200 Years of the first Railway
Title:200 Years of the first Railway
Date of Issue: 20.03.2025.
Author: Tanja Kuruzovic
Type edition: commemorative
Printing techniques: multicolour offset
Sheet: 8+1
Paper: muflep 100g
Printing House: Blicdruk, Sarajevo
Motive: Locomotive “Locomotion No.1“
Catalogue no.: 992
Perforation: 13 3/4
Face value: 1.95 BAM
Quantity: 8 000
One of the most revolutionary inventions in human history to date was the steam engine. The first commercial steam-powered device – a water pump – was constructed in 1698 by the English inventor Thomas Savery. Successful experiments by the Englishman Thomas Newcomen, the German Jacob Leopold, and (especially) the Scotsman James Watt during the 18th century led to the construction of the locomotive – a powerful steam engine that pulled carriages with passengers and freight along iron rails.
The world's first successful steam locomotive was built by English engineers George and Robert Stevenson. Originally called the "Active" and later renamed "Locomotion No. 1", this engine pulled the first passenger train in history on 27th September 1825, running between Stockton and Darlington, in north-east England. The train consisted of an 18-seat passenger "carriage" called the "Experiment" and 21 coal freight cars, carrying around 300 ticketed passengers and an unknown number of non-ticketed passengers, with George Stevenson driving the locomotive himself. The journey between the two places, just under 14 kilometres apart, took almost two hours, of which the 122-metre-long, 80-tonne train was in motion for about 55 minutes, the rest of the time being spent on two stops due to breakdowns: first, when a wheel fell off a carriage, and then when a valve on the locomotive's water pump broke. Despite the long delay, 10,000 people enthusiastically welcomed the first passenger train to Darlington. Locomotion 1 pulled passenger and freight trains on the Stockton-Darlington line for just under three years, until 1st July 1828, when its boiler exploded at Aycliffe Lane station, killing the driver.
In the autumn of 1829, Robert Stephenson constructed the famous locomotive "Rocket", which was a (technically) significantly improved version of his previous steam engine and which, from October of the following year, pulled trains between Liverpool and Manchester, the first public railway with exclusively steam traction.
Author: Tanja Kuruzovic
Publisher: Poste Srpske sc Banjaluka