History of rail transport Richard Trevithick, a British engineer born in Cornwall. This used high-pressure steam to drive the engine by one power stroke. The transmission system employed a large flywheel to even out the action of the piston rod. On 21 February 1804, the world's first steam-powered railway journey took place when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. Trevithick later demonstrated a locomotive operating upon a piece of circular rail track in Bloomsbury, London, the "Catch Me Who Can", but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives,
GE steam turbine locomotives world premier of Cecil B. DeMille's film "Union Pacific", and even an inspection by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While the locomotives displayed excellent acceleration and an ability to maintain schedules better than conventional steam locomotives, they also demonstrated serious reliability problems and relatively high maintenance costs; they never entered regular revenue service. In June 1939, UP returned the locomotives to GE; by December 1941, the railroad had given up on the project. In 1941, the GE steam turbine locomotives were tested by the New York Central, and they were operated by the Great Northern in 1943 during the World War