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The first trains

One of the earliest inventors of trains and railways was George Stephenson.

By the time he was eight, he was working at the coal mines, and he did not learn to read and write until he went to night school as an adult. He learned to do maths by sitting down with his son in the evenings and doing his homework with him.

He was one of the greatest engineers and inventors of the Industrial Revolution.

 

His train, the Rocket, could go at an amazing 36 miles per hour, where other ones of that period could only go at about 15 miles an hour. All the trains of that time were powered by steam engines.

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