The Past and Future of the Railway
                                                                                  Hiromasa Maeda
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　(Master Course, Tokyo Art University)

This time, to consider Beyond Asian Border Express, I tried to study the outline that what influence the railroad in the past has given society and how it has been treated.I would like to mention Beyond Asian Border Express from this research.
 

The Past of the Railway and Its Role
It is said that the origin of the railway began with something like a wagon at a mine.Demand for coal rapidly increased due to the Industrial Revolution, so the mine became increasingly deeper, and new means to transport the dug coal to a navigable canal was required. Under such circumstances a railroad was born, and its main role was to carry "things" at the beginning.
The railroad has had a great impact on people's lives. As it became possible to sell foods such as crops freshly in the remote areas, changes in the food of the common people came. Milk and bread were on the table in the 1840 's in fresh condition. It is also a fact that the food has been able to be transported over a wide range steadily,and famine has decreased and the health of the citizens living in the city has improved.
It also became a driving force to promote social progress. For the construction of the railroad, it is essential to support the residents who own the land that rails are laying in, so the powerful persons and the government, which are the buildingers, are facing difficulties in ignoring their opinions there were.
Shortly thereafter the railroad began to carry people as passengers. This fact also played a major role in securing workers in the industrialized society since the Industrial Revolution and created suburbs and cities where they live.
From the viewpoint of town planning, railroads have already been built in cities that are already in Europe, but countries such as the United States and other countries that were born at that time are mainly hotels, theaters, office buildings, department stores, etc. centering on central station There is a history that the town developed.
In the United States, railroads are playing a role in cultivating the western part from the eastern part. The railroad crossing the United States played an important role in bringing about the nationality and solidarity of the United States.
Tourism is also great due to railway. Railroad companies began to sell their own group travel. The development of tourist spots by railroads also made resorting happen, and outdoor / cold weather in distant areas began to gather popularity.
Furthermore, railways are also involved in “time”. Before the railroad, the time was different depending on the latitude of the land, but when the mutual communication became necessary due to the development of the railway network, a unified time
was required. Therefore, in England, Greenwich Mean Time was adopted at the time of railroad, and at last its rule of time became world standard time.
Moreover, railway technology has also spread to all over the world more quickly by carrying people. With this, the railway which raised in the UK will be laid in mass quantities all over the world in less than half a century.

It is not only good impact, of course, that railroad has brought. Accidents are a big problem in particular. The more the speed of the railway increased, the more the number of accidents increased. The main reasons are weather such as derailment, collision, wave, wind and avalanches, fire, overrun. In modern times, technological advancements and improvements allow these tragedies to avoid.
The invention also invited environmental destruction. It is an undeniable fact that economic activities accelerated by railroads pushed the destruction on a global scale - burning a large amount of coal in order to move a steam engine is of course a problem, but the primeval forest disappears in a few months from transportation costs, a mine is opened in the outback where people did not enter ever, and
industrial areas were born and excluded smoke.
In addition, the speed at which infectious diseases spread has also risen as people move a lot. Above all, in India, a large pilgrimage is conducted through railroads, and disease (cholera) spread widely in the flow of hundreds of thousands of people there.
Railroads made it possible to "transport large quantities of people and people with a stable speed" in good or bad, which changed society completely.

The Railway and War
The development of the railway network led human being to some miserable results. The iron roads that were stretched everywhere were used to carry soldiers and ammunition and send them to each front line.
The railroad seriously contributed to the war from the Civil War. When the troops withdrew, they destroyed the railway on the land which they surrender to the enemy. Also, using the fact that the train is going back and forth, people went to supply local soldiers and supplies to the field, and on the way home they pulled injured soldiers and pulled them home. Soon, the ward cars were also appearing. Some trains wearing armor and trains with artillery appeared.
In the 20th century, Russia raised their threat to build Siberian railroads and interests on the Korean Peninsula as clues. Japan opposed this, and the two confronted and entered the Russo-Japanese War. Although Russia continued to send troops using the Siberian railroads etc., as a result Japan was virtually victorious, the reason was that they could use the railway well. They constructed a railroad from Busan to Seoul and carried troops smoothly to the front line. After Japan deprived of Lushun, it was possible to have a secondary supply line role by using the railway constructed by Russia. This war is pointed out that the railroad shows a change in the scale and content of the war.
Later, the First World War began. The country that participated in this case nationalized railroads and they have all or part of the railway to military use. With the use of railroads, personnel and supplies from the faraway became possible, which played a part of the war's prolongation. In addition to the appearance of tanks, bombers, machine guns, chemical weapons, etc., brought about the number of
victims and damage that humanity had never experienced.
By the time of World War II, the meaning of the railway as a transportation became slightly thin due to the spread of automobiles and aircraft. The form of war changed and railroads were often destroyed by bombing by air raids. Still it was not easy to aim for a train running on a thin track from the sky, and it kept certain usefulness.
The subway station also began to take on the function as a bombproof shelter. What is noteworthy in the Second World War is that the Holocaust by Nazi could not be achieved without the railway system. The divisionalized system diluted the guilt of people and steadily transported a large number of people on railroads that were drawn to concentration camps. The interior of the car was more than full, and many people crushed in the car.
In addition, after losing the naval supremacy in the South China Sea, the Japanese army built a Burma Railway aimed at supplying supplies to the front line of Burma and invasion to India (Battle of Imphal), but 16,000 prisoners of the Union Military and 40,000 to 70,000 asian who were launched into harsh forced labor lost their lives.
In addition, as a development of the bullet train plan that became the basis of the Shinkansen, the Japanese Army planned to build a high-speed railway on the Silk Road connecting the major city of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, and crossing the Eurasian Continent comparable to the Siberian Railway.
In the subsequent Korean War and the Vietnam War, the railroad was still playing its role as a means of transport. Regardless of the big and small war, we can not deny the fact that the railroad has had a great influence on war.

