Sessão II
Fronteira e Caminhos de Ferro
Organizadores: Organizadores: Rafael Barquín (UNED); Carlos Larrinaga (Universidad de Granada); y Pedro Pablo Ortúñez (Universidad de Valladolid)
José Luis Hernández-Marco, Universidad del País Vasco/E.H.U. (Espanha)
Migrantes y turistas: el tráfico ferroviario de viajeros en las fronteras de la Península Ibérica (1941-1980).
Las constituciones de las empresas públicas de gestión del transporte ferroviario en Francia (SNCF, 1938), España (RENFE, 1941) y Portugal (CCFP, 1927/1947), al unificar sus redes y tarifas respectivas, simplificaron el tráfico transfronterizo entre Francia y entre los dos países de la península especialmente a partir de 1946, salvados los graves inconvenientes que supusieron los conflictos bélicos español y mundial.
A partir de esa fecha, Europa Occidental inicia con la reconstrucción postbélica, “les Trente Glorieuses” o “la Edad de Oro” con sus necesidades de mano de obra –migraciones- y, tras el incremento de renta disponible, el aumento del consumo de “bienes superiores” como el turismo. Aunque en ambos procesos que afectaron a la movilidad interfronteriza de personas también irá creciendo la competencia de la carretera y el avión, el ferrocarril jugaría un papel destacado.
Con el objetivo de fijar la cronología y medir las magnitudes de este tráfico, se presentan los resultados del tráfico de viajeros de las principales líneas de RENFE y de las estaciones fronterizas, desgraciadamente solo posible hasta 1964: con Marruecos, Oficinas de Viajes de Norte de África y Puerto de Algeciras y Málaga; con Portugal, Badojoz, Valencia de Alcántara, Fuentes de Oñoro y Tuy/Valencia do Miño; y con Francia, Irún, Canfranc, Puigcerdá y Port Bou. Afortunadamente, la consulta de los archivos de la SNCF, ha permitido completar el estudio hasta 1980, tanto cuantitativa como cualitativamente, en las cuatro estaciones fronterizas francesas de Hendaye, Canfranc, La Tour de Carol y Cerbére. Los resultados obtenidos permiten poder contrastarlos con los ofrecidos por otras fuentes españolas, portuguesas, francesas y morroquíes que han utilizado la amplísima bibliografía existente tanto sobre emigración/inmigración como sobre turismo.
Horváth Csaba Sándor, Széchenyi István University (Hungria)
The role of the railway between two blocks during the Cold War in Hungary.
World War II did not mark the beginning of a new and peaceful era. By 1947, relations between the victorious powers had become increasingly tense. Both sides proclaimed their own Cold War doctrine: on the American side it was the Truman Principle and the Marshall Plan, while on the Soviet side the Zhdanov–Stalin «two camps» doctrine. In addition, the war was not even ended by the general peace settlement agreed by the victorious powers. As a result, the German question led to the separation of interests between the two superpowers, resulting in the rise of two world orders, separated by the iron curtain: the western bloc and the Soviet bloc. Hungary was geopolitically important to the Soviet Union, as it was a Western military buffer zone, so with the Soviet suppression of the 1956 revolution, it became apparent that it would remain within the Eastern Bloc. The iron curtain, physically appearing since 1949 and separating the two world orders, theoretically cut off the Hungarian railway lines to Austria from the West. In practice, however, this was not the case. Traffic on the main railway hubs of the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) Budapest–Győr–Hegyeshalom–Vienna and Székesfehérvár–Szombathely–Graz–Szentgotthárd were practically uninterrupted. Not to mention the main line of the Győr-Sopron-Ebenfurt Railway (GYSEV), founded in 1876, which was an even bigger curiosity. Thus, private railways from the Monarchy era and its vicinal did not cease to exist. In fact, it continued to operate in its uniqueness not only through the two countries, but through the two world political systems, East and West. The purpose of my presentation is to show that the iron curtain did not hermetically seal the two camps hermetically, but there were gaps, the most obvious of which was the railway. Beside archival sources, the research is mainly based on reports, news and articles about the period published in the Hungarian and international press. I will make it complete this by using the oral history method, narrated by railroad workers, illustrating the uniqueness of the situation and its impact on society. It can be stated as a conclusion, that railway lines across the two world orders opened the way to smuggling and illegal migration. The significance of the Hungarian railways at that time and today has been due to the fact that they formed a bridge between the blocks developing ideologically, economically, culturally and politically in different ways. After breaking down the Iron Curtain and joining the European Union, these lines are now trying to fulfil their role of connecting the past by restoring the natural geographical structure.
