Railroad advancements? 1750-1860?

Question

I'm doing a history project on the industrial revolution. We need information on railroad construction. We need: how the advancement came into being, how it improved on existing technolegy, how it changed american society and how it impacted the specific industry it changed. We also need sources. Help much appreciated.

Answer 1

In 1750 railways existed, but they consisted of short sections of line with cast-iron rails over which wagons of coal, stone or whatever were drawn by horses, to jetties where they were loaded onto canal boats or coastal vessels.

The first steam-powered train ran in 1804 at Pen-y-Darren, near Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales. The locomotive was designed and built by Richard Trevithick. It had a top speed of 4 mph and could pull a load of about 50 tons but was too heavy for the cast-iron rails then in use.

Following this, other engineers such as Timothy Hackworth, Richard Blenkinsop, William Hedley and George Stephenson began to improve on locomotive design, while improvements in rail technology also took place.

1825 saw the opening of the first public, passenger carrying railway between Stockton and Darlington in the north-east of England. The first locomotive, 'Locomotion No.1', was designed and built by George Stephenson. In 1829 the Liverpool & Manchester Railway held a competition at Rainhill, near Liverpool, for a locomotive suitable for the railway and George Stephenson's 'Rocket' won. It had a top speed of 30mph, faster at the time than anything else on rails, and incorporated a multiple-tube boiler, which was to become the norm for steam locomotives.

Between 1830 and 1860, most of Britain's  railway network was built, while British engineers exported rail technology to most of the world.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who became Chief Engineer of the Great Western Railway (London Paddington to Bristol) chose to construct his line to a gauge (width between the rails) of 7.25 feet, as opposed to the 4' 8.5" of the rest of the network. This was because he believed that the broad gauge would allow trains to travel faster and more smoothly.

Railways revolutionised transport in the UK. A national network meant that goods could be delivered much faster, passengers could travel faster, mails could also be delivered faster. Distances that had taken days by stagecoach now took hours.

The railway was quickly exported to America, the first line in the USA being the Baltimore & Ohio Railway which opened in 1828.

American railways quickly developed and took on a life of their own, so that by 1860 much of the East had been covered and a trunk line was forging its way west. Known as the Union Pacific Railroad, the spurs, one from the east and one from the west met at Promontory Point in 1869. A golden spike was driven into the ties to mark the occasion and as the two locomotives drew toward each other, a bottle of wine was passed between them and the event recorded on film, for posterity.

Both sides in the American Civil War also used trains for the movement of troops, supplies, etc. and legends still abound about trains being captured by one side or the other.