The first local public railways using steam driven locomotives were introduced during the first half of the 19th century. What made this development possible from a technical, economical and end user perspective? Cover all three areas and list in total at least 6 things that made this development possible.
Answers
Explanation:
Steam locomotive
First was the evolution of the railroad: the combination of the steam locomotive and a permanent travel way of metal rails. Experiments in this conjunction in the first quarter of the 19th century culminated in the Stockton & Darlington Railway, opened in 1825, and a further five years of experience with steam locomotives led to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which, when it opened in 1830, constituted the first fully timetabled railway service with scheduled freight and passenger traffic relying entirely on the steam locomotive for traction. This railway was designed by George Stephenson, and the locomotives were the work of Stephenson and his son Robert, the first locomotive being the famous Rocket, which won a competition held by the proprietors of the railway at Rainhill, outside Liverpool, in 1829. The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line may fairly be regarded as the inauguration of the railway era, which continued until World War I. During this time railways were built across all the countries and continents of the world, opening up vast areas to the markets of industrial society. Locomotives increased rapidly in size and power, but the essential principles remained the same as those established by the Stephensons in the early 1830s: horizontal cylinders mounted beneath a multitubular boiler with a firebox at the rear and a tender carrying supplies of water and fuel. This was the form developed from the Rocket, which had diagonal cylinders, being itself a stage in the transition from the vertical cylinders, often encased by the boiler, which had been typical of the earliest locomotives (except Trevithick’s Penydarren engine, which had a horizontal cylinder). Meanwhile, the construction of the permanent way underwent a corresponding improvement on that which had been common on the preceding tramroads: wrought-iron, and eventually steel, rails replaced the cast-iron rails, which cracked easily under a steam locomotive, and well-aligned track with easy gradients and substantial supporting civil-engineering works became a commonplace of the railroads of the world.