Thousands of people on Saturday celebrated the 200th anniversary of the historic British train journey that laid the foundations for much of the modern age.
On Sept. 27, 1825, the first steam powered railway engine to run on a public railway — George Stephenson’s Locomotion No. 1 — made its 42km journey on the Stockton & Darlington Railway between Shildon and Stockton in the northeast of England.
It was a small but significant milestone, which augured rapid changes in the way the UK, and subsequently the world, lived, traded, traveled and communicated.
Photo: AFP
Although the Stockton & Darlington was not the first railway, it was the first to incorporate the standard-gauge, steam-hauled features that would become the foundation of railways around the world.
Railway enthusiasts have been marking the milestone at events across the UK over the year, and this weekend thousands flocked to the place where it all started to see a newly restored replica of Locomotion No. 1 recreate its original journey.
The steam engine, with three coal wagons and a passenger carriage, set off from the Locomotion Museum in Shildon on Friday and traveled along sections of the original line, arriving in Stockton yesterday.
Prince Edward, King Charles III’s youngest brother, was among the passengers on board a carriage on Friday being pulled by the replica engine on its short journey to Shildon.
Doug Haynes, 81, a retired aircraft engineer, traveled about 160km to Shildon to witness the re-enactment on Friday.
“It was tremendous,” he said. “The work that they have put in to make this happen has been well worthwhile. It was well worth the trip over for me.”
There were equally joyous scenes 200 years ago when people including newspaper reporters traveled from all over the country to line the track. A holiday was even declared for Darlington.
Those enthusing then could not have possibly imagined what the ripple effects would be as they cheered the passing Locomotion No. 1 — how it would transform their lives, their communities and the future.
Rail soon enabled the rapid transportation of industrial goods and raw materials, such as coal and iron ore. It sped up urbanization and transformed social lives by freeing up time for leisure activities, and opening up the country to tourism and the middle classes.
Overall, it played a pivotal role in the UK becoming the global industrial and economic powerhouse of the 19th century and helped fuel the rapid expansion of the British Empire.
“It was amazing to see it moving,” said Louise Jones, 39, who watched the replica train begin its journey. “My dad used to work on the railways. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see what it would have looked like 200 years ago.”
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS