Page 245 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1546 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to
breathe, would die of asphyxia. • Dionysus Lardner (1793–1859)

century. Because mine shafts were muddy and uneven,
Railroad ore haulers placed parallel wooden rails along the mine

floors to keep the cartwheels above the ruts. By the late
he railroad is a mode of transportation that consists eighteenth century, iron rails had come into common use
Tof a locomotive, a train of passenger or freight cars, and some enterprises had begun to extend their tracks
a two-railed steel track, a graded railbed, and terminals. from the mine entrances to the coal ports.These colliery
Unlike other forms of transport, rail travel requires no railways were especially thick in the coal-mining regions
steering: wheels with flanges (raised rims) keep the loco- of northeast England, near the Tyne and Wear rivers,
motive and cars on track. Railroads are energy-efficient where they were known as “Newcastle roads.”
because the wheels glide on the tracks with little friction. Most historians date the beginning of the “Railroad
A typical rail network consists of a trunk (main line) Age” with the opening of the 44-kilometer-long Stockton
and branches (spurs). The trunk links the major urban and Darlington Railway, a steam-powered freight line
and industrial centers along a roughly straight trajectory. that cut the cost of coal transport by more than half, in
Branches link the hinterland to one or more of the urban- 1825; and the 50-kilometer-long Manchester and Liver-
industrial junctures on the trunk. Tokyo, Guangzhou, pool Railway, a passenger and freight line that linked two
London, Cologne, Chicago, and New York are among the of England’s most important urban-industrial centers, in
cities that have become major rail hubs, because they lie 1830. Both were designed by George Stephenson, Great
either in an industrial region, on the crossroads of mul- Britain’s first great railroad engineer.
tiple trunks, or near a seaport.
Steam engines were used to power locomotives for Railroad Mania in the
most of the nineteenth century, but modern engines run Nineteenth Century
on diesel or electricity. Today’s high-speed passenger By the 1840s Great Britain was in the grips of a “railroad
trains, built by Japan and France, can travel up to 300 mania,” a period of boom-and-bust construction that led
kilometers per hour, faster than all other modes of trans- to a fourfold expansion in British tracks from 2,340 kilo-
port except airplanes and spacecraft.The longest trip that meters to over 9,700 kilometers within a decade. This
can be undertaken without a change of trains extends period also witnessed the rise and fall of George Hudson,
10,214 kilometers from Moscow, Russia, to Pyongyang, the “Railway Napoleon,” the first of many rail swindlers
North Korea. Only ships regularly transport people and whose stock manipulations and shady dealings spawned
cargo a greater distance. numerous lawsuits, bankruptcies, and political scandals.
Few inventions have had a more immediate or lasting “Britain is at present an island of lunatics,all railway mad,”
impact on world history than the railroad. It was the first Judge Cockburn declared in 1845 (Blum 1994, 14–15).
mode of land transport capable of outpacing and out- Railroad mania spread quickly to the coal-producing
distancing the horse and camel. It brought far-flung parts regions of northwestern Europe—Belgium, northern
of continents, and disparate groups of people, together France, and Rhineland Prussia. This was where the
for the first time. It became a potent symbol of moder- world’s first international line was built, linking Liege, Bel-
nity, technological prowess, and industrial know-how. gium, and Cologne, Rhineland Prussia. Governments
“The railroad,” writer Heinrich Heine remarked in 1843, played a greater role on the continent than in Great
“annihilates space and only time remains.” Britain in promoting rail development and determining
the routes. So did international bankers, most notably the
The Origin of Railroads Rothschild family, a name that became all but synony-
Europe’s mining enterprises began to utilize primitive rail mous with continental rail construction in the nineteenth
systems to haul coal and iron ores as early as the sixteenth century. Government-business collaboration resulted in a