History of trains. Who and when invented the first steam locomotive in the world? Who invented the train and in what year

On November 11, 1837 (October 30, old style), the grand opening of the first railway in Russia from St. Petersburg to Pavlovsk took place, marking the beginning of the construction of a railway network in Russia.

On that day, a note appeared in the Vedomosti newspaper: “It was Saturday, the townspeople flocked to the old regimental Church of the Introduction at the Semenovsky parade ground. They knew that an unusual railway was opening and “a steel horse carrying many, many carriages at once” would set off for the first time However, not everyone was able to see the first train. Commoners were not allowed into the station itself, which had only recently been built. At precisely 12:30 a.m., the tiny locomotive blew a piercing whistle, and eight carriages with the noble public set off on the route St. Petersburg - Tsarskoe Selo."

It was the first public railway in Russia (before the opening of the Nikolaev Railway in 1851), the only one in the country and the sixth in the world. It was built to provide railway communication between Tsarskoye Selo station in St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk.

The construction of the road was led by the Czech engineer, professor at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute Franz von Gerstner. In the summer of 1835, he managed to convince the emperor of the benefits of railways, which made it possible to quickly transfer troops.
The decree of Emperor Nicholas I to the Senate approving the “Regulations on the establishment of the Society of Shareholders for the construction of a railway from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo with an extension to Pavlovsk” was published on April 16, 1836 (old style).

On May 1, 1836, construction of the railway from Pavlovsk began. In July, a platform under a canopy for visitors was ready and the foundation of the hotel building was laid. On September 10, a station and a locomotive depot with a turning circle were laid in Tsarskoe Selo. By September 30, the rails were laid at a distance of 22 versts from Pavlovsk. At the end of September, test rides (several carriages) were carried out on horse-drawn trains from the platform in Pavlovsk to Tsarskoe Selo.

On November 3, 1836, the first running-in of a steam locomotive took place. It was delivered disassembled by sea from England to Kronstadt, and from there along the bay, the Obvodny Canal and on horseback to Tsarskoye Selo, where it was assembled and tested.
The first train consisted of 8 cars and a three-axle locomotive, built at the Stephenson plant in England. The train consisted of four classes of carriages. The most comfortable carriages were called “Berlins”: these were carriages with covered bodies and soft seats for eight people. The capacity of carriages of other classes was 10 passengers. "Stagecoaches" were soft covered carriages with a larger capacity. The following classes were represented by open carts ("lines"): carts with roofs were called "sharabans", without a roof - "wagons". The carriages had no heating or lighting.
At Gerstner's request, the locomotives had to have a power of 40 horsepower and be able to transport several carriages with three hundred passengers at a speed of 40 versts per hour.
To increase the carrying capacity of the road, Gerstner decided to use rolling stock with a gauge of 1829 mm, rather than 1435 mm, which was adopted on railways in England.

On the very first voyage from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo, the locomotive was brought by Professor Franz von Gerstner himself. The length of the road was 27 kilometers; the trip took 35 minutes and the return trip took 27 minutes; Thus, the maximum speed reached 64 km/h, and the average was 51 km/h. At the time, this seemed like a fantastic achievement.

In the first six months of operation, horse traction was used on the road, and steam traction was used only on Sundays or holidays. The complete transition to "steam" occurred in April 1838, and in May train traffic was opened on the St. Petersburg - Pavlovsk section.

In the first years, the fare for first and second class passengers was 2.5 and 1.8 rubles, respectively, for third and fourth class passengers - 80 and 40 kopecks.

In 1837, a station was built for the first railway in Russia between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo. According to Gerstner's plan, the railway station in St. Petersburg was supposed to be located on the embankment of the Fontanka River, but the money allocated for construction was only enough for the construction of the railway itself and the construction of a station in Tsarskoe Selo. Then it was decided to build a temporary wooden station a little away from the site allocated for the station. This is how the oldest train station in Russia, Vitebsky, was built. In 1849-1852, according to the design of the architect Konstantin Ton, a stone building was built, which existed until the beginning of the 20th century.

