History of Railtransport

History of rail transport
Anders Dernback / text Wikipedia

Ancient systems
Evidence indicates that there was a 6 to 8.5 km long Diolkos paved trackway,
which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around
600 BC. Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in
limestone, which provided the track element, preventing the wagons from
leaving the intended route. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at
least the 1st century AD. Paved trackways were also later built in Roman
Egypt.
Wooden rails introduced
Reisszug, as it appears today
In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular railway at the
Hohensalzburg Fortress in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage
rope and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel. The line still exists
and remains operational, although in updated form. It may be the oldest operational railway.

Benjamin Outram's Little Eaton
Gangway in July 1908 with the last
train of loaded coal wagons arriving.
Established canal and railway engineer
A replica of a "Little Eaton Tramway" wagon
This was the beginning of the ironworks, 'Benjamin Outram
& Company' which began trading in 1790. The following
year William Jessop and John Wright, a Nottingham
banker, also became partners. Starting with a nominal
capital of £6000, Outram was the only partner active in the
management of the company, assisted by his younger
brother, Joseph. Over time the business expanded to
include a limestone quarry, limekilns, collieries and
ironstone pits.

Wagonways (or Waggonways) consisted of the
horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling
wagons, which preceded steam-powered railways.
The terms plateway, tramway and dramway were
used. The advantage of wagonways was that far
bigger loads could be transported with the same
power.
Minecart shown in De Re
Metallica (1556). The
guide pin fits in a groove
between two wooden
planks.
Was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius
Agricola (image right) in his work De re metallica.
This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels
running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the
truck fitting into the gap between the planks to
keep it going the right way. The miners called the
wagons Hunde ("dogs") from the noise they made
on the tracks.

On 21 February 1804, the world's first steam-powered
railway journey took place when Trevithick's unnamed
steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the
Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.
A replica of the Planet, which
ran on the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway from 1830
The history of rail transport began in the
6th century BC in Ancient Greece. It can
be divided into several discrete periods
defined by the principal means of track
material and motive power used.

In 1604, Huntingdon Beaumont completed the Wollaton Wagonway, built to
transport coal from the mines at Strelley to Wollaton Lane End, just west of
Nottingham, England. Wagonways have been discovered between Broseley
and Jackfield in Shropshire from 1605, used by James Clifford to transport coal
from his mines in Broseley to the Severn River. It has been suggested that these
are somewhat older than that at Wollaton.
Minecart from 16th century, found in Transylvania
The Middleton Railway in Leeds, which was
built in 1758 as a wagonway, later became
the world's first operational railway (other
than funiculars), albeit in an upgraded form.
In 1764, the first railway in the America was
built in Lewiston, New York as a wagonway.

Metal rails
Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rails were made of wood, were a few inches
wide and were fastened end to end, on logs of wood or "sleepers", placed crosswise at
intervals of two or three feet. In time, it became common to cover them with a thin flat
sheathing or "plating" of iron, in order to add to their life and reduce friction. This caused more
wear on the wooden rollers of the wagons and towards the middle of the 18th century, led to
the introduction of iron wheels. However, the iron sheathing was not strong enough to resist
buckling under the passage of the loaded wagons, so rails made wholly of iron were invented.
In 1760, the Coalbrookdale Iron Works began to reinforce their wooden railed tramway with
iron bars, which were found to facilitate passage and diminish expenses. As a result, in 1767,
they began to make cast iron rails. These were probably 6 ft (1.829 m) long, with four projecting
ears or lugs 3 in (75 mm) by 3 3⁄4 in (95 mm) to enable them to be fixed to the sleepers. The rails
were 3 3⁄4 in (95 mm) wide and 1 1⁄4 in (30 mm) thick. Later, descriptions also refer to rails 3 ft
(914 mm) long and only 2 in (50 mm) wide.

