The 19th Century was "Britain's century", just as the 20th Century was "America's century" and the 21st Century is likely to become "China's century."
The 1800s saw Britain dominate the world economy. Not only did it have the world's largest economy, it was a mighty manufacturing powerhouse, manufacturing more goods than the rest of the world put together. The Royal Navy dominated the seas, and the British Empire was huge (though won't be at its largest until the 1920s).
The early decades of the century also saw British genius create something that would be unthinkable to not have around today - the railways.
The world's very first railway opened in Britain as early in 1803 - yes, 1803.
This was the Surrey Iron Railway which linked the Surrey towns of Wandsworth and Croydon (now parts of London). But the railway was powered by horses and was a grand total of just over four feet in length. It operated until 1846.
But it wasn't long before actual steam locomotives appeared on the scene in Britain.
In 1808, Richard Trevithick set up a circular railway track in London (approximately where the Euston Square tube station is situated today) for his new steam locomotive "Catch me who can" and he charged people 1 shilling to come and marvel at, what was then, a technological miracle. That 1 shilling also included a ride on the train, going round in a circle.
Then September 1825 saw the opening of the world's first actual passenger railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR), which ran for 25 miles between the northern English towns of Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington.
In 1830, the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway saw the world's first railway fatality. On 15th September, William Huskisson, the MP for Liverpool and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, was run over and killed by George Stephenson's locomotive engine "Rocket."
But this railway proved the viability of rail transport and large scale railway construction began in Britain.
This was the catalyst for the introduction of Britain's great invention to the rest of the world.
How British engineering genius put the modern world on track by creating rail travel across the globe
By Michael Williams
28th November 2009
Daily Mail
The opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) on 27th September 1825. The railway was the first public passenger railway in the world, and was 25 miles long, running between the two northern English towns of Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees
Once upon a time it was synonymous with all that was great about the nation that invented the train.
The mighty Victorian railway centre at Crewe was not only the most celebrated junction in the world, but the nerve centre of the 'Premier Line' from Euston to Scotland and home to the engineering works where some of the most powerful express locomotives in history were built.
This month the 'railway capital of the world' presented a different and much sadder picture, as the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, was forced to admit that Crewe is one of the ten worst stations in Britain.
Fallen from glory: Crewe railway station in Cheshire was recently listed as one of the ten worst stations in Britain
'Crewe station is in a terribly dilapidated state,' he wrote in his blog this week after a visit, conceding that its 'Victorian canopy is patched up, leaking and flaking'.
The shabby and rundown condition of Crewe is a measure of how far Britain's once proud railway system has sunk into decline. Yet we should not forget that for more than a century British ingenuity and derring-do led the way in creating not just our own railways, but just about every other railway on the planet, transforming the lives of every one of us in the process.
From the historic moment in September 1830 when the first inter-city train chuffed between Liverpool and Manchester, observed by foreign dignitaries eager to replicate this miracle back home, Britain led a race to lay down tracks across the planet.
Adventurers, visionaries, chancers, gamblers and rogues were attracted to grandiose projects linking distant corners of the globe in a quest for wealth, power and national unity. The speed of the revolution was truly astonishing, as the writer Christian Wolmar observes in Blood, Iron And Gold, a new history of the world's railways.
Within 15 years of Stephenson's Rocket making its first jolting journey across the bogs of Lancashire, most of the British railway network had taken shape. By the end of the 19th century an astonishing 620,000 miles of track had been built across the globe.
'The railways transformed the world,' says Wolmar, 'from one where most people barely travelled beyond their nearest village or market town to one where it became possible to cross continents in days rather than months.
'Their development created a vast manufacturing industry that ensured the Industrial Revolution would affect the lives of virtually everyone on the planet.
Everything from holidays to suburban sprawl and fresh milk to mail order was made possible.'
Even humble fish and chips were transformed into Britain's national dish as fresh fish, once the preserve only of seaside towns, were brought into cities on overnight trains and became part of the city-dweller's diet for the first time.
Fresh: Fish and chips became Britain's national dish after overnight trains started bringing fish into the cities
Perplexing though it may seem to today's commuters, delayed by leaves on the line or decanted into buses by seemingly endless engineering works, these achievements were a glorious triumph of British inventiveness and know-how.
