EVARDONI, KRIS-ZLE Q.

BSCE-5
CE 162
TRANSPORTATION HISTORY
WATERWAY TRANSPORTATION
The Early Days Most likely the earliest form of water transportation was a single log found floating in
the water. Later, groups of logs might be lashed together into a crude raft. These were utilized well into the
20th century.
Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer,
inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading
scientists in classical antiquity. The story goes that he was sitting in the bath tub one day when he had an
epiphany. Archimedes noticed that when he got into the tub, the water level rose. He determined from this
fact that the density of a body determined how much water it would displace. This is why even huge steel
aircraft carriers will float and tiny steel balls wont. The ship has much more airspace inside and so is much less
dense.

Ship building evidence suggests that the Egyptians were lashing planks into ship hulls as early as 3000
BC. Apparently they used reeds and grasses to form straps to hold their ships together.
By 2500 BC, harbors and port cities were beginning to appear around the Mesopotamian region and in
India.
No more rowing evidence of masts and sails have been found among relics of Egypts 18th dynasty. By
this time, trade along coastlines is well established but little offshore navigation can occur until a way is
found to navigate without landmarks.
In Asia, the Chinese were building castle barges with heavily fortified decks to carry soldiers and
weapons. Over time these evolved into the traditional Chinese junks and the design is still in
common use today.
Finally in 1843, the Great Britain of Isambard Kingdom Brunnel was the first ship whose hull was
fabricated entirely of iron. Interior bulkheads and steel construction replaced iron in the latter half of
the 19th century paving the way for the modern shipbuilding practices of today.
Today, super tankers and cargo vessels are bigger than anything the ancient world could have
imagined. Oil carriers can be over 1000 ft long and can carry over 3 million barrels of oil.

RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION
Modern transportation of passengers and goods could not be imagined without trains, transport
devices that revolutionized our industry, human expansion, and the way we can move from one place to
another. Such important presence in our history appeared little over 200 years ago, but even then it was
apparent that this new transportation paradigm could become one of the mankinds greatest fights if the
technical hurdles of early industrial revolution could be overcome.

Railroad Transportation began 2000 years ago in ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylon and Greece.
Transport of people and goods in those time was done with carts that were pulled by animals (horses
or bulls), and their engineers quickly noticed that animals will spend much less energy if the cart was
traveling on predetermined path, without possibility for steering or traveling over uneven terrain. To
enable this new way of transport, they build roads with pre-built constraints for wheels. These were
the worlds first railway tracks, and archeological remains of them can still be found in Italy and
Greece.
In 1797, Trevithick invented the first steam-powered locomotive. In the U.S., Peter Cooper was the first
to create a steam-powered locomotive which was given the name Tom Thumb in 1830.
The first railroad in the U.S. appeared in 1830 and was built by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Eventually
railroads spread across the country, turning into a transcontinental project which was completed by
the year 1869.
In the 1890s major cities around the world, including New York City, started using railroads as mass
transit systems. Steam powered trains remained popular until the end of World War II. Following the
war, diesel powered trains became increasingly popular. Today, steam powered trains are no longer in
use, with a majority of trains being powered by electric/diesel or diesel energy.

As train technology received massive updates over those first few decades of public work, urban
engineers in London started formulating first plans for inter-city railway tracks and underground tunnels. First
section of now famous London Underground begun its work in 1863, and even though it received much
complaints because of the smoke in the tunnels, it continued growing until 1890 when entire London train
fleet started using electrical engines. This marked the beginning of the new era of urban rapid transit systems,
and underground Metros started appearing across entire world (the word metro came from the name of
Paris underground train system Chemin de Fer Mtropolitain, meaning Metropolitan Railway).
Another very important moment in the history of the trains was introduction of Diesel engines, which
brought the end to the age of steam locomotives. After second world war almost absolute majority of the
world left steam behind, and embraced much faster, easier to maintain and reliable diesel fuel engines. As
time went on, diesel engines became combined with electrical ones, enabling trains to use best of both
worlds.
Today, trains represent one of the most important ways people and goods travel. Big cities cannot live
without fully working underground metro systems that carry millions of people every day, and more heavy
and durable industrial trains carry over 40% of worldwide goods between towns, countries, and continents.

URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Public transportation a shared passenger transport service which is available for use by the general
public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers
without private arrangement.
City transport is an integral part of urban infrastructure and impacts land use and the quality of urban
life. The expansion of city boundaries could only occur with increases in travel speed. In addition to travel
factors such as cost, time, and convenience, urban transport modes that are quiet and nonpolluting are
preferred. Thus, it is easy to understand why horse-drawn streetcars were replaced by cable cars in the 1870s
and later by electrically powered vehicles, which were introduced in the 1880s. In addition to increased
speeds and lower costs, the reduction in animal pollution on city streets (with its odor and potential for
causing illness and death) was considered a major improvement to the quality of life. The introduction of the
electric streetcar or trolley was a revolutionary breakthrough in urban transportation and influenced urban
development into the twentieth century.

