Английский язык. Жесткова М.В - 47 стр.

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47
in 1825. On the day when it was opened, a man on a horse went in front of the engine and shouted
that the train was coming. People on horses and in carriages were driving near the train. When they
had gone for some time, Stephenson, who was running his locomotive, asked the horseman to go
away. He put steam on and ran his locomotive at a speed of 12 miles per hour (about 20 km per
hour). It was a success.
But the British Parliament did not want to construct railways. The members of the parliament
did not believe that steam engines could run against a strong wind. Then Stephenson built a new
locomotive and called it the Rocket. This locomotive was faster and stronger than the first one; it
could draw a 13-ton train at an “unheard-of speed” of 29 miles per hour (46 km per hour). In 1829
the Liverpool-Manchester Railway was built, and the railway company offered a prize of £500 for
the best steam loco. The prize was won by George Stephenson with his famous train. Though not
the first such locomotive, it was the beginning of the effective use of steam power for passenger and
freight transportation. At first many people were afraid of the railways; nevertheless in 1842 the
steam-powered railways were already in wide use in Britain.
Part 2
Railroads were born in England, a country of dense population, short distances, and large
financial resources. In England problems were very different from those in America, which in the
early 1800s was a country of great distances, sparse population, and limited capital. Americans had
to learn to build railroads for their own country by actual experience; they could not copy English
methods.
In the USA the first railroads were built in mines for carrying stone or coal. In 1804 Oliver
Evans (who had built an amphibious steam-powered scow with wheels) declared that he could
“make a steam carriage that will run at a speed of 15 miles per hour on good, level railways.” As
early as 1812 Colonel John Stevens, of Hoboken, N.J., began to speak for a new kind of railway. He
wanted one that would provide long-distance transportation, linking distant areas of the country. In
1815 Stevens obtained the first charter to build a railroad across New Jersey, but he was unable to
raise the money needed to build it. The first common carrier railroad to be built in the United States
was the Baltimore and Ohio. It was chartered in 1827 and construction started on July 4, 1828.
The first steam locomotive to run in the United States, the English-built Stourbridge Lion, made
a trial trip over the tracks of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company in Pennsylvania in 1829. On
the day of a test trip a lot of people came from miles around the small Pennsylvania town to see the
first run of the steam locomotive. The engineer
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refused to let anyone ride with him – perhaps
because the engine had not been tested before. As the signal to start was given, there was a moment
of suspense. Then, slowly, the wheels began to turn. Cheers went up as engineer Allen opened the
throttle
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wide and began his historic trip. All along the route, men were waving their hats, small
boys were shouting, and women were looking in amazement as the Lion thundered past at the
fantastic speed of ten miles per hour. Who would have believed that anything so big could move so
fast without a horse to pull it! But the engine was too heavy for the track and the trip was not
repeated.
In the summer of 1830 service began on the Baltimore and Ohio line, with horses providing the
power. Finally, in December 1830 an American-built locomotive, the Best Friend of Charleston,
hauled a train of cars on the tracks of the South Carolina Railroad. The railroad had come to
America.
Railroads spread rapidly in the eastern and southern United States, with short lines being merged
to form through routes. By the mid-1850s, railways linked the Atlantic seaboard and the Midwest.
In 1869 the first transcontinental route was completed to the Pacific coast. Railroads became the
dominant mode of overland transportation in the last half of the 19
th
century. Faster and more
powerful locomotives and larger freight and passenger cars were built. Standardization of track
gauges and the adoption of standard time zones aided efficiency. The invention of air brakes
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