Facebook On The Tracks

The Golden Age of Railways – The Modernization of the Country

What is a crampon? Where were horse cars tried for the first time? How punctual were the trains of old times? The answers are right on time, according to the railway guide: in the Open Air Museum!

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„The railway was brought about by time and certainly not by you, dear Minister!” (István Széchenyi: Ein Blick, 1858)

Most of the significant events and social transformations of the 19th century rode on steam engine trains into the history of Hungarian society.

The European railway transport is inevitably more than a simple development of technical history. The success of the railway is the success of the bourgeoisie – this is outlined strongly in the Open Air Museum’s exhibition „The Golden Age of Railways – The Modernization of the Country”.

Sloganless

The exhibition lacks – not without bravery – the obligatory epochs of railway history of the Hungarian reform era (1830s-1840s). The great historical outline is provided by an interactive method of practical simplicity: in the middle of the hall a plotting board can be seen presenting the great phases of railway constructions.

Local Interests

After the great motions of the railway constructions the history of the local railways get the chance to reveal themselves to the visitors. The expression „local interest” has a special and significant connotation, since the corruption that surrounded the great state railway constructions, festered in projects of seemingly lesser importance.

Traveling and transporting on the tracks – on 2 levels

Several of the strong points of the exhibition are the enlarged photos presenting the social groups using the traveling opportunities of trains. The experience of traveling on train is put into a perspective of social history. On the first level of the exhibition the great scenes of railway constructing can be seen, the second level covers the stories of the individual and the communities; the visitors can experience the impact of the railway on the every day dresses, the furniture, the daily life of the people 150 years ago.
The link between the 2 levels is however not the staircase connecting them, it is the section of the show presenting the travelers. Seasonal workers, tourists, students, Hungarians from America, commuters are there asking the questions: „Where, when and how should we travel?”

A Special World: the Culture of the Railway Men

The life of railway men is presented in the exhibition as a society within a society. The exposition rich in objects loses its plasticity for a little while; it will only arrive back with the help of the documentary „The Oldest Railman” and with the presentation of the associations of railway people. Of the four lives presented here mostly the texts reveal their fate.

Yet Another Dimension

On the third level of the exhibition the railway as a way of entertainment is presented. Unfortunately, the content of the hall, doesn’t follow the diversity of the previous exhibition halls. In the first place, the sections of the attic space can’t carry on with the virtual complexity of the halls already visited. Children immediately head for the model of a locomotive and a big map set close to the entrance, and they do it quite right.  The spacious hall however provides museum pedagogues with several opportunities to fill it with life and interactive programs.

The exhibition „Golden Age of Railways – Modernization of the Country” is not in a void: the blog of its curator is worth visiting, publications also complete the show.

The exhibition can be visited in the North Hungarian Region of the Open Air Museum. For further information visited the website of the museum.

More photos in the picture gallery of the Hungarian Museum!