History of Rail Transport

1. History of rail transport Anders Dernback / text Wikipedia

2. History of rail transport

3. History of rail transport Ancient systems Evidence indicates that there was a 6 to 8.5 km long Diolkos paved trackway, which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around 600 BC. Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element, preventing the wagons from leaving the intended route. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at least the 1st century AD. Paved trackways were also later built in Roman Egypt. Wooden rails introduced Reisszug, as it appears today In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel. The line still exists and remains operational, although in updated form. It may be the oldest operational railway.

4. History of rail transport Benjamin Outram's Little Eaton Gangway in July 1908 with the last train of loaded coal wagons arriving. Established canal and railway engineer A replica of a "Little Eaton Tramway" wagon This was the beginning of the ironworks, 'Benjamin Outram & Company' which began trading in 1790. The following year William Jessop and John Wright, a Nottingham banker, also became partners. Starting with a nominal capital of £6000, Outram was the only partner active in the management of the company, assisted by his younger brother, Joseph. Over time the business expanded to include a limestone quarry, limekilns, collieries and ironstone pits.

5. History of rail transport Wagonways (or Waggonways) consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam-powered railways. The terms plateway, tramway and dramway were used. The advantage of wagonways was that far bigger loads could be transported with the same power. Was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola (image right) in his work De re metallica. This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from the noise they made on the tracks. Minecart shown in De Re Metallica (1556). The guide pin fits in a groove between two wooden planks.

6. On 21 February 1804, the world's first steam-powered railway journey took place when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. A replica of the Planet, which ran on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway from 1830 The history of rail transport began in the 6th century BC in Ancient Greece. It can be divided into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of track material and motive power used.

7. History of rail transport In 1604, Huntingdon Beaumont completed the Wollaton Wagonway, built to transport coal from the mines at Strelley to Wollaton Lane End, just west of Nottingham, England. Wagonways have been discovered between Broseley and Jackfield in Shropshire from 1605, used by James Clifford to transport coal from his mines in Broseley to the Severn River. It has been suggested that these are somewhat older than that at Wollaton. The Middleton Railway in Leeds, which was built in 1758 as a wagonway, later became the world's first operational railway (other than funiculars), albeit in an upgraded form. In 1764, the first railway in the America was built in Lewiston, New York as a wagonway. Minecart from 16th century, found in Transylvania

8. History of rail transport Metal rails Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rails were made of wood, were a few inches wide and were fastened end to end, on logs of wood or "sleepers", placed crosswise at intervals of two or three feet. In time, it became common to cover them with a thin flat sheathing or "plating" of iron, in order to add to their life and reduce friction. This caused more wear on the wooden rollers of the wagons and towards the middle of the 18th century, led to the introduction of iron wheels. However, the iron sheathing was not strong enough to resist buckling under the passage of the loaded wagons, so rails made wholly of iron were invented. In 1760, the Coalbrookdale Iron Works began to reinforce their wooden railed tramway with iron bars, which were found to facilitate passage and diminish expenses. As a result, in 1767, they began to make cast iron rails. These were probably 6 ft (1.829 m) long, with four projecting ears or lugs 3 in (75 mm) by 3 3⁄4 in (95 mm) to enable them to be fixed to the sleepers. The rails were 3 3⁄4 in (95 mm) wide and 1 1⁄4 in (30 mm) thick. Later, descriptions also refer to rails 3 ft (914 mm) long and only 2 in (50 mm) wide.

9. History of rail transport Plateways, Flangeways A later system involved "L" shaped iron rails or plates, each 3 ft (915 mm) long and 4 in (100 mm) wide, having on the inner side an upright ledge or flange, 3 in (75 mm) high at the centre and tapering to 2 in (50 mm) at the ends, for the purpose of keeping the flat wheels on the track. Subsequently, to increase strength, a similar flange might be added below the rail. Wooden sleepers continued to be used—the rails were secured by spikes passing through the extremities—but, circa 1793, stone blocks began to be used, an innovation associated with Benjamin Outram, although he was not the originator. This type of rail was known as the plate-rail, tramway-plate or way-plate, names that are preserved in the modern term "platelayer" applied to the workers who lay and maintain the permanent way. The wheels of flangeway wagons were plain, but they could not operate on ordinary roads as the narrow rims would dig into the surface.