The modern station building was built in 1904 in the Art Nouveau style (architects Stanislav Brzozovsky, Sima Minash).

The cost of building the first railway in Russia was estimated at 5 million rubles (almost 10% of this amount was spent on the purchase of rolling stock and rails). In 1838, the road carried 700 thousand passengers and began to generate income, which allowed it to recoup all costs of construction and operation of all vehicles in five years.

As an independent railway, the Tsarskoye Selo road existed until 1897, after which it was included in the Moscow-Vindavo-Rybinsk railway and was changed to Russian gauge (1524 mm). Only six locomotives were converted to the Russian gauge. In total, during its independent existence, 34 steam locomotives were delivered to the Tsarskoye Selo Railway.

In 1987, on one of the platforms of the Vitebsk station, in a special glass pavilion, a model of the train that made the first flight in Russia from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo was installed in 1837.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

The history of the invention of the steam locomotive has many controversial issues. It is known that the first attempts to create steam self-propelled machines were a cart on a wooden frame. It was driven by a simple steam boiler and an engine with vertical cylinders, thanks to which the wheels rotated. Despite the fact that Joseph Cugnot is considered the author of the first machines, he did not have to put his invention on rails.

Richard Trevithick

7 years later, Trevithick developed a more advanced machine design, capable of moving at speeds of up to 30 km/h. The name “Catch Me Who Can” was not given to this model by chance: in London there were whole competitions in the speed of a car with horses.

Followers of Trevithick

Another version of the steam locomotive was created by mechanic Forster and blacksmith Hackworth - their machine was called "Puffing Billy", which was explained by the loud noise when releasing steam. The design turned out to be successful, since most of the elements were recreated by analogy with Trevithick’s first model.

In 1813, the Blücher steam locomotive was built, which was invented by George Stephenson. True, he had to work hard to make his vehicle perfect, and it achieved perfection only in 1816, when the third version was released, capable of carrying trains weighing up to 50 tons, reaching a speed of 10 km/h.

Cherepanovs

The Cherepanovs were the first to create a steam locomotive in Russia, but their machine was not in demand, and most models were purchased abroad. By 1880, the number of steam units in our country increased significantly, although their production occupied only a third of the market. But it is believed that it was our engineers who were able to destroy England’s monopoly on their production. The era of steam locomotives lasted until the 50s of the 20th century, and the created vehicles were in operation as early as the 70s. Today you can see the first steam locomotives only in museums.

First railways

The first railways were created mainly for the needs of industry. The engineers who worked on steam engines did not keep in mind the possibility of passenger transportation. The point was to create a convenient, inexpensive and labor-intensive way to deliver goods. Primarily coal. That is why the first railways in human history began to appear in large and deep mines. These roads reached the surface of the earth only at the end of the 18th century, with one exception. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Wollaton carriage road operated in England. The railways connected the villages of Wollaton and Strelley, near Nottingham. The three-kilometer road is believed to have been built between 1602 and 1604. Coal was transported along it from one village to another. In 1620 the mines at Strelley were closed and the road fell into disrepair.

Former Wollaton Railway. (wikipedia.org)

By the way, the question of how exactly the coal was transported still remains open. Steam engines began to appear only in the second half of the 18th century. Watt's machine was first demonstrated in 1784. The first railway appeared in Russia in 1788. This, we repeat, was not a passenger road, but an industrial road. The cast iron wheel line, as it was called, was built at the Aleksandrovsky Cannon Factory in Petrozavodsk for the needs of this enterprise. The project was developed by the head of the Olonets Mining Plants, Charles Gascoigne. The road was intended for transporting coal and tools. By the way, the cast iron wheel line is considered the world's first factory-built railway.

