I think I can...

February 21, 2014 3:36 PM

On this date in 1804, at Penydarren Ironworks in Wales, the first locomotive hauled passengers and freight for the first time. Richard Trevithick was the inventor who created it.
posted by agatha_magatha (7 comments total)

Growing up in Cornwall, one of the "houses" at my primary school was called "Trevithick". This really only mattered at sports days and, as there were only 45-60 children in the whole school at any time, having any kind of persistent house system was kind of an insane nonsense. And yet I still remember some quite deeply passionate loyalties and conflicts arising at times.

There really is fuck all to do in Cornwall.
posted by howfar at 3:45 PM on February 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

It was only 4 years earlier then the first thread cutting lathe was put into use... things took off quickly after that.
posted by MikeWarot at 3:47 PM on February 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

There really is fuck all to do in Cornwall

so mining tin not good enough for you?
posted by mattoxic at 6:35 PM on February 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

and it's not a railroad locomotive - it's a railway locomotive. In the UK they are railways.
posted by mattoxic at 6:37 PM on February 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

I can't remember at which age but it must have been primary school where we were taught these names, Trevithick and Stephenson and Watt. The spinning jenny and the rest of the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution.

I wonder if some 50 years forward, kids will learn about Larry and Sergey and Ellison and Jobs in quite the same way?
posted by infini at 11:16 PM on February 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

What amazing clockwork style gears, I'm surprised this is not built as a model train.
posted by sammyo at 4:32 AM on February 22, 2014

Man, I just went on a half hour wikitrip about trains. From the Rocket to the Shinkansen/TGV in about 140 years?

Travel really is the hardest problem to solve, isn't it? I weigh about 225#, it ain't easy to move that anywhere cheaply.

I'm surprised this is not built as a model train.

That's not how you spell LEGO.
posted by Sphinx at 8:18 AM on February 22, 2014