The Nostalgia of Organisations and the Organisation of Nostalgia: Past and Present in the Contemporary Railway Industry

Abstract

This paper examines the role and meaning of nostalgia, and its opposite nostophobia, in the contemporary railway industry. It charts the way the past is passively and actively used by organisational actors, management as well as at the political level. It is argued that in the contemporary railway industry history and heritage are selectively annexed, negatively in order to win consent for change, and positively in an attempt to recapture the `golden age of railways' for marketing purposes. The paper makes sense of these processes by deploying a framework derived from various writers on issues connected with nostalgia and the emotional attachment to work.