The general demand for fast communications (Ghega 1844)

The project "The General Demand for Fast Communications" (Ghega, 1844) will examine the `view of life" of Austrian railway engineers in terms of the historical discourses of ,,culture", "civilization" and "communication". These will be related particularly to the numerous influences (especially those of a cultural- nature) of the most important transport and communication technology, `the Railway`, as it appeared in the first half of C19th. The `view of life` of these early railway engineers needs to be examined in terms of their study tours of England. and North-America (e.g. transfer of `culture`); of their implicite dependences (e.g. on the respective government systems, gender aspects) as well as pursuing the question, to what degree the (early) railway was a disciplinary practice in Foucault` sense. In terms of transport history, the early railway engineers - mostly Englishmen - related initially to the building principles of the artifically cut shipping canals. These English principles were widely used on the European continent. The numerous study tours undertaken by the Austrian-Hungarian railway engineers Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner, Matthias Ritter von Schönerer and Carl Ritter von Ghega, meant that in the first half of the C19th Austria was influenced by other countries in addition to England (for example, Belgium and North America). The technological effects of this knowledge exchange and also of the experience of the engineers resulted in significant railway buildings of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: Gerstner and Schönerer were the leading civil engineers of the first continental European railway for passengers, from Budweis, through Linz (concession given in 1824) to Gmunden. In 1841 Schönerer completed the first railway tunnel of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (Gumpoldskirchner tunnel with inscription `RECTA SEQUI`); Ghega was chief civil engineer of building for the first high mountain railway in the world, the Semmering railway (built between 1848 and 1854). This line was included in the UNESCO-World Heritage List in Dec.1998 and represents an internationally accepted `culture- creating monument`. In addition to these technological effects, we must assume that there were more general cultural interactions associated with the knowledge exchange, even though these are still poorly consolidated poorly within the field of railway engineers. While the traffic history of railways is described in great detail in numerous publications, the cultural effects remain inadequately examined. This is shown in the numerous publications of railway-enthusiasts, especially of males, and it is striking that the image of `world` and `culture` constructed by the engineer community of the C19th - the vision of mechanized coping with `natural` difficulties - has lost nothing in contemporary times. However, the academic field of `Railway Studies` (see http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/irs) offers the potential to explore the multi-layered connections between society, technique and industrialization. In this case, the opportunity will be taken to analyse the constitutive character of central, socially relevant terms as `culture`, `civilization` and `communication` linked to the network-- and transport-technology, the railway.

Railways represent a mixture of ancient and modern and continue to be a fascinating phenomenon as the European Commission states in 2004. Railways are more than a technical device or an infrastructure. This was reflected in the last decades when the history of railways was put in a wider context: its relations with the economic growth and the effects on travel were shown, and also effects on literature, film or on the perception in general were investigated. To re-read railways as a cultural device is a very new approach. In the project one focus was layed on the protagonists of early railways and how they promote and handle this new transport technology. In several presentations and papers a wide range of a cultural views on railways could be demonstrated: On the example of instructions for railway employees aspects of railways as a disciplinaring technology were sketched. Study tours of railway engineers in the middle of C19th were re-read and aspects of internationality, but also of mentalities of each time-period were investigated with the concept of cultural transfer. To outline the manifold relations of railway and culture an interdisciplinary and international workshop series was held at the IFF in 2001 these were the first academic events on this topic: 18 Researcher from seven countries all over the globe presented and discussed papers on relations of railway and culture. An extension of the access to the subject was carried out by artists from four countries who presented their views on railway and culture. Nearly all papers could be included in an anthology which is published 2004 as a special issue of Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchives. Beyond it, relevant printed sources for the project were digitized and are now available for everyone via ALO (www.literature.at/ sub-folder Cultures of Transport and Mobility). Some more general presentations resp. papers outline the field of railway and culture. During the second half of the FWF-project an increasing interest in the history of railways and especially in its effects can be stated: beside the celebrationexhibitions of the UNESCO World Heritage site Semmering-Railway in 2004 there is one exhibition project which intends to highlighten and display the cultural aspects of one railway line, the Südbahn (southern railway) in Austria/Slovenia/Italy. Because of the FWF-funded project and the persons involved there, the first conference of the International Railway History Association (IRHA, www.ffe.es/ai) will take place in Austria from 17th to 19th September 2004 in Semmering.