As Britain suffers from railway strikes, collapsing franchises, and unreliable trains, Japan celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of their much beloved Shinkansen. October has been a month of wild fanfare honouring the service of the bullet train. Emotional commercials and commemorative merchandise are abundant. For Japan, the Shinkansen is more than just an engineering marvel. The sleek white and blue locomotives are an icon equivalent to the Rising Sun or Mount Fuji.
Despite the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) being the first real steam railway in the world, Britain’s trains have become a national embarrassment. However, this was not always the case.
A ‘golden era’ of steam in the Inter-War period saw gigantic steam locomotives thundering between Edinburgh and London in record times. Every year, steam locomotives became bigger, stronger, and faster, smashing records on an annual basis. Constructed in Swindon, Crewe, and Doncaster, the colossal express trains hauled day-trippers, businessmen, diplomats, students, and families across the nation. The very understanding of time had changed. A journey that took three days became a journey that took a few hours, complete with complimentary tea, cakes, and a cushioned seat. The sheer speed of rail travel and the timetables they brought meant that clocks had to be synchronised across the nation, ushering in the standardised system of Greenwich Mean Time. Trains boasting proud names like the ‘Flying Scotsman,’ ‘City of Truro,’ and ‘Mallard’ became famous icons on posters advertising cheap and quick services to Brighton, Margate, and Scarborough.
In many ways, Britain’s golden age of steam is just like Japan’s Shinkansen. Just as many take notes on Japan’s efficient network in the present, other nations gazed at Britain’s steam locomotives with envy. To this day, one of Britain’s proudest exports remains the railway. Constructed across their empire and exported to other nations, the iconic chuffing sound of a steam locomotive became emblematic of Victorian engineering. Japan itself was introduced to the railway through British business. Alongside the Royal Navy and NHS, the steam locomotive has stamped itself into Britain’s metaphorical hall of fame.
It is impossible to know if George Stephenson, “The Father of Railways”, understood the potential impact of the L&MR. Chinese and Japanese businessmen whisper that maglevs look to replace railways in the future, but until that day comes, the railway will endure as it did during the advent of commercial air travel. The L&MR was only thirty-one miles long, connecting just two cities. In reality, Stephenson had connected the people of the world.
To this day, trains continue to move people between Liverpool and Manchester with no sign of stopping.