History of transport

Bronocice pot with the earliest known image of a wheeled vehicle in the world.

Modes of road transport in Dublin, 1929

The first earth tracks were created by humans carrying goods and often followed trails. Tracks would be naturally created at points of high traffic density. As animals were domesticated, horses, oxen and donkeys became an element in track-creation. With the growth of trade, tracks were often flattened or widened to accommodate animal traffic (hollow way or drover's road). Later, the travois, a frame used to drag loads, was developed. Animal-drawn wheeled vehicles were probably developed in the ancient Near East in the 4th or 5th millennium BC and spread to Europe and India in the 4th millennium BC and China in about 1200 BC. The Romans had a significant need for good roads to extend and maintain their empire and developed Roman roads.

In the Industrial Revolution, John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836) designed the first modern highways, using inexpensive paving material of soil and stone aggregate (macadam), and the embanked roads a few feet higher than the surrounding terrain to cause water to drain away from the surface.

With the development of motor transport, starting in 1886 in Germany and in the U.S. in 1908 with the production of Ford's first Model T,[2] there was an increased need for hard-topped roads to reduce washaways, bogging and dust on both urban and rural roads, originally using cobblestones and wooden paving in major western cities and in the early 20th century tar-bound macadam (tarmac) and concrete paving. In 1902, Nottingham's Radcliffe Road became the first tarmac road in the world.

Stockton Darlington steam locomotive Railway construction 1820

Liverpool and Manchester steam locomotive Railway opening (1830)

The history of rail transportation dates back nearly 500 years and includes systems with man or horsepower and rails of wood (or occasionally stone). This was usually for moving coal from the mine down to a river, from where it could continue by boat, with a flanged wheel running on a rail. The use of cast iron plates as rails began in the 1760s, and was followed by systems (plateways) where the flange was part of the rail. However, with the introduction of rolled wrought iron rails, these became obsolete.

The first passenger-carrying public railway was opened by the Swansea and Mumbles Railway at Oyster mouth in 1807, using horse-drawn carriages on existing tramlines. In 1802, Richard Trevithick designed and built the first (unnamed) steam locomotive to run on smooth rails. He was a Cornish engineer and showed off his railway invention in the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil.[3]

Before actual making the breakthrough for the first railway engine, Trevithick had been facing failures and successes along the route. One of his first successful demonstrations was the "Puffing Devil" steam powered locomotive in 1802 whereas a disaster in Greenwich in 1803 almost sealed the fate of locomotive travel, when four men were killed by an explosion of one of Trevithick's engines. This incident was used as a leverage by his rivals to stop the production of the high-pressure steam engines.

However, Trevithick's "Penydarren locomotive", marked its place in history by becoming the first full scale working railway steam locomotive. A bet between Trevithick's benefactor Samuel Homfray and Richard Crawshay prompted the key demonstration of the locomotive. Homfray had placed a wager of 500 guineas that the locomotive will transport ten tonnes of iron from the Pendydarren Ironworks to the village of Abercynon which was nearly ten miles away.

Trevithick's locomotive completed the journey in just over four hours, ultimately proving the locomotives sturdiness and reliability. However, Trevithick never got the credit he deserved and died a destitute in 1833.[4]

Modern rail transport systems first appeared in England in the 1820s.

Matthew Murray proved the viability of the steam engine in 1812. Salamanca was the first locomotive to incorporate two cylinders.

George Stephenson who went on to become known as the father of railways is said to have built 16 experimental locomotives for use from the year 1814–1826, the last train which he introduced known as the Killingworth Billy ran until 1881. The first intercity railway between Liverpool and Manchester was built by Stephenson in 1830.[5] These systems, which made use of the steam locomotive, were the first practical form of mechanized land transport, and they remained the primary form of mechanized land transport for the next 100 years. The first railroad built in Great Britain was the Stockton and Darlington, which opened in 1825. It used a steam locomotive built by George Stephenson and was practical only for hauling minerals. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830, was the first modern railroad. It was a public carrier of both passengers and freight. By 1870, Britain had about 13,500 miles (21,700 km) of railroad.

In 1879, electric locomotive development was booming in Germany. In the late 19th century, Werner von Siemens demonstrated the first experimental electric passenger train. The train transported around 90,000 people and worked on the concept of insulated third rail to supply electricity. In 1881, Siemens built the world's first electric tram line in the Berlin suburb of Lichterfelde. Following this trend, many such initiatives were set up in Brighton and Vienna in 1883.

