Worldheritage Forum

Railways in the UNESCO World Heritage List

Posted on 01. April 2006 um 16:31 Uhr
» Built Heritage Preservation ICOMOS UNESCO World Heritage International

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) already 1999 published a document dealing with railwas as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is accessible through the ICOMOS-Website.

It is stated there:

The history of railways has long been the subject of comparatively disinterested academic enquiry, resulting in a body of knowledge which comprehends the rich diversity of railway development around the world. It is by reference to this stock of work – incomplete or inadequate though it might be with regard to certain periods, subjects, or geographical areas – that there is the best opportunity of building consensus around a set of criteria for World Heritage listing. Such criteria must enable the universal elements of the world-wide evolution of railways to be identified. Once agreed, these criteria may be used by the World Heritage Committee to establish the ground rules for the preparation of the detailed studies of individual sites that the nominating parties must submit. We hope, too, that the criteria will assist the Committee in coming to its own views on the merits of particular locations.
reference:http://www.icomos.org/studies/railways.htm#2

I think the following aspects are touched by the topic railways as UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

• special problems with linear structures of monuments
  
• potential conflicts between economic use and the preservation of the historic structures
  
• history of technology
  
• the track as an element of the cultural landscape
  
• after use of closed tracks
  

ICOMOS is concluding:

Railways are among the most important of industrial locations worthy of designation as World Heritage Sites. The designation of a carefully selected number of outstanding sites would bring to greater prominence the many ways in which railways have contributed – and in many cases continue to contribute – to the social, economic, political, cultural, and technical evolution of almost every country around the globe....
reference:http://www.icomos.org/studies/railways.htm#5

The two explicit listed railways on the UNESCO World Heritage List are:

Semmering Railway (reference:Answers.com, GNU)

Mountain Railways of India (reference:answers.com,GNU)
You can find more information and many photos at the website of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society.

I already reported in a weblog-entry about a conference in australia dealing with railway as cultural heritage.

At this point i would also like to refer to the collegues from the Via Storia Project in Sqitzerland, that have extended experience in the research of historical traffic routes.