Locomotive Over Bridge

The miles of metal track that so smoothly traverse the rough mountain passes eventually must be lifted over some great chasm, where only hundreds of feet of air remain, not nearly enough to hold up a hundred ton train. Across the spanning bridge this monster, burning its way across the land, dances like a slender ballerina leaping over some great divide. The first successful locomotives were built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick. In 1804 his unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Although the locomotive hauled a train of 10 tons of iron and 70 passengers in five wagons over nine miles (14 km), it was too heavy for the cast iron rails used at the time. The locomotive only ran three trips before it was abandoned. Trevithick built a series of locomotives after the Penydarren experiment, including one which ran at a colliery in Tyneside in northern England, where it was seen by the young George Stephenson. In 1814, Stephenson persuaded the manager of the Killingworth colliery where he worked to allow him to build a steam-powered machine. He built the Blücher, one of the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotives. Stephenson played a pivotal role in the development and widespread adoption of steam locomotives. His designs improved on the work of the pioneers. In 1825 he built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north east England, which became the first public steam railway. The first inter city passenger railway, Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830, making exclusive use of steam power for both passenger and freight trains. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=127011