The Railway

Theresa Wellington- McGilton 

2 February 2021 

The Railway 

The Railway 

    This week we were assigned two readings and of the two “Railroad Space and Railroad Time” by Wolfgang Schivelbusch is the one I found most interesting. The main ideas of the text state that the railway system altered humanity’s perspective of space and time. The text offers interesting insight on to both the pros and cons of the railway system, not only are they claims that make good points but also cause you to think about such concepts in a different way. 

    From the text I gathered that the “shrinking of temporal space” was because of transport technology. I kind of thought back to last weeks’ 7 cheap things and how they are all interdependent. This kind of seems like that to me. The cities/ places were perceived as being closer to one another because they were now easily accessible via the railway. And because they were easily accessible that opened up trade. Different “parts” of the world could now be found in one city. 

    Time was altered right away with the birth of the railway system in that travel that once used to take days now only took hours. With that came the argument that traveling place to place no longer gave any experience from the journey, and I believe that to be true. Because the railway system was born, “railroad time” was also needed to organize the flow of traffic on the track. 

    The railway system has definitely altered humanity’s perspective on space and time in that one could argue that the railway system is a great way to bring cultures together in forms of goods, but it is also the worst by taking said goods away from their “traditional here-and-now”.