Railway closures in France, 1900-1940

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Alexis Litvine (University of Cambridge), co-authored with Matteo Mazzamurro and Alban de Gmeline
• Wednesday 26 February 2025, 13:15-14:45
• Room 12, Faculty of History, and on Teams.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Aleksandra Dul.

In this paper we investigate the early closures of railway lines in France between 1910 and 1940. France experienced early on an intense network shrinkage with over 13,903 km of railway lines and 2,792 stations closed between 1910 and 1940. Multiple hypotheses have been put forward regarding the reasons for this wave of closures, ranging from the financial troubles of railway companies, the competition of early automobiles and interurban coach services, and the rationalisation of the network leading to its nationalisation and the creation of the SNCF in 1938. We provide a quantitative assessment of these different factors by using newly assembled data on road and rail networks over this period, and estimating railway traffic using railway newsagent sales as a proxy for station passenger counts. Finally, we provide some indications of the consequences of these early closure in terms of spatial inequality.

Join us on Teams

Meeting ID: 331 423 030 137 Passcode: xv2n3Aj6

This talk is part of the Quantitative History Seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• AUB_Cambridge Seminars
• Department of Geography
• Economic and Social History Seminars
• Quantitative History Seminar
• Room 12, Faculty of History, and on Teams
• history

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.