21. Replacing One Ridiculous Train Phobia With Another
In the nineteenth century, the perceived risk of the unprecedented velocities afforded by trains was not limited to the consequences of a crash or derailment. Naysayers theorized that the bodies of human beings were simply not adapted to or capable of withstanding travel at speeds faster than those of galloping horses. Anticipating the concerns about G forces in the era of powered flight, train alarmists reasoned that passengers’ internal organs would get compressed against their backs, with potentially fatal results.
Such ridiculous fears eventually simmered down as train travel became common, with no reported fatalities from people getting their hearts or lungs flattened against their backs. However, they were replaced by yet another ridiculous fear, this one of a danger to the mind instead of the body. By the 1850s, Victorians worried that steadily increasing train speeds, combined with the rattle and jarring motions within railway cars, were causing injuries to passengers’ brains, and driving people insane. Just like today, the nineteenth century had no shortage of sensationalist media, and it did its best to whip up the frenzy about the risks to sanity posed by train travel.