The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1906-05-25
RAILROADS.

/ Ocaid EtiuSn ScnOOl tfl2e Essay DE
| George Louis MacKay.
The first railroad was made in the
coal section of England for conveying
coal from the mines To the sea
| In those days they did not have hard
roads like we have now, and the roads
that were used for conveying coal TO
| the sea We're hard to keep in good
order, so this led TO the plan of laying
planks or timber in the holes in the
road, and then 10 laying timber flat
on the surface.
| In 1876 tramways We're built from
the coal mines to the sea and a cart
was put on this and the wheels made
to fit the track. This was SO easy for
the horses to pun that one horse could
pull as much as two or three. on or
binary roads.
! Some people would put in iron rails
about two inches wide and one half
Inch thinck on the wooden track when
they were worn. The cars ran SO
easy on the iron rails that the people
began TO make iron rails instead of
wooden ones.
The first iron rails were made in
I1767 by the Coalorookdale Iron Com
pany. The rails were made with an
edge on them 20 keep the wheels from
coming off, but the sand would get on
the rails and the wheels would roll
off the track.
After this was made u plain rail that
| n
let u ilange wheel run on them. This
kind Of railroad was so much better
than those made before that they used
these instead Of those with the edges.
The new way of conveying things
was 50 cheap and 50 much faster than
any great amount OF goods to be car
ried between different points IL was
done by rail
The first railroad that used steam
as motive power instead If horses
was between Darlingtown and Stock
town.
| And the second was from Newcastle
% the river Weir q distance Of seven
miles. ON this Il train with three or
four ears was carried at the rate Of
five miles an hour.
In 1929 IL train with - ears and an
engine driven by George Stephenson
and Signalman in front of the engine
on horseback left Stockholm for Oar
llngtown They moved off at the rate
of ten to twelve miles per hour and
on suitable parts of the road went al
the rate of fifteen miles an hour.
The first railroad in America was
from Quincy, Mass. - the granite
ouarries. For two years horses were
used to pull the ears, but at the end
of this time other roads had been con-
structed in other parts Of the Uuited
States.
The first steam locomotive in Amer
lea was made by George Stephenson
in England and was brought to Amer
lea in 1881 The first one made in
America was called the Best Friend,
land was used on the Hamburg and
! Charletoa railroad. Since then. rail-
roads have been built from one end
of the country to the other and across
lii in every way
TODAY The United States has more
railroads than any other nation in the
world.
In 1899 the United States had over
l1Si.0OO miles and Great Britain only
had about $4,000 miles.
If the railroads of the United States
were stretched out in one line they
would be long enough to go around the
earth eight times al the equator, or
would reach four-fifths the distance
from the earth 10 the moon
In 1901 all the railroads OF the
limited States were worth over thirteen
and Il half billion dollars.
There are over a million men en-
lployed on the principal railroads and
half of these are employed 10 keep the
railroad bed and track in order
In 1901 there We're over thirty nine
thousand engines. thirty-five thousand
passenger and express ears and over
lone million freight cars in use in the
United States.
On these ears over 912,000,000 tons
of freight and over T00.o00.00o people
are carried every year.
The first attempt 10 use electricity
as a motive power was made by Mr.
Davidson on the Edinburg and elias
gov railroad.
He succeeded in making a locoIno-
tive of FIVE tons run at the speed ot
four miles per hour.