E n d  o f  a n  E p o c h

The dreams go back to the time when traveling over the continents meant travel by train and, beyond the end of the line, by connecting Ocean steamers to other continents, to other famous trains… travels then barricaded for most people by unaffordable tariffs. They only could have a look at the exclusive de-luxe long-distance expresses from outside. Even taking photographs of trains was strictly forbidden, at least in the Old World. Still now in some European countries railway photographers may be arrested. The grand expresses however have almost completely disappeared.

A new railway age had come with the Japanese Shinkansen in 1964 - electric high-speed “no-frills”daylight trains for everybody, no longer only for the privileged ones, now in combination with innovative booking systems. Where true high-speed lines have been built, they were victorious over short-haul air traffic. High-speed technology had been anticipated already in 1891 by engineer Karl Zipernowsky, who proposed an electrified railway Vienna - Budapest for 250 km/h. Technology was tested in Germany by AEG and Siemens in 1903, when electric railcars achieved a speed around 200 km/h or 125 mph. Development was continued by German pioneer Franz Kruckenberg with his propeller-driven “Schienenzeppelin”, a test vehicle, and then with the German diesel railcar Fliegender Hamburger and the Italian electric ETR200. With the Shinkansen, Japan took leadership and from there the idea of high-speed links did spread to Europe, Asia and finally to the United States. Now “high-speed” means top speeds between c. 250 and 300 km/h (186 mph) or more in regular service on new lines. Even regional services, often with tilting technology, may attain more than 200 km/h.

The classic "Grands Express Europeens" of the International Sleeping Car Company by Georges Nagelmackers, like their American equivalent by George Mortimer Pullman, had been the forerunners of nowadays' standard airlines. And like the airlines in pre-war times, at least some ones among the Grand Expresses in Europe were indirectly subsidized by the state-owned railways. After World War II the European international expresses due to economic reasons had to be combined with ordinary coaches of the various state railways, more and more overcrowded and shabby. Dining-cars disappeared from many international trains. Already decades ago, an unpublished study by German railways DB came to the result that true luxury, fulfilling the demands of today’s clientele, cannot be provided due to the restricted space aboard a train. Facing the competition by airlines, during the last third of the 20th century the once "grand" regular expresses decayed, their famous labels Orient-Express, Nord-, Sud-, Rome-Express or Train Bleu became ruined and finally these trains were withdrawn one by one. Rail fares did rise with the wages, whilst travel by air in many cases became cheaper than by train. In Western Europe the excellent Talgo night trains of Spain and a few other improved sleeping-car services emerged, e.g. the City Night Line expresses, confined however to routes being covered within 1 night. In France sleeping-car services were closed down almost completely on economic reasons. With the channel tunnel new "Nightstar" sleeping-car trains should have provided services from England to four countries, but they didn't come. When a decade after an entrepreneur planned new London sleeper trains, the Nightstar cars had been sold at less than half price to Canada. In the East of Europe, until 1990 under stringent Soviet rule, changes came more slowly. The old long-distance trains, serving migrant workers' traffic, got some reprieve before dying.

With the new railway age, in Western Europe exemplary high speed railways achieved success. The Anglo-French high-speed Eurostar London - Paris and Brussels topped the airlines’ market share. There is a shift from plane to train when railways get the time down to below four hours. Also the TGV Paris - Milan and the Eurostar London - Avignon despite long distances were an immediate success, low-cost air traffic however was not yet fully developed. Most new high-speed trains were confined to domestic services. Years ago a German Minister of Transport asked for a French TGV to Berlin and a German ICE to Paris. French international TGV Thalys should have been extended eastward and Swiss/ Italian semi-high speed Cisalpino northward to Frankfurt. Everything was blockaded. And for many years the German ICE3M and the Italian ETR500P were not allowed to enter TGV-country France regularly. Though rail traffic in the (old) EU between 1970 and 2003 rose from 217 billion revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) to c. 300 billion, railways’ traffic share declined from 10 to 6 percent. Road transport kept the lion’s share in traffic (and pollution). In 2004 the EU commission proposed a European high-speed network and it started an attempt to bring about free-market economy on European rails at the latest in 2010, then contradicted by EU’s attempt to give international freight trains priority over high-speed trains. In the meantime low-fare air services even by the standard carriers have changed the map of Europe.

In the United States the privately owned railways had run the best long-distance trains of the world. Facing the competition by jet airlines they have become uneconomic. Towards 1970 the trains' network disappeared with the exception of some prestigious money-loosing expresses such as the Broadway, the Super Chief or the Panama Limited. Then Amtrak maintained reduced, but excellent (necessarily slow) train services covering all the country. However, the annual subsidies rose to more than one billion dollar. That's less than the 6 billion annual subsidies for the big standard airlines between 2001 and 2003 in the USA, reported by the press, and not even 0.05 percent of the national budget. But passenger traffic by rail in the United States has become marginal. Including suburban services, towards the end of the century it comprised only 22 billion passenger kilometers, whereas airlines in the USA and Canada attained around 1200 billion RPK per annum. Due to the financial losses of the classic long-distance trains, policy examined to change them into tourist specials, but that would mean the end of a nationwide passenger train network. The modern railway age of high-speed intercity connections in the USA started relatively late with Amtrak’s Acela trains, confined to the Northeast Corridor.