Charles Gascoigne. (wikipedia.org)

Steam engines
Watt began work on his first steam engine back in 1773. A year later, he opened a company to produce such machines, but in the early years it was not particularly successful. The Shah's leaders bought the plant's products, but did so very reluctantly. Watt's car was considered expensive and slow. It was then that the engineer thought about creating a universal mechanism. The idea was to make the steam engine suitable for use in more than just coal plants.

Newcomen engine. (wikipedia.org)

In 1784, Watt built his first heat engine. The machine converted the energy of water vapor into mechanical work, driving a piston. Watt's project was based on the work of French mathematician Denny Papin. Papin designed a steam-powered machine a hundred years before Watt, but he was unlucky. His project did not receive support from the Paris Academy. As a result, the inventor never found the money to implement his ideas.

Denny Papin. (wikipedia.org)

How did Steam Locomotives appear?

For a long time, railways were used only for transporting heavy goods. They mainly transported coal, cast iron and artillery pieces. The first passenger railway was built only in 1801. It connected the towns of Wandsworth and Croydon. Horses were used for transportation, since the first steam locomotive appeared only three years later, in 1804.

The horse carries passengers. (wikipedia.org)

It was built by engineer and inventor Richard Trevithick. True, his locomotive turned out to be too expensive and heavy. The cast iron rails could not support the weight of Tretivick's machine. Another inventor, George Stephenson, was much more successful. He proposed a more economical model of steam locomotive and even convinced the management of several mines to jointly build a railway between Darlington and Stockton.

Railway between Darlington and Stockton. (wikipedia.org)

Its rails were strong enough to support the weight of the locomotive. Later, construction began on a public railway between Liverpool and Manchester. The only question that remained open was which locomotives would run between the cities. By that time, designs for steam-powered machines had already been proposed by several dozen inventors. There was a real struggle for patents. The railroad's leaders, at Stephenson's suggestion, came up with a decent way out of the situation. They organized a steam locomotive race, the winner of the competition received the right to become the main locomotive of the road. Steam locomotive competitions were held in 1829 in the city of Rainhill. The Raketa steam locomotive, designed by Stephenson, won the competition.

Stephenson's "Rocket". (wikipedia.org)

Only “Rocket” managed to pass all the tests, developing an average speed of up to 20 kilometers per hour (the weight of the cargo was 13 tons). The competitors of the Stefanson locomotive (4 cars) quickly left the race. The decisive moment was the explosion of the boiler of the Novelty steam locomotive, which reached speeds of up to 45 kilometers per hour and was considered the main contender for victory. By the way, the first models of the Raketa, like the first models of other steam locomotives, did not pull the cars behind them, as is the case now, but pushed them. However, it was the success of the Rocket that marked the beginning of the steam locomotive boom in Europe. Railways began to appear in England, France, Germany and Austria. Russia was not left out either. Emperor Nicholas I was a big fan of railway transport. In 1837, a 27-kilometer road was opened connecting Tsarskoe Selo and St. Petersburg. The locomotive that drove the train was purchased from George Stephenson. By the way, by that time Russia already had its own steam locomotive project. Father and son Cherepanovs designed a steam engine in the mid-1930s. She drove trains with ore and reached speeds of up to 15 kilometers per hour. However, the production of steam locomotives was established in Russia only in 1870. Before this, the Empire preferred to purchase cars abroad. And yet, Russia has made a significant contribution to the development of railway transport. It was Russian railway workers who proposed the concept of a sleeping car, where a passenger could live for several days or even a week. In 1924, a diesel locomotive was built for the first time in the Soviet Union. Over time, diesel locomotives replaced steam locomotives on railways around the world.

Opening of the Manchester - Liverpool railway. (wikipedia.org)

The construction of steam locomotives also developed at a rapid pace in the United States. It is known that railways came to some states even earlier than local authorities. In the USA, before the start of the Civil War, the practice of locomotive racing was widely used. Such competitions helped inventors identify the shortcomings of their new models and, at the same time, attracted public interest in railways. In the 40s of the 19th century, about ten similar competitions took place in the USA.

