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HISTORY OF RAIL TRANSPORT

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The history of rail transport dates back nearly 500 years, when systems with man or horse power and rails of wood or stone were used. Wagonways or tramways were developed in Germany in the 1550s to transport coal and ore from mines, using primitive wooden rails. This technology spread quickly across Europe and arrived in Britain in the early 1600s. By the eighteenth century such wagonways were widely used in a number of areas. Their function in most cases was to transport coal in wagons to the river banks, where coal could be shipped to large cities.

Because rails were smoother than roads, a greater quantity of bulk cargoes such as coal and minerals could be carried without damage. Naturally, the main task was to improve the rails and reduce the degree of friction between a wheel and a rail. In the late 1760s, the Coalbrookdale Company began to fix plates of cast iron to the wooden rails. These railways had flanged wheels as on modern railways. In 1790 William Jessop, a civil engineer, used flanged iron wheels on iron edge rails on a coal railway at Loughborough. Several years later he opened the horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway in South London.

The first steam locomotive was built in 1804 by an English engineer Richard Trevithick. It used high pressure steam to drive the engine by one power stroke. Later Trevithick demonstrated a locomotive operating upon a circular track in London, but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives, because his engines were too heavy for the cast-iron track then in use.

The first commercially successful twin cylinder steam locomotive was Matthew Murray's rack locomotive the Salamanca which was built for the narrow gauge Middleton Railway in 1812. This was followed in 1813 by the Puffing Billy built by William Hedley, the first successful locomotive running by adhesion only. This was accomplished by the distribution of weight over a number of wheels. The Puffing Billy, the oldest locomotive in existence, is now on display at the Science Museum in London.

In 1814 English locomotive builder, George Stephenson, built the Blücher, one of the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotives. Stephenson played an important role in the development and widespread adoption of the steam locomotive. In 1825 he built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway which became the first public steam railway in the world, about 26 miles (40 km) long. The first steam-hauled passenger train carried up to 600 passengers and was not fast, taking two hours to complete the first 12 miles (19 km) of the journey. The rail gauge, the distance between the two rails of the track, was adopted for the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The 4 ft 8½ in (1,435 mm) width became known as the international standard gauge.

Stephenson's Rocket, built in 1829, was an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement, built in Newcastle at the Forth Street Works of Robert Stephenson and Company. The Rocket was the most advanced locomotive of its day and used a multi-tubular boiler, which provided much more efficient and effective heat transfer between the exhaust gases and the water. Previous locomotive boilers consisted of a single pipe. The Rocket had 25 copper tubes to carry the hot exhaust gases from the firebox.

The Rocket ran on the Liverpool to Manchester line, the world's first inter-city passenger railway. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials and finished goods between Liverpool and Manchester. All the trains were timetabled and hauled by steam locomotives. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened on 15 September 1830 and was a considerable event.

The earliest locomotives in revenue service were small four-wheeled locomotives. However, the inclined cylinders caused the engine to rock, so they were laid horizontally for the first time. Greater speed was achieved by larger driving wheels at the expense of a tendency for wheel slip when starting.

The first known electric locomotive was built by a Scotsman, Robert Davidson, and was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Davidson later built a larger locomotive named the Galvani which was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. The first mainline electrification was on the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1895.

Early internal combustion engine-powered locomotives used gasoline as their fuel.

Dr. Rudolph Diesel patented his first compression ignition engine in 1892. Diesel locomotives are electric locomotives with an on-board generator powered by a diesel engine. The first diesel locomotives were low-powered machines used in switching yards. Diesel and electric locomotives are cleaner, more efficient, and require less maintenance than steam locomotives. They also require less specialized skills in operation and maintenance. By the 1950s, diesel and electric power had replaced steam power on most of the world's railways.

Railways have a long history; they were and remain important for freight and passenger transportation in many countries of the world.

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