Two centuries on track: How the railway revolution shrank the world

The year 2025 was the 200th anniversary of the world's first passenger railway, an invention that would transform how people lived, worked and connected. 

Across the year, commemorations around the globe reflected on how the railway helped shape modern society – shrinking distances, accelerating trade and bringing communities closer together.

On a rain-soaked day in Exmoor, southwest England, the romance of that early age of rail still feels alive. Children crowd excitedly onto a steam train bound for a festive meeting with Santa, their journey powered by pistons and steam rather than silicon and software. It is, quite literally, a ride through history.

"There's something about steam trains that evokes the spirit of those early years," says Stuart Nelhams, General Manager of the Lynton and Barnstaple Steam Railway. "That pioneering spirit, that sense of adventure, that sense of magic."

Steam railways replaced the stagecoach, turning arduous, uncomfortable journeys into faster, safer and more reliable travel. Goods could be transported alongside passengers, opening up markets and allowing people to travel for a day or a week rather than disappearing for months. 

As rail lines spread, the world seemed to contract. Newspapers traveled rapidly across the country, regional accents mixed, ideas circulated, and commerce intensified.

Railways spread globally 

But this was never an innovation Britain could keep to itself. By the late nineteenth century, railway technology was travelling east. 

In the winter of 1880, at the Tongshan workshops of the Kaiping coal mines in Hebei Province, China's first home-built steam locomotive – known as the "Rocket of China" – was constructed in secret. Once revealed, it helped ignite a growing appetite for rail development.

According to Dr Oliver Betts of the National Railway Museum, this sparked a deep and lasting exchange. Young Chinese engineers travelled abroad to study railways, bringing back knowledge that they adapted and improved. 

"Over more than a hundred years," Betts explains, "there have been profound commercial and intellectual exchanges between Britain and China."

While the railway may have been born in Britain, its most dramatic modern expansion is in China. Since 2008, more than 38,000 kilometers of railway have been built, linking major cities, with the network expected to reach 70,000 kilometers by 2035. Entire new urban centers, such as Xiong'an New Area, have emerged along these lines.

With 2025 in the rear view mirror, the anniversary has been both a moment of reflection and anticipation. It has celebrated the romance of steam and the societal transformation railways delivered two centuries ago. 

But it has also pointed firmly to the future – where countries like China are redefining what railways can achieve in the decades ahead.