Plateways, Flangeways
A later system involved "L" shaped iron rails or plates, each 3 ft (915 mm) long
and 4 in (100 mm) wide, having on the inner side an upright ledge or flange, 3
in (75 mm) high at the centre and tapering to 2 in (50 mm) at the ends, for the
purpose of keeping the flat wheels on the track. Subsequently, to increase
strength, a similar flange might be added below the rail. Wooden sleepers
continued to be used—the rails were secured by spikes passing through the
extremities—but, circa 1793, stone blocks began to be used, an innovation
associated with Benjamin Outram, although he was not the originator. This
type of rail was known as the plate-rail, tramway-plate or way-plate, names
that are preserved in the modern term "platelayer" applied to the workers who
lay and maintain the permanent way. The wheels of flangeway wagons were
plain, but they could not operate on ordinary roads as the narrow rims would
dig into the surface.

Edgeways
Another form of rail, the edge rail, was first used by William Jessop on a
line that was opened as part of the Charnwood Forest Canal between
Loughborough and Nanpantan in Leicestershire in 1789. This line was
originally designed as a plateway on the Outram system, but objections
were raised to laying rails with upstanding ledges or flanges on the
turnpike. This difficulty was overcome by paving or "causewaying" the
road up to the level of the top of the flanges. In 1790, Jessop and his
partner Outram began to manufacture edge-rails. Another example of
the edge rail application was the Lake Lock Rail Road used primarily for
coal transport. This was a public railway (charging a toll) and opened for
traffic in 1798, making it the world's oldest public railway.

Lake Lock Rail Road
The Lake Lock Rail Road was an early narrow gauge railway built near
Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. The railway is recognised as the world's
first public railway, though other railway schemes around the same time also
claim that distinction.
The Lake Lock Rail Road Company was formed in 1796 with the capital being
raised from 128 shares. These were purchased by a broad range of people
including a lawyer, banker, doctor, clergyman, merchant and widow.[4] The
initial route opened to traffic in 1798, pre-dating the Surrey Iron Railway by five
years, it is thus the world's first public railway. The line was built to allow many
independent users to haul wagons along the line on payment of a toll, so whilst
other railways pre-dated the Lake Lock Railroad, its act of 1793 under the
Wakefield Inclosure Act, meant that its status was defined as being public from
the outset (unlike the nearby Middleton Railway, which was a private railway).

The manufacture of the rails
themselves was gradually
improved. By making them in
longer lengths, the number of
joints per mile was reduced. Joints
were always the weakest part of
the line. Another advance was
the substitution of wrought iron for
cast iron, though that material did
not gain wide adoption until after
the patent for an improved
method of rolling rails was
granted in 1820 to John
Birkinshaw, of the Bedlington
Ironworks.
Lengths of fishbelly rail on stone support
blocks. These are edgerails for wheels
with flanges.

George
Stephenson
George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August
1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical
engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways",
Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a
great example of diligent application and thirst for
improvement. Self-help advocate Samuel Smiles
particularly praised his achievements. His chosen
rail gauge, sometimes called 'Stephenson gauge',
was the basis for the 4 feet 8 1⁄2 inches (1.435 m)
standard gauge used by most of the world's
railways. Pioneered by Stephenson, rail transport
was one of the most important technological
inventions of the 19th century and a key
component of the Industrial Revolution.

A Roberts loom in a weaving
shed in 1835. Textiles were the
leading industry of the Industrial
Revolution, and mechanized
factories, powered by a central
water wheel or steam engine,
were the new workplace.
The Industrial Revolution, now also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was the transition to
new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to
sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production
methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the
increasing use of steam power and water power, the development of machine tools and the
rise of the mechanized factory system.

Early Stephenson locomotive illustrated in
Samuel Smiles' Lives of the Engineers (1862).
Described as an 1816 Killingworth Colliery
locomotive, this is often claimed to be
Blücher, but more closely resembles the
slightly later Hetton colliery railway
locomotives, and their 1852 replica Lyons,
which was still operating at Smiles' time.
Cornishman Richard Trevithick is credited with the first realistic design for a
steam locomotive in 1802. Later, he visited Tyneside and built an engine there
for a mine-owner. Several local men were inspired by this, and designed their
own engines.

