Replica of Trevithick's steam locomotive

On 21 February 1804, the world's first ever railway journey ran 9 miles from the ironworks at Penydarren to the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal, South Wales, reaching speeds of nearly five miles an hour. The locomotive managed to haul ten tons of iron, and seventy passengers - proof that a steam engine could run on smooth rails. It was to be several years before steam locomotion became commercially viable, but there was no denying the fact that it was Trevithick and not George Stephenson who was the real father of the railways.