Does It Matter?

C H A P T E R   2

Laying Tracks

The Nature and Evolution of Infrastructural Technologies

MODERN BUSINESS WAS BORN, it might be argued, in the fall of 1829 in the small English village of Rainhill. Situated ten miles east of Liverpool, Rainhill lay directly in the path of the Liverpool and Manchester railroad, a major new line that had been under construction since 1826 and was expected to be completed by the end of 1830. The cost of laying the thirty-two miles of track would come to exceed a half million pounds sterling, making it at the time the most expensive railroad ever built. The owners of the line, eager to recoup their vast investment, were desperate to enhance rail transport’s attractiveness by increasing its speed. At the time, trains ...