Stephenson designed his first locomotive in 1814, a travelling engine designed
for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher after the
Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (It was suggested the name
sprang from Blücher's rapid march of his army in support of Wellington at
Waterloo). Blücher was modelled on Matthew Murray’s locomotive Willington,
which George studied at Kenton and Coxlodge colliery on Tyneside, and was
constructed in the colliery workshop behind Stephenson's home, Dial Cottage,
on Great Lime Road. The locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4
mph (6.4 km/h), and was the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion
locomotive: its traction depended on contact between its flanged wheels and
the rail.
Fishbelly rail with half-lap joint,
patented by Stephenson 1816

Hetton Railway
Stephenson was hired to build the 8-mile (13-km) Hetton colliery railway in
1820. He used a combination of gravity on downward inclines and locomotives
for level and upward stretches. This, the first railway using no animal power,
opened in 1822. This line used a gauge of 4 ft 8 in (1,422 mm) which Stephenson
had used before at the Killingworth wagonway.

The locomotives had steam springs, co-
patented by Stephenson and Losh, which
attempted to compensate for the reaction to
the vertical cylinders which had caused
locomotives to rock excessively but were not
successful. The inclined plane was operated by
a number of stationary engines. The 1822
engine continued in service until 1912, having
been rebuilt in 1857 and 1882; it is preserved in
the Shildon Locomotion Museum. The preserved
locomotive may not be the genuine article as it
is possibly an 1850s-era replica which had
been produced at the behest of Sir Lindsay
Wood.
The first five locomotives built for the
line were constructed by
Stephenson between 1820 and 1822.
They were a development of the
Killingworth locos, possessing a 0-4-
0 wheel configuration with chain-
coupled wheels. Four were named,
Hetton, Dart, Tallyho and Star.

Stockton and Darlington Railway
In 1821, a parliamentary bill was passed to allow
the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway
(S&DR). The 25-mile (40 km) railway connected
collieries near Bishop Auckland to the River Tees at
Stockton, passing through Darlington on the way.
The original plan was to use horses to draw coal
carts on metal rails, but after company director
Edward Pease met Stephenson, he agreed to
change the plans. Stephenson surveyed the line in
1821, and assisted by his eighteen-year-old son
Robert, construction began the same year.
The No. 1 engine, called
Locomotion, for the
Stockton & Darlington
Railway

The Experiment – the first railway carriage
First passenger railway, L&MR
Liverpool and Manchester Railway

A replica LMR coach
and Rocket at the
Rocket 150 event

The proposed Liverpool and
Manchester Railway was to be one of
the earliest land-based public transport
systems not using animal traction
power. Before then, public railways had
been horse-drawn, including the Lake
Lock Rail Road (1796), Surrey Iron
Railway (1801) and the Oystermouth
Railway near Swansea (1807).
Crown Street railway station
Crown Street Station was a passenger
railway terminal station on Crown Street,
Liverpool, England. The station was the
world's first intercity passenger station,
opening in 1830, also being the railway
terminal station for Liverpool.

The original goods-handling facilities of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway at the end of the Wapping Tunnel
towards the dockside (later the Wapping Dock) in
Liverpool. The sidings stretched back about 200 yards
from the tunnel mouth towards the dock, with
warehouses on both sides where goods could be loaded
down from above onto the wagons. The facility remained
in use, later renamed the Park Lane goods station, with
various reconstructions, until 1972. Traffic through the
tunnel continued to be cable-drawn to Edge Hill until
1896. The site has now been demolished and
redeveloped; all that remains is the partially bricked-up
tunnel portal at Kings Dock Road.

Taking in water at Parkside, from
Bury's Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, 1831.
Parkside was one of only two
intermediate stops on the L&MR
where locomotives could be
fuelled and watered (the other
was at Eccles), it was well
placed to do so being about
halfway along the line, 14 miles
58 chains (23.7 km) from Edge
Hill[b] and 14 miles 29 chains
(23.1 km) from Manchester
Liverpool Road.

