Pre-steam and Age of steam

Horsecar in Brno, Czech Republic

The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre (3.7 mi) Diolkos wagonway, which transported boats across the Corinth isthmus in Greece during the 6th century BC. Trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos ran for over 600 years.^[1]
Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a stained-glass window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, dating from around 1350.^[2] In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Castle in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope, and was operated by human or animal power. The line still exists, albeit in updated form, and is one of the oldest railways still to operate.^[3][4]
By 1550, narrow gauge railways with wooden rails were common in mines in Europe.^[5] By the 17th century, wooden wagonways were common in the United Kingdom for transporting coal from mines to canal wharfs for transshipment to boats. The world's oldest working railway, built in 1758, is the Middleton Railway in Leeds. In 1764, the first gravity railroad in the United States was built in Lewiston, New York.^[6] The first permanent tramway was the Leiper Railroad in 1810.^[7]
The first iron plate railway made with wrought iron plates on top of wooden rails, was taken into use in 1768.^[8] This allowed a variation of gauge to be used. At first only balloon loops could be used for turning, but later, movable points were taken into use that allowed for switching.^[9] From the 1790s, iron edge rails began to appear in the United Kingdom.^[10] In 1803, William Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway in south London, arguably the world's first horse-drawn public railway.^[11] The invention of the wrought iron rail by John Birkinshaw in 1820 allowed the short, brittle, and often uneven, cast iron rails to be extended to 15 feet (4.6 m) lengths.^[12] These were succeeded by steel in 1857.^[10]

A British steam locomotive-hauled train

Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds), located in Salta, Argentina

The development of the steam locomotive during the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom spurred ideas for mobile steam locomotives that could haul trains on tracks. James Watt's patented steam engines of 1769 (revised in 1782) were heavy low-pressure engines which were not suitable for use in locomotives. However, in 1804, using high-pressure steam, Richard Trevithick demonstrated the first locomotive-hauled train in Merthyr Tydfil, United Kingdom.^[13][14] Accompanied with Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success,^[15] breaking some of the brittle cast-iron plates.^[16] Two years later, the first passenger horse-drawn railway was opened nearby between Swansea and Mumbles.^[17]