Good morning everyone, and thanks to the organisers for putting this conference together. I’m a final-year PhD student at @unishefhistory @WRoCAH where I look at infrastructure policy in Spain under the dictatorship of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-30). 1/15 #NTiHoR

Early 1920s Spain faced multiple socio-economic crises. Disruption of trade during WW1 caused inflation, leading to strikes and violent unrest. The govt was dominated by two ‘dynastic’ parties through electoral fraud. Ordinary citizens felt excluded by ‘politics’. 2/15 #NTiHoR

Spain’s railways did not escape this sense of crisis. WW1 restricted access to good-quality British coal, and the private companies that ran the railways struggled to turn profits. Rural citizens argued that services were insufficient for their needs. 3/15 #NTiHoR

Govts poured loans into the companies to cover new rolling stock, wages and infrastructure investment, while capping fare increases. But between 1920 and 1923, companies repaid only 221k out of 224.5m pesetas. The railways had become a bottomless pit for govt funds. 4/15 #NTiHoR

On 13 Sept 1923, Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera launched a coup against the constitutional govt. He promised ‘rapid and radical remedies’ to Spain’s ills and to ‘throw the ministers out of the window’, chiming with the ‘anti-political’ populism in Spanish society. 5/15 #NTiHoR

The military dictatorship that Primo established was soon inundated with petitions from citizens demanding better transport provision for their villages. These betrayed a sense that military rule could provide simple answers to the lack of sufficient rolling stock. 6/15 #NTiHoR

Primo agreed. A Royal Order of 2/11/23 instructed companies to submit fortnightly progress reports on repair work on freight trucks. Another RO of 4/11 allowed state engineers to determine the distribution of stock between stations ‘as best fits the public interest’. 7/15 #NTiHoR

Merely issuing orders did not resolve deep-rooted, structural issues. By the time the dictatorship fell in 1930, rural Spaniards still complained that companies were not providing adequate trucks, damaging their ability to export produce. Simplistic populism failed. 8/15 #NTiHoR

The notion of supposed common national interests was key to the dictatorship’s attempts to make Spain’s railways financially sustainable without govt loans. A new Railway Oversight Council (CSFC) would represent all stakeholders and so ‘harmonise all interests’. 9/15 #NTiHoR

The CSFC’s first task was to propose a ‘New Railway Regime’ and transitionary arrangements. The proposal appeared in early 1924, but ‘harmony’ didn’t. Farmers’ reps on the CSFC published a blistering note accusing companies of working against national interests. 10/15 #NTiHoR

The companies were no more impressed. On 21/6/24 they published a joint letter stating their ‘lack of confidence [in] the general principles [of] the new regime’. Crucially, they said it did not protect the capital they had invested in Spain’s r’ways. 11/15 #NTiHoR

Potential further instability in r’way companies threatened the ‘general interests of the nation’, they said. This could be avoided with bigger fare increases. Both sides framed their private interests as according with those allegedly shared by all Spaniards. 12/15 #NTiHoR

The dictatorship spoke the language of anti-political populism but its commitment to a largely capitalist economy meant companies continued to defend their interests—not a supposedly objective, shared national interest that the CSFC was meant to serve. 13/15 #NTiHoR

This remained true in Dec 1929-Jan 30, the final months of the dictatorship, as the govt attempted to impose the ‘definitive’ regime. Companies held intensive meetings with ministers to change the terms, and were saved by Primo’s sudden resignation on 28 Jan. 14/15 #NTiHoR

In a letter of 29/1/30, a director of the Madrid-Zaragoza-Alicante Railway observed that ‘unstable government’ was ‘the greatest guarantee for companies’. ‘Anti-political’ populism appealed to unrepresented citizens, but conflicting interests keep ‘politics’ alive. 15/15 #NTiHoR

A final note: I’d like to thank the kind and knowledgeable staff of the Madrid Railway Museum @M_Ferrocarril, whose archival holdings underpin a large portion of this research. They made several weeks of research at the Museum an absolute joy. ¡Saludos desde Yorkshire! #NTiHoR