European integration and national models for railway networks (1840–2010)

Abstract

Following the assumption that history is one of the main factors conditioning transport systems, this paper analyses the evolution of railways in Europe since 1840 and aims to provide a better understanding of present infrastructures and future challenges. The central message is that states played, and continue to play, a fundamental role in the establishment of Europe’s national railway networks, regardless of EU guidelines. As a consequence, every national transport system has exhibited a series of specific characteristics throughout its history and these must be identified if we are to improve the construction and coordination of current railway networks and their services.Railways played an important role in the process of state formation from the mid 19th century onwards, and have continued to do so in the recent introduction of the High-Speed Train. Adopting a historical perspective is therefore essential for a good understanding of the railway network in Europe, particularly as 70% of the lines currently in service had already been established by 1900. In other words, leaving aside the most recent improvements to railway infrastructure and rolling stock, we are essentially still using a 19th century network. It is therefore relevant to examine the factors that influenced this network’s initial expansion and to study its subsequent transformations through a series of homogeneous data.This research is based on a new GIS dataset that includes all of the railway lines in service at 10-year intervals from 1840 to 2010. These were related to state borders – which changed quite dramatically in the 20th century – for every reference year. The combination of these two layers of information allowed us to monitor national policies and to identify periods of rail construction and closure by area. The specific path followed by each European country was then quantified. This revealed how, historically speaking, the national level has always been the one at which the most important decisions relating to railway networks have been taken, and this remains the case today.