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George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians as a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His chosen rail gauge, sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", was the basis for the 4-foot-8+1⁄2-inch (1.435 m) standard gauge used by most of the world's railways.
Rail transport is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
Wagonways, also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam-powered railways. The terms plateway, tramway, dramway, were used. The advantage of wagonways was that far bigger loads could be transported with the same power.
The history of rail transport began before the beginning of the common era. It can be divided into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of track material and motive power used.
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.
The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads.
Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the United States. Between its founding in 1832 and its acquisition in 1905, the company built more than 6,000 steam locomotives for railroads around the world. Most 19th-century U.S. railroads owned at least one Rogers-built locomotive. The company's most famous product was a locomotive named The General, built in December 1855, which was one of the principals of the Great Locomotive Chase of the American Civil War.
This is a list of the earliest railroads in North America, including various railroad-like precursors to the general modern form of a company or government agency operating locomotive-drawn trains on metal tracks.
The Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad was the second railroad to be built and operated in the U.S. state of Ohio. It was also the first railroad company chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains.
The Midland line is a 212 km section of railway between Rolleston and Greymouth in the South Island of New Zealand. The line features five major bridges, five viaducts and 17 tunnels, the longest of which is the Otira tunnel. It is the route of the popular TranzAlpine passenger train.
The history of rail transport in Great Britain to 1830 covers the period up to the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first intercity passenger railway operated solely by steam locomotives. The earliest form of railways, horse-drawn wagonways, originated in Germany in the 16th century. Soon wagonways were also built in Britain. However, the first use of steam locomotives was in Wales. The invention of wrought iron rails, together with Richard Trevithick's pioneering steam locomotive meant that Britain had the first modern railways in the world.
The Richmond Vale Railway was a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in colliery railway line in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia, servicing coal mines at Minmi, Stockrington, Pelaw Main and Richmond Main. It was over 26 km (16 mi) long and passed through three tunnels, and was the last commercially operated railway in Australia to use steam locomotives.
References
- ↑ "Blaenafon.info". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 7 September 2007.
- ↑ "Time Team – The Lost Viaduct". Archived from the original on 10 August 2007. Retrieved 7 September 2007.
- 1 2 3 White, John H. Jr. (1968). A History of the American Locomotive; its development: 1830–1880. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23818-0.
- ↑ "Edward Bury". Steamindex. 2004-10-30. Retrieved 2005-02-09.
- ↑ Reitwiesner, William Addams. "The Ancestors of Julia Stimson Thorne" . Retrieved 2005-10-11.
- ↑ Skempton, A. W.; Andrews, A. (1972–73). "Cast Iron Edge-Rails at Walker Colliery 1798". Newcomen Society Transactions. 45: 110–122.
- ↑ Webb, Brian; Gordon, David A. (1978). Lord Carlisle's Railways. Railway Correspondence & Travel Society. ISBN 0-901115-43-6.
- ↑ Irish Railway Collection. Holywood: Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. 1993. ISBN 0-902588-50-8.
- ↑ Kay, Peter (1991). Exeter–Newton Abbot: a railway history. Sheffield: Platform 5. ISBN 1-872524-42-7.
- ↑ "Joseph Pease". Archived from the original on 2007-08-17. Retrieved 6 September 2007.