Until the 1870s there was hardly a railway line built in the world without British technology and equipment. India's British-built railway network was the biggest public works project the world had ever seen.
In 1850, the British Viceroy of India, Lord Dalhousie. declared without exaggeration: 'The complete permeation of these climes of the sun by a magnificent system of railway communication would present a series of public monuments vastly surpassing in grandeur the aqueducts of Rome, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, and the temples, palaces and mausoleums of the great Moghul monuments.'
The birth of the world's railways wasn't just a triumph for engineers, but for capitalism too. By the beginning of World War I, British investors owned 113 railways in 29 countries, with assets valued at £80billion in today's money.
The world's first railway fatality, 1830
While attending the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on 15th September 1830, the British politician William Huskisson, MP for Liverpool, rode down the line in the same train as the Duke of Wellington.
At Parkside, close to Newton-le-Willows in Lancashire, the train stopped to observe a cavalcade on the adjacent line. Several members of the Duke's party stepped onto the trackside to observe more closely. Huskisson went forward to greet the Duke. As Huskisson was exiting his car, the locomotive Rocket approached on the parallel track. As the train drew close he held on to the open carriage door. Unfortunately the door was wider than the gap between the two trains. The Rocket struck the door, forcing Huskisson off balance and under its wheels.
His leg was horrifically mangled. The wounded Huskisson was taken by a train (driven by George Stephenson himself) to Eccles, where he died a few hours later. The monument where his remains are buried is the centrepiece of St James Cemetery in Liverpool.
Speculators everywhere made (and lost) fortunes as the new iron roads marched across the planet. Nor was it simply about making money. Railways were built to subdue colonies or indigenous populations, to transport armies, to bypass unnavigable stretches of river, to conquer territory and frequently to unite countries.
At their peak the railways represented luxury almost beyond belief. In America private 'mansions on rails' were created for the super-rich who could not bear to mix with ordinary passengers.
They were fitted with whatever their owners requested, regardless of cost or weight: marble baths, hidden safes, Venetian mirrors, and even, for the banker J.P. Morgan, an open fireplace burning balsam logs.
The railroad baron Jay Gould had a set of four carriages, one inhabited by a cow that provided fresh milk with exactly the right butterfat content not to upset the sickly magnate's delicate stomach.
The first lavatory on a train was provided for Queen Victoria by the Great Western Railway back in 1850, although the plumbing was primitive and any 'royal wee' dropped on to the track in exactly the same way as it did when such facilities were introduced for her subjects 20 years later.
The world's first passenger railway opened on 27th September 1825. It was 25 miles long, running between the northern English towns of Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees. Large crowds saw George Stephenson at the controls of the Locomotion as it pulled 36 wagons - twelve wagons of coal and flour, six of guests and fourteen wagons full of workmen. The initial journey of nine miles took two hours. However, as it was reaching Stockton, the speed of the "iron horse" gradually increased to 15mph. This then-incredible speed for a form of transport other than something such as a horse so surprised one passenger that he fell off one of the wagons and was badly injured.
Older readers will remember how when you flushed the loo you could see the track down the pipe - so we were sternly warned by notices not to flush the lavatory while in the station.
Glory days: At their peak railways represented luxury almost beyond belief
Diners on the Chicago to Omaha line in the 1870s were offered as many as 15 seafood and fish dishes along with 37 meat entrees, including a vast array of game. No limp British Rail sandwiches for them.
The Twentieth Century Limited, from New York to Chicago, dubbed 'the world's greatest train', had a dozen staff for just 42 passengers, with a club car, wine bar, barber's shop and an observation car, with a travelling secretary to take down letters.
It gave the world the phrase ' red-carpet treatment' since the soles of its precious passengers' shoes never had to touch the platform, as a carpet, embossed with the company's insignia, was rolled out before the train arrived.
Even the forerunner of air hostesses first appeared on trains, where the proprietors of the Atchison, Topkepa & Santa Fe Railway chose the waitresses in their dining cars for their 'youth, character and attractiveness'. They were named the Harvey girls, after Frederick J. Harvey, who developed the concept.
