The full history of rail travel we're going to have to go way back to the Year 600 BC the Daioh Coast in Corinth Greece is one of the earliest known rut ways which is a predecessor to the railways what we know of today it's essentially a paved road with grooves worn into the paths to guide the wheels of large wooden cars that would carry anything from goods to entire naval vessels to early versions of the technique used slaves or animals to move the cars along the tracks many similar versions of this idea existed across ancient Greece and others were found in Malta and other parts of the Roman Empire these early rough ways remained in use for around 600 years and most of them fell into disuse after the Empire collapsed it wasn't until the Dark Ages that the state of rail was closer to what we know of today the earliest known record of railways in Europe is from around 1350 on a stained-glass window in the Minister of Freiburg in Germany but the earliest surviving Railway is a cliff railway to their home in salzburg castle in salzburg austria although it is an updated version it is still functioning to this day by the mid 16th century wooden rail tracks were common in mines all across Europe and by the 1600s horse-drawn wagon ways were common in Britain it wasn't until 1768 in Coalbrookdale England that iron was used in the development of Railways iron plates were secured to wooden rails in order to reduce friction which also allowed for different gauges to be used up until this point all of the developments in the rail industry were for private use mostly for transporting goods but in 1806 the swansea and mumbles railway was opened which was the first horse-drawn passenger railway by this point steam engines had been around for just under a century or beer for pumping water rather than for rail transport and in 1812 Matthew Murray built salamanca which was to be the first commercially successful steam locomotive eventually wooden rails were phased out and more replaced with rails made from rawI earn in 1820 but they were replaced with steel shortly after in 1857 fast forward to 1825 and we find George Stevenson's famous locomotion and four years later came the introduction of
Stephenson's rocket Stephenson entered rocket into a competition known as the
rain hill trials and as his locomotive was the only entry to meet the full
contest requirements he subsequently won
the 500 pounds prize and the contract to
produce his steam engine designed for
the Liverpool and Manchester railway the
line was opened in 1830 and was the
first intercity route ever built just 20
years later in the 1850s Britain had
laid a staggering 7,000 miles of track
across the country the construction of
the first underground railway the
Metropolitan Railway in London began in
1860 and was open in 1863 this line is
still running to this day but you may
better know it as the Metropolitan line
on the London Underground network it was
at this point in history that the rail
industry started to take off in the
United States in 1830 the first working
American locomotive built by Peter
Cooper was used to cover 30 miles of
track between Baltimore and Ohio a
stretch of track which later went on to
become a full working line a few similar
sized lines were opened around this time
but it wasn't until the 1850s that
long-distance rail travel became a
practical reality the American rail
system grew massively between then in
the 1890s
although the Civil War did slow down
certain developments by then the first
transcontinental railway had been built
spanning an enormous 1912 miles from the
existing rail networks in Iowa and
Nebraska all the way to the Pacific
coast of San Francisco it wasn't long
until electricity found its way into the
railways with the first fully
electrified line being completed in
northern Italy in 1902 the early 1900's
saw the first introduction of diesel
power and became commonplace after World
War two
since the price of labor needed for the
upkeep of steam locomotives increased
massively and consequently made steam
power travel financially impractical
during the war internal combustion
engine technology had dramatically
advanced to a point where they were
cheaper to run and even more powerful
than steam locomotives which caused many
railway companies to switch to diesel
and as if the rail industry wasn't
suffering enough already
the large-scale construction of
motorways came shortly after the end of
World War two
making rail and even more unpopular mode
of transportation long haul travelled
them became the main concern for railway
companies but even that was short-lived
as affordable air travel was just around
the corner and started to take even more
customers away from the rail industry
with that and the infamous Beeching cuts
in the early 60s the future was looking
bleak for rail you might be asking well
how is the rail industry still around
today well the industry took a turn for
the better in 1964 when in Japan of all
places the Shinkansen high-speed rail
trains were introduced between Tokyo and
Osaka which put rail at the forefront of
intercity travel and in the 1970s the
introduction of containerization became
a huge player in revitalizing the rail
industry as it was the most practical
way of the inland transportation of
shipping containers allowing the freight
side of rail to become more competitive
and able to become part of the
inter modal Freight transport system
train manufacturing companies started to
focus more on the accessibility of their trains in the 90s and introduced low floor trains and many old tramways were transformed into light railways allowing more passengers to use them and with that's with just about arrived at the 21st century where most of the trains have free Wi-Fi onboard yet people still complain about them being two minutes
late I've put a card in the top right corner of the screen with a poll asking
which type of transport .
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