Railway history

Railway History comprises the railways of the world from the early 19th century in Britain to the present day.

19th century

British colonies

The British built a superb system in India. However, Christensen (1996) looks at of colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests. He concludes that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the timely needs of the railways or their passengers.

World

China started building late. In 1900 there were only 860 kilometres of track and about 3,000 railway workers. After 1920 the major cities, ports and mining districts were connected. Railways became a major employer of industrial labor and by 1937 they had about 300,000 employees in China Proper and the Japanese-controlled Northeast, along 21,270 kilometres of track.

Labor

Licht (1983) shows that raileays changed employment in many ways. Lines with hundreds or thousands of employees developed systematic rules and procedures not only for running the equipment buty in hiring, promoting, paying and supervising employees. The railway system was adopted by all major business Railways offered a new type of work experience in enterprises vastly larger in size, complexity and management. At first workers were recruited from occupations where skills were roughly analogous and transferable, that is, workshop mechanics from the iron, machine and building trades; conductors from stagecoach drivers, steamship stewards and mail boat captains; station masters from commerce and commission agencies; clerks from government offices.

Bibliography

• Nock, O . S. ed. Encyclopedia of Railways (London, 1977), worldwide coverage, heavily illustrated

Britain and Empire

• R. O. Christensen on "The State and Indian Railway Performance, 1870-1920" in Terri Gourvish, ed. Railways vol 1 (1996)
• Ellis, Hamilton. British Railway History: An Outline from the Accession of William IV to the Nationalization of Railways, 1877-1947 1959 online edition
• den Otter, A.A. The Philosophy of Railways: The Transcontinental Railway Idea in British North America. University of Toronto Press, 1997.
• Simmons, Jack and Gordon Biddle, (eds). The Oxford Companion to British Railway History: From 1603 to the 1990s (2nd ed 1999)
• Skelton, Oscar D. The Railway Builders (1916)
• Terri Gourvish, ed. Railways volume 1; volume 2, edited by Geoffrey Channon. (Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing Company and the Scholar Press, 1996. Pp. xviii, 174; xxi, 187. Articles from Journal of Transport History

Europe

• Fremdling, Rainer. "Railways and German Economic Growth: A Leading Sector Analysis with a Comparison to the United States and Great Britain," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 37, No. 3. (Sep., 1977), pp. 583-604.
• Anthony Heywood; Modernising Lenin's Russia: Economic Reconstruction, Foreign Trade and the Railways Cambridge University Press, 1999 online edition
• O’Brien, Patrick. Railways and the Economic Development of Western Europe, 1830-1914 (1983)

United States and Canada

• William D. Middleton ed. Encyclopedia of North American Railroads (2007) Indiana U. Press: 1200 pp; the most valuable reference book; 500+ entries by experts, with bibliographies
• Chandler, Alfred, ed. The Railroads: The Nation's First Big Business - Sources and Readings. (1965)
• Chandler, Alfred. The Visible Hand--The Managerial Revolution in American Business. (1977) highhly influential study of railway management
• Jenks, Leland H. "Railroads as an Economic Force in American Development," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (May, 1944), 1-20. in JSTOR
• Kirkland, Edward Chase. Men, Cities and Transportation, A Study of New England History 1820-1900 2 vol (1948)
• Klein, Maury. Unfinished Business: The Railroad in American Life (1997)
• Klein, Maury. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (1997) excerpt online at Amazon.com
• Klein, Maury. The Life & Legend of E. H. Harriman (2000) online edition
• Martin, Albro. James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest (1990)
• Martin, Albro. Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (1992)
• Moody, John. The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States 1919 online at Project Gutenberg
• Nice, David C. Amtrak: The History and Politics of a National Railroad (1998) online edition
• Riegel, Robert Edgar. The Story of the Western Railroads 1926 onine edition
• Stover, John. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads (2001)
• Stover, John. American Railways (2nd ed 1997) good, brief overview; excerpt online at Amazon.com
• Stover, John. History of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (1987; 2nd ed 1999)
• Stover, John. History of the Illinois Central Railroad (1975)
• Stover, John. Iron Road to the West: American Railroads in the 1850's (1978)
• Stover, John. The Railroads of the South 1865-1900 A Study in Finance and Control (1955)

Labor issues

• Walter Licht, Working for the Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century Princeton University Press, 1983
• Morgan, Stephen L. "Personnel Discipline and Industrial Relations on the Railways of Republican China." The Australian Journal of Politics and History. 47#1 (2001) pp 24+ online edition

Technology

• Alston, Liviu. Railways and Energy. Washington, DC: World Bank. 1984.

• Drinkwater, Robert. "Code of the Rail" Beaver 2005 85(1): 41-43. ISSN: 0005-7517 Fulltext: in Ebsco, Morse code
• Riley, C. J. The Encyclopedia of Trains & Locomotives (2002).

External Links

• Simone Sterne, "Railroads" from 1881 Encyclopedia
• primary sources on 19th century and early 20th century American railways