page_title: Land transport
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Land transport / History
caption_attribution_description: Henry Goodwin (standing) with his bullock team hauling "Emu Creek" wool, Fitzroy St., Walcha, NSW
context_page_description: Land transport is the transport or movement of people, animals or goods from one location to another location on land. The two main forms of land transport can be considered to be rail transport and road transport.
context_section_description: Humans' first means of land transport was walking. The domestication of animals introduces a new way to lay the burden of transport on more powerful creatures, allowing heavier loads to be hauled, or humans to ride the animals for higher speed and duration. Inventions such as the wheel and sled helped make animal transport more efficient through the introduction of vehicles. However, water transport, including rowed and sailed vessels, was the only efficient way to transport large quantities or over large distances prior to the Industrial Revolution.
  The first forms of road transport were horses, oxen or even humans carrying goods over dirt tracks that often followed game trails. Paved roads were built by many early civilizations, including Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization. The Persian and Roman empires built stone-paved roads to allow armies to travel quickly. Deep roadbeds of crushed stone underneath ensured that the roads kept dry. The medieval Caliphate later built tar-paved roads. Until the Industrial Revolution, transport remained slow and costly, and production and consumption were located as close to each other as feasible.
  The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century saw a number of inventions fundamentally change transport. With telegraphy, communication became instant and independent of transport. The invention of the steam engine, closely followed by its application in rail transport, made land transport independent of human or animal muscles. Both speed and capacity increased rapidly, allowing specialization through manufacturing being located independent of natural resources.
  With the development of the combustion engine and the automobile at the turn into the 20th century, road transport became more viable, allowing the introduction of mechanical private transport. The first highways were constructed during the 19th century with macadam. Later, tarmac and concrete became the dominant paving material.
  After World War II, the automobile and airlines took higher shares of transport, reducing rail to freight and short-haul passenger. In the 1950s, the introduction of containerization gave massive efficiency gains in freight transport, permitting globalization. International air travel became much more accessible in the 1960s, with the commercialization of the jet engine. Along with the growth in automobiles and motorways, this introduced a decline for rail transport. After the introduction of the Shinkansen in 1964, high-speed rail in Asia and Europe started taking passengers on long-haul routes from airlines.
  Early in U.S. history, most aqueducts, bridges, canals, railroads, roads, and tunnels were owned by private joint-stock corporations. Most such transportation infrastructure came under government control in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, culminating in the nationalization of inter-city passenger rail service with the creation of Amtrak. Recently, however, a movement to privatize roads and other infrastructure has gained some ground and adherents.
caption: Bullock team hauling wool in Australia
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa 2.5", "Image ExifOffset": "49", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "253", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4248", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "124", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "9af7453917fb345e4e80c5e9201d5f5c"}