c. 700 BC[1][2][3][4][5]: 8–19 (11) – A basic form of the railway, the rutway,[5]: 8–19 (8 & 15) – existed in ancient Greek and Roman times, the most important being the ship trackway Diolkos across the Isthmus of Corinth. Measuring between 6 and 8.5 km,[5]: 8–19 (10) [6][7] remaining in regular and frequent service for at least 650 years,[1][2][3][4][5] and being open to all on payment, it constituted even a public railway, a concept that, according to Lewis, did not recur until around 1800.[5]: 15 The Diolkos was reportedly used until at least the middle of the 1st century AD, after which no more written references appear.[5]: 8–19 (11)
16th–18th century
Mid 16th century (1550) – Hand propelled mining tubs known as "hands" were used in the provinces surrounding/forming modern day Germany by the mid-16th century having been improved use since the mid-15th century. This technology was brought to England by German miners working in the Minerals Royal at various sites in the English Lake District near Keswick (now in Cumbria).[8]
c.1594 – The first overground railway line in England may have been a wooden-railed, horse-drawn tramroad which was built at Prescot, near Liverpool, around 1600 and possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus about half a mile away.[9]
c.1600 – A funicular railway was made at Broseley in Shropshire some time before 1605 to carry coal for James Clifford from his mines down to the river Severn to be loaded onto barges and carried to riverside towns.[10]
1722 – The Tranent – Cockenzie Waggonway was built by the York Buildings Company of London, to transport coal from the Tranent pits to the salt pans at Cockenzie and the Harbour at Port Seton, in Haddingtonshire, now East Lothian. This wooden waggonway was replaced in 1815 with an iron fish bellied edgeway to Cockenzie Harbour by the new owners, the Cadell family. This was Scotland's first railway of any kind, with one section of it remaining in constant use until 1962. Some in situ stone sleeper blocks survive at the Robert Stevenson designed Cockenzie Harbour, and the entirety of the route is a way marked footpath.
1725 – The Tanfield Wagonway was constructed to lead coal from pits around Tanfield to the Tyne at Redheugh (Gateshead). It was the first railway built on a large scale – 5 miles of double wooden track with massive civil engineering works including deep cuttings, huge embankments and the world's first large masonry railway bridge, the Causey Arch. Each 2.5 ton capacity waggon (with flanged wooden wheels) was hauled by a horse, up to 60 waggons per hour at peak times. Two miles of the wagonway route are still in use by the Tanfield Railway, making this the oldest operational railway in the world.
1758 – The Middleton Railway, the first railway granted powers by an Act of Parliament, carried coal cheaply from the Middleton pits to Leeds. The line was privately financed and operated, initially as a wagonway using horse-drawn wagons. Around 1799, the wooden tracks were replaced with iron edge rails at a gauge of 4 ft 1 in (1,245 mm). In 1812 the Middleton Railway became the first commercial railway to successfully use steam locomotives: the Salamanca, which used John Blenkinsop's patented design for rack propulsion.
1760s – Iron production in Britain began to rise dramatically, followed by a similar rise on the European continent. This was the result of the use of coke for smelting and refining pig iron and cast iron and the application of the steam engine and cast iron blowing cylinder to providing pressurized air for blast furnaces.[11]
1768 – The Wagon Way was constructed by the Erskines of Mar in Alloa, to carry coal from the Clackmannanshire coalfields of central Scotland to the Port of Alloa. Initially using wooden rails, these were later clad in Swedish iron (1785), and carried horse-drawn wagons. Some of the Wagon Way route still exists, although the tracks are long gone.[12]
1783 – Henry Cort patented the grooved rolling mill for rolling hot iron to expel molten slag. Rolling was 15 times faster than hammering.[13]
1783 – Henry Cort patented the puddling process for making wrought iron. This was the first large scale process for making a structural grade of iron and was also much less expensive than previous methods. Puddled iron production came into widespread production after 1800.[13]
1784 – William Murdoch demonstrated a steam carriage powered by a high-pressure engine. He would later show it to his neighbour Richard Trevithick who would go on to build locomotives.
