Colin Divall

Cultures of Transport: Representation, Practice and Technology

It is argue that the so-called cultural‘ (and spatial‘) turn that has remodelled so many other areas of the humanities and social sciences over the last two decades might help answer Armstrong‘s plea for an innovative, even controversial, transport history. Such a strategy would not merely bring the discipline into line conceptually and methodologically with what has long been going on elsewhere. By focussing on the practical limits and historical capabilities of transport technologies, the renewed historiography would have something of relevance and value to say to these other fields.

Suburbanizing the masses : public transport and urban development in historical perspective

Technology, (sub)urban development and the social construction of urban transport, Colin Divall and Barbara Schmucki Transport and (sub)urban development Between politics and technology transport as a factor of mass suburbanization in Europe 1890-1939, Paolo Capuzzo The flawed economics and morality of the American uniform five-cent fare, Winstan Bond Suburbanizing the masses for profit or welfare? Conflict and cooperation between private and municipal interests in German cities 1890-1914, Dieter Schott Suburban rail in Poland - decline at the dawn of suburbanization?, Jacek Wesolowski Changing patterns of travel, transport and land ownership in a Victorian new town - Middlesbrough to 1939, Tony Carr Professional paradigns of urban transport and traffic - Cities as traffic machines urban transport planning in East and West Germany, Barbara Schmucki Vision in solid form - a comparison between two solutions to the traffic problem in Stockholm 1941 and 1992, Tomas Ekman Urban railway redivivus image and ideology in Los Angeles, California, Robert C. Post Accounting for the customers? - A tale of public transport in 1930s Coventry, Leslie Whitworth Public transport and urban identities - Redefining the city people, transportation and space in Philadelphia, 1876-1901, John H. Hepp, IV Civic pride, urban identity and public transport, Ralph Harrington Passenger connections - views of the intercity bus terminal in the USA, Margaret Walsh The transit destinations of Japanese public space - the case of Nagoya station, Jilly Traganou.

Situated Knowledge and the Virtual Science and Industry Museum: Problems in the Social-Technical Interface

The Museum is a perspicuous site for analysing the complex interplay between social, organisational, cultural and political factors which have relevance to the design and use of ‘virtual’ technologies. Specifically, the introduction of virtual technologies in museums runs up against the issue of the situated character of information use. Across a number of disciplines (anthropology, sociology, psychology, cognitive science) there is growing recognition of the ‘situatedness’ of knowledge and its importance for the design and use of technology. This awareness is fostered by the fact that technological developments are often associated with disappointing gains for users. The effective use of technology relies on the degree to which it can be embedded in or congruent with the ‘local’ practices of museum users. Drawing upon field research in two museums of science and technology, both of which are in the process of introducing virtual technologies and exploring the possibilities of on-line access, findings are presented which suggest that the success of such developments will depend on the extent to which they are informed by detailed understanding of practice-practices that are essentially socially constituted in the activities of museum visitors and the daily work of museum professionals.

Technological networks and industrial research in Britain: The London, Midland & Scottish Railway, 1926-47

Large and complex firms combining service and manufacturing functions such as the railways offer an interesting test of the claim that between the world wars British industry sometimes successfully prosecuted industrial research in ways that do not fit the Chandlerian paradigm. In particular, the largest of the inter-war railway companies relied on networks of external technological experts as well as developing its own in-house capability, thereby reducing uncertainties and transaction costs at minimal risk to itself. The chief disadvantage to this approach was the tension generated between the technological community of ‘scientific’ researchers and the engineers who were traditionally responsible for technological innovation.

TRANSPORT MUSEUMS: ANOTHER KIND OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

The many purposes of museums and ways in which they communicate with their visitors are not well understood by transport historians. Transport museums are not normally appropriate places in which to raise the finer points of academic debate. However, they appeal to wide audiences and are important as locations in which visitors can explore collective identities grounded in particular readings of the interaction between transport and everyday life in the past. Artefacts are particularly important for this process. The academic historian who realizes this has much to offer the development of a dialogue in the museum between expert and lay knowledge of transports past.