Trains are one of the most important forms of transport around the world. Millions of passengers travel by rail every day, and no one is surprised that you can buy a train ticket on the website without leaving your home and board the train by simply presenting to the conductor an electronic ticket (boarding pass) on paper (A4 format) or a screen mobile device and passenger identification document (electronic check-in). Often just a passport is enough.

Although trains appeared much earlier than automobile and, even more so, air transport, in fact, the emergence of railway communication is, one might say, a recent matter. Even 200 years ago, no one could have imagined that soon people would be able to comfortably travel any distance without the help of horses. The same applies to cargo transportation and mail delivery: only railways were able to create a unified transport system in the vast territories of America, Europe, and Russia, which significantly influenced the development of the economy. So, when and where was the very first train in the world created, and what was its speed?

Prototype of a modern train

The prototype of the train, a very primitive one, can be called trolleys, which began to be used in the 18th century in Europe. Between certain points, for example, a mine and a village, wooden beams (beds) were laid, which served as modern rails. Trolleys, moved by horses or... people, ran back and forth along them. At the end of the 18th century, single trolleys began to be connected to each other with iron rings to increase the efficiency of transportation. These short trains of several loaded trolleys, transported on wooden rails with the help of horses, became the prototype of the trains that are used in our time.

Russia is not far behind England. The first freight train with locomotive traction was launched in 1834, and already in 1837 the Tsarskoye Selo Railway was built and opened, along which passenger trains ran at a speed of 33 km/h. The honor of creating the first Russian steam locomotive belongs to the Cherepanov brothers.

The first steam locomotive

In 1804, the English engineer-inventor Richard Traithwick demonstrated the first steam locomotive to curious spectators. This design was a cylindrical steam boiler, to which were attached a tender (a cart with coal and a place for a fireman) and one carriage in which anyone could ride. The first steam locomotive did not arouse much interest among the owners of mines and mines, which Treytvik wanted to interest. Perhaps his essentially brilliant invention was ahead of its time, as often happens. The high cost of materials for making rails, the need to create all the parts of a steam locomotive by hand, the lack of funds and qualified assistants - all these negative factors led to Treytwyk abandoning his work in 1811.

First freight train

Using Treitvik's drawings and developments, many European engineers began to actively create and improve various types of steam locomotives. Since 1814, several models have been designed (“Blücher”, “Puffing Billy”, “Killingworth”, etc.), which were successfully operated by the owners of large mines and mines. The first freight trains could carry about 30-40 tons of cargo and reached speeds of up to 6-8 km/h.

First mainline train

On 19 September 1825, the first public railway ran on the first public railway between Darlington and Stockton, driven by its creator, George Stephenson. The train consisted of the locomotive "Mobility", 12 freight cars with flour and coal and 22 cars with passengers. The weight of the train, including cargo and passengers, was 90 tons, its speed in various sections was from 10 to 24 km/h. For comparison: today the speed of passenger trains is on average 50 km/h, and high-speed trains such as Sapsan - 250 km/h. In 1830, the Liverpool-Manchester highway was opened in England. On the opening day, the first passenger train passed along it, which included a mail car - also the first in the world.

If you sit at the train, you better go, maybe at Prague, maybe at Viden.(Piccardian third)

Trains - there is so much in this word, especially now, in the summer, when the long-awaited time for vacations has arrived and something inside is pulling somewhere to the south, closer to the sea, beaches and warm sun. Therefore, it is not at all surprising to see huge queues at railway ticket offices; people are buying train tickets to Crimea en masse. Whatever you say, trains are perhaps the most comfortable way of transportation, and definitely the safest. So yes, trains are the safest means of transportation in the world, the number of accidents involving trains is minimal (which cannot be said about motor vehicles, which, on the contrary, are the most dangerous). And trains are just a wonderful place to communicate with various interesting random fellow travelers (sometimes those philosophical discussions about life can be heard in the carriages), it’s great to travel by train with a cheerful, friendly company, with whom you can have no less fun, sing songs, play different games, and etc.. In a word - trains, whatever we could do without them, but how did it all start and where did they come from?

