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23.02.2023 13:20 •  Английский язык

Task 2. Read the text and do the task. FROM THE HISTORY OF RAILWAY TRANSPORT

The word ‘transport’ (or ‘transportation’) means to carry people or goods from place to place.

Henry Ford, the American motor-car manufacturer, said that “transportation is civilization”.

The history of transport is divided into two stages. The first stage is that in which all modes of

transport depended directly on the power of men or animals, or on natural forces such as wind and current. The second stage began with the development of the steam engine. Do you know who invented it? It is sometimes said that James Watt got the idea for a steam engine while still a boy, watching steam lift the lid of his mother's tea kettle. The truth is that James Watt did not invent the steam engine; however, he made major improvements on the inefficient steam engine patented in 1705 by Thomas Newcomen, John Cawley, and Thomas Savery. James Watt installed his engine in a machine which was used at a large coal mine for pumping out the water. Soon this invention was widely used at nearly every large enterprise. The revolution in industry made by this machine was extremely great.

One of the first attempts to put a steam engine on wheels was made by Richard Trevithick, a

British mining engineer. In 1804 he demonstrated the first successful railroad steam locomotive. His engine pulled a short train of cars uphill on a coal-mine railway in Wales. In the years after

Trevithick’s locomotive, several others were built for use on various British coal-mine railways.

The world’s first common carrier railroad1 to use steam power was the Stockton-Darlington

railway in England. It was designed and built by George Stephenson and opened for public service in 1825.

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