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network-rail · 21 days ago

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200 years of railroads apparently

So when I was waiting for the train today I noticed the departure boards saying that it was the 200th anniversary of the railway this year (I believe they’re going off of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which was the first public railway to use steam engines and opened in 1825). Which is an important milestone in railway history for sure (although whether it counts as when railroads were invented is debatable) and there are definitely many things we can do to celebrate. To start, however, we can look back at these past 200 years of railroad history and some of the major milestones that occurred. Note that this will focus on British & American rail history since that's what I'm most familiar with. With that out of the way, here is a timeline of railway history:

c. 600 BCE: the ancient greeks moved some boats (water vehicles) over land on some rails

1769 CE: James Watt makes a better steam engine, which is why power is measured in watts and not newcomens.

1804 CE: Richard Trevithick makes a steam train but just as a fairground attraction (railways already exist but they use horses for power).

1825 CE: George Stephenson makes a steam train for the Stockton & Darlington Railway, which marks the beginning of the end for horses. In the coming years, millions of horses are sent to farms upstate, around the back of the shed, or off to work at the glue factory.

Steam trains: - faster and stronger than horses - are made of physics instead of biology (much neater & cleaner) - all of their waste goes into the air instead of the ground - you don't have to wait years for them to grow up

1830 CE: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) opens in the United States. While probably not the first railroad outside Britain to use steam trains, it is the first to do so in the United States, and since I don't really know much about, say, Belgian railway history it's the one we're going to be talking about.

1840s CE: Railroads form a crucial part of the US's westward expansion, bringing people and goods west (and east I suppose), along with letting the federal government outsource the genocide of the people who already lived there.

1863 CE: The Metropolitan Railway (eventually the Metropolitan Line) opens in central London, as the first urban rapid transit system. Since electric trains weren't a thing yet, this used steam trains. The smoke from the steam trains killed many people, most notably american President Abraham Lincoln when he visited in 1865.

1879 CE: Werner von Siemens makes an electric train but just as a fairground attraction (railways already exist but they use steam locomotives for power) (also there were prototype electric trains before this one but Siemens is the one with a unit named after him so he's who we care about)

c. 1880 CE: The Pennsylvania Railroad and London & North Western Railway become the largest corporations in the world. It's important to note that although railroads are one of humanity's greatest inventions, they did have the unfortunate side effect of also bringing about the dawn of modern capitalism, one of humanity's worst inventions.

1883 CE: The Volk's Electric Railway opens in Brighton. For a time, it included another line that went in the ocean (with rails on the sea floor and really long legs to keep passengers above the water) but this turned out to be a dumb idea and that part closed. The original Volk's Electric Railway is still open as the oldest operational electric railway, and you can go ride on it in the summer. I'll probably do this to celebrate at some point.

1890 CE: The City & South London Railway (later the Bank branch of the Northern Line) opens, finally providing an electric underground rapid transit system for the city and some much-needed relief from the smoke of steam trains. Unfortunately, this was too late to save Abraham Lincoln, who died from being shot in 1865.

1894 CE: a bunch of american southerners LARPing (but less cool than modern LARPers) as british aristocrats but even more racist (than the british aristocrats. all the LARPers I know personally aren't racist) form the Southern Railway. I mention it now because it'll be important later.

1895 CE: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opens the first mainline electric railroad. This doesn't mark the beginning of the end for steam power (although it should have) since most railways are privately owned, electrification costs money, and corporations hate spending money.

Electric trains: - faster and stronger than steam - don't require fuel at all - way quieter and don't create any local pollution (can go in tunnels!) - can be powered by renewables & nuclear, once they are invented (hydro is there from the start though) - can go both directions without needing to turn around - can form multiple units (better acceleration and don't need to move the engine around!) - very low maintenance (not constantly having a fire inside does tend to reduce wear and tear on parts) - generally very good

1912 CE: the first diesel locomotive enters service. This turns out to be what marks the end of steam, since diesels are better than steam but are cheaper (to set up. not to run) than electrics. In the coming years, millions of steam locomotives are sent to branch lines upstate, around the back of the depot, or off to work at the scrapyard.

Diesel trains: - faster than steam. except for normal, unmodified, in-service trains, since the fastest diesel is the Intercity 125 with a top speed of 201 km/hr while the steam powered Mallard reached a top speed of 203 km/hr. - stronger than steam. except they aren't, the most powerful diesel loco is weaker than several steam engines. - slower and weaker than electrics (unlike with steam engines, this isn't even close) - louder and more polluting than electrics (although not as bad as steam) - still require fuel (a different sort to steam locos though, and they don't need much water) - can go both directions without needing to turn around - can form multiple units - don't need overhead wires or third rail, which is the only reason they exist (they're mostly better than steam, and although they're worse than electrics they are cheaper. To set up. Not to run.)