So, the first prototypes of the oldest trains appeared at the end of the 15th century and had absolutely nothing to do with railway transport. In those days, the word “train” simply meant a series of interconnected carts, which were moved by one draft force - it could be a horse, or an ox, or some other representative of large (and sometimes cattle) livestock. Some inventive residents of that time used such train-carts for military purposes - as fortifications. In particular, our Ukrainian Cossacks were very fond of doing this, who always took several of these coupled cart-trains with them on military campaigns and, if necessary, created a fortified camp out of them, a real mobile fortress on wheels.

Take your seats according to the tickets you purchased, boom! It’s just that the Cossacks didn’t have that much cavalry, so they had to fight on foot, shooting opponents with firearms. And since the quality of that weapon left much to be desired, and there was a high probability of being chopped into cabbage by the enemy cavalry while the Cossack was reloading the musket, therefore cart-trains became for them simply a lifesaver, and an integral element of the military tactics of our glorious ancestors. There is even historical evidence of how once 50 Cossacks in such a fortress of carts successfully repelled the attack of 500 Turkish horsemen.

But let's return to trains, this word acquired a new meaning already at the end of the 17th century, it was at this time that the first trolleys appeared, which were an open small carriage designed for transporting various goods. Horses were used as draft power. The trolleys moved along a special wooden road; in fact, this was the prototype of the first railway. Times moved forward and progress did not stand still, railways improved, and already in 1804, the English inventor and engineer Richard Trevtik designed the world's first train (already in its modern sense) and a locomotive (“locomotive” means to move). The horses breathed a sigh of relief.

This is what he looked like.

Only one passenger carriage was attached to the first train and sent in a circle for the entertainment of the noble London public. The train itself was playfully nicknamed “Catch me if you can.”

But only seven years later the British realized that trains were cool. And already from 1811, trains and railways began to be actively built. At first only in England, and then other countries adopted the English example, and now Grandma Europe is lined with iron rails along which trains smoke merrily.

A small lyrical digression: In general, the development of trains and railways had a tremendous impact on the development of the entire human civilization, and the railways themselves gradually turned into the blood arteries of human civilization, especially its economy. Even in various strategic computer games (there are economic strategies like Civilization 5), without competent construction of railways there will be no progress.

The ceremonial arrival of the train on the Tsarkoselskaya railway, the first in Russia, built in 1837.

Even then, a division of trains into passenger and freight trains took place; in general, the first freight train with locomotive traction appeared in 1820, transporting coal from the English Hatton mine to the town of Sunderland. Of course, trains in those days were different from today, they had a steam engine and smoked so oh-yo-yo, and by modern standards they were turtles, because the maximum speed of the first trains was a maximum of 40 km. at one o'clock. To keep the train moving, coal had to be constantly added to the engine room stove. But such trains, of course, were not very useful for the environment, although at that time nature was not yet as devastated as in our “ultra-progressive” times.

During the First World War, the Civil War and the Second World War, trains again began to be actively used for military purposes, so-called armored trains appeared - steel mastodons stuffed with all kinds of weapons.

Somehow it turns out that many human inventions, first conceived for peaceful purposes, were then used for all sorts of military things.

But already at the beginning of the 20th century, with the invention of electricity, the first electric locomotives appeared; trains moved with the help of the magical power of electric current and no longer smoked like those steam locomotives.

The first electric locomotives, photos from the 20s, 20th century.

This is the story of trains that have come a long evolutionary way from carts, through retro smoking trains of the 19th century to such modern beauties.

In conclusion, a good song from the group “Piccardian Tertsia” - “Sit by the Train”.

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