How Railways Transformed the World

Railways are one of the most important inventions in modern history.

While most of us have experienced railways as passengers, and through media, a deeper look at railways shows a historical phenomenon of astonishing proportions. Rail travel brought the first overland mass transport of both people and goods, spanning continents and linking communities and nations with unprecedented speed and efficiency. The effects of this innovation on the way of life of people around the world have been incalculable.

In the 24 richly illustrated lectures of How Railways Transformed the World, Professor Patrick N. Allitt of Emory University takes you on a deep dive into the history, lore, and the multiple dimensions of trains and rail travel. An eminent historian and a lifelong railway enthusiast, Professor Allitt infuses the lectures with a vast and discerning knowledge of trains and train travel as he discusses the importance of railways throughout history and throughout the world, also presenting extensive material about rail travel today. Through his grand and sprawling narrative and engrossing storytelling, you’ll witness the creation and development of rail technology, the railway industry, and railway culture, which has had such profound effects on lives around the world.

As just one example of the importance of railways in history, linking the East and West Coasts of the United States by rail turned a cross-country journey of five or six months into just five or six days. By revolutionizing travel and transport, trains radically changed the way we experience the world, even altering humanity’s sense of time.

Remarkable milestones of railways include:

• In the 19th century, railroads made large-scale farming possible on the Great Plains of the United States, allowing for the vast export of agricultural produce, altering the entire world food market and virtually banishing famine.
• The Swiss St. Gotthard railway, connecting Germany with Italy, changed the face of European commerce, and was the most significant engineering feat to affect world trade other than the Suez Canal.
• In their integral roles in the unification of Germany, Italy, Canada, and Australia, railways played a pivotal part in the creation of new nations.
• The building of the US transcontinental railroad was almost certainly the largest engineering project in world history at that time and transformed the United States into a continent-spanning power.
• The transformations in Europe brought about by railways between 1830 and 1880 occurred more rapdily than changes in the previous 500 years of European history.

Presented in breathtaking scope and detail in the 24 lectures of this course, you will see the extraordinary development and impact of railways from their beginning in the early 19th century to futuristic train travel of today.

A Revolutionary Technology

Rail travel has altered human life in numerous ways. Railways largely brought the invention of tourism, as skillful entrepreneurs, making use of railroads, promoted large-scale, organized pleasure travel for the first time. Railways founded towns and cities, sparked immigration and settlement around the world, drove social and political change, and influenced the outcome of major wars. Rail travel has fired the imaginations of great writers, artists, and filmmakers. It has significantly changed urban life, linking communities with cities, and creating suburban living. In these ways and others, railways have been central to the creation of the connected, modern world we know of today.

A central feature of Professor Allitt’s presentation is the sheer pleasure, allure, and appeal of trains and train travel. In the 21st century, rail travel continues to offer a myriad of the most enjoyable and memorable ways of seeing our planet, through the richly diverse scenery and majestic landscapes seen on rail journeys around the world. Within this course, in addition to the unfolding of railway history, you’ll learn where you can experience the best of railway travel today, with details and film footage of great rail journeys across Britain, North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Through this delightful immersion into the phenomenon of railways in How Railways Transformed the World, you’ll contemplate important questions of economics, politics, industrial societies, culture, and more as you take a fresh and compelling look at the world history of the last 200 years.

A New Horizon for Human Living

In a panoramic view of railway history and culture, you’ll explore key developments of railways, such as:

• The Beginnings: Steam and Iron. Encounter the brilliant inventors who first mounted steam engines on wheels, like Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson, whose locomotive Rocket reached the unheard-of speed of 30 mph in 1829. Track the evolving technology of smooth metal wheels on smooth metal rails; rack and pinion railways; and the engineering marvels of viaducts, spirals, switchbacks, and tunnels that drove the railway revolution.
• A Radically Changing World. With the 19th-century explosion of railways across Britain, the United States, and Europe, observe how rail travel quickly altered the fabric of human life by galvanizing urbanization and the Industrial Revolution; dramatically increasing mobility; making possible the nationwide marketing of goods; sparking organized labor; and pioneering tourism in places from England, Scotland, and the European continent to Florida, Niagara, and the Western United States.
• Railways in Politics, Empire, and War. Learn how governments, from the beginning, made use of railways in significant ways. Note 19th-century German thinkers’ promotion of railways as a way of encouraging central government; witness the widespread use of railroads in the colonial empires of the French, British, and Germans; and delve into the integral wartime use of railways in conflicts from the Crimean and Franco-Prussian Wars to the two World Wars.
• Great Train Journeys of the World. Throughout the course, learn where you can experience the best of rail travel today, and travel with Professor Allitt on some of the world’s most unforgettable railways. Visualize the dramatic terrain on South Africa’s Rovos Rails trains and glimpse superlative trains and scenery on Switzerland’s Jungfrau and Bernina railways, India’s Darjeeling railway, England’s Settle to Carlisle line, Colorado’s Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railway, and many others.
• Rail Travel in Culture and Art. Examine the use of railway settings in great novels, from Dickens and Tolstoy to Graham Greene and more; see how train travel has been depicted in art, by painters such as Monet, Turner, Edward Hopper, and Thomas Hart Benton; trace the use of railways in great films, from silent classics to Renoir, Hitchcock, and beyond; and explore some of the most magnificent architecture of the modern world: great train stations.
• Railways and the Future. From the advent of diesel-powered and “streamlined” trains in the 20th century, chart the development of advancing rail systems, and railways as “green” technology. Mark today’s high-speed trains in Japan, France, Spain, and China, reaching speeds of 200 mph; delve into cutting-edge rail systems, highlighting magnetic levitation and “hyperloop” technology, which envisions trains traveling at up to 700 mph.

A Globally Beloved Means of Travel

Across the span of this course, you’ll discover the remarkable phenomenon of railway heritage, nostalgia, and preservation—a worldwide activity that keeps historic railroads and their artifacts very much alive. Here, you’ll enjoy visits to great railway museums across Europe and the United States, such as England’s National Railway Museum, Train World in Belgium, and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. You’ll also glimpse a rich range of preserved historic railways, such as Britain’s Bluebell Railway, Spain’s Ferrocarril de Sóller, Norway’s Flåm Railway, and numerous others.

In the 24 enthralling lectures of How Railways Transformed the World, you’ll enjoy the fascinating history and lore of an invention that forever changed human life.