The Railway and the Film
There are really many movies in which railroads appear, but it was also railroads that were filmed in the early days of film. “The Arrival of the Train to La Ciotat Station” (1896) by the father of film, The Lumière brothers, shows the scene of the train entering the station. Those who never knows film surprised and escaped because they thought the train on the screen was actual one and run to them.
The contents sometimes involve war. "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) comes against the background of the First World War, a bombing strategy of the Hejaz Railway which shemed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire appears.
“The Bridge on The River Kwai” (1957) is the content of the above mentioned construction of the Burma Railway where the Japanese army forced prisoners of war and forced labor to the local people.
"Il Ferroviere" (1956) draws the father of the engineer as the main character and interweaves with the situation of Italy after the Second World War.
“Sin nombre” (2009) portrays the fate of a girl who intends to intrude into the United States from Central America Honduras via Mexico and a young boy who was chased after being betrayed the organization of what was in the gang organization.
"Snowpiercer" (2013) is set in the future where the Ice Age came. The surviving human race lives in the train which goes around the world, and the status is set for each train car, and the powerful rule by the wealthy people of the front of train. The
poor who live in the last car who received treatment as slaves causes a rebellion.
The state is drawn as if the stage cleared in the TV game.
How to use railroads in movies is also depicted mainly here as a means of transportation, as a lifeline that is indispensable for life. But not only that, it seems like the railway itself is used like a metaphor of life, because it have elements to recall the journey and the future. It may be because the affinity between the rail of one road and the time axis is high in the film.
Also, as genres, many mysteries and horrors made use of the situation of a closed room without escape place.

The Outlook of Beyond Asian Border Express(BABExpress)
Currently, it is difficult to think that railroads transform society like in the past, but there is a possibility that some changes will be made in connecting Asian countries.
When making a linear, there is a possibility that it becomes a tunnel due to land securing and noise problems. The most terrible thing at the moment is the accident caused by the destruction of the tunnel, as the fault shifts due to the earthquake.
Asia is especially frequent earthquakes such as Japan, China and Indonesia. There will also be problems with transfer operations (including other transportation facilities) when a section becomes unusable for a long time.
And what should we do in case of war or conflict? If you refer to the past, there was a case of destroying the railway and delaying the progress of the enemy. Due to the increase in the means of transportation, the railway is by no means the best, but if it
could cross the sea at 500 km / h, it could be a target of military attack and defense. Or it may function as a more robust evacuation destination than the subway.
At the same time we should consider immigration. There is the possibility of coming to Japan that has not accepted many refugees until now. Will you get on the cargo or walk through the tunnel? BABExpress can be a safe means of transportation for those people if the regime of any country collapsed, in crisis, or lost the place to live by natural disaster and guaranteed to the government. By connecting the railway, eyes from society are expected to become severe, and attitudes like the past may not be able to be passed to immigrants / refugees. If it actually comes, it seems necessary to reconfirm beforehand what to do.
People's distribution becomes easy, but management of entry is an important issue. It is a great effort to check passports every time the railway, which can carry people in large numbers, crosses the border at high speed. For this reason, it may be
necessary to construct a separate framework for centralized management somewhere. The currently realized technology may be an automated gate that is used at some airports, or an immigration check by identity verification using biometrics authentication. Also, as studies on unnecessary ticket gates are progressed, it seems possible that completion of examination by just passing a train through a tunnel is possible depending on the development of technology.
There is also a problem with electric power to be used. When a linear car running at a speed of 500 km / h runs between Shinagawa and Nagoya, it is said that power consumption is three times that of the Tokaido Shinkansen running in the same section. As a solution to this problem, there may be an Asia Super Grid concept. This plan is to connect the renewable energy resources made in Asian countries such as Korea, China, Mongolia, Russia, India, etc. by a grid to mutually utilize in each country. It is aimed to eliminate surplus electricity all around the world, Softbank is jointly building from Japan. If we can borrow the power of this international power transmission network, will not it be possible to operate the power situation of each country without pressure?
What is more important is language. It is difficult to express each letter on the guide board, it is difficult to train employees and staff who can handle various languages.Again, new technology is required. As well as automatic translators, as well as a suggestion of Mr. Chia-Hua Hsiao, a participant in this BABExpress project, it will be necessary to provide guidance using AR.
What will a train connecting multilaterals with an unprecedented scale bring? I feel that what happens in the surroundings becomes more important in the future than the basic purpose such as transportation.

Word Cited

“Blood, Iron, and Gold” by Christian Wolmar, KawadeShobo-Shinsha, 2012
“Engines Of War” by Christian Wolmar, ChuoKoron-Shinsha, 2013
“Modern Japan Made By Railway” by Shuji Takashina, Toru Haga, Yoshinobu Oikawa, Hiroshi Takagi, Seizando-Shoten, 2014
The website of “Renewable Energy Institute” https://www.renewable-ei.org/asg/about/