In 1884, Frank Sprague formed the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company and in 1888
electrified a 19-km horsecar line in Richmond, Virginia. The streetcar proved to be popular and reached
a peak of 17.2 billion passengers annually by 1926. Cities everywhere built trolley lines.
By 1916, there were 72,000 km of trolley lines in operation. Cities developed a star-like land use
pattern on which lines fanned out from the city center and connected residential communities and
amusement parks located along and at the end of the lines.
The bus gradually replaced streetcars as streetcar ridership steadily declined in the 1920s.
By 1922 buses carried only about 400 million passengers per year compared with 13.5 billion annual
streetcar passengers
By 1929 bus riders had increased dramatically to 2.6 billion passengers annually. The streetcar industry
made a major effort to reverse the declining trend by developing a new systems-engineered vehicle
called the Presidents Conference Committee (PCC) streetcar.
Furthermore, the evidence is clear that automobile travel would continue to grow with the inevitable
result that streetcar use would decline.
At the end of the 19th century, rail transit systems were constructed that were either elevated or in
tunnels. Large urban areas required greater capacity and speed than could be provided by street
railways or bus lines. The first rapid transit line was opened in London in 1863.
By the beginning of the 20th century, rapid transit lines were being constructed in large U.S. cities
During the 1970s and 1980s,rail transit systems were again constructed and construction of light rail
lines occurred in a large number of cities in the United States.

AIR TRANSPORTATION
Airplanes are the most popular form of long distance transportation today. Not only do they allow
people to travel across country in a relatively short period of time, they also allow people to travel around the
world faster than any other method of transportation currently available.

Airplanes can be traced back to 1903 with the first ever manned flight. This was done by the Wright
brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, who created and launched the Wright Flyer, a biplane. This was a
plane that had two pairs of wings that sat one above the other.
In 1908 monoplanes were invented. These planes had one pair of wings and were used during World
War II. During World War I, bombers and fighter planes were used by the major powers for aerial
combat. For commercial use, the Russian Sikorsky Ilya Muromets was the first airliner for passengers
and had its first flight in 1914.
By the 1930s transatlantic passenger flights were taking place. In 1939 the first jet powered plane was
invented and flown by Germany. Many inexpensive war-surplus transport and training aircraft became
available and thousands of pilots were released from military service. Manufacturers like Cessna, Piper,
and Beechcraft swelled their production to supply light aircraft for the new middle-class market. As the
history of air transportation reveals, the first widely-used passenger jet was the Boeing 707 which was
also the most economical.
Ever since the 1960s, the composite airframes have become lighter and quieter. The engines have
become more competent. But the most significant lasting improvements have taken place in
instrumentation and control, as we study the air transport history. The influx of solid-state electronics,
the Global Positioning System, satellite communications have radically changed the cockpits of
airliners. Small and powerful computers and LED displays help the pilots in navigating and viewing the
terrain much more accurately, even at night or in low visibility.
In 2004, Space Ship One became the first privately funded aircraft to make a spaceflight. This has
opened the likelihood of an aviation market competent of leaving the Earth's atmosphere.

HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION
The invention of the automobile, and the development of mass production techniques created a
revolution in transportation in the United States during the twentieth century and a challenge to harness
intelligent technologies into the twenty-first century.

In 1895,only four automobiles were produced, and this new invention was seen as a toy for the very
wealthy (Figure 1.10).
In 1903, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company and perfected a process to mass produce
automobiles that could be purchased at a price most Americans could afford.
In 1901,there were only 8000 registered automobiles in the United States, but by 1910 the number
had increased to 450,000.
In 1920,more people traveled by private automobile than by railroad.
By 1930,23 million passenger cars and 3 million trucks were registered. At the beginning of the
twentieth century, highways were not capable of servicing the explosive growth in motor vehicle
travel. Roads were in such poor condition at the beginning of the twentieth century that for many
years the League of American Wheelmen, a bicycle federation formed in 1894, had been lobbying
Congress and states for better roads. Even the railroad industry promoted road building with its Good
Roads trains, which traveled around the country demonstrating the advantages of hard-surfaced roads.
Railroad executives believed that roads should be built so farm products could be transported more
easily to train stations.
In 1893,the federal government established the U.S. Office of Road Inquiry (with an authorized budget
of $10,000) within the Department of Agriculture to investigate and disseminate information about
roads.
By 1916, the first Federal Aid Road Act was passed and provided federal support for roads and gave
states the authority to initiate projects and administer highway construction through their Department
of Highways. Thus began a long-term partnership between the states and the federal government to
organize, design, and build the nations highway system.
In 1956,Congress authorized the construction of a 67,200-km system of Interstate and Defense
Highways. The idea of a limited access highway network had been developed prior to World War II,
and studies conducted during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (19321945)
concluded that these roads should not be financed by tolls. It was envisioned that the new roadway
system would connect major cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and between Mexico and
Canada. The Interstate was promoted as a solution to highway congestion since it would be possible,
proponents argued, to drive from New York to California without ever stopping at a traffic light. The
Interstate was also expected to serve defense needs Colonel Dwight Eisenhower who had completed a
national highway tour prior to World War II, believed in the military value of a national system of highquality roads.
President Eisenhower signed the legislation authorizing the Interstate System on June
29,1956,unleashing a massive construction program that ended in the mid-1990s. The Interstate
Highway System has had a profound impact on both passenger and freight transportation in the
twentieth century. Bus transit has replaced rail in all but the largest cities, and trucks, which carried
less than 1% of ton-km in 1920,now haul almost 25% of ton-km and 75% of freight revenues.