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Who first thought of using steam to drive a huge locomotive? An interesting question, but before we answer that, it's worth noting that knowledge of the power of steam to drive something was known to the Romans in Egypt in the first century. In the 16th century an Arab engineer (also working in Egypt ironically) invented a steam engine that would rotate a huge spit on which to roast animals.
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In 1712 Thomas Newcomen, a Cornishman, designed a steam engine to pump water out of mineshafts. His design was greatly improved on in 1769 by James Watt, from Greenock in Scotland. With his business partner, Matthew Boulton from Birmingham, he produced a steam engine with valves that could drive a rotary shaft, thus producing motive power.
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Also in that same year, 1769, a French designer, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, built what was arguably the world's first automobile, a steam-powered three-wheel machine. Steam powered boats followed, in America and elsewhere, but the first railway locomotive was that developed by Richard Trevithick, a Cornishman like Newcomen, in 1804 when a steam-powered locomotive was used to haul 10 tons of iron ore and 70 men over a ten-mile track. The engine worked but the rails were not strong enough to carry the weight and the project was abandoned. In 1812 Matthew Murray built a rack railway locomotive, The Salamanca, the world's first twin cylinder locomotive for the narrow-gauge Middleton Railway (near Leeds). A year later came Puffing Billy (the world's oldest locomotive – now on display in the Science Museum, London).
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It was in September 1825 that the Stockton & Darlington Railway opened for passenger traffic, the first steam-hauled trains running on wrought-iron rails, stronger than anything previously used and thus able to take greater weights of traffic. It was to be the major step forward in railway development as the line was to prove commercially successful for passenger traffic as well as freight. The Rocket came a little later (1929) and was itself a further major step forward in steam engine technology, having a multi-tubular boiler, which was far more efficient. Previous steam engines had one pipe surrounded by heated water – "Rocket" had 25 pipes running the length of the boiler. The steam railway had arrived !
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Its development spread rapidly round the world – the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. The first railway in continental Europe is thought to be a line in Belgium constructed in 1835 between Brussels and Mechelen. Within Britain dozens of railway companies were formed (each needing an Act of Parliament) – Caledonian Railways; Great Western Railway; Great Central; London, Tilbury & Southend; Great Eastern; London, Brighton & South Coast among them. In fact before 1860 over 270 received approval from Parliament though far less were built. By 1870 there were 13,600 miles of track. It was the age of railway mania! Yet there were also many "south sea bubble" schemes with investors losing large amounts of money to unscrupulous entrepreneurs all over the world – the dot-com bubble but a century earlier.
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In those early days several different gauges were in use and it was not until the 1860s that the standard gauge (4 ft 8½ ins) was, well, standard. By 1860 the main London terminii had also been built – Paddington, Euston, Kings Cross, Victoria, Fenchurch Street, Charing Cross. Magnificent buildings were put up in various cities to house their main railway stations and although, in the UK, few have survived, some railway stations in other countries are cathedral-like in their style – and many still exist.
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In 1904 the 100mph barrier was broken when City of Truro, a GWR 4-4-0 City Class loco (pictured) achieved an unofficial 102.3 mph (164 km/h) on a run with an express passenger train from Plymouth to Paddington. After 1900 there was some amalgamation and consolidation of the various companies and in 1914 the government became far more involved on the outbreak of war, when transportation became a national issue.
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