1789 – The Charnwood Forest Canal, sometimes known as the "Forest Line of the Leicester Navigation" uses railways to supplement the canal between Nanpantan and Loughborough, Leicestershire. William Jessop had constructed a horse-drawn railway for coal wagons. He successfully used an iron edge-rail, in contrast to his partner Benjamin Outram , who preferred the traditional iron L-shaped flange-rail plateway.[citation needed]
1798 – The Lake Lock Rail Road, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in 1798 to carry coal from the Outwood area to the Aire and Calder navigation canal at Lake Lock near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, a distance of approximately 3 miles.[16] The load of three wagons was hauled by one horse. The track used edge rails with a gauge of 3 ft 4 3/4 in (1,035 mm). The use of the line gradually declined and was closed in 1836.
1800 to 1849
1800 – The Boulton & Watt steam engine patent expired, allowing others to build high-pressure engines with high power-to-weight ratios, suitable for locomotives.[17][failed verification]
1802 – The Carmarthenshire Tramroad, a horse-drawn goods line, located in south west Wales, was established by an Act of Parliament. This line was used for coal transportation. It was a plateway of about 4 foot gauge, and using a pair of horses for power. [citation needed]
1802 – Unable to construct a canal similar to the nearby Cyfarthfa Ironworks, three of the four principal ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil, Wales: Dowlais, Plymouth and Penydarren, collaborated in building the 9.5-mile Merthyr Tramroad between Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon. It was a single-track plateway with a gauge of 4 ft 4 in over the flanges of the L-shaped cast-iron plate rails. The plates were 3 ft long. One horse pulled about five trams.
1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, London opened.[18] It linked the towns of Wandsworth and Croydon via Mitcham on the south of the Thames. It was double track plateway throughout with a spacing of about 5 feet. The rails were of the Outram pattern and were L-shaped in cross-section and 3 feet 2 inches long. The line was closed in 1846. A part of the route is now used by Tramlink between Wimbledon and West Croydon.
1804 – First steam locomotive railway using a locomotive called the Penydarren or Pen-y-Darren was built by Richard Trevithick. It was used to haul iron from Merthyr Tydfil to Abercynon, Wales. The first train carried a load of 10 tons of iron. On one occasion it successfully hauled 25 tons. However, as the weight of the locomotive was about 5 tons the locomotive's weight broke many of the cast iron plate rails.
1807 – First fare-paying, horse-drawn passenger railway service in the world was established on the Oystermouth Railway in Swansea, Wales. Later this became known as the Swansea & Mumbles Railway although the railway was more affectionately known as "The Mumbles Train" (Welsh: Tren Bach I'r Mwmbwls). The railway was laid in the form of a plateway, with the rails being approximately 4 ft (1,219 mm) in width.
1808 – The Kilmarnock & Troon Railway was the first railway in Scotland authorised by an Act of Parliament. It was a plateway, using L-shaped iron plates as rails. In 1817 it was also the first railway in Scotland to trial a steam locomotive. It was the Blücher that George Stephenson had used at the Killingworth Colliery. This locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph (6.4 km/h). It was used to tow coal wagons along the wagonway from Killingworth to Wallsend. It was subsequently withdrawn from service because of damage to the cast iron rails.
1808 – Richard Trevithick sets up a "steam circus" (a circular steam railway using the locomotive Catch Me Who Can) in London for some months, for the public to experience for 1 shilling each.
1809 – Thomas Leiper constructed a 60 ft long test railway in Philadelphia to show that one horse could haul ten times more weight on a railed road than on an earthen road. The railway was constructed with stone sleepers and wooden rails.
1810 – Thomas Leiper constructed a 3/4 mile long railroad to transport gneiss from his quarry in Avondale Pennsylvania to Ridley Creek.
1814 – George Stephenson constructs his first locomotive, Blücher for the Killingworth wagonway. The locomotive was modelled on Matthew Murray's. It could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph (6.4 km/h) but was too heavy to run on wooden rails or iron rails which existed at that time.
1822 – Stephenson's Hetton colliery railway was the first purpose built railway not to use animal power, instead using stationary engines, inclines and purpose built steam locomotives.
1825 – Stephenson's Stockton & Darlington Railway was the first publicly subscribed railway to use steam locomotives. It carried freight from collieries near Shildon to Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees in County Durham. The line opened on 26 September 1825. The following day, 550 passengers were hauled, making this the world's first steam-powered passenger railway, contrary to Liverpool's claims five years later.
1825 John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey built a 1/2 mile circular test railroad track and also built a steam locomotive, the first in America. The locomotive had a pinion and the track had a rack.
