On Railways and their Essential Importance in Europe

Jan Evangelista Purkyně

When setting out to write about general consequences and the importance of railways, it is necessary to be in the right location and imagine that the time has already arrived when significant centers of European business are connected with those. This is not about distance or the nearness of that time but the point is whether there shall be any advantages from such changes in this world so that it would seem useful to contribute to their establishment. I say, indeed there will be!—The essential nature of railway is the following: The reduction of business territory, the reduction of time, the increase in power for the distribution of goods, along with the reduction of transportation costs.

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I will keep only to these three conditions that are visible by the shortest railways and by the longer ones these would be even more manifested. These are:

Firstly: The transformation of lands and fields according to the nature of the railways with regard to settlements.

Secondly: The increase and recovery of human spirit that would be purified by that, followed by town institutions.

Thirdly: Railways having a bearing on the general life of nations and states, and being taken as foundations for the development of the most powerful spiritual movements of our times.