Into an Uncertain Future: Railroads and Vormärz Liberalism in Brno, Vienna, and Prague CHAD BRYANT O N THE MORNING OF 7JULY 1839, three trains operated by the Habsburg monarchy’s first steam railroad company, the Kaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn, arrived at Brno/ Brünn, the largest city in Moravia. As one local newspaper correspondent wrote, throngs of onlookers first “caught sight of the smoking locomotive with its line of carriages in quick flight.” In little time the first of three trains from Vienna pulled into the station. “With speed like the wind,” it had covered the roughly 130 kilometers from the imperial capital to Brno in just four and a half hours. The other two trains arrived shortly thereafter. Some of the train’s passengers wandered through the city. Prominent state and local officials hosted several notable visitors, including the railroad company’s main financial backer, Salomon Mayer von Rothschild, and his leading engineers. That afternoon the three trains departed for Vienna, and within hours horrible news had reached Brno: the third train had slammed into the second train at a small station north of Vienna. Details reported by newspapers throughout the empire varied, but it was clear that a number of people had been injured, several of them seriously. Later investigations showed that the engineer of the third train had exceeded the company’s speed limit, resulting in brake failure. The local Brno paper tried to reconcile that day’s two momentous events— both symbolic of the Brno’s entrance into the modern world. “[W]hose chest was not bursting with pride upon seeing this act of unity and humanity on this cheerful, bright blue day?” the correspondent asked rhetorically. “[W]ho did not comprehend the great importance of this celebration and the boldness and strength obtained and offered up by science?” Yet, he admitted, there remained a disturbing “cloud on the horizon” created by the train accident. 1 In the Vormärz era, numerous newspapers, almanacs, and other publications from Brno, Vienna, and Prague correctly predicted that train travel would effect radical transformations: 1 “Die Eröffnungsfahrt der Kaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn von Wien nach Brünn,” Moravia: Ein Blatt zur Unterhaltung, zur Kunde des Vaterlandes, des gesellschaftlichen und industriellen Fortschrittes 2, no. 143, 11 July 1839, 569-570. See also Mojmir Krejčiřík, Malý železniční pitavel, vol. 1, Zpráva o neštěstí ve Vranovicích. Vranovické žhářky. Znovu Vranovice (Prague, 1991): 5–31; and Josef Hons, “Úvalem dysko-svrateckým,” in Josef Hons a kolektiv, ed., Čtení o Severní dráze Ferdinandové (Prague, 1990), 37–40. Throughout this paper, with the exception of Prague and Vienna, I will note both the Czech- and German-language versions of place names upon first usage. Thereafter, I will use the Czech-language version. Austrian History Yearbook 40 (2009): 183–201 © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota doi:10.1017/S0067237809000150 183 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0067237809000150 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core . University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, on 29 Jun 2017 at 21:55:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms .