Great Inventions and DiscoveriesPiercy, Willis Duff
History
Great Inventions and Discoveries
Piercy, Willis Duff
Inventions
The road had been built chiefly for the transportation of freight, but
from the first passengers insisted on being carried, and in October,
1825, the Company began to run a daily passenger coach called the
"Experiment." This coach carried six persons inside and from fifteen
to twenty outside. The round trip between Stockton and Darlington was
made in two hours. A fare of one shilling was charged, and each
passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of baggage free. The Stockton
and Darlington was the first railway in the world over which
passengers and freight were hauled by steam.
Stephenson was next employed to help construct a railway between
Liverpool and Manchester. The most eminent engineers of the day
predicted that the road could not be built. But it was built. On the
fifteenth of September, 1830, Stephenson made a trial trip over the
road with an improved locomotive named the "Rocket." On the trial trip
the "Rocket" made twenty-nine miles an hour. This trip firmly proved
the possibilities of steam as motive power on railways and started the
modern era of railroad building. Other railways were quickly built and
soon they radiated from London to nearly every English seaport.
[Illustration: AN EARLY RAILROAD TRAIN IN ENGLANDAN EARLY RAILROAD
TRAIN IN ENGLAND]
Stephenson's son, Robert, assisted him in the construction of the
"Rocket" and later attained considerable reputation as an engineer.
It is claimed that George Stephenson was the inventor of the safety
lamp for use in mines, an invention usually accredited to Sir Humphry
Davy. He was often consulted in the building of subsequent railroads,
but he spent the last years of his life in farming and gardening at his
home at Chesterfield, England, where he died August 12, 1848.
Before the days of railroads in America, freight was hauled on canals
and passengers rode in stage coaches or on horseback. A coach made the
trip from Boston to New York twice a week and the journey required six
days. A trip from New York to Philadelphia took two days. From
Philadelphia to Baltimore the roads were good, but south of Baltimore
they were bad and even dangerous. South of the James River the traveler
was compelled to make his journey on horseback. A coach from Charleston
to Savannah was the only public conveyance south of the Potomac River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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