In 1808, Londoners marvelled at Richard Trevithick's steam locomotive "Catch me who can". Nothing like it was ever seen before. The public could pay 1 shilling each to ride on the circular railway at Trevithick's "steam circus" on a site now occupied by Euston Square tube station.
Modern travellers used to the bleak fare in today's British restaurant cars might weep to read this traveller's account of an overnight journey by train in India: 'Soda water is offered to you just as you are conceiving a wish for it. Tea comes punctually at 6am.
'No sooner have you passed your hand over your stubbly beard than a barber appears to shave you in the carriage. You get a little breakfast of eggs and bacon with bananas and orange at eight, a delightful tiffin in the heat of noon and a good dinner at sunset.'
The development of the early railways was both comic and tragic in equal measure.
To celebrate the opening of Australia's 45-mile long Geelong to Melbourne line in 1857, a vast repast was laid on consisting of 'two-and-three quarter tons of poultry, two- and-three-quarter tons of meats, three-quarters of a ton of fish, three-quarters of a ton of pastries, half a ton of jellies and ices, a ton of bread and unlimited wines, spirits and ales'.
Unfortunately, the distinguished guests never got to eat it, since the engine broke down along the way.
More poignant still was the tale of the 230-mile Madeira to Mamore line in Brazil, probably the most isolated railway in the world.
Navvies hacked through Amazonian jungle, succumbing to yellow fever, malaria, and attacks by alligators and local tribes. But by the time the line was completed after 30 years it was redundant, because the rubber industry, which it was designed to serve, had moved across the world to Malaya.
There were many other railways where the human costs of construction were huge. Six thousand workers died during the construction of the Panama railway, the world's first transcontinental line in the 1850s - 120 for each mile of railway.
More brutal still, the cadavers were pickled and sold to medical schools around the world to defray costs.
Triumph: The Trans-Siberian railway was built across thousands of miles of the most inhospitable territory on earth
The first stages of the never-finished Cape-to-Cairo line through Rhodesia claimed the lives of 60 per cent of the white workers and 30 per cent of Africans. There was a risk from the local crocodiles, hippopotamuses and lions, who realised that there were easy pickings since most of the workers slept in the open.
But the prizes for these transcontinental railways were huge. The hammering in of the golden spike marking the completion in 1869 of the 1,774-mile long Transcontinental Railroad across America is celebrated to this day as the moment the United States truly became one nation.
The hour of ten arrived before all was ready to start. About this time the locomotive engine, or steam horse, as it was more generally termed, gave note of preparation. The scene, on the moving of the engine, sets description at defiance. Astonishment was not confined to the human species, for the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air seemed to view with wonder and awe the machine, which now moved onward at a rate of 10 or 12 mph with a weight of not less than 80 tons attached to it.
The distance from Brussleton to Stockton is twenty and a half miles, the entire length from Witton Park Colliery, nearly 25 miles, being, we believe, the largest railway in the Kingdom. The whole population of the towns and villages within a few miles of the railway seem to have turned out, and we believe we speak within the limits of truth, when we say that not less than 40 or 50,000 persons were assembled to witness the proceedings of the day.
The "Durham County Advertiser", on the world's first passenger railway, the Stockton to Darlington Railway (1st October, 1825)
The building of the Trans-Siberian Railway across thousands of miles of
the most inhospitable territory on earth was a triumph for the political interests of Tsar Nicholas II.
As well as heroic enterprise, the railways produced curiosities and marvels galore. Back in the 1950s, every self-respecting schoolboy had on his bookshelves titles such as The Thrilling Book Of Trains, and it is easy to overlook, in this easyJet age, how wondrous the story of the railways once seemed to us all.
Did you know that Norway is the only nation in the world which started off without different classes on its trains? Or that New Zealand once had more miles of railway per head than any other country? Or that the Argentine wine industry owes its origins to Italian immigrants brought in by the railway?
Another quirky fact is that the first trains in Australia were pulled by convicts, labouring up steep gradients and sometimes covering 30 miles a day, as part of their hard labour.