10. History of rail transport Edgeways Another form of rail, the edge rail, was first used by William Jessop on a line that was opened as part of the Charnwood Forest Canal between Loughborough and Nanpantan in Leicestershire in 1789. This line was originally designed as a plateway on the Outram system, but objections were raised to laying rails with upstanding ledges or flanges on the turnpike. This difficulty was overcome by paving or "causewaying" the road up to the level of the top of the flanges. In 1790, Jessop and his partner Outram began to manufacture edge-rails. Another example of the edge rail application was the Lake Lock Rail Road used primarily for coal transport. This was a public railway (charging a toll) and opened for traffic in 1798, making it the world's oldest public railway.

11. History of rail transport Lake Lock Rail Road The Lake Lock Rail Road was an early narrow gauge railway built near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. The railway is recognised as the world's first public railway, though other railway schemes around the same time also claim that distinction. The Lake Lock Rail Road Company was formed in 1796 with the capital being raised from 128 shares. These were purchased by a broad range of people including a lawyer, banker, doctor, clergyman, merchant and widow.[4] The initial route opened to traffic in 1798, pre-dating the Surrey Iron Railway by five years, it is thus the world's first public railway. The line was built to allow many independent users to haul wagons along the line on payment of a toll, so whilst other railways pre-dated the Lake Lock Railroad, its act of 1793 under the Wakefield Inclosure Act, meant that its status was defined as being public from the outset (unlike the nearby Middleton Railway, which was a private railway).

12. History of rail transport The manufacture of the rails themselves was gradually improved. By making them in longer lengths, the number of joints per mile was reduced. Joints were always the weakest part of the line. Another advance was the substitution of wrought iron for cast iron, though that material did not gain wide adoption until after the patent for an improved method of rolling rails was granted in 1820 to John Birkinshaw, of the Bedlington Ironworks. Lengths of fishbelly rail on stone support blocks. These are edgerails for wheels with flanges.

13. History of rail transport George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. Self-help advocate Samuel Smiles particularly praised his achievements. His chosen rail gauge, sometimes called 'Stephenson gauge', was the basis for the 4 feet 8 1⁄2 inches (1.435 m) standard gauge used by most of the world's railways. Pioneered by Stephenson, rail transport was one of the most important technological inventions of the 19th century and a key component of the Industrial Revolution. George Stephenson

14. History of rail transport A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835. Textiles were the leading industry of the Industrial Revolution, and mechanized factories, powered by a central water wheel or steam engine, were the new workplace. The Industrial Revolution, now also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increasing use of steam power and water power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the mechanized factory system.

15. History of rail transport Early Stephenson locomotive illustrated in Samuel Smiles' Lives of the Engineers (1862). Described as an 1816 Killingworth Colliery locomotive, this is often claimed to be Blücher, but more closely resembles the slightly later Hetton colliery railway locomotives, and their 1852 replica Lyons, which was still operating at Smiles' time. Cornishman Richard Trevithick is credited with the first realistic design for a steam locomotive in 1802. Later, he visited Tyneside and built an engine there for a mine-owner. Several local men were inspired by this, and designed their own engines.

16. History of rail transport Stephenson designed his first locomotive in 1814, a travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher after the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (It was suggested the name sprang from Blücher's rapid march of his army in support of Wellington at Waterloo). Blücher was modelled on Matthew Murray’s locomotive Willington, which George studied at Kenton and Coxlodge colliery on Tyneside, and was constructed in the colliery workshop behind Stephenson's home, Dial Cottage, on Great Lime Road. The locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), and was the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotive: its traction depended on contact between its flanged wheels and the rail. Fishbelly rail with half-lap joint, patented by Stephenson 1816

17. History of rail transport Hetton Railway Stephenson was hired to build the 8-mile (13-km) Hetton colliery railway in 1820. He used a combination of gravity on downward inclines and locomotives for level and upward stretches. This, the first railway using no animal power, opened in 1822. This line used a gauge of 4 ft 8 in (1,422 mm) which Stephenson had used before at the Killingworth wagonway.

18. History of rail transport The locomotives had steam springs, co- patented by Stephenson and Losh, which attempted to compensate for the reaction to the vertical cylinders which had caused locomotives to rock excessively but were not successful. The inclined plane was operated by a number of stationary engines. The 1822 engine continued in service until 1912, having been rebuilt in 1857 and 1882; it is preserved in the Shildon Locomotion Museum. The preserved locomotive may not be the genuine article as it is possibly an 1850s-era replica which had been produced at the behest of Sir Lindsay Wood. The first five locomotives built for the line were constructed by Stephenson between 1820 and 1822. They were a development of the Killingworth locos, possessing a 0-4- 0 wheel configuration with chain- coupled wheels. Four were named, Hetton, Dart, Tallyho and Star.

