First railway, first fatality
The opening of the first intercity railway between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830 also recorded the first railway death. The former President of the Board of Trade William Huskisson was carelessly standing on the tracks chatting to the Duke of Wellington when Stephenson’s Rocket came hurtling along turning the world’s first trainspotter into the world’s first railway casualty.
Despite this slight PR setback railway mania soon gripped the country and by 1843 there were two thousand miles of track linking industrial centres.
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