RAILWAYS : In this article, railways are treated under the following heads : A. History and development.
B. Engineering and general construction.
C. Economics.
D. Legislation.
E. The British railway groups.
F. The United States railroads.
For the development of railway engines, reference should be made to the article LOCOMOTIVE.
The steam railway was a development of the wagon- or tram way frequently employed during the i6th, 17th and 18th centuries to haul minerals to rivers or ports, notably in the areas of the Clyde, the Tyne and South Wales. One of the most famous of these was the Sirhowy Tram-way incorporated in 1802. The in vention of the steam engine induced Richard Trevithick (1771 1833) to design a steam engine mounted on wheels which generated sufficient power to move itself, in fact it became a locomotive. (See LocomonvE.) In 1802 it was tested on a circular track in London and two years later at Pen-y-darran near Merthyr, Wales, where it did not appear as a commercial success, and horse trac tion continued to reign supreme on the wagon-ways and tram-ways (see Section B). In 1811 John Blenkinsop (1783-1831) patented a design of rack railway, a toothed wheel on his locomotive working into a toothed rail beside the line as pinions work into a rack; this system proved successful on his Middleton colliery railway at Leeds, and is still employed in very different form on some of the world's mountain railways where very steep gradients are experienced. The following year William Hedley built two steam locomotives for the Wylam colliery near the Tyne, which trusted to their own weight for adhesion, and in 1814 George Stephenson (1781-1848) built his first locomotive.
The success Stephenson achieved enabled him to propose steam locomotives as the means of traction on the Stockton and Darling ton Railway, projected in 1818, the first public passenger carrying railway in the world, which was opened Sept. 27, 1825. This railway, of single track with passing places every was 38m. long and George Stephenson drove the first train, weighing about 90 tons, from Brusselton to Stockton ; for some years the passenger traffic was carried by horse drawn coaches but these were finally withdrawn in 1833. Other early lines were the Kilmarnock and Troon, incorporated in 1808; the Gloucester and Cheltenham of 1809; the Plymouth and Dartmoor of 1819; the Stratford and Moreton of 1821; the Rumney; the Nantile, a plate-way in Carnarvonshire; the Cromford and High Peak; the Bolton and Leigh; and the Canterbury and Whitstable; all of 1825. The
following year saw the incorporation of the Ballochney ; the Edin burgh and Dalkeith ; the Dundee and Newtyle ; and the Garnkirk and Glasgow, all in Scotland, and the more famous Liverpool and Manchester in England. The Liverpool and Manchester is note worthy because from the first it adopted locomotive power wholly as a form of traction, and was definitely built to carry passenger traffic as well as goods and minerals. Opened Sept. 15, 183o, it was 31m. long, with double line throughout, the average time for a passenger train to complete the journey was about 90 minutes and the average fare about 5s. In 5829 a contest had been ar ranged between various locomotive designers and the engines were tested at Rainhill, near Liverpool, Georg:: Stephenson's "Rocket" carrying off the prize of L5oo, other locomotives in the contest were the "Novelty" of John Braithwaite, and the "Sans pareil" of Timothy Hackworth. Both the "Rocket" and "Sans pareil" are preserved in the Science Museum, South Kensington, London. Great difficulties had to be overcome in the construction of the line through the opposition of the local landowners and of the canal interests, while the original cost was greatly increased owing to the difficulty of crossing Chat Moss, a large peat bog. Although the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester was marred by the fact that Huskisson (177o-183o), at that time one of the members of Parliament for Liverpool, was killed by one of the engines, the railway proved a great commercial success, with the result that railway projects were set on foot, not only through out Great Britain, but on the continent of Europe and in North America. The Carbondale and Honesdale line in Pennsylvania had used a British built steam locomotive, the "Stourbridge Lion," in 1829, while Stephenson sent to the Lyon-St. Etienne line in France, then about to be opened, two locomotives in the same year.