railway

Bullet trains at Tokyo station, Japan. The Shinkansen railway network had to build wide-gauge tracks to carry the bullet trains; the standard width being unsuited to their design. The first wide-gauge segment was built between Tokyo and Osaka.

The Renaissance-style front of Grand Central Station in New York which was opened in 1913. The station concourse is one of the largest rooms in the world. Statues of Mercury, Athena, and Hercules surround the station clock.

The first transcontinental railway in the USA was completed on 10 May 1869, when the Union Pacific line from Omaha, Nebraska, joined up with the Central Pacific line from Sacramento, California. Workers from each company surrounded the two proprietors (Harriman and Huntington) as they solemnly shook hands for the camera.

English engineer George Stephenson built the Rocket in 1829. It was one of the factors behind the sudden increase in railway construction that helped the spread of the industrial revolution in Britain.

The great peaks of the Canadian Rockies, which rise along Alberta's southwestern boundary, are cut by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Completed in 1885, it is one of the most impressive engineering feats in the world.

A train in northern Mexico. Mexico has a wide variety of transportation systems. While some farmers still carry their goods to market on their heads or backs, all the major cities are connected by highways and railways, such as this one in northern Mexico.

Waterloo International train station in London, England. Waterloo station is one of London's major train stations. One of the most modern and advanced train stations in the world, it is now the principal link between London and the Channel Tunnel.

Method of transport in which trains convey passengers and goods along a twin rail track. Following the work of British steam pioneers such as the Scottish engineer James Watt, English engineers, such as George Stephenson, developed the steam locomotive and built the first railways; Stephenson built the first public steam railway, from Stockton to Darlington, England, in 1825. This heralded extensive railway building in Britain, continental Europe, and North America, providing a fast and economical means of transport and communication. After World War II, steam engines were replaced by electric and diesel engines. At the same time, the growth of road building, air services, and car ownership brought an end to the supremacy of the railways.

In North America the growth of railways, such as the Union Pacific, during the 19th century made shipping from the central and western territories economical and helped the North to win the American Civil War; US rail travel reached its peak in 1929. Railways were extended into Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America in the late 19th century and were used for troop and supply transport in both world wars.

Gauge Railway tracks were at first made of wood but later of iron or steel, with ties wedging them apart and keeping them parallel. The distance between the wheels is known as the gauge. Since much of the early development of the railway took place in Tyneside, England, the gauge of local coal wagons, 1.24 m/4 ft 8.5 in, was adopted in 1824 for the Stockton–Darlington railway, and most other early railways followed suit. The main exception was the Great Western Railway (GWR) of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opened in 1841, with a gauge of 2.13 m/7 ft. The narrow gauge won legal backing in the UK in 1846, and it became the standard in the USA from 1885. Other countries, such as Ireland and Finland, favored the broad gauge – although expensive, it offers a more comfortable journey.

Social impact The railways quickly helped spread the Industrial Revolution in Britain. In the new country of Belgium, a major program of railway building, the first in continental Europe, went hand in hand with rapid industrialization. The railways were also to play a large part in the growth of mass leisure. Even time was changed; the demands of accurate timetabling saw the introduction of standard ‘railway time’ (Greenwich Mean Time) to replace a confusing variety of local times.

In the huge expanses of the USA, where four standard time zones were fixed, the railways played a key role in spreading settler culture across the continent. Carried by train, white hunters quickly exterminated the vast herds of buffalo on which Indian Plains peoples depended. Ranching and farming took their place, as the railway companies attracted immigrant farmers from Europe. Railheads established along the cattle trails meant that livestock could be transported direct to the slaughterhouses in cities such as Kansas City and Chicago. In Canada, the creation of a unified country was directly linked to railway expansion; in 1871 British Columbia, in the far west, only agreed to join the federation on the promise that a transcontinental railway would be built across its territory.

Decline of the railways With the increasing use of private automobiles and truck freight lines after World War II, and the demise of steam, rising costs on the railways meant higher fares, fewer passengers, and declining freight traffic. By 1970 many train services in the USA had been discontinued or were under threat of extinction. Short-run commuter services survived and economical train trips are being reestablished to help counter automotive pollution. High-speed trains, developed in the 1970s, continue to serve passenger needs between large urban centers. Elsewhere in the world superfast trains running on specially built tracks, such as the Shinkansen (Japan) and TGV (France) networks, are important to public transportation.

Recent developments It was announced in February 2000 that the US train service Amtrak will add 6.4 million km/4 million mi to its 54.7 million km/34 million mi of tracks over the following three years, changes that will affect 21 states. In December 2000, Amtrak began its first high-speed Acela train run between Boston and Washington, DC. The train holds 304 passengers and can reach speeds of 240 kph/150 mph.