The Great Steam Locomotive Race

It didn’t take long for smart business types to figure out a locomotive that could haul coal or slate might be useful to carry passengers on steel rails. The railway from Stockton and Darlington opened in 1825. The next year work began on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway. In October 1829, the railway’s owners staged a competition: who could build the fastest, most powerful locomotive to pull heavy loads over long distances? A race between steam locomotives! Thousands of people came out to watch, lining up along the route. Competition was fierce—but at the end of the race, Stephenson’s locomotive ‘Rocket’ was the winner, breaking the previous speed record by clocking 36 miles per hour!

This was the birth of passenger railways. The world became a place anyone—not just traders or explorers—could travel around.

These may give you some of the flavor—

Here’s a juicy slice of instructive kid lit from the Victorian Era—
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=rfXEDwAAQBAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PT2

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space