JTH at fifty and the shape of things to come..., The

Journal of Transport History, The, Sep 2003 by Lyth, Peter

This year the Journal of Transport History celebrates its fiftieth anniversary and, by the usual standards of longevity amongst academic publications, fifty years is a splendid achievement. The JTH has been through several incarnations over the years and has been guided by a number of distinguished editors. It began life in May 1953 under the editorship of Jack Simmons and Michael Robbins. These two illustrious figures of British transport history gave the journal its early impetus and set high standards of scholarship. The JTH was to cover 'transport as a whole and not be limited to the consideration of any one form of transport', although it was more or less accepted that railway transport would feature most prominently in its pages - which is hardly surprising, since both editors were railway historians. There was also an implicit acceptance of its British focus and, while articles on overseas developments would appear regularly, the majority of contributors were British scholars writing about British transport. The journal reflected the national mood, and in the 1950s Britain was a somewhat complacent nation where academics and universities had not yet perceived a pressing need to make international comparisons and connections, or at least not in what were shortly to be known as the social sciences. The concentration on railways is equally understandable. They were still the predominant domestic transport mode; Britain had scarcely begun the transformation to a 'car-owning democracy' and Dr Beeching had yet to wield his axe on British Railways' elaborate network.

Fifty years later the JTH is still a vibrant title, still represents first-class scholarship and still remains the 'world's only specialist journal of transport history'. In other respects, however, it has changed. New editors and new generations of contributors have, rightly, sought to steer the journal down new paths. The 'Golden Age' of economic and social history, the objectives and methodologies of which so imbued the writing of transport history in the 1960s and 1970s, is passing. New branches and sub-disciplines of history are now addressing the subject of transport, and doing so in recognition of the central role that it plays in modern societies. Cultural historians, environmental historians, historians of gender and historians of technology are applying their own analytical tools to the long story of transport's development and asking new questions. And this is to be welcomed; transport history has always been a 'broad church'. Moreover the subject has also attracted the enquiring pens of geographers, engineers, sociologists and even lawyers.

The nature of the change to transport history, which is itself the topic of discussion and debate (and the JTH will welcome that debate in its pages) seems to take two forms. Firstly there is a change in modal emphasis which reflects the reality of contemporary transport arrangements. When the JTH was launched in 1953, commercial air transport was barely thirty years old and hardly had any 'history' to relate. The jet engine was still restricted to pioneer attempts in aviation such as the de Havilland Comet. Today air transport is the predominant long-distance transport mode and the jet plane is by far the most important travel medium in international tourism - the largest industry in the world. Airlines and airline passengers now have a considerable 'history' and it is somewhat surprising, perhaps, that more of it is not studied and researched. Similarly the twentieth-century history of motor transport, of roads and traffic and of individual 'motorised' mobility is catching up. Where once motor transport history meant econometric studies of labour and production in the car industry, now it embraces a broad range of research stretching from gender perspectives on car use and marketing to the cultural history of the self-starter. And this brings us to the second arena of change: the locus of research into the history of transport is shifting from production to consumption, from supply to demand. One of the reasons why studies of railway and shipping companies featured so often in the early issues of the JTH was that these were the largest companies in Britain, with the most extensive records and archives. Small wonder that generations of transport historians were drawn to them. Today there is greater interest in the transport consumer's experience, whether it is the tales of female passengers in Victorian railway carriages or the violence engendered when men get behind the steering wheel. The history of transport is slowly shifting its attention from the question of how governments and corporations produce it to the manner in which individuals and communities consume it.

The Journal of Transport History is celebrating its fiftieth birthday with a major relaunch in which it expands to embrace these new currents of change. In content it will encourage new theoretical departures and interpretations, as well as new avenues of research. The changing role of transport in society, the physical and environmental impact of transport networks, the relation between transport and tourism, and the effect of increases in mobility and transport speed on everything from economic growth to human relationships - all are topics within the scope of the JTH. With this issue a start is made: a new, longer format allows the publication of up to six articles of original scholarship plus a generous quota of book and museum reviews. In addition a new section entitled 'Surveys and Speculations' is introduced and will be a regular feature. It is hoped that it will become a forum for discussion and debate amongst all those working in the field of transport history; the aim is nothing less than the redefinition of transport history itself.