1826, January – The first section of the Springwell Colliery Railway, later to be known as the Bowes Railway, opened. This section was the first six miles of what would become a 15-mile railway, using a mix of locomotive and rope (cable) haulage. Part of the original line is now a British scheduled monument.
1827, 30 June – The first railway in France opened between Saint-Etienne and Andrézieux (horse-drawn carriage). Tests had been run from 1 May 1827.
1828 – The Bolton & Leigh Railway opened on 1 August with the locomotive Lancashire Witch pulling wagons loaded with approximately 150 passengers. However, regular passenger services did not start until 1831.
1828 – Railway (horse-drawn carriage) České Budějovice – Linz, first public railway in continental Europe, with length 120 km and rail gauge 1,106 mm (3 ft 7 1⁄2 in), section České Budějovice – Kerschbaum put into operation on 30 September 1828. [citation needed]
1828 – The Hot blast technology was patented by James Beaumont Neilson. It was the most important development of the 19th century for saving energy in making pig iron. Hot blast also dramatically increased the capacity of blast furnaces and improved the quality of iron made with coke (fuel).[13]
1828 – From 4 July the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) began constructing a track.[19] The South Carolina Railroad Company commenced construction a few months later.
1829, 8 August – Delaware & Hudson Railroad, constructed using 16 miles of wood rails capped by strap iron, conducts the first test of Stourbridge Lion steam engine built in England.
1830 – The Canterbury & Whitstable Railway opened in Kent, England on 3 May, three months before the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Built by George Stephenson, this was a 5¾ mile line running from Canterbury to the small port and fishing town of Whitstable, approximately 55 miles east of London. Traction was provided by three stationary winding engines, and Invicta which was a 0-4-0 locomotive, built by the Stephenson company, but only able to operate on level sections of track because the locomotive only produced a meagre 9 horsepower.
1830 – The first public railway in the United States, the B&O, opened with 23 miles of track, with mostly hardwood rail topped with iron. The steam locomotive, Tom Thumb, was designed and built by Peter Cooper for the B&O, the first American-built steam locomotive. Trials of the locomotive began on the B&O that year.
1830 – The Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened. It marked the beginning of the first steam passenger service which was locomotive-hauled and did not use animal power. The line had the first timetables for passengers and proper stations (with ticketing offices and platforms) and went on to prove the viability of rail transport.
1830 – The first portion of the Saint-Étienne–Lyon railway opened between Givors and Rive-de-Gier on 1 July 1830. The rest of the line opened on 1 October 1832 for passenger use only, accepting freight a few months later. It used iron rails on dice stones. The line was 58 km long with 112 bridges and three tunnels. The locomotives were based on George Stephenson's Locomotion, but with a tubular boiler that produced six times more power.
1834 – The world's first commuter railway, the Dublin & Kingstown Railway (D&KR) opened between Dublin and Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire), covering a distance of six miles.
1835 – The first railway in Belgium opened on 5 May between Brussels and Mechelen. In 1836 a second section between Mechelen and Antwerp opened. The line still exists (now known as line 25) and is used by high speed trains between Paris and Amsterdam.
1835, 7 December – Bavarian Ludwigsbahn, the first steam-powered German railway line, opened for public service between Nuremberg and Fürth.
1837 – Partial opening of the West Coast Main Line by the London & Birmingham Railway. The complete route which ran from London Euston to Birmingham, covered 112 miles (180 km), opened during 1838, becoming England's first inter-city line. Euston became London's first railway terminus.
1837 – The first Cuban railway (under Spanish rule) line connected Havana with Bejucal. In 1838 the line reached Güines. This was the first railway in Latin America.
1837 – The first line in Paris (Paris-Saint Germain Line) opened between Le Pecq near the former royal town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Embarcadère des Bâtignoles (later to become Gare Saint-Lazare). It was the first railway in Paris and the first in France designed solely for the carriage of passengers and operated using steam locomotives. The western section from Saint-Germain to Nanterre is now part of the RER A, the busiest railway line in Europe.
1838 – The world's first railroad junction is formed in Branchville, South Carolina. The railroad company extended its existing rail that ran between Charleston and the Savannah River to the north toward Orangeburg and Columbia. Both rail lines closely paralleled old Native American trails.