Professional organisation, employers and the education of engineers for management: A comparison of mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers in Britain, 1897–1977

THE SMALL FRACTION of managers in British manufacturing who have a training and experience in engineering is a theme of recurrent interest to politicians, high officials and academic students of the engineering profession in the British economy. Many studies have sought to place at least part of the blame for this phenomenon on to the higher educational system? This line of analysis is popular with engineers who are critical of the failings of their profession since it suggests that all is required is a remedial training in managerial studies? Others, particularly academics, would place less emphasis on the formative influence of higher education. 3 Indeed, some historians have recently disagreed with this explanation. They place more stress on the role of the firm in determining the level of demand for particular engineering skills, and hence for certain kinds of academic training? Another line of analysis regards the evolution of degree courses in engineering as the outcome of discussions between the several groups having an interest in the engineering profession. From my own studies I would tentatively conclude that the scale of provision and the substance of managerial education for engineers were the consequences of negotiations between two groups of professionals,

Professional identity and organisation in a technical occupation: The emergence of chemical engineering in Britain, c. 1915–30

The emergence in Britain of chemical engineering, by mid‐century the fourth largest engineering specialism, was a hesitant and drawn out process. This article analyses the organisational politics behind the recognition of the technical occupation and profession from the First World War through to the end of the 1920s. The collective sense of professional identity among nascent ‘chemical engineers’ developed rapidly during this time owing to associations which promoted their cause among potential patrons.

Scaling up: The Evolution of Intellectual Apparatus Associated with the Manufacture of Heavy Chemicals in Britain, 1900–1939

At the turn of the century, men trained in chemistry but not in any of the engineering disciplines held sway over the technical side of much of the business of chemical manufacturing in Britain. However, the growing economic importance of bulk chemicals after around 1880 had been accompanied by the emergence of new specialists in the design and operation of chemical plants. This became particularly significant with the widespread introduction of high pressure equipment from around 1920.1 The outcome was that by the outbreak of World War II chemists were under some pressure to cede certain of these responsibilities to a new breed of technical worker, the chemical engineer.

Engineers v. industrial designers : The struggle for professional control over the British Railways Mark 2 Coach, c. 1955–66

This article explores the jurisdictional battle between engineers and industrial designers over railway coach design as an episode in the post-war modernisation of the UK. Engineers’ long domination of the design process was challenged from the mid-1950s by the nationalised British Railways’ employment of industrial designers. These emerging specialists used the new Design Panel to consolidate their professional status by transforming British Railways’ public image and competitiveness against road and air transport. Engineers still had much to contribute but establishing a working relationship between the two expert groups was difficult, made more so by frequent changes to management structures. The reconciliation of professional tensions and organisational schisms resulted by the mid-1960s in a highly successful new range of standard coaches, the Mark 2 (1964–75). These became a key to the creation of the internationally recognised business brands, ‘British Rail’ and ‘Inter-City’.

Christian Wolmar, Are trams socialist? Why Britain has no transport policyWolmarChristian, Are trams socialist? Why Britain has no transport policy (London, Publishing Partnership, 2016); 128 pp., £9.99, ISBN 978-1907994562.

general conclusions, makes his scholarship accessible to a non-specialist audience. Such a group might include anyone interested in a case study of privatisation and its agents in the city, of the relationships between municipal and corporate power in a time of the retreating state, and those interested in the future of multimodal urban transport. Les Mobilités Partagées does not, perhaps, provide a comprehensive account of every technology that could be grouped under this term; it is primarily a history of public bicycle-sharing systems in Europe, to which (less frequent) discussions of car-sharing serve as a counterpoint. Ride-sharing, as well as the relationships between bikeand car-sharing and other modes, lies outside the scope of this compact and admirably concise work. However, the questions Huré asks are useful prompts for future research into these subjects.