Mind you, other railways would use muscle power when locos were in short supply. Until recently elephants were used to shunt freight wagons in India (as were horses up until after World War II in some parts of Britain).
Want to take the longest possible journey in the world without leaving the rails? It is an astonishing 10,600 miles between Algeciras in Spain and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
You would, however, have to travel on different widths of track, since Spain and Russia both rejected Robert Stephenson's standard gauge of 4ft 81/2in because they thought it would help invasions (not that it seemed to bother the Germans too much in 1941).
Work of art: The Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus in Mumbai is considered the world's most magnificent railway station
To this day, Australia has three different gauges because its states couldn't help squabbling among themselves. The pointwork at state boundaries where the systems overlapped was nightmarish.
The railway passenger who had the greatest influence on history was probably Lenin, who travelled in a sealed train from Switzerland through Germany to St Petersburg in 1917, where on arrival he gave the speech that sparked off the Bolshevik revolution.
The world's most magnificent railway station is the Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus in Mumbai (formerly known as Victoria Terminus, Bombay), which took ten years to build.
But the story of the railways isn't just a collection of yarns from some vanished golden age. Today, new high-speed lines, once confined to France and Japan, are rapidly spreading their tentacles across the planet. Soon even Turkey, Argentina and Ukraine will have their equivalents of the bullet train.
When the 800-mile Beijing to Shanghai line is completed in 2012, the Chinese network will be almost as large as the rest of the world's put together. Even in the United States, where passenger railways have long teetered on the verge of extinction, there are plans for a high-speed line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Before long it will be routine to travel by train at speeds of more than 250mph.
In the meantime, the nation that invented the railway has managed to build a mere 67 miles of highspeed line - from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel.
Although plans for a new highspeed route to the North of England and Scotland are due to be published by the Government early next year, it won't get built for another 15 years at the earliest.
The world is once again rejoicing at being in the midst of a railway boom. But unlike the glorious era of our rail-building forefathers, British genius will, sadly, play but a tiny part in it.
• Blood, Iron And Gold by Christian Wolmar is published by Atlantic Books, price £25; Michael Williams is author of On The Slow Train, to be published by Preface in April 2010.
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The 1800s saw Britain dominate the world economy. Not only did it have the world's largest economy, it was a mighty manufacturing powerhouse, manufacturing more goods than the rest of the world put together. The Royal Navy dominated the seas, and the British Empire was huge (though won't be at its largest until the 1920s).
The early decades of the century also saw British genius create something that would be unthinkable to not have around today - the railways.
The world's very first railway opened in Britain as early in 1803 - yes, 1803.
This was the Surrey Iron Railway which linked the Surrey towns of Wandsworth and Croydon (now parts of London). But the railway was powered by horses and was a grand total of just over four feet in length. It operated until 1846.
But it wasn't long before actual steam locomotives appeared on the scene in Britain.
In 1808, Richard Trevithick set up a circular railway track in London (approximately where the Euston Square tube station is situated today) for his new steam locomotive "Catch me who can" and he charged people 1 shilling to come and marvel at, what was then, a technological miracle. That 1 shilling also included a ride on the train, going round in a circle.
Then September 1825 saw the opening of the world's first actual passenger railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR), which ran for 25 miles between the northern English towns of Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington.
In 1830, the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway saw the world's first railway fatality. On 15th September, William Huskisson, the MP for Liverpool and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, was run over and killed by George Stephenson's locomotive engine "Rocket."
But this railway proved the viability of rail transport and large scale railway construction began in Britain.
This was the catalyst for the introduction of Britain's great invention to the rest of the world.
How British engineering genius put the modern world on track by creating rail travel across the globe
By Michael Williams
28th November 2009
Daily Mail
The opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) on 27th September 1825. The railway was the first public passenger railway in the world, and was 25 miles long, running between the two northern English towns of Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees
Once upon a time it was synonymous with all that was great about the nation that invented the train.
The mighty Victorian railway centre at Crewe was not only the most celebrated junction in the world, but the nerve centre of the 'Premier Line' from Euston to Scotland and home to the engineering works where some of the most powerful express locomotives in history were built.