19. History of rail transport Stockton and Darlington Railway In 1821, a parliamentary bill was passed to allow the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). The 25-mile (40 km) railway connected collieries near Bishop Auckland to the River Tees at Stockton, passing through Darlington on the way. The original plan was to use horses to draw coal carts on metal rails, but after company director Edward Pease met Stephenson, he agreed to change the plans. Stephenson surveyed the line in 1821, and assisted by his eighteen-year-old son Robert, construction began the same year. The No. 1 engine, called Locomotion, for the Stockton & Darlington Railway

20. History of rail transport Liverpool and Manchester Railway The Experiment – the first railway carriage First passenger railway, L&MR

21. History of rail transport A replica LMR coach and Rocket at the Rocket 150 event

22. History of rail transport The proposed Liverpool and Manchester Railway was to be one of the earliest land-based public transport systems not using animal traction power. Before then, public railways had been horse-drawn, including the Lake Lock Rail Road (1796), Surrey Iron Railway (1801) and the Oystermouth Railway near Swansea (1807). Crown Street Station was a passenger railway terminal station on Crown Street, Liverpool, England. The station was the world's first intercity passenger station, opening in 1830, also being the railway terminal station for Liverpool. Crown Street railway station

23. History of rail transport The original goods-handling facilities of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at the end of the Wapping Tunnel towards the dockside (later the Wapping Dock) in Liverpool. The sidings stretched back about 200 yards from the tunnel mouth towards the dock, with warehouses on both sides where goods could be loaded down from above onto the wagons. The facility remained in use, later renamed the Park Lane goods station, with various reconstructions, until 1972. Traffic through the tunnel continued to be cable-drawn to Edge Hill until 1896. The site has now been demolished and redeveloped; all that remains is the partially bricked-up tunnel portal at Kings Dock Road.

24. History of rail transport Taking in water at Parkside, from Bury's Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 1831. Parkside was one of only two intermediate stops on the L&MR where locomotives could be fuelled and watered (the other was at Eccles), it was well placed to do so being about halfway along the line, 14 miles 58 chains (23.7 km) from Edge Hill[b] and 14 miles 29 chains (23.1 km) from Manchester Liverpool Road.

25. History of rail transport Parkside Station from Views on the London & North Western Railway - Tait, 1848

26. History of rail transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George _Stephenson#/media/File:George_St ephenson_-_geograph.org.uk_- _2315455.jpg George Stephenson had two children. His son Robert was born on 16 October 1803. Robert married Frances Sanderson, daughter of a City of London professional John Sanderson, on 17 June 1829. Robert died in 1859 having no children. Robert Stephenson expanded on the work of his father and became a major railway engineer himself. Abroad. George Stephenson statue, Chesterfield March 2011

27. History of rail transport Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) A replica of Trevithick's engine at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea London Steam Carriage 1803 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagonway#/media/File:TrevithicksEngine.jpg

28. History of rail transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotion_No._1#/media/File:Locomotion _No._1..jpg Stephenson's Locomotive opened the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27th September 1825, pulling coal trucks. It is now housed in the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum.

29. History of rail transport Pole road Perdido, a steam pole road locomotive Wooden rails continued to be used for temporary railroads into the twentieth century. Some timber harvesting companies in the southeastern United States created pole roads using unmarketable logs, which were effectively free, to create tracks at a cost of between $100 and $500 per mile. Permanence was not an issue, as the lumberjacks moved on to other stands of timber as each area was cleared.[18] At least one such pole road system reportedly extended some 20 miles (32 km). As steam power gradually replaced horse power, the term "wagonway" became obsolete and was superseded by the term "railway".

30. History of rail transport The first known electric locomotive was built in 1837 by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and it was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Thus it was also the earliest battery electric locomotive. Davidson later built a larger locomotive named Galvani, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. The seven-ton vehicle had two direct-drive reluctance motors, with fixed electromagnets acting on iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle, and simple commutators. It hauled a load of six tons at four miles per hour (6 kilometers per hour) for a distance of one and a half miles (2.4 kilometres). It was tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in September of the following year, but the limited power from batteries prevented its general use. It was destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to their job security. Werner von Siemens demonstrated an electric railway in 1879 in Berlin. Electric power introduced The world's first electric tram line, Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, opened in Lichterfelde near Berlin, Germany, in 1881. It was built by Siemens.

