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.However, their value, often as a tool of nation-building or for helping to move military forces around the country to quell protests, was beginning to be widely recognized by even the most reactionary governments.Already a distinction was emerging between types of railways that, very broadly and with inevitable exceptions, can be defined as British, continental and North American; 15 these are covered in the next three chapters.EUROPE MAKES A STARTThe first railways in most European countries either used British technology or copied it.Moreover, many used British train drivers – engineers as they were often rather misleadingly called – who were sought after because of their experience and who were prepared to travel abroad thanks to the higher wages and the esteem they attracted.This spread of British technology and know-how was hardly surprising given that Britain had a decade start on its rivals and was, for a time, the only country producing locomotives.Britain also had the Stephensons whose unique skills and experience meant that putative railway promoters would ‘send for the Stephensons’ to provide advice in designing and constructing railways.Even the men who built these European railways were sometimes British.The British navvy, who had rightly earned a fierce reputation for both hard work and hard drinking, was recognized as superior to local workers, recruited from agriculture, who did not have the experience and strength required.They were brought over by British contractors like Thomas Brassey on projects such as the Paris–Rouen railway, and might then travel around the continent finding work on different projects.They impressed the locals, as one of Brassey’s timekeepers on the Paris–Rouen reported with admiration after looking ‘on as fine a spectacle as any man could witness… every man with his shirt open, working in the heat of the day… such an exhibition of physical power attracted many French gentlemen who came on to the cuttings at Paris and Rouen, said “Mon Dieu, les Anglais, comme ils travaillent.”’ 1Europe’s early railways were constructed on a continent that was markedly different from its geopolitical situation today.While France’s boundaries remain similar, neither Italy nor Germany existed as we know them today.Much of the French Riviera belonged to an Italian-speaking state called Piemonte-Sardinia, one of many states on the Italian peninsula, and while there was a ‘German people’, they resided throughout central Europe.Prussia was the biggest country in the north and the Austrian Empire dominated the south, while thirty-seven smaller Germanic states were sandwiched between them.Other than France, the countries which made a start in the 1830s in Europe were Belgium and ‘Germany’ (Bavaria and later Saxony) in 1835, the Austrian Empire in 1838 and Italy and Holland the following year.The success of the Liverpool & Manchester’s locomotives had not immediately convinced every railway promoter that steam was definitely the future.In the Austrian Empire, lengthy railways using horse power continued to be developed well into the 1830s.Indeed, it boasted the world’s longest horse railway, connecting Linz in Upper Austria with Budweis in Bohemia (home of the famous beer and now in the Czech Republic), a distance of 90 miles, and soon after extended even further to salt works at the health resort of Gmunden.By 1836, just before steam began to replace the horses, the network of interconnected public horse railways in Austria covered an impressive 170 miles.Nevertheless, for the most part locomotive traction was seen as the favoured option, although horses were used for some services, especially goods transport.While the various European railways retained elements of British practice, such as running on the left and using similar semaphore signals, they soon established their own traditions and practices.The continental railways diverged quickly from the British model in several important respects, notably the size of the trains [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]