Railway Journey By Schivelbusch

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Railway Journey By Schivelbusch

The thesis for Schivelbusch’s book The Railway Journey seems to be that the
railroad altered the traveler’s perceptions of space, time, distance, nature
and the senses. Although the means of a quick and reliable mode of transport was
and is an important part of industrialization, it denaturalized and
desensualized the passengers (Schivelbusch 20). Shrinking and reshaping the
world it touches with industrial fingers and alienating the riders to the world
around them. With fast and reliable steam power engines replacing previously
expensive and unreliable natural sources of energy such as water or animal man
is released from the constraints of nature. These engines do not succumb to the
whims of weather or exhaustion and are reliable enough to keep and daily
regulated schedule despite wind or rain. Yet, by replacing the age-old use of
the horse and carriage and through sheer speed they have made the world smaller
and more accessible to the people. Where in the olden days people experienced
every step of the way with their senses now all they have to do is step on a
train and step out onto a different place. The railroad has annihilated the
space and time, which were characterized by the old transport technology (36).
To the perception of the people who had previously experienced every step of
their journeys the world seemed to have shrunk. The detachment of man from
nature and his perception of nature is finalized in the construction of the
railways (20). Since the ideal railway is hard, level and straight, they were
not laid out sympathetically to the landscape but instead cut and carve their
way through in a straight line. Nothing gets in their way, not river mountain or
canyon. The riders of these straight speeding bullets see nothing but a
disorienting sight of the landscape shooting past to quickly fo...

The complete article is about 582 words and 2.33 pages long.

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