200 Years of the Railway

2025 marks 200 years of the railway in Britain. On 27^th September 1825, the first public railway opened. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was the first to carry both goods and people, and changed Britain forever. But transporting goods in waggons along rails wasn’t exactly new. It was the use of steam-powered locomotives that made the difference and revolutionised transportation across the globe.

On the rails

You guessed it! It’s time for a timeline.

The Ancient World – yes, it was the wise and inventive Greeks who first used rail transport. Evidence from around 600 BCE suggests the Greeks made grooves in paved limestone roads to ease the movement of wheeled vehicles. Sources suggest the Romans abandoned this concept.
The Middle Ages – most large and heavy items were transported along natural waterways. However, smaller items were transported using waggons and horses. I’ve seen photos of the old routes where two parallel stone tracks are clearly visible. It’s not technically a rail, but the purpose of the tracks is clear.
16^th Century – both metal and coal mining works used two parallel wooden rails to support the wheels of waggons and ease the hauling of materials above ground. During the 1550s in Germany, they built rail tracks along roads above ground to make it easier for waggons to move goods without getting bogged down in the mud.
18^th Century – by the 1700s, miles of wooden track were already used to haul coal across the north of England either by manpower or horsepower. By the 1770s, improvements in the production process led to wooden rails being replaced by cast iron tracks.
19^th Century – cast iron rails were prone to rust and breakage, and, like the wooden rails, needed replacing regularly. In 1820, English engineer John Birkenshaw patented the process for making wrought iron rail tracks, which could take heavier loads. Wrought iron became the standard material for rail tracks until the 1850s, when it was replaced by steel.

The first railways

In 1725, the first large-scale railway line was built to transport coal from the fields across the north-east of England to Gateshead. The Tanfield Railway featured 5 miles of double wooden track, deep cuttings and embankments, and included the first railway bridge, Causey Arch, which is still standing today.

200 years of the railway — The Causey Arch in 2005. CC BY-SA 3.0

The Middleton Railway was built in 1758 to transport coal between Middleton and Leeds in Yorkshire. This used waggons pulled by horses first on wooden tracks which were then replaced with iron in 1799.

The Swansea and Mumbles Railway in Wales was built to carry limestone from the quarries to market in 1804. In 1808, rail waggons pulled by horses were adapted to carry paying passengers for the first time.

The steam engine

The first commercially successful steam engine that could transmit continuous power to a machine was developed in 1712 by Thomas Newcommen.

Again, led by the mining industry, stationary steam engines were used to haul materials from underground.

At the end of the 18^th century, along came engineer James Watt, who perfected Newcomen’s design by including a separate condenser, making the steam engine more efficient. He was awarded the patent and, in partnership with Mathew Boulton, began building steam engines in Birmingham from 1795.

When the patent expired in 1800, engineers across Britain could build and improve the design of high-pressure engines with high power-to-weight ratios, which were suitable for locomotives.

The age of locomotives

So, horse-powered railways had been around for centuries. Stationary team engines were used to haul goods along rail tracks across short distances. When did they put two and two together?

In Wales in 1804, two industrialists made a 500-guinea bet (around £535) about whether steam power could haul 10 tonnes of coal for 10 miles. Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick took on the challenge and designed a locomotive, which did the job in 4 hours.

Four years later, Trevithick tried to rustle up interest from investors in his idea for passenger trains by running a steam locomotive on a circular-track in Euston Square, London (now the site of Euston Station). The public could even have a ride on it! He aimed to excite investors about the possibilities of locomotives for railways and the speeds attainable, but apparently no one was interested. He did, however, inspire others to perfect their locomotive designs.

George Stephenson

George Stephenson had no formal education and had worked in the mines near Newcastle since his youth. His father was an engineman, and after learning to read and write, Stephenson worked on improving the old steam engines used at the mines.

In 1814, Stephenson built his first locomotive, Blucher, to haul coal at Killingworth Colliery near Newcastle.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway

In 1821, Stephenson was appointed as the chief engineer for the construction of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. At first, the railway was going to continue using horses to pull waggons, but after much ‘discussion’, and nit-picking from local landowners and parliament, it was finally agreed to use a steam-powered locomotive to haul coal between the two towns. Shareholders considered taking paying passengers as a side-earner.

On 27^th September 1825, Stephenson’s Locomotion No.1 was the first locomotive to pull both goods and passengers.

Newspapers across the country sent their reporters to witness the events from different points along the route. Some adventurous locals also tried to race against the train on horses and carriages but could not keep up with the constant speed of the locomotive.

Accompanied by 2 waggons occupied by a rousing brass band, the train arrived in Stockton with 600 passengers to a 21-gun salute.

Railway fever

Stephenson designed the famous Rocket for the Rainhill Trials in 1830 and won. The competition aimed to find suitable locomotives to operate on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway, which became the first inter-city railway line. It’s recorded that the Rocket reached a speed of 36 miles an hour and proved the viability of steam-powered railways.

From 1840, railway fever struck, and thousands rushed to invest in the growing railway network. On 13^th June 1842, Queen Victoria became the first monarch to travel by train.

The rest is history

The railways changed Britain forever. A formerly agricultural society was transformed into an industrialised, urban power. But that was not all.

We Brits love to judge others by their timekeeping, but before the railways, local time was determined by a local sundial. For example, Bristol was 11 minutes behind local time in London. Well, you can imagine the huffing and puffing about that! Obviously, the only solution was to introduce national standard time across the country.

Travel became a great leveller of society. Even though there were 3 classes of carriage, everyone could now get on a train and travel long distances. Many had never been over 3 miles from where they were born, but now they could travel across the country and build a new life.

The seaside holiday was born. Towns like Blackpool and Bournemouth would not have existed without the railways. Likewise, railway workers needed to live close by, and towns like Swindon and Crewe (which is the birthplace of Mr White, and his family worked for the railways) were built around the railway stations.