Page 67 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

Tourists travelling by train around
Britain in 1876. Railways were
originally intended to move goods,
but passengers soon flocked
to this new form of transport

backs of trains. Most of the men who were railways. Britain’s naval blockade did bite in In many ways, of course, the railway age
taken to France arrived at ports like the end, but it took quite a long time for this hasn’t ended. There are still a vast number
Folkestone and Southampton by railway. to happen. of journeys being made each year on Britain’s
However, in the longer term a situation railways and there’s talk now of high-speed
developed that, because landed transport When did the railway age come rail, which could give it a new lease of life.
became so much easier, Britain’s naval to an end and why? What’s also interesting is the fact that the
domination mattered less. In the First World It was partly because of under-investment first motor cars were just trackless steam
War. Germany was able to get material and during the Second World War and state engines, so in a way I always see a smooth
supplies from the whole of Europe by rail in a ownership afterwards, and partly because of transition from the train to the motor car.
way that Napoleon, for example, couldn’t a fashionable obsession with the new motor
have done. Whereas France had been car. There wasn’t the rapid electrification Dan Snow is a historian, author and broadcaster.
strangled by Britain’s blockade, Germany of trains that would have reduced journey He has presented numerous BBC TV series
GETTY had access to lots of the natural resources of times and put up more of a fight against the including Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History
encroaching of the car.
Eurasia that could be moved using the
of Railways (2014), available on DVD
The Story of Science & Technology 67