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The commercial cultures of Britain's railways 1872-1977

1872-1977 年英国铁路的商业文化

基本信息

批准号：
AH/G000298/1
负责人：
Colin Divall
金额：
$ 38.32万
依托单位：
University of York
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2008
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2008 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FG000298%2F1
关键词：
commercial cultures Britain railways 1872

项目摘要

Commercial forces have a large part to play in shaping attitudes and expectations about personal mobility. Even as basic a function as transport has long been marketed partly on the basis of the social distinction it confers on purchasers. Transport companies recognize this when they develop the aspirational marketing of their services, come up with corporate images and brands which may themselves be marketable, and design the likes of vehicles, uniforms and travel facilities to project an attractive images to potential customers. The railways were the first transport industry to work in this way, providing a model not only for their later competitors but also many other kinds of business. By the 1900s all the major British railways had adopted measures designed 'to induce people, who would otherwise not do so, to travel by rail, and to encourage such as would travel a little, to travel more'. Road competition after 1918 intensified their efforts, and the railways' commercial language increasingly echoed that familiar today with the term 'customer', for example, often replacing 'passenger' from the 1920s. The railways were also leaders in the shift from text-based to more visually orientated forms of marketing in Britain, with their widespread use in the late-19th century of pictorial posters and then, from the early 20th, of photographs and films. And, despite political and popular prejudices to the contrary, the nationalized railway was from the mid-1960s a world leader in developing brands such as 'British Rail' and Inter-City and the stylish High Speed Train. Today's privatized Train Operating Companies simply employ more sophisticated versions of the same methods. This project deepens our knowledge of how and why the railways developed such techniques, helping us to understand just how entrenched in British society are the commercial imperatives to travel more. It will enable the National Railway Museum to develop an exhibition that shows how the railways' commercial cultures fits into the wider history of British cultural, social and business history, and offering detailed knowledge of how these were built up and delivered to potential travellers through a wide range of media. The research explores three crucial periods in this history: the late-19th century, when the Midland Railway anticipated the Ryanair revolution in aviation by bringing in low-cost travel for the masses; the inter-war years when companies like the Great Western Railway successfully competed with road transport for long-distance traffic by marrying tradition with modernism; and the Inter-City revolution of the modernizing, post-Beeching railway. For each of these periods and businesses, the project explores collections at the National Railway Museum to map the totality of ways in which the railways sold the idea of travel to the public. It also analyses in more depth the contribution made by just one particularly innovative medium in each of these periods: posters and other visual material on the Midland; publicity photographs on the Great Western; and the industrial design of express trains on British Rail. The outcome will be an exhibition that celebrates the inventiveness of a little-appreciated aspect of Britain's railways whilst also sounding a warning note about whether such practices are sustainable in a world in which transport - including that by rail - is an increasingly important contributor to global warming, and where constraints on capacity pose ever greater challenges to our seemingly insatiable desire for personal mobility.

商业力量在塑造人们对个人出行的态度和期望方面发挥着重要作用。即使是像交通这样的基本功能，长期以来也部分基于它赋予购买者的社会区别来进行营销。运输公司在对其服务进行理想的营销、提出本身可能具有市场价值的企业形象和品牌以及设计车辆、制服和旅行设施等向潜在客户展示有吸引力的形象时认识到了这一点。铁路是第一个以这种方式运作的运输行业，不仅为其后来的竞争对手提供了模型，也为许多其他类型的业务提供了模型。到了 1900 年代，英国所有主要铁路都采取了旨在“诱导原本不会这样做的人们乘坐铁路旅行，并鼓励那些愿意少旅行的人多旅行”的措施。 1918 年之后的公路竞争加剧了他们的努力，铁路的商业语言越来越呼应今天所熟悉的术语“客户”，例如，经常取代 1920 年代的“乘客”。在英国，铁路也是从基于文本的营销形式向更加以视觉为导向的营销形式转变的领导者，铁路在 19 世纪末广泛使用图片海报，然后从 20 世纪初开始广泛使用照片和电影。而且，尽管存在相反的政治和民众偏见，国有化铁路从 20 世纪 60 年代中期起就在开发“英国铁路”、城际铁路和时尚高速列车等品牌方面处于世界领先地位。今天的私有化火车运营公司只是采用相同方法的更复杂版本。这个项目加深了我们对铁路如何以及为何开发此类技术的了解，帮助我们了解更多旅行的商业需求在英国社会中是多么根深蒂固。它将使国家铁路博物馆能够举办一个展览，展示铁路的商业文化如何融入更广泛的英国文化、社会和商业历史，并提供有关这些文化如何建立并通过各种媒体向潜在游客传递的详细知识。该研究探讨了这段历史中的三个关键时期：19世纪末，米德兰铁路公司通过为大众带来低成本旅行而预见了瑞安航空的航空革命；两次世界大战期间，像大西部铁路这样的公司通过将传统与现代主义相结合，成功地与公路运输公司竞争长途运输；以及现代化后比钦铁路的城际革命。对于每个时期和业务，该项目探索了国家铁路博物馆的藏品，以绘制铁路向公众推销旅行理念的整体方式。它还更深入地分析了每个时期中一种特别创新的媒介所做出的贡献：米德兰的海报和其他视觉材料；大西部的宣传照片；以及英国铁路特快列车的工业设计。其成果将是一场展览，庆祝英国铁路鲜为人知的方面的创造性，同时也发出警告：在运输（包括铁路运输）对全球变暖日益重要的世界中，这种做法是否可持续。在这个世界中，运输（包括铁路运输）对全球变暖的影响越来越大，而且运力限制对我们看似永不满足的个人流动性的渴望构成了更大的挑战。