Here I have put together a short history of trains. It is fine with me if you use the infomation for school projects, but your teacher won`t like it if you print or copy this.
From The Start to 1899
In 1804 the very first steam locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick.
In 1829 the Rainhill trails were held.
The winner was the Rocket, who was built by George and Robert Stephenson.
The Manchester and Liverpool railway was opened in 1830.
Three months later in America the first train steamed along a line in South Caralina.
It was called the Best Friend of Charleston, which was bulit in New York.
In 1835, railroads were being built in 11 states and about 1650 kilometers of track were already in use.
By 1838 the Manchester and Liverpool railway extended all the way up to London.
The continent of America was crossed in 1869 on 10 May. Two groups of workers started at each side and met at Promontory in Utah.
The Orient Express was opened in 1883 and it ran from Paris to Istanbul.
From 1900 to 1999
On the turn of the century the Trans-Siberian Railway was working with trains running form Moscow to Irkutsk.
Sixteen years later the line went from Moscow to Vladivostok.
By 1917 railroads had also crossed Austalia, but there were many different gauges.
It took four years to cross the Nullarbor Plain desert. This is the longest stretch of straight track in the world, 478 kilometers with no curves at all!
Mallard, a streamlined A4-class 4-6-2 Pacific engine, broke the world-record speed for a steam train of 203 kilometers per hour, in 1938.
In 1940 Santa Fe in the United States opened the worlds first regular frieght service pulled by diesel-electric locomotives.
Between 1941 and 1944 Union Pacific bulit 25 Big-Boys, they are the largest and heaviest steam engines ever built.
By 1955 railroads in America were almost completely powerd by diesel.
In 1968 the Evening Star, the last steam locomotive in service was remove.
The longestest frieght train in the world was in South Africa. It was more than seven kilometers long and consisted of 660 wagons.
In 1994 the Channel Tunnel opened. It connects England and France.
