Invention before George Stephenson(By Bertha A. Gonzalez

Have you ever traveled by train?  What type of experience did you have?  Were the accommodations what you expected?   How long did it get you to arrive to your destination?  Most of us take for granted how the transportation by train came to be today.  Unless we are pursuing an engineering degree we can grasp the facts behind how a railroad and trains of today were built.  History is the ancient Greeks had initially thought of railroads.  They dug pathways in the ground of the top layer of the earth called dirt in which they used to navigate their wagons that facilitated moving things from one point to the other.  By the fifteenth century the European people developed wooden buggies on wooden wheels.  It wasn’t until 150 years ago the first modern railroad stream locomotive of today were initiated in invention by Richard Trevithick in 1803.

   

Richard Trevithick (1771-1833)

The railways had a connection from the east and the west coasts of the United States.  They measured in a length of 1800 miles of railroad.  The railroads were known to the Native Americans as “iron horse”.  The industrialization growth and expansion of the growth in the economy at that time depended a lot on the railroad transportation.  Many people started building around the railroads to ease means of transporting goods from the United States as far to Canada.  The speed on the Trevithicks steam engine reached speeds of 12mph.  Unfortunately this invention failed.  Bringing it the Thomas Savery to develop a new format in creating a more powerful steam powered machine.

  

                                                      Picture of the first steam engines.

The first crude steam powered machine was built in 1698 by Thomas Savery.  This machine worked by a water pump that used coal.    This then consisted of another help of Thomas Necomen.  He developed a machine that would ease the process of how a steam engine worked. 

  Everything changed in 1763, when James Watt, came into the picture and set out to improve on Newcomen's design.  Watt developed a crankshaft that produced a circular motion with the steam.

  James Watt

With the invention of the work put together concluded in the official steam engine.  This is when the modern railroad of today came to be.   James Watt and his fellow inventors can be credited not only for the development of the steam engine and the rail road, but also for ushering in the industrial revolution and with the, came a reward of an improved modern age.  Their final product was the “Steam Engine” of the modern revolution days.

 

 

Invention BY:  Bertha A. Gonzalez