31. History of rail transport The Volk's Electric Railway opened in 1883 in Brighton, England. The railway is still operational, thus making it the oldest operational electric railway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram line in the world in regular service powered from an overhead line. Five years later, in the US electric trolleys were pioneered in 1888 on the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, using equipment designed by Frank J. Sprague. Baltimore & Ohio electric engine The first use of electrification on a main line was on a four-mile stretch of the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1895 connecting the main portion of the B&O to the new line to New York through a series of tunnels around the edges of Baltimore's downtown. Electricity quickly became the power supply of choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897. By early 1900s most street railways were electrified.

32. History of rail transport The first practical AC electric locomotive was designed by Charles Brown, then working for Oerlikon, Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated long-distance power transmission, using three-phase AC, between a hydro-electric plant at Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a distance of 280 km. Using experience he had gained while working for Jean Heilmann on steam-electric locomotive designs, Brown observed that three-phase motors had a higher power-to-weight ratio than DC motors and, because of the absence of a commutator, were simpler to manufacture and maintain. However, they were much larger than the DC motors of the time and could not be mounted in underfloor bogies: they could only be carried within locomotive bodies. In 1894, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Kandó developed a new type 3-phase asynchronous electric drive motors and generators for electric locomotives. Kandó's early 1894 designs were first applied in a short three-phase AC tramway in Evian-les-Bains (France), which was constructed between 1896 and 1898.

33. History of rail transport The first use of electrification on a main line was on a four-mile stretch of the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1895 connecting the main portion of the B&O to the new line to New York through a series of tunnels around the edges of Baltimore's downtown. Electricity quickly became the power supply of choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897. By early 1900s most street railways were electrified. The first practical AC electric locomotive was designed by Charles Brown, then working for Oerlikon, Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated long-distance power transmission, using three- phase AC, between a hydro-electric plant at Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a distance of 280 km.

34. History of rail transport Italian railways were the first in the world to introduce electric traction for the entire length of a main line rather than just a short stretch. The 106 km Valtellina line was opened on 4 September 1902, designed by Kandó and a team from the Ganz works. The electrical system was three-phase at 3 kV 15 Hz. In 1918, Kandó invented and developed the rotary phase converter, enabling electric locomotives to use three-phase motors whilst supplied via a single overhead wire, carrying the simple industrial frequency (50 Hz) single phase AC of the high voltage national networks. An important contribution to the wider adoption of AC traction came from SNCF of France after World War II. The company conducted trials at 50 Hz, and established it as a standard. Following SNCF's successful trials, 50 Hz (now also called industrial frequency) was adopted as standard for main lines across the world

35. History of rail transport Diesel power introduced Earliest recorded examples of an internal combustion engine for railway use included a prototype designed by William Dent Priestman, which was examined by Sir William Thomson in 1888 who described it as a "[Priestman oil engine] mounted upon a truck which is worked on a temporary line of rails to show the adaptation of a petroleum engine for locomotive purposes. In 1894, a 20 hp (15 kW) two axle machine built by Priestman Brothers was used on the Hull Docks. In 1906, Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and the steam and diesel engine manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Diesel-Sulzer-Klose GmbH to manufacture diesel-powered locomotives. Sulzer had been manufacturing diesel engines since 1898. The Prussian State Railways ordered a diesel locomotive from the company in 1909. The world's first diesel-powered locomotive was operated in the summer of 1912 on the Winterthur–Romanshorn railway in Switzerland, but was not a commercial success.

36. History of rail transport A significant breakthrough occurred in 1914, when Hermann Lemp, a General Electric electrical engineer, developed and patented a reliable direct current electrical control system (subsequent improvements were also patented by Lemp). Lemp's design used a single lever to control both engine and generator in a coordinated fashion, and was the prototype for all diesel–electric locomotive control systems. In 1914, world's first functional diesel–electric railcars were produced for the Königlich-Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen (Royal Saxon State Railways) by Waggonfabrik Rastatt with electric equipment from Brown, Boveri & Cie and diesel engines from Swiss Sulzer AG. They were classified as DET 1 and DET 2. The first regular use of diesel–electric locomotives was in switching (shunter) applications. General Electric produced several small switching locomotives in the 1930s (the famous "44-tonner" switcher was introduced in 1940) Westinghouse Electric and Baldwin collaborated to build switching locomotives starting in 1929. In 1929, the Canadian National Railways became the first North American railway to use diesels in mainline service with two units, 9000 and 9001, from Westinghouse

