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subsection 3 1 right of way 3 2 track 3 3 gauge incompatibility 3 4 train inspection systems 3 5 signalling 3 6 electrification 3 7 stations 4 operations toggle operations subsection 4 1 ownership 4 2 financing 4 3 safety 4 4 maintenance 5 social economic and energy aspects toggle social economic and energy aspects subsection 5 1 energy 5 1 1 energy efficiency 5 2 usage 5 3 social and economic impact 5 3 1 modernization 5 3 2 nation building 5 3 3 model of corporate management 5 3 3 1 shipping freight and passengers 5 3 3 2 financial system 5 3 3 3 modern management 5 3 3 4 career paths 5 3 4 transportation 5 3 5 military role 5 3 6 positive impacts 5 3 7 negative impacts 5 4 pollution 5 5 modern rail as economic development indicator 5 6 subsidies 5 6 1 china 5 6 2 india 5 6 3 europe 5 6 4 russia 5 6 5 united states 6 see also 7 notes 8 references 9 sources 10 further reading 11 external links toggle the table of contents rail transport 80 languages العربية مصرى azərbaycanca башҡортса bikol central беларуская български भोजपुरी বাংলা català کوردی čeština deutsch ελληνικά esperanto español eesti euskara فارسی suomi français galego गोंयची कोंकणी gõychi konknni hausa עברית हिन्दी hrvatski հայերեն bahasa indonesia ido íslenska italiano 日本語 ქართული қазақша ಕನ್ನಡ 한국어 kurdî кыргызча lietuvių latviešu олык марий മലയാളം монгол मराठी bahasa melayu नेपाली नेपाल भाषा nederlands ਪੰਜਾਬੀ polski piemontèis پنجابی português română русский саха тыла sicilianu سنڌي simple english slovenščina shqip српски srpski svenska தமிழ் ತುಳು ไทย tagalog türkçe татарча tatarça тыва дыл українська اردو oʻzbekcha ўзбекча tiếng việt 吴语 მარგალური 閩南語 bân lâm gí 粵語 中文 edit links article talk english read edit view history tools tools move to sidebar hide actions read edit view history general what links here related changes upload file permanent link page information cite this page get shortened url switch to legacy parser print export download as pdf printable version in other projects wikimedia commons wikinews wikiquote wikivoyage wikidata item appearance move to sidebar hide from wikipedia the free encyclopedia redirected from railway mode of transport railway and railroad redirect here for other uses see railway disambiguation and railroad disambiguation a train in alaska transporting crude oil in march 2006 rail transport also known as train transport is a mode of transport using wheeled vehicles running on tracks which usually consist of two parallel steel rails 1 rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport next to road transport it is used for about 8 of passenger and freight transport globally 2 thanks to its energy efficiency 2 and potentially high speed additionally the track spreads the weight of the train which means larger amounts can be carried than with trucks on roads part of a series on rail transport history company types infrastructure management rail yard station list tramway track green track reserved track railway track gauge rolling stock bogie truck couplings freight locomotives multiple units passenger train commuter high speed inter city regional railroad cars trains maglev industrial rack railway funicular urban rail transit tram history cable car rubber tyred light rail tram train monorail history interurban rapid transit light metro history automated other topics accidents attractions by country companies high speed trains longest train services modelling museums operating railway speed record subsidies terminology au na nz uk transport portal v t e rolling stock on rails generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber tyred road vehicles allowing rail cars to be coupled into longer trains power is usually provided by diesel or electric locomotives while railway transport is capital intensive and less flexible than road transport it can carry heavy loads of passengers and cargo with greater energy efficiency and safety a precursors of railways driven by human or animal power have existed since antiquity modern rail transport began with the invention of the steam locomotive in the united kingdom at the beginning of the 19th century the first passenger railway the stockton and darlington railway opened in 1825 the quick spread of railways throughout europe and north america following the 1830 opening of the first intercity connection in england was a key component of the industrial revolution the adoption of rail transport lowered shipping costs compared to transport by water or wagon and led to national markets in which prices varied less from city to city 3 4 5 6 7 8 railroads not only increased the speed of transport but they also dramatically lowered its cost for example the first transcontinental railroad in the united states enabled passengers and freight to cross the country in a matter of days rather than months at one tenth the cost of stagecoach or wagon transport with economical transportation in the west which had been referred to as the great american desert now farming ranching and mining could be done at a profit as a result railroads transformed the country particularly the west which did not have many navigable rivers 9 3 6 7 10 11 in the 1880s railway electrification began with tramways and rapid transit systems starting in the 1940s steam locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives the first high speed railway system was introduced in japan in 1964 and high speed rail lines now connect many cities in europe east asia and the eastern united states following some decline due to competition from cars and aeroplanes rail transport has had a revival in recent decades due to road congestion and rising fuel prices as well as governments investing in rail as a means of reducing co 2 emissions history edit main article history of rail transport smooth durable road surfaces have been made for wheeled vehicles since prehistoric times in some cases they were narrow and in pairs to support only the wheels that is they were wagonways or tracks some had grooves flanges or other mechanical means to keep the wheels on track for example evidence indicates that a 6 to 8 5 km long diolkos paved trackway transported boats across the isthmus of corinth in greece from around 600 bc the diolkos was in use for over 650 years until at least the 1st century ad 12 paved trackways were also later built in roman egypt 13 pre steam modern systems edit see also funicular wagonway tramway industrial and plateway wooden rails introduced edit a 16th century mine cart an early example of un powered rail transport used man power to operate 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 14 the line is still operational although in updated form and is possibly the oldest operational railway 15 wagonways or tramways using wooden rails hauled by horses started appearing in the 1550s to facilitate the transport of ore tubs to and from mines and soon became popular in europe such an operation was illustrated in germany in 1556 by georgius agricola in his work de re metallica 16 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 17 there are many references to their use in central europe in the 16th century 18 such a transport system