Talk:George Hudson
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[edit] Railway adoption in England long after introduction into America!
The last sentence of this article reads:
- ..., he succeeded in overcoming the powerful landed interest which delayed the adoption of railways in England long after the date of their regular introduction into America.
Eh. That is certainly contrary to everything I've always understood. Most of Hudson's lines were built in the mid 1840s, by which time railways had most certainly been 'adopted' in England. I've never before heard anybody suggest that America had a significant railway network before that date, and hence some 20+ years before the outbreak of the American Civil War. Can somebody provide a source for this radical new interpretation of received railway history?. -- Chris j wood 12:50, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
Further checking reveals that text does in fact come from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. I have to say I'm still very dubious. I will dig further into US railway history; unfortunately the article Rail transport in the United States doesn't help much, as it quotes the odd isolated line from the 1820s and 1830s that would not have been untypical in the UK at the same time, then jumps straight to 2003. -- Chris j wood 13:02, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
According to the article First Transcontinental Railroad, the first transcontinental railway in the United States was not completed until 1869, which is some ten to twenty years after the UK railway network was substantially complete. So I reckon this quote just shows that even the Encyclopedia Britannica can get it wrong, or at least allow its editors POV to show through. I will edit the article to remove the POV. -- Chris j wood 22:25, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