37. History of rail transport Polish locomotive Pm36-1 (140 km/h) dated 1937.

38. History of rail transport In France, railways were first operated by private coal companies the first legal agreement to build a railway was given in 1823 and the line (from Saint-Étienne to Andrézieux) was operated in 1827. Much of the equipment was imported from Britain but this stimulated machinery makers, which soon created a national heavy industry. The railways probably helped the industrial revolution in France by facilitating a national market for raw materials, wines, cheeses and imported and exported manufactured products. In The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833–1914.

39. History of rail transport An operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola in his work De re metallica. This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from the noise they made on the tracks. This system became very popular across Europe. The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the 1840s. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight a day and forged ahead of France.

40. History of rail transport Cuba, then a Spanish colony, built its first rail line in 1837. The history of rail transport in peninsular Spain begins in 1848 with the construction of a railway line between Barcelona and Mataró. In 1852, the first narrow gauge line was built. In 1863 a line reached the Portuguese border. By 1864, the Madrid- Irun line had been opened and the French border was reached.

41. History of rail transport Grand Trunk's Bonaventure Station, Montreal, 1900s The first Canadian railway, the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad, was opened in 1836 outside of Montreal.

42. History of rail transport US Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in the United States starting from the 1720s. A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia. Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the North-east (1810–1850) to the settlement of the West (1850–1890). The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the nation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. Rail was strategic during the American Civil War, and the Union used its much larger system much more effectively. Practically all the mills and factories supplying rails and equipment were in the North, and the Union blockade kept the South from getting new equipment or spare parts. The war was fought in the South, and Union raiders

43. History of rail transport US The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the country's economic leadership. In the United States, the Panic was known as the "Great Depression" until the events of 1929 and the early 1930s set a new standard. in Europe resulting from the Franco-Prussian War (1870– 1871), and major property losses in the Great Chicago Fire (1871) and the Great Boston Fire (1872) helped to place massive strain on bank reserves, which, in New York City, plummeted from $50 million to $17 million between September and October 1873. The first symptoms of the crisis were financial failures in Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary, which spread to most of Europe and to North America by 1873.

44. History of rail transport US Ceremony for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, May 1869, at Promontory Summit, U.T.

45. History of rail transport 1879 cartoon depicting William Henry Vanderbilt as "The Modern Colossus of (Rail) Roads." By 1880 the nation had 17,800 freight locomotives carrying 23,600 tons of freight, and 22,200 passenger locomotives. The U.S. railroad industry was the nation's largest employer outside of the agricultural sector. The effects of the American railways on rapid industrial growth were many, including the opening of hundreds of millions of acres of very good farm land ready for mechanization, lower costs for food and all goods, a huge national sales market, the creation of a culture of engineering excellence, and the creation of the modern system of management.

46. History of rail transport US A Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad wagon at a level crossing, circa 1900. The Panic of 1893 was the largest economic depression in U.S. history at that time. It was the result of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing, which set off a series of bank failures. One-quarter of U.S. railroads had failed by mid-1894

47. History of rail transport A northbound Amtrak Acela Express passing through Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 2011 The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Corridor#/media/File:Acela_old_saybrook_ct_summer2011.jpg

48. History of rail transport US AMTRAK The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (reporting marks AMTK, AMTZ), is a passenger railroad service that provides medium and long-distance intercity service in the contiguous United States and to nine Canadian cities. Founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation.

49. History of rail transport The first proposals for railways in India were made in Madras in 1832. The first train in India ran from Red Hills to Chintadripet bridge in Madras in 1837. It was called Red Hill Railway. It was hauled by a rotary steam engine locomotive manufactured by William Avery. It was built by Sir Arthur Cotton. It was primarily used for transporting granite stones for road building work in Madras. In 1845, a railway was built at Dowleswaram in Rajahmundry. It was called Godavari Dam Construction Railway. It was also built by Arthur Cotton. It was used to supply stones for construction of a dam over Godavari.

50. History of rail transport Latin America In Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries railways were critical elements in the early stages of modernization of the Latin American economy, especially in linking agricultural regions to export- oriented seaports. After 1870 Latin American governments encouraged further rail development through generous concessions that included government subsidies for construction.