In Jules Verne’s 1874 novel, Around the World in 80 Days, protagonist Phileas Fogg wagers a hefty sum that he can traverse the globe, latitudinally, in 80 days or less. It’s a daunting task, but one made possible by the creation of locomotives in the preceding decades. Centuries ago, a global circumnavigation took months—years, perhaps. All it takes now are a few plane rides totaling no more than a couple of days. The world has changed so much and the way we discuss matters should reflect this alteration.
By the late 1800s, Britain’s national rail system had sprouted from one line to reach across Great Britain, propelling cargo and passengers alike. By the looks of it, you’d think Britain’s railways had been expanding for over a century. The inaugural Liverpool-Manchester route only launched in the 1830s and it was a period of “Railway Mania” in the coming decades which saw massive amounts of investment poured into the industry. Investors came out of nowhere to propose new tracks just as their American adventurists counterparts rushed to California to find gold. By 1880, British rail business was booming. Space was being traversed unlike any time before.
Rail travel not only rapidly shaped how people in Europe saw travel more broadly, but how they perceived space and time itself. A 1939 Quarterly Review article alludes to the establishment of a UK-wide rail system, which would see “the whole population of the country…at once advance en masse, and their chairs nearer to the fireside of their metropolis by two-thirds of the time which now separates them from it.” With the railway one could travel to and from Manchester with a quickness hitherto unseen, but the true exploitation of space is how the train traveler perceives their journey.
The way these travelers perceived the space around them varied greatly from trips on horse-drawn carriages. With horses, one feels every bump in the road, sees every tree clearly, and experiences a heightened risk that someone will pull a gun on one’s carriage with the intent to rob or kill. The fear of route interruption is drastically reduced in a train car and the journey exquisitely smooth, but the passenger’s perception of reality becomes distorted. In short, one can no longer see each and every tree because the human eye becomes overloaded.