When was the first railroad made and what company made it?

Question

When was the first railroad made and what company made it?

Answer 1

“Although the Liverpool and Manchester line in England marks the beginning of the Railway Age, it was by no means the first of the world’s railways.  A book published in 1550 illustrates a narrow-gauge line in the mines of Alsace, and in central Europe at about the same time there were mine wagons running with flanged wooden wheels on wooden rails.  The idea of mine railways came to England from Germany, and by the middle of the eighteenth century there were about twenty such lines around Newcastle alone.  Iron rails appeared in Cumberland in 1738.  In 1801 the Surrey Iron Railway, near London, was opened and was notable in that it was a public railway, not confining its traffic to a particular industry.  In 1807 the Oystermouth (this is probably where the term “Oyster cards” derived from, for my British friends) Railway near Swansea was the first to carry fare-paying passengers.  In Bohemia the first section of a public railway was opened in 1827, and in the following year France’s first public line, from St Etienne to Andrezieux, was formally opened after a year of unofficial operation."