This month the 'railway capital of the world' presented a different and much sadder picture, as the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, was forced to admit that Crewe is one of the ten worst stations in Britain.
Fallen from glory: Crewe railway station in Cheshire was recently listed as one of the ten worst stations in Britain
'Crewe station is in a terribly dilapidated state,' he wrote in his blog this week after a visit, conceding that its 'Victorian canopy is patched up, leaking and flaking'.
The shabby and rundown condition of Crewe is a measure of how far Britain's once proud railway system has sunk into decline. Yet we should not forget that for more than a century British ingenuity and derring-do led the way in creating not just our own railways, but just about every other railway on the planet, transforming the lives of every one of us in the process.
From the historic moment in September 1830 when the first inter-city train chuffed between Liverpool and Manchester, observed by foreign dignitaries eager to replicate this miracle back home, Britain led a race to lay down tracks across the planet.
Adventurers, visionaries, chancers, gamblers and rogues were attracted to grandiose projects linking distant corners of the globe in a quest for wealth, power and national unity. The speed of the revolution was truly astonishing, as the writer Christian Wolmar observes in Blood, Iron And Gold, a new history of the world's railways.
Within 15 years of Stephenson's Rocket making its first jolting journey across the bogs of Lancashire, most of the British railway network had taken shape. By the end of the 19th century an astonishing 620,000 miles of track had been built across the globe.
'The railways transformed the world,' says Wolmar, 'from one where most people barely travelled beyond their nearest village or market town to one where it became possible to cross continents in days rather than months.
'Their development created a vast manufacturing industry that ensured the Industrial Revolution would affect the lives of virtually everyone on the planet.
Everything from holidays to suburban sprawl and fresh milk to mail order was made possible.'
Even humble fish and chips were transformed into Britain's national dish as fresh fish, once the preserve only of seaside towns, were brought into cities on overnight trains and became part of the city-dweller's diet for the first time.
Fresh: Fish and chips became Britain's national dish after overnight trains started bringing fish into the cities
Perplexing though it may seem to today's commuters, delayed by leaves on the line or decanted into buses by seemingly endless engineering works, these achievements were a glorious triumph of British inventiveness and know-how.
Until the 1870s there was hardly a railway line built in the world without British technology and equipment. India's British-built railway network was the biggest public works project the world had ever seen.
In 1850, the British Viceroy of India, Lord Dalhousie. declared without exaggeration: 'The complete permeation of these climes of the sun by a magnificent system of railway communication would present a series of public monuments vastly surpassing in grandeur the aqueducts of Rome, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, and the temples, palaces and mausoleums of the great Moghul monuments.'
The birth of the world's railways wasn't just a triumph for engineers, but for capitalism too. By the beginning of World War I, British investors owned 113 railways in 29 countries, with assets valued at £80billion in today's money.
The world's first railway fatality, 1830
While attending the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on 15th September 1830, the British politician William Huskisson, MP for Liverpool, rode down the line in the same train as the Duke of Wellington.
At Parkside, close to Newton-le-Willows in Lancashire, the train stopped to observe a cavalcade on the adjacent line. Several members of the Duke's party stepped onto the trackside to observe more closely. Huskisson went forward to greet the Duke. As Huskisson was exiting his car, the locomotive Rocket approached on the parallel track. As the train drew close he held on to the open carriage door. Unfortunately the door was wider than the gap between the two trains. The Rocket struck the door, forcing Huskisson off balance and under its wheels.
His leg was horrifically mangled. The wounded Huskisson was taken by a train (driven by George Stephenson himself) to Eccles, where he died a few hours later. The monument where his remains are buried is the centrepiece of St James Cemetery in Liverpool.
Speculators everywhere made (and lost) fortunes as the new iron roads marched across the planet. Nor was it simply about making money. Railways were built to subdue colonies or indigenous populations, to transport armies, to bypass unnavigable stretches of river, to conquer territory and frequently to unite countries.
At their peak the railways represented luxury almost beyond belief. In America private 'mansions on rails' were created for the super-rich who could not bear to mix with ordinary passengers.
They were fitted with whatever their owners requested, regardless of cost or weight: marble baths, hidden safes, Venetian mirrors, and even, for the banker J.P. Morgan, an open fireplace burning balsam logs.
