Critical Infrastructure in Historical Perspective: The Portuguese Railroad Network in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

In the 1850s, Portugal initiated an ambitious public works program spearheaded by railroads. In this article, I analyze how policymakers (congressmen, government officials, engineers, and military officers) debated and managed the construction and operation of the Portuguese railroad network using the theoretical framework of critical infrastructure. I show that railroads were deemed critical to modernize the country, draw it closer to the European core nations and further from the periphery, and to attract traffic to the Portuguese harbors. The absence of railroads was considered a vulnerability that could jeopardize Portugal as a nation and it fostered a sense of urgency that motivated policymakers to act, to a large extent, hastily. The construction of the network brought about other vulnerabilities that, for different motives, could threaten the future of the country. In a parallel way, the implementation of the system was marked by vulnerabilities that originated within or surrounding it, which limited its technical potential. Balancing between a literature review and the use of primary sources (parliamentary debates, technical reports, the press, and photography), I argue that the criticality associated with railroads, as a sociotechnical construction, was central to motivate their construction, but different vulnerabilities, inherent or external to the system, limited their influence and the advantages touted by its promoters.

KEYWORDS:

• Portugal; policymaking; vulnerability; risk

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the institutional and academic support from CIUHCT and the Department of History of the University of York.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Moteff and Parfomak, “Critical Infrastructure,” 2–4.

2 Engels, “Introduction,” 2.

3 Van der Vleuten et al., “Europe’s Critical Infrastructure.” Hård, “Introduction.”

4 Alegria, A organização dos transportes, 223–305; Pereira, “A política ferroviária nacional”; Pereira, “Expertise and Policy-Making”; Pereira, “The technodiplomacy”; Pinheiro, Cidade e caminhos de ferro; and Pinheiro, “L’Histoire d’un divorce.”

5 Pinheiro, “Transportes,” 372–3.

6 Mitchell, “Statistical Appendix.”

7 Bairoch, Commerce extérieur; Herten et al., Le Temps du Train, 37; and Robbins, The Railway Age, 89.

8 Alegria, A organização dos transportes, 69–87; Justino, A formação. Lains, A evolução; Matos, “Transportes e comunicações; and Reis, “A industrialização.”

9 Bolt and van Zanden, “Maddison style estimates.”

10 Alegria, A organização dos transportes em Portugal; Justino, A formação do espaço económico nacional; Macedo, “Projectar e construir a Nação”; Pereira, “A política ferroviária nacional”; Pereira, “Expertise and Policy-Making”; Pereira, “The Technodiplomacy of Iberian Transnational Railways”; Pinheiro, Cidade e caminhos de ferro; Pinheiro, “L’Histoire d’un divorce”; Salgueiro, “A Companhia Real”; and Vieira, “The role of Britain and France.”

11 Lukitsch, Müller, and Stahlhut, “Criticality,” 13. Van der Vleuten et al., “Europe’s Critical Infrastructure,” 3.

12 Engels, “Introduction,” 7.

13 Bijker and Law, “What Next?”, 201–4; Latour, Pandora’s Hope.

14 Lukitsch, Müller, and Stahlhut, “Criticality,” 12–17.

15 Eifert, Knauf, and Schmitt, “Vulnerability,” 22–27. Engels, “Introduction,” 3. Hommels et al., “Europe’s Infrastructure Vulnerabilities,” 263. Lukitsch, Müller, and Stahlhut, “Criticality,” 19. Van der Vleuten et al., “Europe’s Critical Infrastructure,” 10.

16 Elsner, Huck, and Marathe, “Resilience,” 31. Engels, “Introduction,” 3.

17 Crespo, Dombois, and Henning, “Preparedness & Prevention,” 39–42. Engels, “Introduction,” 3–4.

18 Marques, “Portugal e a instauração do liberalismo.”

19 Pinheiro, “Reflexões sobre a História,” 53. Saraiva, “Inventing the Technological Nation,” 263–73.

20 Macedo, “Projectar e construir a Nação,” 5. Matos, “Asserting the Portuguese civil engineering,” 180. Van der Vleuten, “Understanding Network Societies,” 289–90.

21 Bastien and Cardoso, “Uses and Abuses,” 47.

22 Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer, vol. 1: 28–30, 34, 92, 95–96, 140–3, 172–85, 191, 198–211, 231–2, 402; Comín et al., 150 Años de Historia, vol. 2, p. 319; Herten et al. Le Temps du Train, 8, 22–27, 38, 52–64, 69–80, 98–107, 111, 115, 304; Laffut, “Belgium,” 203–07.

23 Santos, “A Crise Financeira,” 188–9.

24 Mata, “As três fases”.

25 Sousa, “Resultado sobre os resultados da exploração,” 453.

26 Alegria, A organização dos transportes, 31–94. Justino, A formação, 189.

27 Branco, O Mapa de Portugal, 85–90, 96, 106–8, 122–5, and 154.

28 Faria, “O exílio liberal português”; Matos, “Asserting the Portuguese civil engineering,” 180–5.

29 Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer, vol. 1, 98–99, 238–42; Herten et al., Le Temps du Train, 322; and Mitchell, “Statistical Appendix.”

30 Fremdling, “Germany,” 121–3, 128.

31 Comín et al., 150 Años de Historia, vol. 1, 1–2, 37, 56–64; vol. 2, 324; Fenoaltea, Italy, 49–53. Schram, L’Italie et l’Europe, 364–5.

