Transportation on Land 



259 



lines, especially in our own country, consisted of heavy covered 

 wagons drawn by many pairs of horses or yokes of oxen. They 

 traveled very slowly. 



The Locomotive. With the invention of machinery for 

 manufacturing, so that large factories began to take the place 

 of the home industries, and with the growth of cities requiring 

 heavy supplies of food, the problem of land transportation became 

 more serious. Fortunately, a new means of travel was becoming 

 available. In the latter part of the 18th century James Watt, an 

 Englishman, invented a practical stationary steam engine to 

 drive machinery. Attempts to apply the principles of the station- 

 ary engine to a locomotive which would run on rails promptly 



followed. In a compara- | 



tively short time railways 

 began to develop in Eng- 

 land as their value was 

 appreciated. In this coun- 

 try the first practical rail- 

 road was not built until 

 1829. Forty years later 

 the first railroad across the 

 country was constructed. 

 Thereafter, railroads grew 

 rapidly, especially out 

 from the larger cities. 

 They opened up to settle- 

 ment new areas of country 

 and were responsible for the rapid development of farming dis- 

 tricts and of industries. Today the country is covered with a 

 network of rail lines. 



The early locomotives used wood as fuel. Later, coal and 

 oil were substituted. For many years following the Civil War 

 the size of the locomotive did not materially change. Between 

 1895 and the present, however, there has been' rapid improvement 

 and great increase in the size and power of locomotives, until 

 today locomotives are made that will draw more than 100 heavily 

 loaded freight cars. 



THE FIRST TRAIN IN NEW YORK STATE 



