HISTORY OF TRAIN
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
World’s first passenger train service begins
Whilst the stocken and darlington Railway is rightly remembered as ushering in the railway age, using steam power to haul its trains, another line deserves to be celebrated as a world first, and an earlier one at that. Some 18 years before the first train set out from Shildon to Darlington on september 27 1825 Swansea in Wales saw the first horse drawn rail service begin.
Railways were not a new phenomenon, indeed they had been used to transport coal as early as the beginning of the 17th century. In South Wales, a line existed at the start of the 19th century to shift stone from mulbes around the bay to the canal in Swansea, whence it could be shipped to distant destinations.
Three years after the line was built one Benjamin French, who was a shareholder in the company running it, paid the princely sum of £20 for the right to run a passenger service on the line.
The inaugural run was on March 25 1807. An iron and wooden coach, built to seat 12, was pulled by a single horse, taking paying passengers from Swansea to Oystermouth, an out-of-the-way resort where they could spend a pleasant few hours before returning later in the day. It is thought that the fare in these early days was two shillings, which would have meant that only the well-to-do could undertake such a trip.
So while GEROG STPHEN is remembered as the father of the railway, Benjamin French perhaps deserves to be known as its grandfather.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Diesel locomotive
The History of Steam Engines
Dazzling electric
Dazzling electric carbon arc headlights lit up the way for the awesome steam engines clattering through the night at 60 miles an hour at the beginning of the twentieth century. The horizontal light beams of those blazing electric furnaces illuminated the rails several miles ahead, while their brilliant shafts of light, like those below, shot high in the sky to warn unwitting pedestrians and automobiles of the oncoming danger over twenty miles away. . .
Old steam locomotives and their railroads demanded powerful action, and for model-railroading buffs or students of old technology, these dynamic railroad photographs should add more steam to the memories of a bygone era than the idle illustrations so often found pasted upon the Internet. As time permits, in no particular order here, Larry Brian Radka has decided to try to rectify the situation a little by sharing some movement. The action consists mainly of black and white images, often tinted to reduce monotony. Beside his short descriptions of each of the photographs, pertinent definitions of railroad terms and historical details will occasionally ride along to help fulfill this short but nostalgic trip on the rails. . . .
A locomotive stoker
A locomotive stoker, especially an experimental type, sometimes receives little attention among railroad historians as well as model-railroaders. So the details and pictures of this large South African steam engine and its tender with automatic stoker in its experimental stage might load up a little more interest. I have lifted the report and its black and white photographs (my tinting) from the December 13, 1913 issue of Scientific American. This weekly journal’s short article runs as follows: . . .