Antiquity c. 700 BC – A basic form of the railway, the rutway, – existed in ancient Greek and Roman times, the most important being the ship trackway Diolkos across the Isthmus of Corinth. Measuring between 6 and 8.5 km, remaining in regular and frequent service for at least 650 years, and being open to all on payment, it constituted even a public railway, a concept that, according to Lewis, did not recur until around 1800. The Diolkos was reportedly used until at least the middle of the 1st century AD, after which no more written references appear.
16th–18th century Mid 16th century (1550) – Hand propelled mining tubs known as "hands" were used in the provinces surrounding/forming modern day Germany by the mid-16th century having been improved use since the mid-15th century. This technology was brought to England by German miners working in the Minerals Royal at various sites in the English Lake District near Keswick (now in Cumbria). c.1594 – The first overground railway line in England may have been a wooden-railed, horse-drawn tramroad which was built at Prescot, near Liverpool, around 1600 and possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus about half a mile away. c.1600 – A funicular railway was made at Broseley in Shropshire some time before 1605 to carry coal for James Clifford from his mines down to the river Severn to be loaded onto barges and carried to riverside towns. 1604 – Huntingdon Beaumont, partner of landowner Sir Percival Willoughby, built the Wollaton Wagonway, running from mines at Strelley to Wollaton in Nottinghamshire. It was approximately two miles in length. Beaumont built three further wagonways shortly afterwards near Blyth, Northumberland, to service the coal and salt trades. 1722 – The Tranent – Cockenzie Waggonway was built by the York Buildings Company of London, to transport coal from the Tranent pits to the salt pans at Cockenzie and the Harbour at Port Seton, in Haddingtonshire, now East Lothian. This wooden waggonway was replaced in 1815 with an iron fish bellied edgeway to Cockenzie Harbour by the new owners, the Cadell family. This was Scotland's first railway of any kind, with one section of it remaining in constant use until 1962. Some in situ stone sleeper blocks survive at the Robert Stevenson designed Cockenzie Harbour, and the entirety of the route is a way marked footpath. 1725 – The Tanfield Wagonway was constructed to lead coal from pits around Tanfield to the Tyne at Redheugh (Gateshead). It was the first railway built on a large scale – 5 miles of double wooden track with massive civil engineering works including deep cuttings, huge embankments and the world's first large masonry railway bridge, the Causey Arch. Each 2.5 ton capacity waggon (with flanged wooden wheels) was hauled by a horse, up to 60 waggons per hour at peak times. Two miles of the wagonway route are still in use by the Tanfield Railway, making this the oldest operational railway in the world. 1758 – The Middleton Railway, the first railway granted powers by an Act of Parliament, carried coal cheaply from the Middleton pits to Leeds. The line was privately financed and operated, initially as a wagonway using horse-drawn wagons. Around 1799, the wooden tracks were replaced with iron edge rails at a gauge of 4 ft 1 in (1,245 mm). In 1812 the Middleton Railway became the first commercial railway to successfully use steam locomotives: the Salamanca, which used John Blenkinsop's patented design for rack propulsion. 1760s – Iron production in Britain began to rise dramatically, followed by a similar rise on the European continent. This was the result of the use of coke for smelting and refining pig iron and cast iron and the application of the steam engine and cast iron blowing cylinder to providing pressurized air for blast furnaces. 1768 – The Wagon Way was constructed by the Erskines of Mar in Alloa, to carry coal from the Clackmannanshire coalfields of central Scotland to the Port of Alloa. Initially using wooden rails, these were later clad in Swedish iron (1785), and carried horse-drawn wagons. Some of the Wagon Way route still exists, although the tracks are long gone. 1783 – Henry Cort patented the grooved rolling mill for rolling hot iron to expel molten slag. Rolling was 15 times faster than hammering. 1783 – Henry Cort patented the puddling process for making wrought iron. This was the first large scale process for making a structural grade of iron and was also much less expensive than previous methods. Puddled iron production came into widespread production after 1800. 1784 – William Murdoch demonstrated a steam carriage powered by a high-pressure engine. He would later show it to his neighbour Richard Trevithick who would go on to build locomotives. 1789 – The Charnwood Forest Canal, sometimes known as the "Forest Line of the Leicester Navigation" uses railways to supplement the canal between Nanpantan and Loughborough, Leicestershire. William Jessop had constructed a horse-drawn railway for coal wagons. He successfully used an iron edge-rail, in contrast to his partner Benjamin Outram, who preferred the traditional iron L-shaped flange-rail plateway. 1793 – The Butterley Gangroad or the "Crich Rail-way" was built by Benjamin Outram, to connect the Warner Limestone Quarry to the Cromford Canal a mile away at Bullbridge. This railway included the oldest known railway tunnel located at Fritchley. 1798 – The Lake Lock Rail Road, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in 1798 to carry coal from the Outwood area to the Aire and Calder navigation canal at Lake Lock near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, a distance of approximately 3 miles. The load of three wagons was hauled by one horse. The track used edge rails with a gauge of 3 ft 4 3/4 in (1,035 mm). The use of the line gradually declined and was closed in 1836.
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