77–78, 90, 406, 411–413 spices 32 Sprague, Frank J. 73, 75 Sreedharan, Elattuvalapil 462–463, 466 St. Louis 129, 146, 390 St. Paul 129 Staatsbahnhof in Prague 190–193, 195 stage coaches 172 Stalin, Josef 31 standard-gauge 190–191 Staniforth, John 217 Stark, Tom 384 state highways 188 station see railway station steam engine 21, 73, 127, 191, 258, 339–341, 408 steamship 245, 247, 251, 323, 331 Stephenson, George 18 Stettiner Station 34–35 Stevenson Expressway 129 Stockholm 187 Stockton–Darlington line 12 Stockton–Darlington Railway 11 Stolypin, Pyotr 28 Stolypin-Wagons 28 stopping trains see rail roko Stralsund 45 Strasbourg 14, 428 street see roads Streetcar 75, 85, 89–90, 289 Strousberg, Henry Bethel 43, 222–224 Stuttgart 41, 408, 410, 412 suburban railway 60, 244, 273–274, 411, 439, 444 suburban station see railway station

492 Index suburbanisation, suburbs and suburbia 50, 52–53, 57, 59, 62, 77, 80, 85–86, 124, 159, 173, 205, 245, 273–274, 278–280, 284, 288–292, 307, 311–313, 370, 372, 393, 405–407, 409, 411 Subway Midosuji Line 294 subway see underground railway Suceava 222 Suez Canal 26, 251 sugar 32 Sultan Abdülhamid II 243, 252 Sultan Bazaar 459, 465–466 Sumitomo Corporation 279 sun 334, 341 Surat 159–161, 165 Sweden 22, 24, 45, 48, 90 Switchmen 20–21 Switzerland 22, 250, 347 Syria 137, 243 Tábor 191 Tachikawa 57, 307, 310 Tachikawa station in Tama 315 Tadepalli 159, 161 Tahir, Musa 138 Taiga 27 Taiga Station 29 Taishō Tennō 311 Takarazuka 278–279 Takashima, Shuichi 52, 54, 56, 288, 307 Takiyama, Ryoichi 293 Tala 261 Tama 52, 56–57, 85, 302–303, 307–317 Tama Den-en Toshi 299 Tama New Town 299, 302–303 Tama Toshi Monorail 56, 59 Tama-Center 57 Tamagawa Arable Land Readjustment Association 294, 296 Tamagawa Electric Railway 289, 292 Tanna Viaduct 32 Taplin, Eric 384 Tate, James H. J. 208 taxi 171, 209, 322 tea 164 Techaluta 261 Technical Museum in Berlin 45 technological transfer 216, 420 Teheran 245 Tehuantepec 257 Teito railway 292 Telangana 92, 229 telegraph 17, 224, 236, 256, 260 telephone 236, 313 Tenga-Jaya 289

Tennessee 146 Tennō 57, 307, 311–312, 317 Tequila 261 terminus see railway station Tetsudō-in 310 Texas 150 textile industry 33, 134 Thal Ghat 160 Thames 324 Thana 32, 160 Thessaly 251 Thomson, J. Edgar 201 ticket see railway ticket Tienen 179 Tigre 261 timetables see railway timetable Tlajomulco 261 Tobu 281 Tobu railway 279, 291–292 Toei Shinjuku line 313 Tōkai 310 Tokaido line 273 Tokyo 52–57, 85, 92, 273–275, 279–284, 288–294, 297–298, 300–302, 307–308, 311–316, 457 Tokyo fu Noko Ginko (Tokyo Bank of Agriculture and Industry) 296 Tokyo Metropolitan Area 53 Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Capital Improvement Bureau 302 Tokyo Metropolitan Planning Division 297 Tokyo Metropolitan-Area Railway 53, 279, 281 Tokyo Railway (Tokyo Tetsudo) 54 Tokyo Tama Intercity Monorail Co. 57 Tokyo Trust Company 289 Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway 291 Tokyu 273, 283–284, 297, 300–301, 303 Tokyu corporation 291, 296–297, 299 Tokyu group 288 Tokyu railway company 279–281 Toledo 145 Toluca 260 Tonilita 261 Topeka 147 Toronto 71–72 tourism 10–11, 24, 57–58, 241, 249, 267, 307–310, 314–316, 324, 314 town planning organization 439 town planning see urban planning Toyoko 291 Toyoko and Mekama lines 292 Toyoko Railway 292 Toyoko Tamagawa Line 292

Index  493 Toyoko, Mekama, and Tamagawa Electric Railway 297 track see rail trade 28 traffic congestion, gridlock or jam 2, 55, 81, 128, 89, 187, 204 traffic see railway traffic train operators 196 train robberies 138 train see railway train train station see railway station train ticket see railway ticket train wrecking see rail roko Trajan 324 trams see tramways tramways 54, 60–61, 72–74, 77, 79, 83–84, 90–92, 274, 278–279, 348, 375–378, 380, 405, 418–425, 428–429, 432, 467–469 Trans-Appalachian West 336 Transatlantic world 71 transcontinental railway 31 trans-European networks 41 transhipments 198, 334–335, 338, 340 transport see railway transport Trans-Sibirian Railway (Transib) 26–29, 31 travel and traveller see railway travel Treaty of Brest-Litowsk 24 Trelleborg 22, 48 trolley buses 432 trucks 151 Tsarist Empire 22, 25–28, 30 Tsuji, Izumi 315 Tubize 179 Turin 83–85 Turkey 47, 216, 221, 243, 247–249, 429 Turkish Republic 248–249, 251 Turkish state railways 47, 242–243 Turks 221, 251–252 Turnau-Kralup-Prager Eisenbahn (TKPE) 192–193, 195–196 Turner, Frederick Jackson 147 Turnov (Turnau) 191 Turnpike road 323, 328 Tuxpan 261 Tyler, John 334 Uehonmachi 279 Ueno 292 UK see United Kingdom Umeda 278 underground railway 2, 39, 64, 73–77, 79, 85–92, 206–207, 209, 244, 274,

