The Liverpool to Manchester Railway was the first successful Railway line to be built in Britain. At the time it was built by a man named, George Stephenson and was successfully completed in the year 1830. This great historical step created a long-awaited link between two major cities in Britain, causing an economic shift in the areas affected by the change. The Liverpool to Manchester Railway helped to create an easier, faster, and less expensive form of transportation as well as provide another means of economic trade and transportation of goods. We see throughout many types of Victorian Literature a significant change in the environments and the means of transportation in the different novels written from this time period. Railways at this time helped to create this initial change, particularly the Liverpool to Manchester Railway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/shp/britishsociety/railwaysrev2.shtml
Jill Innes:
The opening of the first direct railway line from London to the Kent coast in 1862 challenged traditional dichotomies between town and country, and contributed to a growing nostalgia associated with the river. Fin-de-siècle writers used the apparent opposition between rail and river, city and country, to ask new questions about the place of women in a rapidly changing world; the transition to a new century further strained the traditional dichotomy between feminised pastoral and masculinised industrial, a tension reflected in the problematic portrayal of rail and water in the work of E. Nesbit.
This was especailly interesting seeing how the railway impacted the plot in Lady Audley's SEcret. It it weren't for the many types of updates in technology Lady Audley's Secret would have not been a good story. It just wouldn't have worked!!
http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=carolyn-w-de-la-l-oulton-co...