Paula Azevedo (IP Património) y Ana Sousa (CP)
Estações Ferroviárias do Ramal de Cáceres.
Comemoram-se no dia 28 de outubro de 2021 165 anos de história do caminho de ferro em Portugal – história da construção e exploração de linhas e de estações por diversas companhias do setor ferroviário desde a sua inauguração, em 1856, até ao presente.
A história dos caminhos de ferro é também a história da arquitetura patente nas estações e na plena via (canal entre estações) e a história do urbanismo, com as novas configurações urbanas dos séculos XIX, XX e XXI geradas com a chegada do comboio.
Consideramos aqui o conceito de estação como o conjunto de edifícios, linhas e plataformas existentes no recinto compreendido entre as agulhas de entrada e de saída de comboios – edifícios de passageiros e outros elementos como casas e bairros para habitação dos trabalhadores, escolas, armazéns de víveres, cais cobertos, depósitos de água, cocheiras e postos de comando, além de outras componentes que formam a paisagem específica ferroviária. É um extenso património industrial, histórico e cultural datando das três épocas de exploração da rede ferroviária nacional – vapor, diesel e elétrica -, que permanece nas linhas em exploração e nas linhas desativadas.
As estações ferroviárias do Ramal de Cáceres são o objeto desta comunicação: estudar de que forma foi concretizado o programa funcional e estético/arquitetónico e urbanístico, de implantação na topografia local, a relação com a envolvente paisagística existente, com as respetivas acessibilidades pedonais e com outros modos de transporte terrestre e, ainda, uma abordagem sobre as tipologias de estação e de edifícios adotadas.
A mesma problemática relativa às restantes cinco estações ferroviárias de fronteira entre Portugal e Espanha – Valença, Barca d’Alva, Vilar Formoso, Elvas e Vila Real de Santo António – e às linhas em que estão inseridas, e o que se verifica na atualidade, correspondem a estudos em curso que serão apresentados em futuras participações em eventos de âmbito académico.
Recorrendo ao inventário realizado nos últimos anos pela IP Património, ao património documental existente no Arquivo Técnico da Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) e no Arquivo Histórico da CP-Comboios de Portugal, no Centro de Documentação da IP, aos registos do SIPA, Serviço de Informação para o Património Arquitetónico da DGPC e à bibliografia especializada iremos apresentar a situação atual dos conjuntos construídos com vista à conservação e preservação dos elementos constituintes, arquitetónicos e outros, presentes nas estações, da paisagem ferroviária e da sua história, para usufruto no presente e para memória futura.
A aproximação baseada em métodos da arqueologia industrial permitiu-nos considerar as estações não só como tipologias arquitetónicas e urbanísticas/topográficas, mas como parte de um sistema histórico e arquitetónico estruturado, inseridas num complexo funcional marcado pela incidência urbana e topográfica, as limitações impostas pela tecnologia e pelo desenvolvimento económico, interesses locais, influências e dependências internacionais e estratégias dos atores sociais, entre outros fatores.
O facto de o objeto material da arqueologia industrial ser a significação dos monumentos industriais na história social, tecnológica e artística, contribui desde o ponto de vista científico e metodológico com ideias e caminhos inovadores.
Andrea Giuntini, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Itália)
The Euphrates Valley Railway: a great project of political and economic domination.
