What is the IRHA?

The International Association for Railway History defends the rail’s historical and cultural legacy worldwide.

IRHA increases and diffuses the knowledge and conservation of the historical, cultural, industrial and social heritage of rail transportation all over the world.

Founded in 2002, the association brings together members from 18 countries. They are historians and academics, railway history societies and foundations, railway companies and organizations, curators of railway archives, railway history and railway heritage societies. The association goes beyond the boundaries of Europe, where it was born, and aims at encompassing all continents with oncoming projects of research, conferences, seminars and books.

IRHA assumes that the rail’s historical and cultural legacy will contribute to the prospects of railway transport in the age of ecological transition.

Organization of international conferences:

2018. Budapest (Hungary). “Railways and the First World War”.
2016 Istanbul (Turkey). ‘Rail routes from the ‘Bagdad-Bahn’ to the New Silk Roads’.
2013 Santiago (Chile). ‘Railways in Latin America, history and legacy in the 19th and 20th centuries’.
2011 Lviv (Ukraine). ‘The great longing for railways. How the periphery became connected with the centers of industrialization’.
2010 Mechelen (Belgium). ‘Cities, users and their railways’.
2009 Bratislava (Slovakia). ‘Railways in Transition: Eastern Europe Railways, past, present and future in the 20th and 21st centuries’.
2006 Lisbon (Portugal). ‘Railway Modernization: the 19th and 20^th centuries, an historical perspective’.
2004 Semmering (Austria). ‘Across the Borders: Financing the World’s Railways in the 19th and 20th centuries’.