Parkside Station
from Views on the
London & North
Western Railway -
Tait, 1848

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George
_Stephenson#/media/File:George_St
ephenson_-_geograph.org.uk_-
_2315455.jpg
George Stephenson statue,
Chesterfield March 2011
George Stephenson had two
children. His son Robert was born
on 16 October 1803. Robert married
Frances Sanderson, daughter of a
City of London professional John
Sanderson, on 17 June 1829. Robert
died in 1859 having no children.
Robert Stephenson expanded on
the work of his father and became
a major railway engineer himself.
Abroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagonway#/media/File:TrevithicksEngine.jpg
A replica of Trevithick's
engine at the National
Waterfront Museum,
Swansea
Richard Trevithick
(13 April 1771 – 22
April 1833)
London Steam Carriage 1803

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotion_No._1#/media/File:Locomotion
_No._1..jpg
Stephenson's Locomotive opened the Stockton
and Darlington Railway on 27th September 1825,
pulling coal trucks. It is now housed in the
Darlington Railway Centre and Museum.

Pole road
Perdido, a steam pole road locomotive
Wooden rails continued to be used for
temporary railroads into the twentieth century.
Some timber harvesting companies in the
southeastern United States created pole roads
using unmarketable logs, which were
effectively free, to create tracks at a cost of
between $100 and $500 per mile.
Permanence was not an issue, as the
lumberjacks moved on to other stands of
timber as each area was cleared.[18] At least
one such pole road system reportedly
extended some 20 miles (32 km).
As steam power gradually
replaced horse power, the term
"wagonway" became obsolete
and was superseded by the
term "railway".

Electric power introduced
The first known electric locomotive was built in 1837 by
chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and
it was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Thus it was
also the earliest battery electric locomotive. Davidson
later built a larger locomotive named Galvani,
exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition
in 1841. The seven-ton vehicle had two direct-drive
reluctance motors, with fixed electromagnets acting on
iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle,
and simple commutators. It hauled a load of six tons at
four miles per hour (6 kilometers per hour) for a
distance of one and a half miles (2.4 kilometres). It was
tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in
September of the following year, but the limited power
from batteries prevented its general use. It was
destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to
their job security. Werner von Siemens demonstrated an
electric railway in 1879 in Berlin.
The world's first electric tram
line, Gross-Lichterfelde
Tramway, opened in
Lichterfelde near Berlin,
Germany, in 1881. It was built
by Siemens.

The Volk's Electric Railway opened in 1883 in Brighton, England. The railway is
still operational, thus making it the oldest operational electric railway in the
world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram opened near Vienna in
Austria. It was the first tram line in the world in regular service powered from an
overhead line. Five years later, in the US electric trolleys were pioneered in
1888 on the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, using equipment designed by
Frank J. Sprague.
Baltimore & Ohio electric engine
The first use of electrification on a main line was on a four-mile stretch of the
Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1895
connecting the main portion of the B&O to the new line to New York through a
series of tunnels around the edges of Baltimore's downtown. Electricity quickly
became the power supply of choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's
invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897. By early 1900s most street
railways were electrified.

The first practical AC electric locomotive was designed by Charles Brown, then
working for Oerlikon, Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated long-distance
power transmission, using three-phase AC, between a hydro-electric plant at
Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a distance of 280 km. Using
experience he had gained while working for Jean Heilmann on steam-electric
locomotive designs, Brown observed that three-phase motors had a higher
power-to-weight ratio than DC motors and, because of the absence of a
commutator, were simpler to manufacture and maintain. However, they were
much larger than the DC motors of the time and could not be mounted in
underfloor bogies: they could only be carried within locomotive bodies.
In 1894, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Kandó developed a new type 3-phase
asynchronous electric drive motors and generators for electric locomotives.
Kandó's early 1894 designs were first applied in a short three-phase AC tramway
in Evian-les-Bains (France), which was constructed between 1896 and 1898.

The first use of electrification on a main line was on
a four-mile stretch of the Baltimore Belt Line of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1895
connecting the main portion of the B&O to the new
line to New York through a series of tunnels around
the edges of Baltimore's downtown.
Electricity quickly became the power supply of
choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's
invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897. By
early 1900s most street railways were electrified.
The first practical AC electric locomotive was
designed by Charles Brown, then working for
Oerlikon, Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated
long-distance power transmission, using three-
phase AC, between a hydro-electric plant at
Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a
distance of 280 km.