The Euphrates railway is an extremely interesting episode in nineteenth-century international railway history and of the general context of telegraph communications in a historical period quite dynamic from this viewpoint. It was a great challenge among the most outstanding nations, which were reinforcing their international infrastructure networks in all sectors: railways, telegraphs, shipping lines. At the same time, this line, which was widely debated at a global level, constituted a colonial instrument of conquest and of economic hegemony. This project planned to connect Great Britain to India, through Persia and Beluchistan. At that time it was one of the first long distance transnational railway project. In the British strategic plans, the Euphrates Valley Railway was conceived in terms of alternative to the Suez Canal, which was fiercely and for a long time contrasted by the British. The relevance given to the railway line can be understood: it was a perfect and crucial penetration axis, whose objective was the domination on Central Asia, contrasting the Russian power and pretending a direct connecting line to India, to which the British Crown did not want to renounce. The project was born and developed around Mid XIXth century and many prominent engineers and businessmen contributed. Even the British government played a huge role in the question, fostering and supporting the initiative. In 1856 the British Francis Chesney got the concession to build the line, but the question continued again throughout the 1870s.
Hugo Silveira Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)
Borders and Railways: Globalization vs Nationalism in the Portuguese mainland and colonial networks (1850s-1910s).
Literature about railway history usually describes railways as promoters of progress and modernity, pioneers of civilization, conquerors of time and space, unrivalled promoters of migrations and long-distance freight haulage or tools of empire (Adas, 2006). Not as frequent is their depiction as agents of globalization. In this paper, I analyse how railways took on the role of promoters of global cross-border flows in Portugal and the territory of its former colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Goa (India), albeit the development of the Nation-State and the growth of nationalistic feelings (that characterized the second half of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century) hampered those fluxes in the borders. In my analysis, the concept of globalization is used in a very broad sense, including not only trade and commercial movements, but also the transnational/cross-border circulation of ideas, expertise, skills, capital, workers, commuters, and tourists. I will also highlight the role of private agents who acted as informal/track-two diplomats (McDonald and Bendahmane, 1987) to promote those cross-border fluxes, despite the obstacles raised by stakeholders in central governments. The methodology I used is based on the concept of portals of globalization, as defined my Matthias Middell and Katja Naumann (2010) and technodiplomacy (Pereira, 2017), which are applied to the existing literature about Portuguese railways and a wide array of sources, including technical reports by Portuguese mainland and colonial authorities and assorted statistics of railway operation.
Pavel Galkin, State Social-humanitarian University (Moscovo)
Railway tourism in Russia: current state and prospects of development.
Currently, railway tourism in Russia is actively developing. The state campaign «Russian Railways» («Joint Stock Company «Russian Railways») has created several basic tours for different categories of tourists. The most popular are weekend tours from Moscow in the cities of Central Russia. As a rule, each tour is accompanied by the thematic excursion programs. In some cases they are specially adapted for school groups and have an educational orientation. One-day trips by the Circum-Baikal railway are organized from Irkutsk. There are popular Christmas family routes «to Santa Claus» in Veliky Ustyug with departure from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Samara.
The specialized company «Russian Railways Tour» has designed multi-day travel routes by the TRANS-Siberian railway. Such tours are popular among foreign tourists, who are amazed by the vast expanses of Siberia. Trains «Imperial Russia» and «Golden eagle» go by the route Moscow – Beijing and Moscow – Vladivostok.
As an additional service, «Russian Railways Tour» offers the organization of individual tours when the train can be formed from luxury and premium cars. The customer himself determines the route of travel. It is possible to rent both one car and a whole special train.
Besides «Russian Railways Tour» there are some companies specializing in railway tourism in the Russian market of tourist services. They offer weekend tours to Belarus, to the cities of the European North and North-West of Russia, to the cities of «Golden ring», multi-day trips to Kaliningrad, to the Caucasus and to Kamchatka. The original excursion program is offered on these routes. But these routes are in the complex of regular rail runs with the tickets of «Russian Railways»
Analysis of existing proposals in the market of tourist services shows that interest to rail travel is growing, but mass demand is low-cost weekend tours. It is obvious that in this direction there will be a development of excursion programs and expansion of geography of trips.