In Canada, classic passenger trains had to be saved in 1978 by state-owned VIA Rail Canada. The magnificent “Canadian” was transferred from the Canadian Pacific to the Canadian National line, while on its original route only private tourist specials continued running. Most people of the world are living in the Asia/Pacific region. China's 1.3 billion citizens, mainly its mass of internal migrants, like the 1.1 billion people in India and the 0.4 billion in the former Soviet bloc, are dependent on trains as a cheap mass transport system. Chinese railways in 2000 achieved 442 billion RPK! In Asia the overbooked classic long-distance trains are a necessity still for a while, rendered possible by extremely low wages. Nevertheless Korea, China and Taiwan decided for high-speed systems. Also for densely populated India or Indonesia high-speed intercity trains could be a solution for future. In the Southern hemisphere, thinly populated Australia maintained its network of great long-distance expresses. In the ‘90s the annual losses had attained one billion Australian dollar (c. 0.6 billion US dollar). Privatized, these trains became an attraction and its impact on the tourist industry must not be underestimated. Fares are roughly twice as high as in the USA. In Latin America, passenger train services were nearly completely closed down. Buses are the expresses there, profiting from the subsidized road network. About Argentina, Newsweek (Oct. 03, 1994) had written: “Menem has thrown open his economy to imports and sold more than 10 billion dollar worth of state-owned properties - railroads, highways, ports…”. Killing the passenger trains however did not save Argentina from bankruptcy. Some new high-speed projects could change the situation in Latin America, but railways are a long-term investment, contrary to road or air transport. In Africa a few isolated train networks in the North, East and South continued working. In other African countries, crowded taxis, a few buses and trucks are the means of passenger transport. Everywhere in remote regions, the trains mentioned in the following chapters often are running only once weekly or twice monthly and in the meantime they may have been withdrawn. Japan's Shinkansen high speed trains proved able to compete with air transport. And they are not only running over short distances. The “Nozomi” ultra-high speed trains Tokyo - Hakata Fukuoka cover 1180 km within 5 hours! Magnetically levitated linear-propulsion “maglev” trains with regular speeds up to 500 km/h or more than 300mph could compete with air transport even over longer distances. Its development, initiated in Germany by Hermann Kemper and Ludwig Boelkow, started in 1966 at MBB works and in 1968 at Krauss-Maffei under Stefan H. Hedrich. Japan followed soon. German politics however did not finance a maglev “Transrapid” network. Some press and “environmentalists” combated it, the motorcar industry and airlines profited. A proposed Berlin - Hamburg link was rejected by German railways and minority parties. One argument against the Transrapid was the existing international European train network, but then mainly Germany stopped most international services. In the German province of Nordrhein-Westfalen a regional Transrapid was prevented by the local government. German maglev technology was first used in future superpower China, where in 2002 the Shanghai Pudong maglev airport link was successfully completed. The train glided silently at 430 km/h (267 mph) with German chancellor Schroeder aboard during his state visit and already a speed of 500 km/h was achieved. The Munich Transrapid airport link for 350km/h was the only remaining maglev project in Europe, but in 2008 it was stopped by the government after leftist parties, supported by some popular press, started an expensive campaign against that most environment-friendly means of transport. It was reminiscent of the end of the Alweg monorail project at Los Angeles many years ago, caused by the American motorcar industry. Japan continued to develop maglev technology independently, maglev project studies were started also in the USA and the last hope may be based on China or possibly Korea. The battle against the Munich Transrapid however meant possibly the end of every illusion about a new innovative means of passenger transport for a long time. Air traffic is the winner.

Nearly one million people per annum are killed by road accidents according to the World Health Organization's estimates. Railways are among the safest means of transport. Only railways have solved the environmental issue. In 2004, scientists from York university asserted, that pollution could be reduced by 45 percent if travels up to 400 miles or 640 km would be made by train instead of plane. And modern railways' need for electricity can be covered by nuclear energy. Railway is the only means of transport which does not require wars for oil! However, passenger train services in many regions except Europe and Asia were closed down almost completely.

So let's dream at least of this mode of travel, forgotten already in many parts of the world. And where there are no longer any passenger trains beyond short regional distances, let's admire at least the dozen nostalgic tourist trains which make one relive the great rail journeys of days gone by. Some of those trains must be appreciated as true monuments of history, others are just sumptuous like a new Rolls-Royce. The few tourist de-Luxe trains, not subsidized and therefore necessarily covering only the razor-thin top end of the market, generally are composed of beautifully refurbished old stock, ideal for this extremely limited traffic. Though a train costs only a fraction of the price of an airliner, no new industry could emerge, no new style did come. Imagine, if there would have been not only nostalgic de-Luxe trains, but also contemporary tourist specials - hi-tech architecture, tubular cars of sparkling glass, viewing-decks and interiors like a cruise ship...

Even preservation is hampered by the usual flow of money. World's fastest steam locomotive (Pennsy's "Big Engine"), world's most renowned ones (New York Central's Niagaras) and Europe's most powerful one (the 242-A1, designed by genius Andre Chapelon) had been scrapped in order to earn a few dollars or francs.

Let's no longer measure culture by money, let's no longer be passive consumers of mass media content, let's hand down history by a Web site FREE for everybody and let's remember the words of French philosopher Michel Foucault: "History has existed long before human sciences".