Italian railways were the first in the world to introduce electric traction for the
entire length of a main line rather than just a short stretch. The 106 km Valtellina
line was opened on 4 September 1902, designed by Kandó and a team from
the Ganz works. The electrical system was three-phase at 3 kV 15 Hz. In 1918,
Kandó invented and developed the rotary phase converter, enabling electric
locomotives to use three-phase motors whilst supplied via a single overhead
wire, carrying the simple industrial frequency (50 Hz) single phase AC of the
high voltage national networks.
An important contribution to the wider adoption of AC traction came from
SNCF of France after World War II. The company conducted trials at 50 Hz, and
established it as a standard. Following SNCF's successful trials, 50 Hz (now also
called industrial frequency) was adopted as standard for main lines across the
world

Diesel power introduced
Earliest recorded examples of an internal combustion engine for railway use
included a prototype designed by William Dent Priestman, which was examined
by Sir William Thomson in 1888 who described it as a "[Priestman oil engine]
mounted upon a truck which is worked on a temporary line of rails to show the
adaptation of a petroleum engine for locomotive purposes. In 1894, a 20 hp (15
kW) two axle machine built by Priestman Brothers was used on the Hull Docks.
In 1906, Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and the steam and diesel engine
manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Diesel-Sulzer-Klose GmbH to
manufacture diesel-powered locomotives. Sulzer had been manufacturing
diesel engines since 1898. The Prussian State Railways ordered a diesel
locomotive from the company in 1909. The world's first diesel-powered
locomotive was operated in the summer of 1912 on the Winterthur–Romanshorn
railway in Switzerland, but was not a commercial success.

A significant breakthrough occurred in 1914, when Hermann Lemp, a
General Electric electrical engineer, developed and patented a
reliable direct current electrical control system (subsequent
improvements were also patented by Lemp). Lemp's design used a
single lever to control both engine and generator in a coordinated
fashion, and was the prototype for all diesel–electric locomotive
control systems. In 1914, world's first functional diesel–electric railcars
were produced for the Königlich-Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen
(Royal Saxon State Railways) by Waggonfabrik Rastatt with electric
equipment from Brown, Boveri & Cie and diesel engines from Swiss
Sulzer AG. They were classified as DET 1 and DET 2. The first regular use
of diesel–electric locomotives was in switching (shunter) applications.
General Electric produced several small switching locomotives in the
1930s (the famous "44-tonner" switcher was introduced in 1940)
Westinghouse Electric and Baldwin collaborated to build switching
locomotives starting in 1929. In 1929, the Canadian National Railways
became the first North American railway to use diesels in mainline
service with two units, 9000 and 9001, from Westinghouse

Polish locomotive
Pm36-1 (140 km/h)
dated 1937.

In France, railways were first operated by
private coal companies the first legal
agreement to build a railway was given
in 1823 and the line (from Saint-Étienne
to Andrézieux) was operated in 1827.
Much of the equipment was imported
from Britain but this stimulated machinery
makers, which soon created a national
heavy industry. The railways probably
helped the industrial revolution in France
by facilitating a national market for raw
materials, wines, cheeses and imported
and exported manufactured products. In
The Rise of Rail-Power in War and
Conquest, 1833–1914.

An operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556
by Georgius Agricola in his work De re
metallica. This line used "Hund" carts with
unflanged wheels running on wooden planks
and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the
gap between the planks to keep it going the
right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde
("dogs") from the noise they made on the
tracks. This system became very popular across
Europe. The takeoff stage of economic
development came with the railroad revolution
in the 1840s. By 1880, Germany had 9,400
locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and
30,000 tons of freight a day and forged ahead of
France.