A new type of railway locomotives was developed by Dr. Rudolf Diesel, which involved a new internal combustion method to propel the railway. In 1892, he proposed this method and soon sparked speculation on whether this type of engine would actually work. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Rudolf Diesel worked on putting diesel on track and tried to improve the power-to-weight ratio. He worked at a Swiss engineering firm Sulzer. Eventually, by the end of the Second World War, steam engines became obsolete and were rarely used in developed countries.[5]

At the system's greatest extent, in 1914, there were about 20,000 miles (32,000  km) of the track, run by 120 competing companies. The British government combined all these companies into four main groups in 1923 as an economic measure.

British Railways, by name British Rail, the former national railway system of Great Britain, was created by the Transport Act of 1947, which inaugurated public ownership of the railways.

The history of rail transport also includes the history of rapid transit and arguably history of monorail.

Often cities as well as their surrounding agricultural areas are typically are not self-sufficient for agriculture. Because of this, people living in these regions had forced to trade with either other cities, nomads, or other pastoralists. People would usually trade one another for things like raw materials, (such as metals like tin, bronze, copper, or iron ore) or animals.[8] An "intercontinental model" of world trade, "between 1500 and 1800 on the basis of interregional competition in production and trade"[9] was proposed by Frederic Mauro, but the early existence of it was already observed by Dudley North in the year 1691. This world market of trade, as well as the flow of finances throughout, spanned out an interconnected throughout the entire globe, permitted the intersectoral and intersectional regional divisions of both generated competition, and labor.[10]

Through the water frontier, many people throughout history have traveled by water as much as they have by land. Along with this, quite a large number of individuals relied on the sea and maritime trade, raiding, piracy, or smuggling for survival.[10] Littoral peoples, reflecting symbiosis of both land and sea, would often have more in common with one another than they would with their neighboring islands. Throughout centuries in the past, water supplied the cheapest, and sometimes the only means of transporting bulk materials on a large scale, and it was also the most secure way to ensure transport over long distances. Because of this, the proximity of the sea drew Southeast Asians to participate in long-distance trade, but it was not only water that linked the shores to one another - seafaring people, along with traders contributed to these trade routes as well.[10]

Maritime traders most often congregated in ports, which were considered the point in which land and sea met that linked the hinterland to the wider world.[10] There were some ports that were more favored than others, blessed with a good location, with sufficient warehouse facilities, accessible harbors, and adequate supplies of food and water became "entrepôts," which were essentially the super-centers for trade. It was rare that these ports were ever considered a final destination, though, but rather central meeting points in what was an ever-changing economic and political environment.[10] Whether in Asia, Europe, or Africa, these port centers consisted of ethnically and culturally diverse communities. Many had officials that were of foreign birth or ancestry - they were skilled in being knowledgeable of the various cultures and languages of merchants that would work throughout the ports who were also foreign, this was done in order to be successful in supervising the trade that had occurred. Throughout many of the ports, merchants had become a more powerful group in local politics. Further, these ports promoted cultural exchange, along with economic exchange, due to the fact that it had been open to the world for races, cultures, and ideas to intermix with one another, along with the fact that this blend of both locals and outsiders from diverse backgrounds that were open to accepting cultural differences.[10] Nation-building and modernity reduced the role of trade through the sea and increased the reliance on trade through the land and the air in economic and social exchange. Even though Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong are still vibrant and available to the world, similar to their early modern counterparts serving functions such as tourism which is unrelated to foreign trade, only a few ports are as economically crucial today as they had been in the past.[8]

Inland trade moved both by water, and overland itself. For example, shipping in small boats went along the coasts of India, but inland waterways were readily available to use to transport goods throughout many parts of India, especially in the south. Caravans that contained numbers from ten, all the way to up forty thousand pack or draft animals moved overland at a time. Combinations of these forms of transportation carried throughout the subcontinent and were therefore transshipped to and from long-distance maritime trade.[9] The majority of all of the port cities were in symbiosis with the caravan routes to and from their related hinterland interiors, and sometimes even with distant transcontinental regions. This is especially true in Central Asia - and it is suggested that the continental trade over both the land and the ocean maritime trade should be viewed not as separate or competitive, but rather as mirror images of one another.[9]