Summary - TST 7

TRANSPORTES, SERVICIOS Y TELECOMUNICACIONES


TST 7

Ralph Roth
Movilidad ferroviaria en la Alemania del siglo XIX: de la visión a la realidad

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Key words: Germany; mobility; railway; passenger traffic.

[ Abstract ]

The first vision of a railway supported traffic network in Germany can be traced back to the 1810s. Since then, a debate about the future of railways has developed. It became even more intense with Britain’s progress in railway technology. This debate, documented in hundreds of memoranda (Denkschriften), spread the idea of railways and painted a certain picture of its economic, social political and cultural consequences for the society. This literature was important for a movement which led to numerous committees which were the origins of many private railway companies. Many of the main lines of the German railway network were constructed by these companies in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s. As the railway enthusiasts had envisaged, this network had many consequences for the German society. More than any other process the railways had increased the mobility of the poor. This was for social and economic reasons of strategic importance. Indeed, cheap rail fares resulted in a mass migration of the lower classes. Without this movement of people the big modernisation processes of the nineteenth century, industrialisation and urbanisation, would not have been occurred.