People of the railways

In this episode of On the Record, we explore Chartism, Britain's first mass political movement, driven by the working classes. It emerged in response to the failure of the 1832 Reform Act to extend the right to vote beyond those who owned property. The Chartists published newspap ...  Show more

In our next episode of On the Record, we explore the rise of Chartism, the 19th-century working-class mass movement that shook Britain's political establishment. 

George Stephenson drove Britain’s first-ever steam-powered passenger train, the Locomotion Number One, on 27th September, 1825, from Darlington to Stockton on Tees. The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal reported, with breathless excitement: “in the presence of great crowds of spect ...  Show more

In October 1860, railroad engineer Theodore Judah looked out across California’s Sierra Nevada range, dreaming of a railroad that would connect the United States from coast to coast. It was the start of a decade-long endeavor to build the world’s first transcontinental railroa ...

Merci à André Baratte d’être venu témoigner sur LEGEND Story. Le 1er avril 1944, un groupe de résistants sabote une voie ferrée pour immobiliser un train. Ce qu’ils ignorent, c’est que ce train transporte en réalité 400 Waffen-SS (soldats naz*s). Âgé de 15 ans, André assiste à l’ ...  Show more

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David talks to a man who lived as a train hopper for two years. They talk about the lifestyle, dangers and chaos of illegally hitching rides across America using the railroad system. The country’s first train tracks were laid down in the 1820s - an ...  Show more