![\"\"](\"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/trevithicklocomotive.gif\")
<\/p>\nAn invention that changed the world was 200 years old in 2004.\u00a0Britain\u00a0celebrated the bicentenary of the steam railway locomotive with a year-long events programme, but it was not an engineering giant such as James Watt or George Stephenson that was f\u00eated.<\/p>\n
The man who first put steam engines on rails was a tall, strong Cornishman described by his schoolmaster as \u201cobstinate and inattentive\u201d. Richard Trevithick (1771-1833), who learnt his craft in Cornish tin mines, built his \u201cPenydarren tram road engine\u201d for a line in\u00a0South Wales\u00a0whose primitive wagons were pulled, slowly and laboriously, by\u00a0horses.<\/p>\n
On February 21, 1804, Trevithick\u2019s pioneering engine hauled 10 tons of iron and 70 men nearly ten miles from Penydarren, at a speed of five miles-per-hour, winning the railway\u2019s owner a 500 guinea bet into the bargain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He was 20 years ahead of his time \u2013 Stephenson\u2019s \u201cRocket\u201d was not even on the drawing board but Trevithick\u2019s engines were seen as little more than a novelty. He went on to engineer at mines in South America before dying penniless aged 62. But his idea was developed by others and, by 1845, a spider\u2019s web of 2,440 miles of railway were open and 30 million passengers were being carried in Britain alone.<\/p>\n
With the launch in January 2004 of a new \u00a32 coin by the Royal Mint \u2013 bearing both his name and his ingenious invention, a coin approved by Queen Elizabeth II \u2013 Trevithick at last received the public recognition he deserved.<\/p>\n
Perhaps because it was the birthplace, Britain can boast more railway attractions per square mile than any other country. The figures are impressive: more than 100 heritage railways and 60 steam museum centres are home to 700 operational engines, steamed-up by an army of 23,000 enthusiastic volunteers and offering everyone the chance to savour a bygone age by riding on a lovingly preserved train. The surroundings \u2013 stations, signal-boxes and wagons \u2013 are equally well preserved and much in demand by TV companies filming period dramas. (Website:\u00a0https:\/\/www.heritagerailways.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An invention that changed the world was 200 years old in 2004.\u00a0Britain\u00a0celebrated the bicentenary of the steam railway locomotive with a year-long events programme, but it was not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-when-steam-ruled-the-earth-the-golden-age-of-railways-and-human-ambition"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/12"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishmemory.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}