The first public steam railway opened in England

On 27 September 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in County Durham, the world’s first public railway to be worked by steam locomotives. Engineer George Stephenson drove his engine Locomotion No. 1, hauling a train of wagons loaded with coal, dignitaries, and ordinary spectators along the new line.

The spectacle drew an estimated 40,000 onlookers, most of whom had never seen a self-moving machine. A man on horseback rode ahead carrying a flag, and once the way was clear the train reached a giddy 15 miles per hour — alarming to a generation raised on the speed of a trotting horse.

Most people had never seen anything like it before, and 40,000 turned out to witness it.

In its early years, steam pulled the coal while horses still drew the passenger coaches; fully steam-hauled passenger service came later. Even so, the day was quickly seen as proof that steam could move people and freight in public, and it is remembered as the moment the railway age began.