The railroad baron Jay Gould had a set of four carriages, one inhabited by a cow that provided fresh milk with exactly the right butterfat content not to upset the sickly magnate's delicate stomach.
The first lavatory on a train was provided for Queen Victoria by the Great Western Railway back in 1850, although the plumbing was primitive and any 'royal wee' dropped on to the track in exactly the same way as it did when such facilities were introduced for her subjects 20 years later.
The world's first passenger railway opened on 27th September 1825. It was 25 miles long, running between the northern English towns of Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees. Large crowds saw George Stephenson at the controls of the Locomotion as it pulled 36 wagons - twelve wagons of coal and flour, six of guests and fourteen wagons full of workmen. The initial journey of nine miles took two hours. However, as it was reaching Stockton, the speed of the "iron horse" gradually increased to 15mph. This then-incredible speed for a form of transport other than something such as a horse so surprised one passenger that he fell off one of the wagons and was badly injured.
Older readers will remember how when you flushed the loo you could see the track down the pipe - so we were sternly warned by notices not to flush the lavatory while in the station.
Glory days: At their peak railways represented luxury almost beyond belief
Diners on the Chicago to Omaha line in the 1870s were offered as many as 15 seafood and fish dishes along with 37 meat entrees, including a vast array of game. No limp British Rail sandwiches for them.
The Twentieth Century Limited, from New York to Chicago, dubbed 'the world's greatest train', had a dozen staff for just 42 passengers, with a club car, wine bar, barber's shop and an observation car, with a travelling secretary to take down letters.
It gave the world the phrase ' red-carpet treatment' since the soles of its precious passengers' shoes never had to touch the platform, as a carpet, embossed with the company's insignia, was rolled out before the train arrived.
Even the forerunner of air hostesses first appeared on trains, where the proprietors of the Atchison, Topkepa & Santa Fe Railway chose the waitresses in their dining cars for their 'youth, character and attractiveness'. They were named the Harvey girls, after Frederick J. Harvey, who developed the concept.
In 1808, Londoners marvelled at Richard Trevithick's steam locomotive "Catch me who can". Nothing like it was ever seen before. The public could pay 1 shilling each to ride on the circular railway at Trevithick's "steam circus" on a site now occupied by Euston Square tube station.
Modern travellers used to the bleak fare in today's British restaurant cars might weep to read this traveller's account of an overnight journey by train in India: 'Soda water is offered to you just as you are conceiving a wish for it. Tea comes punctually at 6am.
'No sooner have you passed your hand over your stubbly beard than a barber appears to shave you in the carriage. You get a little breakfast of eggs and bacon with bananas and orange at eight, a delightful tiffin in the heat of noon and a good dinner at sunset.'
The development of the early railways was both comic and tragic in equal measure.
To celebrate the opening of Australia's 45-mile long Geelong to Melbourne line in 1857, a vast repast was laid on consisting of 'two-and-three quarter tons of poultry, two- and-three-quarter tons of meats, three-quarters of a ton of fish, three-quarters of a ton of pastries, half a ton of jellies and ices, a ton of bread and unlimited wines, spirits and ales'.
Unfortunately, the distinguished guests never got to eat it, since the engine broke down along the way.
More poignant still was the tale of the 230-mile Madeira to Mamore line in Brazil, probably the most isolated railway in the world.
Navvies hacked through Amazonian jungle, succumbing to yellow fever, malaria, and attacks by alligators and local tribes. But by the time the line was completed after 30 years it was redundant, because the rubber industry, which it was designed to serve, had moved across the world to Malaya.
There were many other railways where the human costs of construction were huge. Six thousand workers died during the construction of the Panama railway, the world's first transcontinental line in the 1850s - 120 for each mile of railway.
More brutal still, the cadavers were pickled and sold to medical schools around the world to defray costs.
Triumph: The Trans-Siberian railway was built across thousands of miles of the most inhospitable territory on earth
The first stages of the never-finished Cape-to-Cairo line through Rhodesia claimed the lives of 60 per cent of the white workers and 30 per cent of Africans. There was a risk from the local crocodiles, hippopotamuses and lions, who realised that there were easy pickings since most of the workers slept in the open.
