10th International Congress on Railway History
Alcázar de San Juan, June 24–26, 2026
Sessions
Session I. Origins, Evolution, and Development of the Railroad in Castilla-La Mancha.
Coordinators: Francisco de los Cobos (University of Castilla-La Mancha), Daniel Marín Arroyo (Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha and UNED), José Ángel Gallego Palomares ( Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha) , and Francisco Polo Muriel (Spanish Railways Foundation)
Railways began to spread across the territory of what is now Castilla-La Mancha in the early years of this mode of transportation’s development on the Iberian Peninsula, integrating the region into the new global network that was being created by the railroad. Its expansion across the five provinces took shape, also at an early stage, throughout the second half of the 19th century, eventually forming a conventional network composed of Iberian-gauge and metric-gauge railways, which reached its peak in the 1940s with the completion of the section between Cuenca and Utiel. Likewise, this region would be one of the first in the entire country to join the new high-speed network that emerged starting in 1992.
The history of this relationship, now nearly 175 years old, between the Castile-La Mancha region and the railroad is what this session aims to highlight, featuring case studies that, from a historical perspective, analyze the effects of this mode of transport in Castilla-La Mancha, from the local to the strictly regional level, covering all aspects related to the railway, from the mid-19th century to the present day.
PRESENTATIONS
Session II. Mechanisms of Punishment and Discipline in railway companies: an international perspective.
Coordinators: Fernando Mendiola Gonzalo ( Public University of Navarra-UPNA) and Carles Gorini Santo (Catalan Institute for Research on Cultural Heritage-ICRPC)
The railroad is not merely a transportation infrastructure. Throughout history, it has also been a space for political struggle, union organizing, and resistance. Railroad workers have been at the forefront of labor mobilizations, but they have also been victims of intense repressive policies. This panel aims to bring together researchers who have studied the political repression inflicted upon this group in various authoritarian contexts. During the Franco regime, thousands of railway workers were purged, imprisoned, or executed. In Latin America, the dictatorships of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay also carried out systematic purges within railway companies, dismantling unions and imposing strict control over the sector.
What similarities and differences can we identify among these repressive processes? What mechanisms were used to eliminate political opposition within the railway sector? What have been the consequences of these purges on subsequent labor and union structures?
With this panel, we aim to foster a comparative and multidisciplinary debate that offers new perspectives on a phenomenon that has been largely unexplored as a whole. We call on researchers in history, sociology, political science, and other disciplines to contribute their research to this space for reflection.
PRESENTATIONS
Session III. The Internationalization of Railroad Companies (19th–21st Centuries).
Coordinators: Ana Cardoso de Matos ( CIDEHUS-University of Évora), Domingo Cuéllar ( Rey Juan Carlos University), and Pedro Pablo Ortúñez Goicolea ( University of Valladolid)
The expansion of the railroad led to groundbreaking advances in knowledge, technology, and professions, which were also organized into newly established business structures. This model spread from the pioneering industrialized nations (Great Britain, Belgium, France, and the United States) to later-developing countries and regions (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Latin America, etc.), soon turning the railroad into a symbol of the first wave of globalization.
The extensive mobility of capital and labor were the driving forces behind this nineteenth-century process, within a framework dominated by exploitation in the hands of private companies; however, in the twentieth century, with the progressive nationalization of railway companies, there was also an intense exchange of knowledge and technology through the successive innovation processes that the railway underwent, particularly in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with the modernization associated with the operation of high-speed trains and increasingly busy metropolitan transit networks.
For this session, we are interested in receiving proposals for papers that explore how these processes of internationalization occurred in the railway sector, both from a long-term perspective and through case studies, in which the focus is on the role played by the inflow of capital, human capital, or technology in railway operations, both in the early phases of railway expansion and in the more recent processes of modernization and transformation of the railway system.
PRESENTATIONS
Session IV. Railways and the City.
Coordinators: Luis Santos and Ganges ( University of Valladolid) and Doralice Sátyro Maia ( Federal University of Paraíba)
The aim of the session is to explore how railway history is intertwined with urban history, particularly when considered from a spatial perspective. This interrelation between the city (urban space, urban life, economic dynamism, housing, industry, tourism, etc.) and the railroad (its tracks, facilities, interurban or intra-urban profile, personnel, operations, etc.) encompasses a multitude of topics relevant to the history of the railroad.
Thus, within these dimensions of the railway-city interrelationship, a wide variety of contributions are welcome, covering the Iberian, European, and Latin American contexts:1. Papers on the history of urban trams, metropolitan railways, and suburban railways.
2. Papers on the relationship between railway systems and urban layout, form, and structure.
3. Papers on the history of stations, particularly those explaining their urban integration and architecture.
4. Papers on the heritage characterization of industrial railway heritage, based on the historical and functional foundations of railway engineering.
5. Papers on the evolution of railway systems in cities: relocation of lines and stations, closures, and reuse projects.
6. Presentations on the issue of the railway’s barrier effect on cross-track communications , the role of the railway line as a social barrier (social differentiation, social segregation, fragmentation), level crossings and overpasses, crossing guards, accidents, and enclosures, among many other related topics.