279, 281, 313, 322, 346, 354, 380, 410–414, 432, 462, 465, 468 underwood 149 Union Station 66–67 United African Company 138 United Kingdom 11, 66, 89, 363, 374, 429 United Nations Organisation (UN or UNO) 81, 83 United New Jersey Railroad & Canal Companies 201 United Progressive Alliance (UPA) 465 United States see United States of America United States of America 2, 20, 25–28, 33, 39, 41, 73–76, 78–79, 82–83, 86, 89–90, 124–126, 134, 144, 146–147, 157, 201, 207, 210, 243, 257, 259–260, 264, 273, 275, 310, 312–313, 336, 342, 348, 390, 392, 395, 400–401, 405, 418, 420 Unterpflasterstraßenbahn (Under Surface Tramway) 85 Upper Darby 398 Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) 409 Ural 28 urban agglomerations 2–4, 54, 56, 59, 66, 76, 81, 83, 86, 144, 243, 382–385, 448–449 urban agglomerations 2–4, 54, 56, 59, 66, 76, 81, 83, 86, 144, 243, 335, 342, 382–385, 448–449 urban and urbanism see urbanisation urban commuting see commuting urban developer see urban planers urban development see urban planning urban fabric see urban space urban infrastructure 336 Urban Land Institute (ULI) 396 urban landscape see urban agglomerations urban mobility see urban transport urban planners and planning 2, 4, 38, 52, 54–56, 77–78, 82–83, 86, 90–91, 140, 183, 207, 210, 273, 301, 354 urban rail see urban railways urban railway 2–4, 49, 51–52, 56, 59–62, 58, 64–65, 75–77, 83, 85–86, 88, 90–91, 126, 129, 209, 243–244, 274–275, 307, 332, 339, 341, 374, 390, 395, 423, 446, 449 urban space 334–337, 339, 342, 417 urban sprawl see urban agglomerations urban tracks see urban railway urban traffic see urban transport

494 Index urban transit see urban transport urban transport 74, 81, 90, 171, 274, 334, 341, 410–411, 416–418, 423, 432, 429, 441, 446–447, 464 Urban Transport Consortium Fund 441 urbanisation 4, 34, 51, 54, 81–82, 90–91, 183, 246, 274, 348 US see United States of America USA see United States of America U-train see underground Uttar Pradesh 238, 438, 440, 443–444, 446–447 Vallaury, Alexandre 250 Van der Herten, Bart 172–173 Van Heesvelde, Paul 36, 38, 171 Vandenpeereboom, Jules 362 Vandermotten, Christian 352 Vanderstichelen, Jules 361 Vandervelde, Emile 363, 367–369 Vauxhall Bridge 324 véhicule automatique léger 420 Venice 5, 242, 246, 251 Veracruz 256–259 Vermeersch, Gustaaf 171 Verviers 173 viaduct see railway viaduct Victoria railway station 235 Vienna 41, 62, 72, 74, 188, 190–191, 193, 222 Vilvoorde 179 Vinohradský tunnel 193 Vooruit 367 Vuchic, Vukan R. 423 Vysočany station 193 wagon see railway wagon waiting room see railway station waiting room Waldorp, H. 250 Walkway 322, 327 Wall 149 Wallach 221 Wallachia 214–215, 219, 221–222 Wallonia 354 War of Independence 256 War with France see German-French War Waregem 179 Wartburg 10–11 Washington, D.C. 66, 201–202, 206, 209, 334, 394, 400 Waswo, Ann 277 water tower see railway water tower

Waterloo 322, 375, 384 Waterloo Bridge 325 Weber, Donald 59–61, 359 Welwyn 280, 301, 303 Werner, Alex 64–65, 74, 322 West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad 204 Western Europe 349, 405, 418, 429 Western Germany see Federal Republic of Germany Western Ghats 155, 158, 160–161 Western India 155, 165 Western nations see Western world Western Rail Road 145 Western world 79–81, 85, 405 Westinghouse, George 68 Westminster 64 Wetteren 179 wheat 28 Wheat Line 150 wheeling 145 Whitsun 328 Wichita 151 Wiesbaden 21 Wilhelm II 21 Wilhelmine Empire 249 Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PWB) 334 Wilsonovo nádraží (Wilson Station) in Prague 192 Wisconsin 129, 147 Witte, Sergei Yulyevich 28 wood 28 world fairs 36, 66, 73, 75–76 World War One 22, 28, 43, 48, 60, 79, 147, 151, 251–252, 264 World War Two 4, 31, 33, 44, 48, 52, 54, 56, 79, 82, 84, 89, 151, 207, 246, 264, 278, 281, 289, 303, 309, 312 World’s Columbian Exposition 67, 75, 205, 395 Wright, John Joseph 73 Würzburg 406 Yamamoto 279 Yamanote 274 Yamanote Loop Line 280, 282 Yanagida, Kunio 310 Yanagihara, Nobuhiro 52, 56–57, 85, 307 Yeldeğirmen 252 Yıldırım, Binali 242–243 Yokohama 53, 273, 275, 280–281, 298, 301 Yom Kippur War 89

Index  495 Young Turk Revolution 251 Yusuf, Shehu Tijjani 24 Zacatecas 257, 260–261 Zacoalco Verdía 261 Zahavi conjecture 416

Zapotiltic 261 Zaria 138, 140 Zedillo, Ernesto 265 Žižkov Freight Station 197 Zula 261 Zweig, Stefan 22