THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRESENT TEXAS 
RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
E. A. THOMPSON, ASSOC. M. Am. Soc. O. E„ 
Expert Engineer, Railroad Commission of Texas. 
INCEPTION AND EVOLUTION OF THE RAILWAY. 
The history of the evolution of the modern railway properly begins 
with the roadbed and track, 'and we have records that tracks were built 
of stone blocks to facilitate the passage of vehicles by the early Romans. 
At the end of the sixteenth century miners in the Hartz mountains used 
wooden tracks to convey the products of their mines in rude cars to the 
highways. Queen Elizabeth imported, some of these miners to develop 
the English coal mines and they built the first tracks in England. Here 
began also the development of the steam railway and the honor of bring- 
ing it to its present high state of efficiency is shared with the English by 
the Americans. 
At first wooden rails were used to which, later, iron straps were spiked. 
Cast iron rails were used as early as 1768 and wrought iron rails were 
patented in 1820. The discovery of the Bessemer process in 1856 for 
making steel cheapened the manufacture and made possible the use of 
the more durable and efficient steel rail. 
With the development of the track the development of the motive 
power kept pace — in fact has outrun it of late years. Steam, as a loco- 
motive power was experimented with in the eighteenth century, but not 
until the nineteenth century was it successfully applied to the locomotion 
of vehicles. On October 6, 1829, Stephenson’s engine “Rocket” won a 
prize of 500 pounds for the best steam propelled vehicle, offered b}^ the 
Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company. Though this was not the 
first engine successfully propelled by its own power, this contest brought 
steam into general notice as a propelling power and marks the beginning 
of the era of steam locomotive construction in the world. The problem 
of the locomotion of vehicles being apparently so successfully solved, an 
impetus was given to the construction of track and the use of the railway 
for the transportation of freight and passengers in general. 
In the United States the first tramroad was built in 1826 from the 
granite quarries at Quincy, 1ST. H., to the Ueponset river, horse power 
being used. In the same year the Maunch Chunk Railway in Pennsyl- 
vania was opened for the transportation of coal and stationary engines 
