Fifty Railways That Changed the Course of History

Bill Laws is a homes, gardens and landscapes writer for the BBC, Guardian and Telegraph newspapers and his work is soon to be published by National Geographic.

• 1. Rochester to London, England, 75.Caesar’s troops adopt Grecian measurements for grooved roads intheir latest colony, Insula Albionum, Great Britain. George Stephensonadapts them for standard gauge, now used by sixtypercent of the world’s railroads.2. Swansea and Mumbles, Wales, 1807.Carriages on the world’s first recognised passenger rail service aredrawn by horse and sail.3. Glasgow, James Watt (1736 – 1819) and Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot(1725-1804).Between them the two men devised the necessary elements for RichardTrevithick to develop his steam engine.4. Circular track, London, England, 1804.Richard Trevithick’s steam engine, Catch Me If You Can, carries passengersround a circular track in London.5. Stockton and Darlington, England, 1825.Opened by George Stephenson, it becomes the world’s first publicallysubscribed railway. But it was a visionary land surveyor, WilliamJames, and not Stephenson who would be called the father of therailways.6. Charleston to Hamburg, South Carolina, America, 1830.The first successful steam locomotive line opened with the steamtrain, the Best Friend of Charleston. Oliver Evans in 1812 imagines anational railroad network.7. Semmering, Austria, 1854.Regarded as the world’s first mountain railroad, it would be followedby increasingly hazardous rail ascents such as Mount Washington(1869), Mount Rigi, Italy (1873) and Snowdon, Wales (1896).8. London to Birmingham, England, 1838.The start of England’s rail network led to the synchronising of railwayclocks. Coping with timekeeping where railroads ran across timelineshad its own challenges.9. Philadelphia to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, America, 1838.Mail contracts killed the pony express and mail coach and revolutionizedthe postal service. In England W. H. Auden and Benjamin Brittencontribute to the London Midlands Service’s 1936 film starringmusic, Night Mail.10. Nuremburg to Fürth, Germany, 1835.The first steam-driven railway opens in Germany and leads to thecreation of Germany’s first long distance railroad line.11. Union Pacific and Central Pacific, America, 1869.A golden spike ceremonially driven into the tracks marked the lastrailroad link between the American east and west. 12. Midland Railway, England, 1844.Entrepreneur George Hudson becomes the first railroad rogue, ruininghundreds of investors during Britain’s rail mania.13. Lancaster and Carlisle, England, 1846.Carnforth Station on the L & C Line became the setting for the1943 film Brief Encounters, with music by Rachmaninoff and basedon a Noel Coward play about a chance meeting at ‘Milford Junction’.Rail encounters continued to inspire film makers.14. Metropolitan Line, England, 1863.An underground rail route between Paddington and FarringdonStreet, London, paves the way for a host of city railroads from NewYork, Shanghai and Tokyo, to Moscow, Seoul and Paris.15. London and North Western, England, 1850.The opening of the steam line between Aberdeen and Billingsgate FishMarket in London contributed to the depletion of stocks of the ‘silverdarlings’, herring. Britain was not the only country where an efficientrailroad caused species decline.16. Northern Railroad New York, America, 1851.The first refrigerated box or cattle car used on the American railwaywas not a success. However Gustavus Franklin Swift (1839–1903)introduced the design that herald the age of cheap beef.17. Liverpool and Manchester, England, 1830.William Huskisson, MP died after being hit by a train, the Rocket.On the Great Western Railway in 1841 a group of passengers, buildersworking on the House of Parliament, were killed when the trainran into a landslide. These accidents were nothing compared to thedamage wrought by the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami when the Queen ofthe Sea railroad lost more than 1,700 on a single journey. Rail safety ison the decline and not just due to natural disasters.18. Washing and Springfield, America, 1865.George Pullman special carriage carried the body of PresidentAbraham Lincoln to its final resting place. Pullman became the chiefemployer of African Americans after the Civil War, using former slavesto staff his Pullman service.19. Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Company, Australia, 1854.Beaten into the record books by Chicago Union’s Chicago to Galenacommuter rail in 1848, the Flinders Street to Port Melbourne rail wasone of the early commuter rails and Australia’s first line. The openingof rail links between city centres and the outskirts has culminated inFrance’s ‘TGV commuter belts’ over a hundred miles distant.20. Grand Truck Pacific, Canada, 1914.So many towns in Western Canada were created by the railroad thatthe company took to systematically naming them in alphabeticalorder. The impact of the Canadian Pacific Railway with features suchas its ‘school trains’, had a powerful effect on some of the nation’sremotest regions. Railway towns from Wolverton, Crewe and Swindonin the UK to Baldwin, Philadelphia, Meiningen Germany andNässjö in Sweden.21. Windsor Hotel, Montreal, 1878.The Windsor was the first of Canada railroad’s grand hotels. The riseand fall of the railway hotel.22. Milano Centrale, Rome, Italy.The development of the railroad station from New York’s Grand Centralto the Gare de Lyon in Paris and St Pancras’, London in the dayswhen rail companies and governments vied to build bigger and better.23. East India Railways, India, 1854.The East India opened up northern and eastern India from Calcuttato, eventually, Delhi with stock, rails and sleepers. Everything wastransported by sailing ship from Britain.24. Shanghai to Woosung, China, 1876.At the start of the annual holidays or Golden Weeks, over 6.5 