The Social Railway and Its Workers in Europe's Modern Era, 1880-2023 - by David Welsh Hardcover

About the Book

An original exploration of Europe's railway history that focuses on working-class formation, trade unionism, disability, social development, fossil fuel technology, ecology and climate change.

Book Synopsis

This thematically arranged book examines the evolution of rail transport and a number of railway workforces across Europe in the modern era, from around 1880 to 2023.

Each chapter explores how, within the context of a social railway, rail workers developed distinct national and international perspectives on the nature of their work and their roles in societies and states. David Welsh convincingly argues that workers formed a raft of entirely new and enduring organisations such as trade unions that, in turn, became ramparts of hope. Welsh goes on to consider how the insurgent character of these organisations produced moments of fury during tumultuous periods in the 20th century. The Social Railway and its Workers in Europe's Modern Era, 1880-2023 explores the national and European contexts in which both characteristics came to the fore, including the ecology of fossil fuel technology (coal and oil). Above all, it argues that social, economic and political forces are not simply external 'scene-shifting' but integral to the history of railway systems.

The book examines the cultural construction of European railways through literature, art and other forms of writing as well as recent oral history. It also includes a detailed investigation of the role played by nationalisation and public ownership in Europe. In the context of neoliberalism and globalization, it proposes a 21st century programme for the social railway.

Review Quotes

"An engaged account of the development of European railway workforces that will contribute to work on international trade unionism" --Jeremy Black, author of 'A World History of Rail' (2023)

About the Author

David Welsh is a retired member of the RMT and currently the convenor of Norfolk for the Nationalisation of Rail and editor of Key Workers United (Norfolk and Waveney). He was a community historian at HISTORYTalk and worked on the 'Britain at Work' oral history project and co-ordinated the 'Second World War Home Front Project' for the National Pensioners' Convention and TUC, 2004-06. He is the author of Underground Writing: The London Tube from George Gissing to Virginia Woolf (2010) and the editor of All in a Day's Work: Working Lives and Trade Unions in Working Lives and Trade Unions in West London 1945- 1995 (2015) and Fortress Britain: Working Lives and Trade Unions in World War II (2005).