2009/04/01 by Chad Bryant · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Archaeology #Capital (architecture) #Central European national history #Economic history #European Cultural and National Identity #European Political History Analysis #History #Law #Newspaper #Political science #Rothschild #State (computer science) #Train
paper · doi:10.1017/s0067237809000150
published in Austrian History Yearbook 40, 183-201 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2009/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
On the morning of 7 July 1839 , three trains operated by the Habsburg monarchy's first steam railroad company, the Kaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn, arrived at Brno/Brünn, the largest city in Moravia. As one local newspaper correspondent wrote, throngs of onlookers first “caught sight of the smoking locomotive with its line of carriages in quick flight.” In little time the first of three trains from Vienna pulled into the station. “With speed like the wind,” it had covered the roughly 130 kilometers from the imperial capital to Brno in just four and a half hours. The other two trains arrived shortly thereafter. Some of the train's passengers wandered through the city. Prominent state and local officials hosted several notable visitors, including the railroad company's main financial backer, Salomon Mayer von Rothschild, and his leading engineers.