CHAPTER I.

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Travelling Two Hundred and One Hundred Years ago—The Liverpool and Manchester Railway—The First Locomotive, “Rocket”—The Grand Junction, London and Birmingham, and Birmingham and Manchester Railways—The Midland Railway—Early Gradients, Increase in their Steepness and in the Power of the Locomotive— The Carriage Road-way Passes of the Alps—Mountains of the World—The Sœmmering and Brenner Railways—The Route between London and Paris 1