But the prizes for these transcontinental railways were huge. The hammering in of the golden spike marking the completion in 1869 of the 1,774-mile long Transcontinental Railroad across America is celebrated to this day as the moment the United States truly became one nation.
The hour of ten arrived before all was ready to start. About this time the locomotive engine, or steam horse, as it was more generally termed, gave note of preparation. The scene, on the moving of the engine, sets description at defiance. Astonishment was not confined to the human species, for the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air seemed to view with wonder and awe the machine, which now moved onward at a rate of 10 or 12 mph with a weight of not less than 80 tons attached to it.
The distance from Brussleton to Stockton is twenty and a half miles, the entire length from Witton Park Colliery, nearly 25 miles, being, we believe, the largest railway in the Kingdom. The whole population of the towns and villages within a few miles of the railway seem to have turned out, and we believe we speak within the limits of truth, when we say that not less than 40 or 50,000 persons were assembled to witness the proceedings of the day.
The "Durham County Advertiser", on the world's first passenger railway, the Stockton to Darlington Railway (1st October, 1825)
The building of the Trans-Siberian Railway across thousands of miles of
the most inhospitable territory on earth was a triumph for the political interests of Tsar Nicholas II.
As well as heroic enterprise, the railways produced curiosities and marvels galore. Back in the 1950s, every self-respecting schoolboy had on his bookshelves titles such as The Thrilling Book Of Trains, and it is easy to overlook, in this easyJet age, how wondrous the story of the railways once seemed to us all.
Did you know that Norway is the only nation in the world which started off without different classes on its trains? Or that New Zealand once had more miles of railway per head than any other country? Or that the Argentine wine industry owes its origins to Italian immigrants brought in by the railway?
Another quirky fact is that the first trains in Australia were pulled by convicts, labouring up steep gradients and sometimes covering 30 miles a day, as part of their hard labour.
Mind you, other railways would use muscle power when locos were in short supply. Until recently elephants were used to shunt freight wagons in India (as were horses up until after World War II in some parts of Britain).
Want to take the longest possible journey in the world without leaving the rails? It is an astonishing 10,600 miles between Algeciras in Spain and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
You would, however, have to travel on different widths of track, since Spain and Russia both rejected Robert Stephenson's standard gauge of 4ft 81/2in because they thought it would help invasions (not that it seemed to bother the Germans too much in 1941).
Work of art: The Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus in Mumbai is considered the world's most magnificent railway station
To this day, Australia has three different gauges because its states couldn't help squabbling among themselves. The pointwork at state boundaries where the systems overlapped was nightmarish.
The railway passenger who had the greatest influence on history was probably Lenin, who travelled in a sealed train from Switzerland through Germany to St Petersburg in 1917, where on arrival he gave the speech that sparked off the Bolshevik revolution.
The world's most magnificent railway station is the Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus in Mumbai (formerly known as Victoria Terminus, Bombay), which took ten years to build.
But the story of the railways isn't just a collection of yarns from some vanished golden age. Today, new high-speed lines, once confined to France and Japan, are rapidly spreading their tentacles across the planet. Soon even Turkey, Argentina and Ukraine will have their equivalents of the bullet train.
When the 800-mile Beijing to Shanghai line is completed in 2012, the Chinese network will be almost as large as the rest of the world's put together. Even in the United States, where passenger railways have long teetered on the verge of extinction, there are plans for a high-speed line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Before long it will be routine to travel by train at speeds of more than 250mph.
In the meantime, the nation that invented the railway has managed to build a mere 67 miles of highspeed line - from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel.
Although plans for a new highspeed route to the North of England and Scotland are due to be published by the Government early next year, it won't get built for another 15 years at the earliest.
The world is once again rejoicing at being in the midst of a railway boom. But unlike the glorious era of our rail-building forefathers, British genius will, sadly, play but a tiny part in it.
• Blood, Iron And Gold by Christian Wolmar is published by Atlantic Books, price £25; Michael Williams is author of On The Slow Train, to be published by Preface in April 2010.
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