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 century, the railway system interacted largely with the main economic and social features of the world’s material civilisation, shaping them reciprocally. Furthermore, it is important to state here that for the history of technology studies, it is probably a mistake to focus only on railways, even if it is the central subject of the seminar. We must avoid “railway mania”; although it is an enjoyable field! This is where the borderline is between amateur erudite and the professional historian is drawn. It is important to be aware of other transportation systems (roads, canals, etc.) and moreover of the general pace of the history of technology at the same time. Despite the fact that railways often had a leading position, they did remain as only one element among a large range of others that shaped the technical system at one period and within a local or regional context. That implied economic relationships and dependences among the industrial material market, the network of factories, the craftsmen knowhow, the global transportation market etc. Than, cultural features linked with railways could be well understood with deeper significance. Confrontation of technical railway facts with the global complexity of technology inside an economic and social context probably offer good insights into the cultural dimension of the history of technology. With such a point of view, railways are not a goal but a tool for understanding how technology really influences culture. Trends in Railways Bibliography and Heritage Today the question of links between railways and culture remains a significant challenge to be correctly surveyed. Of course, we have some excellent academic studies about the social, economic and cultural history of the railway developments through the European, American and others geographical zones. There are also important museum exhibits on the conservation and the interpretation of railways rolling stock, and also an important patrimonial activity for the preservation of historical railway lines, as the exceptional examples of mountain lines like the Semmering in Austria or the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in India or the “Train Jaune” in France and many others. Undoubtedly, there is today an important cultural dimension for the railways’ heritage. Frequently such exhibits and historical line valorisations are very popular, dealing with nostalgia for the golden age of days gone by. Heritage policy of sites could both express the needs for recognition as a significant historic example and for the purposes of tourism. The historical publications and the patrimonial activities offer a very large array of methods and points of view from the narrative compilation of the “heroic railways” to the accurate case studies of “Technology in Context”. The focus can be very narrow, 45