Olga Galkina, State Social-humanitarian University (Moscovo)
The Railways of Spain and Portugal in the coverage of British periodicals of the second half of the XIX century.
The second half of the XIX century was a period of intensive railway construction on the Iberian Peninsula. This trend was in the focus of periodicals of the UK. The interest of the British press was explained by two main factors.
Economic. The active part of British capital in the construction of Portuguese Railways explains the publication of materials describing the agreements between British business and the Portuguese government, the rivalry between British and French capital in the region, as well as the role of Morton Peto in the construction of the first railway line in Portugal. About the construction of Spanish Railways, where there was a significant role of French capital, the British press wrote less, but regularly noticed the problems with the financing of construction. Nevertheless, British journalists fixed all significant projects, including the construction of the Paris-Madrid highway.
Tourist. At that time, railways become an important element of the tourist infrastructure. On the pages of British newspapers, attention was paid to tourist routes and national historic sites in both countries, the types of wagons, the cost of travel. Some articles gave the experience of travelling by Spanish Railways warned of dangers that travelers could be exposed to (strikes of engine-drivers, sleeplessness, starvation, general horrors…in a company of seven smoking Spaniards»). In the notes of travelers was said about the frequent cases of theft in the trains. Criminals used the copies of the keys in the inaction of officials.
Thus, the study of the materials of the British press is interesting in the context of imagology, allows us to realise the evolution of the interest of the British government and business to invest in railway construction on the Iberian Peninsula and help to reconstruct the atmosphere of travel by the Iberian railways in detail in the second half of the XIX century.
Laurent Bonnaud, ESSEC Business School (França)
El frustrado, pero permanente impulso de los enlaces ferroviarios internacionales, siglos XIX-XXI.
La Revolución Industrial rompió los marcos territoriales tradicionales al fortalecer las especializaciones y acelerar el comercio. Desde el comienzo de los ferrocarriles en la década de 1830, se planteó la cuestión de las conexiones transfronterizas. Fue alimentada por utopías a lo largo del siglo XIX (por ejemplo, el Saint-Simonismo), planificada por grupos de interés transnacionales, como el Banco Rothschild, pero sólo se logró parcialmente, debido a múltiples obstáculos técnicos, estratégicos y políticos. Por ejemplo, el enlace Colonia-Londres a través de Ostende fue un éxito temprano y a partir de la década de 1870 se hicieron grandes avances transalpinos, pero en 1882 se interrumpió un proyecto avanzado para un túnel del Canal de la Mancha.
En el período de entreguerras surgieron nuevos proyectos de integración europea cooperativa a través de redes transfronterizas (por ejemplo, D.N. Heineman, 1930), que perpetuaron las utopías del siglo anterior en un contexto de retirada nacionalista y crisis económica. Pero no fue hasta los años cincuenta cuando se institucionalizaron los proyectos de la red ferroviaria transeuropea, en particular en el contexto del Mercado Común. Tras un período de progresos sin precedentes en los años 1990, bajo el doble impulso de la tecnología de alta velocidad y el establecimiento del Mercado y la Moneda Únicos, la integración ferroviaria se ha estancado, incluso cuando los retos medioambientales ponen de manifiesto su necesidad.
El objetivo de esta contribución es demostrar la permanencia, a largo plazo, de una dinámica ferroviaria transfronteriza en Europa; citar, sobre la base de casos concretos, las razones de su éxito y las causas de sus fracasos; extraer lecciones de la historia para resolver los retos de hoy y de mañana. El autor se basará especialmente en la investigación reciente sobre las redes transeuropeas. En esta ocasión se destacarán las interacciones entre tecnología, demanda social e instituciones.