1914 CE: The Milwaukee Road electrifies its Pacific Extension out in the american northwest, since steam trains couldn't go in tunnels and were too weak for the hills.

1917 CE: The United States of America nationalizes its railroads under the United States Railroad Administration, in order to put a stop to the private sector's incredible mismanagement of a vital public service during WWI.

1920 CE: After the war ends, the US hands the railroads back to the private companies. Just like all those other times the US did something really, really, good (i.e. Civil War Reconstruction, free school meals during Covid), the USRA didn't last very long and everything went right back to the terribleness of before.

1923 CE: Britain's railroads are grouped from lots of small (and some big) companies into four big companies: the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), the Great Way Round Western Railway (GWR), the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway (LMS), and the Southern Railway (the real one, not the american south LARPers or modern-day corporate/french LARPers).

1920s CE: The Southern Railway (UK) electrifies much of its network with 750V DC third rail.

1938 CE: The LNER Class A4 "Mallard" sets the rail speed record, reaching 203 km/hr. This makes it the fastest steam train ever, especially since the Pennsylvania Railroad never discovered dynamometer cars or speedometers and had no idea how fast its trains were.

1948 CE: Britain's railroads are nationalized under British Railways (later British Rail).

1950s CE: Gas-turbine trains are invented. Union Pacific uses them for a while, and they briefly also are used for higher-speed trains in some places, but they never really go anywhere.

Gas-turbine trains: - more powerful than diesels - faster than diesels - very loud and kind of inefficient - these things were a bit strange weren't they?

1955 CE: Steam finally starts to die in Britain under BR's modernization plan, which sees electric (yay) and diesel (boo) trains replacing steam locomotives.

1959 CE: Ernest Marples becomes British Minister of Transport. He's also head of a road construction company. This means he wants more roads and less trains. This is a bad thing.

1960s CE: Dr Beeching (a guy Ernest Marples hired) makes a report suggesting closing most of Britain's rail network, starting with the least profitable and redundant routes. The government then ignores most of the suggestions in the report, and closes down whatever rail lines they feel like. Fortunately, the cuts aren't as large as the report suggested. Unfortunately, they are still enormous and cause huge damage to Britain's rail network that is only just starting to be repaired.

1964 CE: The Tokaido Shinkansen opens in Japan as the world's first dedicated high speed train. This marks the pinnacle of human transportation, and electric high speed rail takes its place as the most efficient, most comfortable, most environmentally friendly, and fastest (below a certain distance) form of transportation. Many other countries start to build their own networks, including France, Italy, Spain, China, Morocco, Turkey, Britain (tries to, anyway), some other places, and a couple failed attempts in the US (along with the successful kind-of-high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor and the still under construction one in California).

1968 CE: Steam finally dies in Britain. Yes, after the Shinkansen was built. Unfortunately, diesel trains continue to exist to this day.

c. 1970 CE: Running out of money, the Milwaukee Road decides to end electrification, since diesels are much better than they used to be and fuel is pretty cheap.

1971 CE: With passenger service not making enough money (it was making money, just not enough money) due to all of those free government-provided highways and airplane subsidies, the US government under Richard Nixon forms Amtrak to take over passenger services and give them a quiet death. Fortunately, this doesn't work. Amtrak still exists, and Richard Nixon doesn't, so who's the real winner here?

1973 CE: The 70s oil crisis begins, and electric trains are suddenly back in fasion after gasoline and diesel become really really expensive. Except it ends before american railroads do anything.

1974 CE: The Milwaukee Road ends its last electric trains.

1976 CE: The Penn Central, formed from a merger between the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central, goes bankrupt and the US government replaces it with Conrail, a sort-of nationalization of some of the US rail network. This doesn't last either, with the network being sold off to Amtrak (who take as good care of it as they can with their limited money), and CSX & Norfolk Southern (who don't, but more on them later)

1977 CE: The Milwaukee Road goes bankrupt.

1980s CE: Several mergers between US railroads result in the B&O (under the Chessie System) becoming part of CSX Transportation (the most boring corporate named railroad in existence), while the Southern Railway (US) merges with the Norfolk & Western to form the Norfolk Southern railway.

1982 CE: The British Rail Class 455 – an electric multiple unit used in south London and the suburbs – is introduced.

1993 CE: Precision Scheduled Railroading – an ingenious way to squeeze as much money out of a railroad as possible while providing awful service, treating employees terribly, never investing in infrastructure until something collapses, not doing basic maintenance, and putting safety fourth – is created, and adopted by all of the largest railroads in North America.

