Timeline 1691 - 1899

18th century - early 19th century	The Dawn of the Railway Era
	The late 18t century was an extraordinary time for those living in the Great Britain and certain places in the continental Europe. The advances in the technology and new organization forms of the citizens led to invevitable progress, however slow the beginnings may seem today. Two early inventions paved the way to the beginnings of the railways: Early "computerized" weaving machines had emerged from France making it easier to patterns through this semiautomatic process. This led to increased efficiency and increasing amounts of the production. Later, to meet the demand for the production, the steam machine was harnessed to give power to machines of all kinds. At the end of the 18th century James Watt had invented his steam machine which was soon to to give power to the looms. To give an idea of the size of the industry, there were roughly 30000 looms in Great Britain 2 decades later. At the end of the 18th century the citizens were starting to move into the cities and the British sweatshops were on their way. Although the Watt steam machine was a great invention, when assembled stationary, the machine could not be used to give power to vehicles of the time like boats and iron horses both on rails or on roads. The reason was the size of the machine. The power extracted from such machine could not yet move any of the vehicles, when the machine was scaled down. With time there were more innovations on the technology of the steam machine, which ultimately led to higher steam pressure and thus improved weight to power ratio. This improved type of the steam machine by Richard Trevithick was first used to give power on the road vehicle. Year 1801 a road locomotive was built. As a crude prototype, this device was ditched during it's maiden voyage due to the lack of proper steering mechanism. The crew left for the local pub to discuss what had happened, and thus the boiler was left to explode.     Since the rails provide the steering the next move by Trevithick was to build an improved steam engine in 1803 on rails. At the time the rails were L-shaped, providing guidance to wheels. Under the sheets of iron the rails were supported by wood. This structure, although durable under the mule or horse, was still quite insufficient under the iron horses.  The trial proved more successful and the machine was able to haul wagon weighing 9 tons at the speed of 8 kilometers/hours to from a mine to the iron works. Tehnically the railway era had begun, altohough the battle for the resources was yet to begin. There is an interesting similarity between the first railway Stockton and Darlington and the railways in Europe today: both were open access type systems! The open access means that anyone capable of meeting the criteria could operate on the rail line. At the time of S & D this with it's single line and just 4 sidings along the line, this meant constant rush hour on the rails. Too many vehicles on too few miles of the rails.  The railways of the time had two competitors: turnpike roads (toll roads operated much the same way as Stockton and Darlington did) and the channels. The channels had a head start of a century before, so there was already a substantial network available at the time of the forst railway. However, channels needed a lot of water, suffered from a lack of it in the summers and from the ice in the winter. Another competitor, toll roads, were in a relatively poor condition and could not transport any significant quantities of any product. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was put together as a company by Edward and his son Joseph Pease. Both were Quakers and were able to raise enogh capital within their network to get started with the railroad. At the time the 113'000 pound railway was a huge investment. The line with a standard gauge 1435mm was cosntructed and opened on the September 27th 1825 for the traffic. Interesting detail was that the horsepowers of the time were mixed. While most of them ate hay, the wood/coal eating ones were at the beginning a small minority. Even so, important data on the operations, designing and maintaining the steam locomotives started to accumulate. By the time for the the battle to form another railway, Liverpool and machester, was over, the steam locomotives were to be the only means to provide power for the trains on line. The significance of the Stockton and Darlington Railway can be seen in the price of the coal, which dropped dramatically after the opening of the line. As the cost of the coal was only half what it had been and larger quantities were available, the coal could be used in a wider range of applications, transported further and with the increased demand the three mines along the S & D could increase their production and hire more workers. The railway as well benefited greatly from the increased production. This was the typical situation how the economy thrived through the new inventions and new ways to act for the people. The cheap raw material fuelled the economy to work better than it ever could have without it.      (JMcK 28-29.12.2007) Sources:  the Net, inspired by Fire & Steam by Christian Wolmar (Atlantic Books 2007), The Steam Locomotive (1980 Hamlyn Publishing) ...
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1863: London	London Underground opens
	Worlds first Metro line, The London Underground, opened on January 10th 1963. The famous "tube" first trafficked on the Metropolitan Railway line being much of the current Hammersmith and City line.   The first section of the railway run between todays Paddington and Farringdon stations. Interestingly, the first Metro was built dual gauge, Brunels broad gauge (7 ft ¼in / 2.14 m) as well as the normal 1435mm gauge (4 ft 8½in).  (JMcK 20.1.2008) Sources:  Wikipedia, ...
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1884: Canadian Pacific Rw.	Rail line on the Kicking Horse pass opened
	The Canadian Pacific Railway's transcon route includes numerous passes on it's thousands of miles stretch between the oceans. The Kicking horse pass line in the border of Alberta and British Columbia was one of several. The railway line on the pass included the record "Big Hill" 4.5% steep gradient over 3 miles! The pass is located at 1627 meters from the sea level. At the time these figures were even a bigger challenge, than with todays more developed technology. Special measures to move cars over this section were made, icluding splitting trains and moving the cars in smaller consists. The section had several switches leading the run away trains out of the main line. Once the whole line was in operation, building tunnels to lower the gradient was started. The double spiral tunnels on Kicking Horse Pass were finally completed in 1909 leading to much lower gradient of 2,2%. Still steep by todays and yesterdays standards, this could be operated with "standard" equipment.     More on the subject on Canadian Encyclopedia, Atlas of Alberta Railways, and other sources     (This was the very first timeline item in 4rail.net, added September 3rd 2007)    (JMcK 3.9.2007) Sources:  Canadian Encyclopedia, Atlas of Alberta Railways, ...
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1823: Great Britain	Robert Stephenson sets up a company to build locomotives
	In 1823 Robert Stephenson, his father Michael Longridge and Edward Pease started a company in Newcastle to build locomotives. At the time Robert was just 20 years of age. The established works, the Forth Street Works, were the very first locomotive works in the world! The works later produced the locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and continued their production for as long as 150 years. The first locomotives manufactured were named: Hope, Diligence and Black Diamond were amond the first built. (JMcK 16.10.2007) Sources:  Wikipedia, etc. ...
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1691: Marly-le-Roi, France	Louis XIV entertains his guests with Roulette
	The French Sun King Louis 14th entertained his guest in the garden of Marly-le-Roi with Roulette (Ramasse), a roller coaster like garden railway. Marly is located about 5 kilometers over the hill east of Versailles and used to be the entertainment grounds for the court. The place is a beautiful valley between the hills.  The railway, in royal court as it was, was made of wooden track that was run by a guilded carriage. The carriage dashed down hill and with the momentum up the other side, and back; a sort of "old days viking ship" to entertain the restless king and his guests. By the starting point of the "railway" was set a pavillion to board the carriage (pavillions seem to have been very popular in the old days France). This was supposingly the worlds first station!   Marly-le-Roi today has no indication of the long gone Ramasse-railway. However, when looking towards river Seine, there is an impressive steel arch bridge to carry the local trains across. The valley still has a small geometrical manmade lake, trees and remains of the buildings adding to the beauty of the scenery. You can almost hear the silent whispers of the long gone life on the site. A few statues from the 1600's complete the scene, nothing like in nearby Versailles, but impressive enough for the summer cottage!     Pictures of the Marly site as it is today are to follow in the near future.     (JMcK 16.10.2007) Sources:  Fire and Steam 2007 edition, Wikipedia, View of the Garden at Marly, etc. ...
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Timeline 1900 - 2006
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