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European History: 1600s-1800s
 Railroads

Railroads
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.51

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    rails, mines, operate, mainly, horse-drawn, boiler, burning, production, mills, assembly, ordinary, furnace, opposition, underway, traveled, export
     content words:    Industrial Revolution, Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson

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Railroads
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     Caption: John Ericsson's locomotive "Novelty," built 1829.
 
2     The Industrial Revolution grew by stages. First, factories were built. Then, assembly lines speeded up production. The next step would be to move materials and finished products to and from the factories more quickly. That is where railroads came in.
 
3     The individual components of railroads were already beginning to come together in England. Tramways with iron rails were making it easier for horse-drawn wagons and carriages to travel from place to place. Steam engines had been invented for use in pumping out coal mines, and improvements to these engines were already underway. Richard Trevithick built a steam locomotive that could travel on the tramway. It looked like an ordinary stage coach with a boiler and furnace added on, but it operated by pistons powered by steam and fueled by burning coal.
 
4     These inventions all came together when George Stephenson invented the first steam locomotive to run on rails. Stevenson's railway locomotives were a big success. First, they were used mainly to carry materials like coal. Few passengers rode the early trains; many people feared these dangerous new inventions. But before too long, people wanted to take a ride. Trains began to carry passengers, too.

Paragraphs 5 to 13:
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