1845 – The first railway line built in Jamaica opened on 21 November. The line ran 15 miles from Kingston to Spanish Town. It was also the first rail line built in any of Britain's West Indies colonies. The Earl of Elgin, Jamaica's Governor, presided over the opening ceremonies, by the late 1860s the line extended 105 miles to Montego Bay.
1848 – First railway in South America, British Guyana. The railway was designed, surveyed and built by the British-American architect and artist Frederick Catherwood. John Bradshaw Sharples built all the railway stations, bridges, stores, and other facilities. Financing was provided by the Demerera Sugar Company, which wished to transport their product to the dock of Georgetown. Construction was in sections with the first, from Georgetown to Plaisance, opening on 3 November 1848.
1850 to 1899
1850: Kilometres of railway line in operation in Europe: Great Britain: 9797 (plus Ireland: 865); Germany: 5856; France: 2915; Austria: 1357; Belgium: 854; Russia: 501; Netherlands: 176.[20]
1851 – First train in Chile from Caldera to Copiapó (80 km)
1851 – Initiative taken for a railway system in British India, for setting up military routes and growing trade.
1855 – The Panama Railway with over 50 miles (80 km) of track is completed after five years of work across the Isthmus of Panama at a cost of about $8,000,000 dollars and over 6,000 lives—the first 'transcontinental railway'.
1863 – First underground railway, the 4-mile (6.4 km) Metropolitan Railway opened in London. The adapted steam engines held condensed steam and let it out only at particular tunnel locations that had air vents. This gave rise to a new mode of subterranean urban transit: the Subway/U-Bahn/Metro.
1863 – Scotsman Robert Francis Fairlie invented the Fairlie locomotive with pivoted driving bogies, so trains could negotiate tighter track curves. This innovation was rare for steam locomotives, but was the model for most future diesel and electric locomotives.
1866 – Ruse-Varna is the first railway line completed in Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire), connecting the Danube port of Ruse with the Black Sea port of Varna.
1882 – First line in Kingdom of Serbia: 12 km long 600 mm wide gauge track from Majdanpek copper processing plant to Velike Livade, constructed by the "Serbian Copper & Iron Co" (official name in English, most stock holders were British), first run in June 1882.[22]
1883 – First electric tram line using electricity served from an overhead line, the Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram opened in Austria.
1885 – The Canadian Pacific is completed 5 years ahead of schedule, the longest single railway of its time, which links the eastern and western provinces of Canada.
1888 – Frank Sprague installs the "trolleypole" trolley system in Richmond, Virginia, making it the first large scale electric street railway in the US, though the first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company.
1893 – The first railway in Thailand between Bangkok to Samut Prakan opened (13.05 mi). The Great Northern Railway linked St Paul, Minnesota to Seattle—the fifth U. S. transcontinental railroad.
1894 – Thailand's tram line using electricity served in Bangkok.
1894 – Serbia's first electric tram line in Belgrade.
1895 – Japan's first electrified railway opened in Kyoto.
1913 – First diesel powered railcar enters service in Sweden. In Austria-Hungary, the first electrified metric railway was opened between Arad and the neighboring vineyards, facilitating transportation of goods and people and reducing travel time from half a day to just one hour (total distance around 60 km).
1915 – First major stretch of electrified railway in Sweden; Kiruna-Riksgränsen (Malmbanan).
1917 – General Electric produced an experimental Diesel-electric locomotive using Lemp's control design—the first in the United States.
1939 – Diesel-electric railroad locomotion entered the mainstream in the U.S. when the Burlington Railroad and Union Pacific start using diesel-electric "streamliners" to haul passengers.
1963, 27 March – Publication of The Reshaping of Britain's Railways (the Beeching Report). Generally known as the Beeching cuts, it led to the mass closure of 25% of route miles and 50% of stations during the decade following.
1964 – Shinkansen service introduced in Japan, between Tokyo and Osaka. Trains average speeds of 160 km/h (100 mph) due to congested shared urban tracks, with top speeds of 210 km/h.
1968 – British Rail ran its last final steam-driven mainline train, named the Fifteen Guinea Special, after of a programmed withdrawal of steam during 1962–68. It marked the end of 143 years of its public railway use. Thailand's tram line was stop serviced.
1970, 21 June – Penn Central, the dominant railroad in the northeastern United States, became bankrupt (the largest US corporate bankruptcy up to that time). Created only two years earlier in 1968 from a merger of several other railroads, it marked the end of long-haul private-sector US passenger train services, and forced the creation of the government-owned Amtrak on 1 May 1971.
