Advances+in+Transportation

In the beginning, Europe was without an efficient transportation system. The people had no way of getting to places that they needed to go or needed to bring goods to. There were no paved or easy accessible and walkable roads. They used the roads that were muddy, narrow, windy, and steep over many hills to walk and wander from village to village. Walking was the easiest and well known way of getting from place to place. Eventually people began using horses and carriages along these roads, but they still were very slow. On the other hand, there were also many rivers used as highways to get from place to place on the water. The most famous rivers were the Thames River and the Danube River; the people used pull boats, sailboats, or row boats to move in the river. In the end, it is clearly shown that a revolution was needed in the unit transportation because the people were not efficiently getting from place to place.
 * Before the Revolution: **

Canals: The transportation revolution began with the building of canals; it was the first big change to the ways of transportation. After the major rivers in Europe were used as highways, they needed something more efficient and quicker. The canals were built straight and are faster and easier to get through. It was much easier to transport people and goods on the water than it is on land. Factories needed an inexpensive way to receive their raw materials needed and coal and eventually transport their finished goods back to the markets. Railroads: After the canals were built and became a success, the railroads were the next new idea of transportation. In the beginning, steam engines were developed and evolved to become high temperature and high pressure engines that would be able to observe great power. The railroads were first built to harness the power that the steam engines were creating; they were first in the coal mines instead of on a wide spread of land. As the railroads became more successful, their major use was to transport even bigger amounts of goods much faster, farther, and cheaper than the canals; they were so cheap that they completely knocked out the canals in competition. Also, they led to the people to be able to migrate and move around Europe very easily and quicker. The railroads spread across Europe rapidly because eventually the industrial revolution made investors and engineers familiar with this new system and corporations. Steamships: Eventually the inventors discovered a way to meet the steam engine with the requirements of a ship to build a steam ship. The steam ship was able to transport large quantities of people and goods across the oceans from continent to continent very cheaply. Instead of taking 2 months by sailboat as it did before, it took about 10 days to fully cross.
 * The Transportation Revolution: **

How were these new ideas and systems financed? All these new ideas and systems had to get their money from somewhere. As the transportation made everything more efficient, states had a larger tax base because the economy was improving because the boom in the markets. The markets began to do so well because of the availability of goods then as transporting them became easier.

Effects on the people : All of the new ways of transportation made everything quicker and more efficient. These new railroads, canals, and steamships were all faster then everything they used before. This also made all the goods cheaper; this is because it was easier to get the goods and transport them so they didn’t have to charge as much. The new transportation also affected the movement into the cities. It accelerated it as it was easier to travel places from there and the people wanted to be closer to the trains and their factories. The cities also became huge markets: it was the center of trading goods such as food, clothes, wheat, etc. The reason that the cities became markets was because they were the easiest to get to and the closest to everyone and everything.
 * After the Revolution: **

Overall, the transportation revolution shrunk the world. This means that it made everything seem so much closer together and so much easier to transport goods from place to place where they are needed. All food, clothes, and goods come from around the world. It is clear that everyone's lives became so much easier after this part of the revolution.

Bibliography: "Railroads and Steamships (Overview)." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>. "The History of Steam Engines-How Engines Work." //About.com:Inventors.// September 25, 2009. [] "Transportation revolution." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. <[]>. Vale, Berry. "Transportation and the Industrial Revolution." //suite101.com.// December 4, 2008. September 24, 2009. [] Whipps, Heather. "How the Steam Engine Changed the World." //LiveScience//. June 16, 2008. September 27, 2009. []

Primary Sources/Images: //The First Railway Train//. September 27, 2009. __ . __ //Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont//. September 27, 2009. __.__ These primary sources/images helped me with my research so I was able to clearly understand what everything actually looked like in the beginning. This shows how different everything really was during the Transportation Revolution.