Cuba, then a Spanish colony,
built its first rail line in 1837.
The history of rail transport in
peninsular Spain begins in
1848 with the construction of a
railway line between
Barcelona and Mataró. In
1852, the first narrow gauge
line was built. In 1863 a line
reached the Portuguese
border. By 1864, the Madrid-
Irun line had been opened
and the French border was
reached.

Grand Trunk's
Bonaventure Station,
Montreal, 1900s
The first Canadian
railway, the
Champlain and St.
Lawrence Railroad,
was opened in
1836 outside of
Montreal.

History of rail transport US
Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in
the United States starting from the 1720s. A railroad
was reportedly used in the construction of the
French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia. Railroads
played a large role in the development of the
United States from the industrial revolution in the
North-east (1810–1850) to the settlement of the
West (1850–1890).
The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the nation of
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827.
Rail was strategic during the American Civil War, and the Union used its
much larger system much more effectively. Practically all the mills and
factories supplying rails and equipment were in the North, and the Union
blockade kept the South from getting new equipment or spare parts.
The war was fought in the South, and Union raiders

The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an
economic depression in Europe and North America that
lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain.
In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation
known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the
country's economic leadership. In the United States, the
Panic was known as the "Great Depression" until the
events of 1929 and the early 1930s set a new standard. in
Europe resulting from the Franco-Prussian War (1870–
1871), and major property losses in the Great Chicago
Fire (1871) and the Great Boston Fire (1872) helped to
place massive strain on bank reserves, which, in New
York City, plummeted from $50 million to $17 million
between September and October 1873.
The first symptoms of the crisis were financial failures in
Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary, which spread to
most of Europe and to North America by 1873.

Ceremony for the
completion of the First
Transcontinental Railroad,
May 1869, at Promontory
Summit, U.T.

1879 cartoon depicting William Henry Vanderbilt as
"The Modern Colossus of (Rail) Roads."
By 1880 the nation had 17,800 freight locomotives
carrying 23,600 tons of freight, and 22,200 passenger
locomotives. The U.S. railroad industry was the nation's
largest employer outside of the agricultural sector. The
effects of the American railways on rapid industrial
growth were many, including the opening of hundreds
of millions of acres of very good farm land ready for
mechanization, lower costs for food and all goods, a
huge national sales market, the creation of a culture
of engineering excellence, and the creation of the
modern system of management.

A Delaware,
Lackawanna, and
Western Railroad
wagon at a level
crossing, circa 1900.
The Panic of 1893 was
the largest economic
depression in U.S. history
at that time. It was the
result of railroad
overbuilding and shaky
railroad financing, which
set off a series of bank
failures. One-quarter of
U.S. railroads had failed
by mid-1894

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Corridor#/media/File:Acela_old_saybrook_ct_summer2011.jpg
A northbound
Amtrak Acela
Express passing
through Old
Saybrook,
Connecticut in 2011
The Northeast
Corridor (NEC) is an
electrified railroad
line in the Northeast
megalopolis of the
United States.
Owned primarily by
Amtrak

The National Railroad
Passenger Corporation,
doing business as Amtrak
(reporting marks AMTK,
AMTZ), is a passenger
railroad service that
provides medium and
long-distance intercity
service in the contiguous
United States and to nine
Canadian cities.
Founded in 1971 as a
quasi-public corporation.
AMTRAK

The first proposals for railways in India
were made in Madras in 1832. The first
train in India ran from Red Hills to
Chintadripet bridge in Madras in 1837.
It was called Red Hill Railway. It was
hauled by a rotary steam engine
locomotive manufactured by William
Avery. It was built by Sir Arthur Cotton.
It was primarily used for transporting
granite stones for road building work in
Madras. In 1845, a railway was built at
Dowleswaram in Rajahmundry. It was
called Godavari Dam Construction
Railway. It was also built by Arthur
Cotton. It was used to supply stones for
construction of a dam over Godavari.

In Latin America in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries railways were
critical elements in the early stages
of modernization of the Latin
American economy, especially in
linking agricultural regions to export-
oriented seaports. After 1870 Latin
American governments encouraged
further rail development through
generous concessions that included
government subsidies for
construction.
Latin America

History of Railtransport

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