What Was the Impact of the Coming of the Railways

What Was the Impact of the Coming of the Railways

  • Submitted By: Neil1
  • Date Submitted: 11/28/2008 6:27 AM
  • Category: History Other
  • Words: 849
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 977

When entrepreneurs developed machines which would enable work to be completed in factories seeing the growth of factories in different areas they also needed to look at how to transport the goods quickly to market whilst also being able to feed their workers who could no longer grow their own food. Such a need brought about the coming of the railways to Great Britain. Inventors such as George Stephenson invented locomotives and miles of track was laid meaning that large amounts of both goods and people could be moved about creating many economic, social, cultural and environmental changes. These had both positive and negative impacts upon peoples lives but mainly positive.

The most important area which had a positive impact on people’s lives is social. This is shown by the fact that people were able to travel greater distances for work and leisure and also they were able to see their families more often. The journeys became much more relaxing, were much quicker and also cheaper. For example the journey time from London to Edinburgh reduced from 43 hours by stagecoach to only 12¼ hours by train. Even poorer people started to travel and day trips to places such as Blackpool, Brighton and Scarborough became popular. Some coastal villages grew because of the number of people who visited them by railway. This clearly suggests that the coming of the railways had a positive impact upon the social lives of the people. The transport of post and newspapers was speeded up and much could be delivered the next day. This led to more people wanting to read about Parliament and become more involved in politics which resulted in the growth of the political parties. Another big impact of the railways was that fresh food could be taken all over the country and it would still be fresh. This was brilliant. People now didn’t have to ‘grow their own’ to get fresh vegetables and other foods such as fresh meat, milk and fish became freely available. Fish and chips became a common...

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