Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)

I. Für eine Kulturgeschichte der Eisenbahn / Towards a cultural history of railways - Michael Cotte: Railways and Culture: An Introduction

Railways and Culture: An Introduction

Figure from: Cotte, Michel: Innovation et transfert de technologie, le cas des entreprises de Marc Seguin, 1815-1835. Lille 1998, chapter 24- 6, p. 873.

Fig. 6 The early operating organisation of the Company (1833-1835)

Early operations on the Railway Line and Social Attitudes (from 1830)

Another cultural field lay in the social acceptance of operating railways and in the first shaping of customer habits. Of course it is a complex question depending on social groups. Nevertheless, interesting elements occurred very clearly in our case study about relationships between the railway company and the different social or economic groups involved in the railway process.

When the Saint-Etienne & Lyon railway line was first designed for coal and merchandise transportation, it obtained passengers by chance earlier than 1830. Originally it was a kind of game played by young boys who climbed on the wagons when they were pulled downhill by gravity with their coal load. Camille Seguin understood this kind of popular use and freely allowed passengers on Sundays so people could go to the local festivals at Givors. Furthermore he quickly organised the passenger use of specific wagons between the different cities along the line. In 1833, upon the comple6l