1975, 10 August – British Rail's experimental tilting train, the Advanced Passenger Train (APT) achieved a new British speed record, the APT-E reaching 245 km/h (152.3 mph).[28] The prototype APT-P pushed the speed record further to 261 km/h (162.2 mph) in December 1979,[29] but when put into service on 7 December 1981, it failed and was withdrawn days later,[30] resuming only from 1980 to 1986 on the West Coast Main Line.
1979 – High speed TGV trains introduced in France, TGV trains travelling at an average speed of 213 km/h (132 mph). and with a top speed of 300 km/h (186 mph).
1984 – The Kolkata Metro is a metro railway transport system serving the city of Kolkata and the districts of South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas in the Indian state of West Bengal. The Kolkata Metro was the first Metro Railway in India, opening for commercial services from 24 October 1984. The metro system has most of its stations underground. Being the first of its kind in India and in the entire South Asia, the metro system is proudly called "India's First, Kolkata's Pride."
1987 – World speed record for a diesel locomotive set by British Rail's High Speed Train (HST), which reached a speed of 238 km/h (148 mph).
1989 – Cairo Underground Metro Line 1 is the first line of underground in Africa and Middle East Line length 44 kilometres (27 mi) with 34 stations Daily ridership 1 million passenger Operating speed 100 km/h (62 mph).
1990 – World speed record for an electric train is set in France by a TGV, reaching a speed of 515 km/h (320 mph).
1994–1997 – Privatisation of British Rail. The British government passes ownership of track and infrastructure to Railtrack on 1 April 1994 (replaced by Network Rail in 2002), with passenger operations later franchised to 25 individual private-sector operators, and freight services sold outright.
2007 – Modified trainset of France's TGV had beaten its original world record when it travelled from Metz- Reims at a speed of 574.8 kilometres per hour (357.2 mph).
2017 – Ground-level power supply technology, TramWave, developed by Italian company Ansaldo, successfully entered commercial application via the opening of Zhuhai tram Line 1 first phase in China.[35]
^ abVerdelis, Nikolaos: "Le diolkos de L'Isthme", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Vol. 81 (1957), pp. 526–529 (526)
^ abCook, R. M.: "Archaic Greek Trade: Three Conjectures 1. The Diolkos", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 99 (1979), pp. 152–155 (152)
^ abDrijvers, J.W.: "Strabo VIII 2,1 (C335): Porthmeia and the Diolkos", Mnemosyne, Vol. 45 (1992), pp. 75–76 (75)
^ abRaepsaet, G. & Tolley, M.: "Le Diolkos de l’Isthme à Corinthe: son tracé, son fonctionnement", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Vol. 117 (1993), pp. 233–261 (256)
^Raepsaet, G. & Tolley, M.: "Le Diolkos de l’Isthme à Corinthe: son tracé, son fonctionnement", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Vol. 117 (1993), pp. 233–261 (246)
^Werner, Walter: "The largest ship trackway in ancient times: the Diolkos of the Isthmus of Corinth, Greece, and early attempts to build a canal", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1997), pp. 98–119 (109)
^Michael Lewis and Jonathan Taunton, Early wooden railways (A.M. Kelley, 1970).
^Jones, Mark (2012). Lancashire Railways – The History of Steam. Newbury: Countryside Books. p. 5. ISBN978-1-84674-298-9.
^Peter King, The First Shropshire Railways in G. Boyes (ed.), Early Railways 4: Papers from the 4th International Early Railways Conference 2008 (Six Martlets, Sudbury, 2010), pp. 70–84.
^Tylecote, R. F. (1992). A History of Metallurgy, Second Edition. London: Maney Publishing, for the Institute of Materials. ISBN978-0901462886.
^ abc
Landes, David. S. (1969). The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge, New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. ISBN0-521-09418-6.
^"EARLY YEARS". www.butterleygangroad.co.uk. Archived from the original on 20 January 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
^Dilts, James D. (1996). The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Nation's First Railroad, 1828–1853. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. pp. xv–xvi. ISBN978-0-8047-2629-0.
^B. R. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics 1750–1970 (1975) pp 581–82
^Wolmar, Christian (2005) [2004]. The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground Was Built and How It Changed the City Forever. Atlantic Books. p. 4. ISBN1-84354-023-1.
