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Paper short abstract

Using ideas from STS and History of Technology, this paper investigates repair and building overlaps in engineering innovation within mature infrastructure systems. These interactions are explored through examples from Great Britain's Railway system around its privatisation in the 1990s.

Paper long abstract

Mature infrastructure systems combine engineering intensive settings and with socio-technical systems shaped by continuing embodiment of material technologies of the past. These layered, and persistently physically installed, technological systems present an interesting form of engineering innovation where removal/renewal of the old can be important in extending or updating technology.

Discussing repair and maintenance considering modern cities, Graham and Thrift (2007) reference a range of networked infrastructure systems and also highlight a range of overlaps between advancing/innovating systems and repair/maintenance. These include breakdown rendering the invisible visible (Leigh-Star, 1999) and maintenance and repair as a learning activities (Brand, 1994).

This paper draws on work from STS and History of Technology to investigate engineering innovation and examples of repair and building overlaps in mature infrastructure systems. Thomas Hughes’s (1983; 1987) studies on Large (socio-)Technical Systems (LTS) and system-building and Arthur’s (2009) discussion of engineering to understand technology change, capture aspects of engineering innovation that can be extended mature infrastructure systems (e.g. Summerton, 1994; Sovacool et al. 2018; Bolton et al., 2019). Edgerton’s (2007) emphasis on embodiment and installations of technological systems provides additional insight.

These theoretical perspectives are explored through examples from Great Britain’s Railway system around the period of its privatisation in the 1990s. Nearing 200 years old, this was a mature infrastructure system continuing to be remade which was then reconfigured through privatisation and reorganisation. Tracing system development activities around this period highlights the importance of engineering interactions, and, within these, interesting connections between breakdown/repair and renewal/redevelopment.