32 Quoted in Mónica, A Europa e nós, 59.

33 Adas, Machines as the Measure of Man, 134.

34 Pradt, Mémoires Historiques, 168.

35 Shils, Center and Periphery, 9–13; Vasileios, “Centers, peripheries”, 83–84.

36 Swartz, Culture & Power, 73.

37 Quoted by Macedo, “Projectar e construer a Nação,” 123–4.

38 Herten, Le Temps du Train, 38, 50, 68, 82, 304. Laffut, “Belgium,” 203.

39 Pereira, “The Technodiplomacy,” 178–86.

40 Brollo, “Fotografias de Estradas de Ferro,” 70–89.

41 Daniels and Cosgrove, “Introduction,” 1; Daston and Galison, Objectivity, 44, 121–5, 189–97, 258; Weiss, “Making Engineering Visible,” 743.

42 Aguilar and Doménech, Fotografía y Obra Pública; Collins, Record Pictures, 5–6; McCauley, Industrial Madness, 19, 197–9; and Nilsen, Nineteenth-Century Photographs and Architecture.

43 Christensen, Germany and the Ottoman Railways; Oliveira, “Photographic Views of Railroads”; Pereira, “The Camera and the Railway.”

44 Baptista, A Casa Biel, 73–75; Serén, No Trilho dos Cavalos de Ferro

45 These photographs may be found in the following archives: Arquivo Histórico da CP, Álbum da Linha da Beira Alta and Centro Português de Fotografia, Coleção Nacional de Fotografia, Colecção Alcídia e Luís Viegas Belchior, Chemin de Fer Portugais de la Beira Alta, PT/CPF/CNF-CALVB/0005/000001, Companhia Real dos Caminhos de Ferro Portuguezes, PT/CPF/CNF-CALVB/0002/000001, Monumentos e vistas de Lisboa, Sintra e Cascais, PT/CPF/CNF-CALVB/0087/000022, Vistas e Costumes da Madeira, PT/CPF/CNF-CALVB/0098/000004, Vistas e costumes de Lisboa e da Madeira, PT/CPF/CNF-CALVB/0094/000012, Voyage en Portugal et Espagne, 1899, Avril-Mai, PT/CPF/CNF-CALVB/0088/000004l; in the following newspapers: Illustração Portugueza and Panorama photographico de Portugal; and in the following publications: Biel, Album; Dias, Lisboa Desaparecida; Dias and Marques, Porto Desaparecido; Gomes and Gomes, Os Caminhos-de-Ferro Portugueses; Pessoa, Caminhos do Ferro e da Prata.

46 For semiotics and signifiers, see: Barthes, Mythologies, 109–56; Barthes, Image, Music, Text, 37.

47 Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, 162–80.

48 Kerr, “Representation and Representations”; Löfgren, “Motion and Emotion.”

49 Abragão, Cem anos do Caminho de Ferro.

50 Pereira, “Harbinger of progress,” 172.

51 Comín et al., 150 Años de Historia, vol. 2, 325.

52 Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer, vol. 1, 539; Comín et al., 150 Años de Historia, vol. 2, 324; Divall, “Railway Imperialisms,” 201–5; Fremdling, “Germany,” 123, 128; Herten et al., Le Temps du Train, 28, 63–64; Laffut, “Belgium,” 209–14; and Robinson, “Introduction.”

53 Vieira, “The role of Britain and France,” 181–225.

54 Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer, vol. 1: 235–42, 417–8, 427, 441, 461–7, 495–8; vol. 2: 11–12, 21–24, 30, 81, 92. Comín et al., 150 Años de Historia, vol. 1, 66, 88–92.

55 Brandão, “A rede dos caminhos de ferro,” 166. Larcher, O resgate dos caminhos de ferro. Pais, Esclarecimentos sobre a administração. Pais, “Memoria apresentada.”

56 Arquivo Histórico do Ministério das Obras Públicas, Conselho de Obras Públicas e Minas, book 30, 1869, fs. 189v–190.

57 Pinheiro, Cidade e caminhos de ferro, 119.

58 Herten et al., Le Temps du Train, 78, 110–1.

59 Alegria, A organização dos transportes, 264 and 271–4; Pereira, “A política ferroviária nacional,” 183–7, 226–229, and 236–8.

60 Salgueiro, “A Companhia Real,” 56–63.

61 Pereira, “Expertise and Policy-Making,” 66–67.

62 Salgueiro, “A Companhia Real,” 50.

63 Pereira, “A política ferroviária nacional,” 34, 128, 172, 174, 314, and 341. Pinheiro, Cidade e caminhos de ferro, 180.

64 Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer, vol. 1, 122, 133, 251. Herten et al. Le Temps du Train, 39, 43.

65 Pereira, “La vitesse dans les chemins de fer,” 31–36; Simão, “Os portos portugueses,” 9.

66 Pereira, “The technodiplomacy,” 186–7; Pinheiro, “L’histoire d’un divorce”.

67 Comín et al., 150 Años de Historia, vol. 1, 8, 11, 37–41, 145–6, 171–4; Vidal, “Marchés nationaux ou internationaux?,” 351–7.

68 Alegria, A organização dos transportes, 485–6.

69 Hawke and Higgins, 172, 176–7, 181–2. Herten et al. Le Temps du Train, 38.

70 Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer, vol. 1, 122; Robbins, The Railway Age, chapter 14; and Wolmar, Engines of War.

71 Pereira, “A política ferroviária nacional,” 418–20.

72 Pereira, “Expertise and Policy-Making,” 75.

73 Pereira, “A política ferroviária nacional,” 420–32.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I. P. under project CEECIND/04157/2017/CP1462/CT0009.