The historian AJP Taylor remarked that World War I brought the end to the great railway age, whereas Adolf Hitler managed to make a supposedly civilised Germany commit horrendous atrocities during World War II, thanks in large part to the role the rail network played in taking people to concentration camps like Auschwitz.
Since World War II, the rail industry has had somewhat mixed fortunes. In the UK, the 1960s brought the drastic Beeching cuts, whereas the trains are now carry more passengers than ever, having seen a resurgence in the last few years, with a number of UK passenger journeys by rail passing the 1 billion mark for the first time in 2004. Whilst mainland Europe has seen some rapid growth in the development of high-speed train services, in the USA, Amtrak has struggled to survive, although there are at long last some signs that the Obama administration are going to take rail development seriously, with California being the first states to develop a true high-speed system.
So as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, what is it that makes Berlin’s shiny new Hauptbahnhof (Grand Central Station) so special? From a technological point of view, Berlin Hauptbahnhof is dramatic because of the way it allows two sets of tracks to pass over each other, whilst sandwiching a shopping centre in between. Take to the air (or open up Google maps), and it takes on a whole new meaning which goes far beyond helping to empty commuters wallets before they head home. Depending on your perspective, Berlin Hauptbahnhof can either be seen as a giant plaster sticking over Berlin’s Nazi and Communist wounds, or on a more simplistic diagrammatic level, it represents a simple crossing point between both North and South and East and West.
A lot of commentators said at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall that they never felt this would happen in their lifetimes. So as walls came down, travel opportunities opened up. What can we expect in the next 20 years? It is already possible to travel between London and Berlin by train, but current journey times are just over nine hours.Heading East, there is also talk of a high-speed rail link through to Moscow via Warsaw.
Beyond this, who knows? I’d much rather speculate on the possible, rather than hear all the woeful excuses about why we can’t get a proper high-speed train set here in the UK, so that’s why I’m working on a ‘World tube map’ set in 2050. The next draft will be online shortly. I’ll keep you posted.