milliontake to China’s trains. The nine mile line, China’s first, was shut downwithin a year, but the country eventually developed the world’s thirdlargest rail network.25. The Tay Bridge Disaster. North British Railways, 1890.The failure of the bridge across the Firth of Forth signalled a newapproach to bridge building, reflected in the grandeur of the world’slargest long bridge, the Sydney Harbour Bridge.26. London Midland, England.The railway was the first to produce a timetable before George Bradshaw(1801-53) established his famous railway timetables.27. Baltimore Ohio Railroad, America, 1895.The railroad started the first electric locomotive service with anengine developed by Werner von Siemens. Eighty years on and theTrans Europ Express system, linking all major cities with electrictrains reached the height of its popularity.28. Great Eastern Railway, Holland, 1862.In 1913 Rudolph Diesel, eponymous inventor of the successor tothe steam train dies under mysterious circumstances on the Antwerpto London on the boat train, SS Dresden.29. Trans Siberian Railroad, Russia, 1905.Connecting Moscow to the Sea of Japan the world’s longest railwaycontributed to Russia’s defeat by the Japanese in 1905.30. Baghdad Railway, 1903 to 1940.The contentious rail route from Berlin to Baghdad, which cameunder attack from T.E. Lawrence’s Arab guerrillas was both blamedfor contributing to the start of the First World War.31. Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railway, America, 1860s.The first armoured trains appeared during the American Civil War.By the close of the nineteenth century they were being employed inthe Boer War: war reporter Winston Churchill was captured by theBoers on such a train in 1899.32. Ambulance trains, France, 1914.The two world wars signalled a peak in rail traffic with the movementof munitions and armies. They also saw the introduction oftravelling hospitals.33. The Trans-Australian Railway, Australia, 1917.With its Tea and Sugar train, the Trans finally connected Perth withthe rest of the continent, despite Australia adopting three differentgauges.34. Kalka Shimla Railway, India, 1903.The railroad that passed through some of India’s most dramatic sceneryconnected Kalka and the rest of the Indian railway system withwhat was to become the headquarters of the British Army in India.It would play a pivotal role during the Second World War.35. Burma Railway, Burma, 1943.The railroad is christened the Death Railway after more than100,000 forced labourers die during its construction.36. Tokyo to Shimonoseki, Japan, 1940.The Shinkansen or bullet train began its developmental history inwartime Japan. It went on to break world records.37. Leipzig to Dresden, Germany, 1839.The old line facilitated the Third Reich’s plan to liquidate thoseregarded as enemies of the state. The Reichsbahn, or National Railways,recorded and charged each and every passenger journey to thegas chambers.38. Ferrocarriles Argentinos, Argentina, 1945.Redundant narrow gauge track and rolling stock from the FirstWorld War was used to build the Trochita (“The Little NarrowGauge”), later made famous as the Old Patagonia Express.39. Settle and Carlisle, 1960s.It was billed as Britain’s most scenic route, but until the late 1960sand a controversial minister called Doctor Beeching, it had plenty ofattractive rivals.40. Birmingham Airport to Birmingham Station, 1984.The first ‘Maglev” monorail opened at Birmingham, England tobe followed by similar systems in Japan, Germany and Vancouver,Canada.41. Channel Tunnel, 1990.The French and British buried their differences and the hole-boringmachines that drilled out the Tunnel (it was too large to extract)when the two countries were linked by the Chunnel. It’s status asthe world’s longest rail tunnel is challenged by plans to link Russiaand the US under the Bering Sea.42. Alcalá de Henares, Spain, 2004.The simultaneous bombing of four trains on Madrid’s commuternetwork marked a weather change in terrorism . It was not the firstsuch atrocity, nor would it be the last.43. Cape to Cairo, Africa, uncompleted.Cecil Rhodes’ vision of a railroad that would link Africa from northto south and bring political stability to the continent was only apartial success.44. London North Eastern, England, 1923.The Flying Scotsman, operating on the London to Edinburgh line,captured the popular imagination as it raced into the record books.Engines have been racing to their destination ever since the Rocketwon the Rainhill Race in 1829.45. Leicester to Loughborough, England, 1841.An entrepreneurial Baptist, Thomas Cook, chartered a train to carry500 Temperance supporters to a rally. He went on to found a touristagency that spanned the international railroad network.46. Orient Express, France, 1883.The route from Paris to Istanbul became the iconic journey forromantic rail routes that ranged from Italy’s Bernina Express andthe modern Danube Express to Amtrak’s Cascades between Oregonand Vancouver.47. California Zephyr, America, 1949.The rise and fall of this famous rail route was to be rescued bythe founding of America’s national rail body, Amtrack. Its earlydays, with Richard Nixon in the White House, were caught up incontroversy.48. Tayllyn Railway, Wales, 1950.In 1950 a group of volunteers rescued the narrow gauge Welsh slateroute and opened it as a heritage railway. Their endeavours wouldinspire rail rescues worldwide including Australia’s Puffing Billy, theUK’s Bluebell Line and New Zealand’s Glenbrook Vintage Railway.49. North Borneo Railway, Borneo, 1905.Built with foreign labour to carry tobacco from the interior therailroad, in 2012, was revived as an environmentally friendly touristattraction. The development of railroads as sustainable transportsystems.50. Great Western Railway, England, 1930s.Railroads have inspired artists, writers and musicians, from Rev.W. W Awdry in his home beside the Great Western Line to E. F.Nesbit’s the Railway Children.