was later used by german miners at caldbeck cumbria england perhaps from the 1560s 19 a wagonway was built at prescot near liverpool sometime around 1600 possibly as early as 1594 owned by philip layton the line carried coal from a pit near prescot hall to a terminus about one half mile 800 m away 20 a funicular railway was also made at broseley in shropshire some time before 1604 this carried coal for james clifford from his mines down to the river severn to be loaded onto barges and carried to riverside towns 21 the wollaton wagonway completed in 1604 by huntingdon beaumont has sometimes erroneously been cited as the earliest british railway it ran from strelley to wollaton near nottingham 22 the middleton railway in leeds which was built in 1758 later became the world s oldest operational railway other than funiculars albeit now in an upgraded form in 1764 the first railway in the americas was built in lewiston new york 23 metal rails introduced edit a replica of a little eaton tramway wagon 1795 the tracks are plateways a cast iron fishbelly edge rail manufactured by outram at the butterley company for the cromford and high peak railway in 1831 these are smooth edge rails for wheels with flanges in the late 1760s the coalbrookdale company began to fix plates of cast iron to the upper surface of the wooden rails this allowed a variation of gauge to be used at first only balloon loops could be used for turning but later movable points were taken into use that allowed for switching 24 a system was introduced in which unflanged wheels ran on l shaped metal plates which came to be known as plateways john curr a sheffield colliery manager invented this flanged rail in 1787 though the exact date of this is disputed the plate rail was taken up by benjamin outram for wagonways serving his canals manufacturing them at his butterley ironworks in 1803 william jessop opened the surrey iron railway a double track plateway erroneously sometimes cited as world s first public railway in south london 25 william jessop had earlier used a form of all iron edge rail and flanged wheels successfully for an extension to the charnwood forest canal at nanpantan loughborough leicestershire in 1789 in 1790 jessop and his partner outram began manufacturing edge rails jessop became a partner in the butterley company in 1790 the first public edgeway and thus the first public railway was the lake lock rail road built in 1796 although the line s primary purpose was to carry coal it also carried passengers these two systems of constructing iron railways the l plate rail and the smooth edge rail continued to coexist until well into the early 19th century the flanged wheel and edge rail eventually proved their superiority and became the standard for railways cast iron used in rails proved unsatisfactory because it was brittle and prone to breaking under heavy loads the wrought iron invented by john birkinshaw in 1820 replaced cast iron wrought iron usually referred to as iron was a ductile material that could undergo considerable deformation before breaking making it more suitable for iron rails but iron was expensive to produce until henry cort patented the puddling process in 1784 in 1783 cort also patented the rolling process which was 15 times faster at consolidating and shaping iron than hammering 26 these processes greatly lowered the cost of producing iron and rails the next important development in iron production was the hot blast developed by james beaumont neilson patented 1828 which considerably reduced the amount of coke fuel or charcoal needed to produce pig iron 27 wrought iron was a soft material that contained slag or dross the softness and dross tended to make iron rails distort and delaminate and they lasted less than 10 years sometimes they lasted as little as one year under high traffic all these developments in iron production eventually led to the replacement of composite wood and iron rails with superior all iron rails the introduction of the bessemer process which enabled the inexpensive production of steel led to the great expansion of railways that began in the late 1860s steel rails lasted several times longer than iron 28 29 30 steel rails made heavier locomotives possible allowing for longer trains and improving the productivity of railroads 31 the bessemer process introduced nitrogen into the steel which caused the steel to become brittle with age the open hearth furnace began to replace the bessemer process near the end of the 19th century improving steel quality and further reducing costs thus steel completely replaced iron in rails becoming standard for all railways the first passenger horsecar or tram swansea and mumbles railway was opened between swansea and mumbles in wales in 1807 32 horses remained the preferable mode for tram transport even after the arrival of steam engines until the end of the 19th century because they were cleaner compared to steam driven trams which caused smoke in city streets steam power introduced edit see also steam locomotive a replica of trevithick s steam engine at the national waterfront museum in swansea wales in 1784 james watt a scottish inventor and mechanical engineer patented a design for a steam locomotive watt had improved the steam engine of thomas newcomen hitherto used to pump water out of mines and developed a reciprocating engine in 1769 capable of powering a wheel this was a large stationary engine powering cotton mills and a variety of machinery the state of boiler technology necessitated the use of low pressure steam acting upon a vacuum in the cylinder which required a separate condenser and an air pump nevertheless as boiler construction improved watt investigated the use of high pressure steam acting directly on a piston opening the possibility of a smaller engine capable of powering a vehicle following his patent watt s employee william murdoch produced a working model of a self propelled steam carriage in that year 33 the first full scale working railway steam locomotive was built in the united kingdom in 1804 by richard trevithick a british engineer born in cornwall this used high pressure steam to drive the engine by one power stroke the transmission system employed a large flywheel to even out the action of the piston rod 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 34 35 trevithick later demonstrated a locomotive operating upon a piece of circular rail track in bloomsbury london the catch me who can but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives not least because his engines were too heavy for the cast iron plateway track then in use 36 the first commercially successful steam locomotive was matthew murray s rack locomotive salamanca built for the middleton railway in leeds in 1812 this twin cylinder locomotive was light enough not to break the edge rails track and solved the problem of adhesion by a cog wheel using teeth cast on the side of one of the rails thus it was also the first rack railway this was followed in 1813 by the locomotive puffing billy built by christopher blackett and william hedley for the wylam colliery railway the first successful locomotive running by adhesion only this was accomplished by distributin...