7. Papers on major railway technical facilities, namely depots and workshops: their structure, operation, social significance, and urban impacts. PAPERS
Session V. Historiography and the Privatization of Railways in Ibero-America: An Overview of Authors, Topics, and Collections.
Coordinators: Guillermo Guajardo Soto (Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities, National Autonomous University of Mexico) and Leonor Reyes Pavón (Institute of Historical Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico)
Hybrid session (in-person and remote)
In 1998, the Spanish Railway Foundation published *The History of the Railways of Ibero-America (1837–1995)*, a work edited by the distinguished economic historian Jesús Sanz Fernández, offering a comprehensive historical overview and analysis of the trajectories and the interplay between the public and private sectors in the development of this mode of transport. It highlighted that a new historical cycle was beginning with the privatizations already underway in Argentina (1990), Chile (1992), and Mexico (1997), to which Brazil would join a year later. It highlights that a new generation of railways was emerging, “whose destiny will be written over the course of the 21st century.” However, it also marked the beginning of a complex and understudied process of loss—and at times preservation—of the documentation and material heritage of the privatized companies, with consequences for the possibilities of historical research on railways in the region.
In this regard, the panel has three objectives: 1) to review the contributions of the History of the Railways of Ibero-America (1837–1995) and take stock of the research topics that have remained open since the 1990s regarding issues raised by privatization, such as the role of bureaucracy, the relationships between railway companies and the business sector, economic performance, technological and labor changes, among many others; 2) to begin writing the history of the origins of the privatizations of the 1990s, which, although attributed to the impact of the 1982 economic crisis, they have historical depth, as Sanz indicated, resulting from an ongoing dialectic between the public and private sectors from the 19th century to the present day, identifying the debates, authors, and institutions that developed the analyses, plans, and policies that would be implemented within the framework of neoliberal reforms; 3) finally, to understand the fate and current status of the documentary archives and technological heritage of the privatized companies.
COMMUNICATIONS
Session VI. Railway Cultural Heritage.
Coordinators: Aurora Martínez-Corral (Polytechnic University of Valencia), Sheila Palomares Alarcón (University of Évora), and Javier Vidal Olivares (University of Alicante)
The concept of railway heritage could be defined as a complex, interrelated, and distinctive body of elements, forming part of the broader category known as industrial heritage. This includes tangible movable heritage (machinery, signaling equipment, tools, uniforms, and other items) and immovable heritage (public works, stations, housing, warehouses, roundhouses, tracks, and more); documentary heritage (photographs, plans, archives, etc.); artistic heritage (sculptures, paintings, or drawings with a railway theme); as well as intangible heritage and the railway landscape. This broad and diverse collection, which is ever-changing and dynamic, must be approached from different academic disciplines and perspectives, whose interaction allows for deeper exploration, discovery, and innovation in our understanding of it.
The session aims to compile and present studies and research, projects, methodologies, analytical tools, research proposals, works and restorations, inventories, and other materials that shed light on the current state of railway heritage, as well as to help define, expand, discern, and clarify this complex, unique, and singular collection.
PRESENTATIONS
Session VII. History of Women Railway Workers.
Coordinators: Solange Godoy ( National University of San Martín/CONICET) and Belén Moreno Claverías ( University of Oviedo)
The role of women workers in railway companies has traditionally been overlooked in academic studies. However, in certain countries, they constituted a numerically significant group and performed tasks that were essential to the smooth operation of the companies—tasks they had to balance with domestic chores and caring for their families. Many of them were crossing guards, a role that entailed great responsibility and a high rate of workplace accidents, which was not reflected in their wages, which were extremely low. Others worked in facility cleaning, a job thatwas equally necessary and also undervalued.
There was a smaller group of women who required more education or technical training, such as ticket sellers, office workers, flight attendants, engineers, teachers, and even factory workers or train drivers.
This thematic session will gather proposals that highlight female railway workers throughout history and address: working conditions, living conditions, their role in household economies, career trajectories, political/union participation, repressive processes, corporate policies, and cultural and artistic representations, among other topics. We therefore welcome papers related to the analysis of the role of women in the railway industry, taking into account both their own perspective and agency, as well as how they were perceived from social, economic, business, political, and cultural perspectives.
Sesión VIII. Jóvenes investigadores.
Coordinadores: Laura Lalana Encinas (Universidad del País Vasco) y Víctor Sanchís Maldonado (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)
This session is intended for early-career researchers, doctoral candidates, and PhD holders who have received their degree within the last six years or are under 35 years of age. Its purpose is to provide a forum for the presentation of research related to the history of transportation and communications infrastructure, with a particular emphasis on studies of Latin America. The aim is to foster academic debate, constructive feedback, and the strengthening of academic networks.
During this process, young researchers will receive direct feedback from experts in the field, which will allow them to enrich their research and develop new perspectives. The papers presented will be considered for publication in the Association’s journal, TST. Additionally, ASIHF will endeavor to support, to the extent possible, the travel expenses of participants, seeking to facilitate their participation in this event.
PAPERS
Session IX. General.
Chairs:Olga Macias Muñoz (University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea) andTomás Martínez Vara(Complutense University of Madrid-UCM)
Given the cross-cutting nature of railways, the conference organizers invite researchers studying topics not covered in the previous sessions to submit papers for presentation in this session, where they will be grouped by theme as appropriate.
PAPERS
