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ISBN: 9781851496723 Actual size of book: 310 x 240mm Pages: 184 UK Price: 25.00 US Price: $49.50

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Thierry Favre

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1900-1920 The Apogee. The Train as a Factor of Development

Opening of the Simplon Tunnel, International Exhibition, Milan, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1905 G. Ricordi & C., Milan 193.7 X 95.3 cm Collection Alessandro Bellenda, Galerie LIMAGE, Alassio Italy Modena Express, Umberto Tirelli, anonymous, c.1905 Arti Grafiche Minarelli, Bologna 99 X 69 cm Collection Alessandro Bellenda, Galerie LIMAGE, Alassio Italy

f North America accounted for a third of the worlds rail track at the beginning of the twentieth century, the regions of the world to which the railways had yet to bring their benefits were greatly interested. As time went on, many countries started to acquire railway systems. In Europe, however, the First World War brought many construction projects to a sudden halt. The start of the twentieth century saw the first railway in Iraq, in 1902. In 1915 it was Moroccos turn to discover this new mode of transport with a line joining Oujda on the Algerian border with Marrakesh, passing through Fes, Rabat and Casablanca. This line was supplemented by a strategic network constructed by the French Army, to which the local population had no access. Steam engines, the efficiency and reliability of which had been greatly improved and which now transported both freight and passengers at greater speeds, totally dominated the train world. However, another form of locomotion was beginning to make an appearance. Developed by the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, the heat engine would quickly be adopted in shipping, in automobile transport for use in lorries, and finally, some time later, in rail travel. The 191418 War gave the diesel engine its first widespread application: it was fitted into locomotives built to carry arms and munitions to the front. These military trains employed diesel engines rather than steam engines because it meant that they would be less visible to the enemy. However, the steam train had not yet sung its last hurrah. Constantly improved to cut down on running costs, it reigned virtually unchallenged in most countries of Europe and throughout the world. Alongside the development of the heat engine and its application to rail travel, steam also faced the increasing use of electric engines. It is often thought that this type of engine appeared after diesel, but this is not exactly true. In fact, trials were carried out in Britain as early as 1842, with a view to creating an electric vehicle, and then five years later with the elaboration of a battery-driven carriage invented by Farmer and Hall. Further attempts were made in the USA with the construction of an electric wagon, but it was the German Siemens who came to be regarded as one of the early pioneers of the electric engine applied to the railways. His narrow-gauge traction engine inaugurated a new era. Although it was met with great scepticism, Siemens invention was exhibited in Berlin, Brussels and finally Paris in 1880. Siemens used strong rather than weak currents, and his machine is considered today to be the first genuine electric locomotive in the world. The use of fixed generators and motors in industry also led to the development of the electric train. As research widened a variety of experimental machines were produced, like that created by Jean-Jacques Heilmann for the Compagnie de lOuest in France. Heilmann came up with a boiler and steam engine driven by a dynamo feeding into eight electric motors. This hybrid locomotive was christened the Electric Rocket. In the course of trials this curiously shaped engine achieved a top speed of 108 km/hour. In the USA, where train travel was growing apace, the idea of adapting electric

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Contents

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The Blue Bird, Anvers Brussels Paris, A. M. Cassandre, 1929 Impr. L. Danel, Lille 100 X 62 cm

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Introduction Railways in the 19th Century. The Construction of Lines and Networks in Europe and the USA

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1900-1920 The Apogee. The Train as a Factor of Development 1919-1929 The Period of Consolidation. Happy Journeys! 1930-1945 The Difficult Years. Necessary Restructuring and Evolution 1950-2005 The Renaissance of Rail. Reconstruction and Modernization of the European Networks

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Railways in the 19th Century. The Construction of Lines and Networks in Europe and the USA

Chemins de fer de lOuest, reduced-price journeys, PAL, 1897 108 X 76 cm

Midland Railway, the Best Route for Comfortable Travel and Picturesque Scenery, H. Gray, 1899

England & Scotland East Coast Route, anonymous, c.1895 100 X 63 cm

Compagnie des Wagons-Bars, Eugne Vavasseur, 1898 Atelier Vavasseur, Bois-Colombes 122 X 83 cm

hough a British invention, the railways originated in part in the fardier vapeur (an early steam-driven carriage) created by the Frenchman Joseph Cugnot in 1771. The Industrial Revolution in Britain in the nineteenth century stimulated the search for new ways of transporting large quantities of freight. It was from this need that the first railways emerged. The first lines built for the transportation of coal would replace the earlier wooden rails with ones made of steel. From these beginnings the railways would grow rapidly and contribute to the industrialization of Europe, before spreading to other continents. Passenger railways also expanded exponentially, and in particular facilitated contacts between politicians, diplomats and businessmen. So the railways were born in Britain. It was Richard Trevithick who, in 1804, constructed what might be considered to be the worlds very first locomotive: a more or less functional steam-driven machine that ran on wooden rails in Wales. He built a number of other machines, one of which, bearing the nickname Catch Me Who Can, carried paying passengers on a small circuit enclosed by a wooden fence. Trevithicks inventions did not go unnnoticed. Other engineers like Blenkinsop, Blackett, Brunton or Hedley came up with different solutions using cogwheels, for example. In the USA, where there was greater enthusiasm for the railways than in old Europe, where the new invention initially encountered much suspicion and fear, the locomotive builders converted former smelters and forges greatly increased production with the aim of making a fast fortune. Most of these locomotives, unfortunately, were rather makeshift contraptions one used rifle barrels in place of boiler pipes The Englishman George Stephenson worked on railway construction from as early as 1815. Along with his son, Robert, he is famous for creating the locomotive the Rocket, which came first in the Rainhill Trials run in 1829. Theirs was the locomotive chosen to pull trains on the LiverpoolManchester line. Two years earlier, in France, Marc Seguin had refined two Stephenson locomotives acquired for the LyonSt tienne line by installing the tubular system that he employed in the boilers of steamboats plying the river Rhne. The Rocket made its creator the first great railway manufacturer. In Europe, where industrialization was taking off, the technological advances coming out of Britain opened up opportunities for a number of countries intent on following the same path. A symbol of progress and of decline for the barges, stagecoaches and horse-drawn carriages the railways grew as rapidly in Europe as in the USA. In the Old World, Germany, Belgium, France and Italy were in the forefront of railway building. The companies involved made their money initially out of the transportation of freight, but, after a tentative start, passenger transport grew to be just as important. However, the new invention got a hostile reception at first. Caricaturists like Daumier1 had a field day pillorying the railways in the newspapers, and placed great emphasis on the dangers of train travel. It is true that third-class train travel was pretty Spartan; but the real problem was the trains

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