Also 1993 CE: The privatization of British Rail begins. Generally considered a bad idea that even Thatcher wasn't going to do (although her privatizing everything else certainly encouraged it), it ends up creating a mess of privately owned companies, half of which end up being owned by foreign state-owned railway companies like SNCF and Trenitalia.

1994 CE: the british and french moved some trains (land vehicles) under water on some rails

c. 2000 CE: people start to care a lot about climate change, and then notice that electric trains are the most environmentally friendly form of transport (apart from walking I guess but let's see you walk anywhere from tens to hundreds of kilometers every time you want to go to a city you don't live in). Car traffic and local air pollution caused by cars are also problems, which trains can solve. (even diesel trains aren't as bad as cars. whether steam trains are as bad as cars is left as an excercise for the reader)

2001 CE: for no particular reason, planes become unpopular, americans suddenly remember trains exist, and Amtrak's brand new (introduced 2000 CE) sometimes high speed train the Acela becomes very popular.

2002 CE: after it turns out privatizing infrastructure and maintenance was a really bad idea that killed people, Britain's railway infrastructure is renationalized under Network Rail (that's us!)

2008 CE: massive financial crisis happens. China decides to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on high speed rail, the US (and to a lesser extent Europe) decide to spend hundreds of billions on bailing out the banks instead

c. 2018 CE: Battery-electric trains (which had existed in some form or another for over 100 years) and hydrogen powered trains (which were new) become things, because of the previously mentioned hatred of spending money by railroads (the pressure to at least appear sustainable combined with the desire to not spend any money on electrification caused these to exist)

Battery-electric trains - weaker and slower than all other types of train - terrible range (need charging very frequently) - require loads of rare earth metals - can catch fire really badly - the batteries eventually wear out (and are not as easy to replace - as the parts of other trains) - completely useless if you need high frequencies or long distances (you'd need to charge them so often that you'll end up reinventing third rail/overhead line electrification) - JUST ELECTRIFY PROPERLY DAMN IT

Hydrogen trains - anything hydrogen powered is either a scam or is going to explode. or both. explosions are only a good thing when going to space on a rocket and only when controlled. - why do these exist - why

2019 CE: In a major milestone for the company, Amtrak almost breaks even for the first time in its existence. (STOP TRYING TO MAKE IT TURN A PROFIT IT'S A PUBLIC SERVICE AND NEEDS AT LEAST AS MUCH MONEY AS THOSE SOCIALIST NATIONALIZED HIGHWAYS GET ALONG WITH SOME EXTRA FOR ALL OF THE MONEY THEY'VE MISSED OUT ON)

2020 CE: a global pandemic happens and everyone stays home. this means all of the privately operated train companies in the UK start losing loads of money (although a bunch of them were already government-owned. some even by the british government) and the conservatives are forced to do something. they do it badly as usual.

2020s CE: the british conservatives cancel almost all of HS2 except the bit that goes from Birmingham to near London (because they hate the north of england, and transit users, and the environment, and young people, and londoners, and effective infrastructure, and recovering from the pandemic, and investing in the futrue, and everything good in the world; and also because of the cost overruns and delays that they caused). They plan to start selling off the land safeguarded for the route so the north of England will never have high speed rail (or anywhere else in the country that didn't already have HS1. so basically everywhere except London) and no future government will be able to revive the project. Fortunately they lose the election before they can do this. Unfortunately the new government refuses to revive it (except saying it'll at least go to London), so the various northern mayors have to try and scrape together the money to build whatever replacement they can afford with the money they've found in the couch cushions.

2021 CE: Amtrak gets a whole bunch of money. Not as much as the highways get, but a lot more than they usually get, and they start making big plans, and there is some high speed rail still in progress in California (it's taking a while but they're still building all of it), and there may even be some in other places soon too.

2023 CE: Norfolk Southern blows up East Palestine (the town in Ohio) after dumping loads of toxic chemicals there, thanks to Precision Scheduled Railroading techniques. They mostly get away with this. Safety fourth!

2024 CE: The british government finally announces it's going to renationalize the railways under Great British Railways (and unlike the conservatives they actually use the term "renationalize"). Also, Network Rail is now on the tumbles (you're reading a post from it right now).

2025 CE: The first british train operating companies are set to be nationalized under GBR, just in time for 200 years since the Stockton & Darlington opened.

#network rail #network rail essays #Railway 200 #railway history #this took a while #I may still be jetlagged #I did do some actual research to make sure I had the dates right #it is funny to imagine Abe Lincoln taking the metropolitan line #he totally could've done it #maybe it was after he got back from faxing a samurai #anyways thats enough writing for tonight #enjoy this somewhat informative and hopefully funny timeline of railway history

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