Editing Railway track (section)

==Historical development==
{{main|History of the railway track}}
{{Further|Wagonway|Plateway}}

The first railway in Britain was the [[Wollaton wagonway]], built in 1603 between Wollaton and Strelley in Nottinghamshire. It used wooden rails and was the first of about 50 wooden-railed [[Tramway (industrial)|tramways]] built over the subsequent 164 years.<ref name=Dow/> These early wooden tramways typically used rails of oak or beech, attached to wooden sleepers with iron or wooden nails. Gravel or small stones were packed around the sleepers to hold them in place and provide a walkway for the people or horses that moved wagons along the track. The rails were usually about {{convert|3|ft|m}} long and were not joined - instead, adjacent rails were laid on a common sleeper. The straight rails could be angled at these joints to form primitive curved track.<ref name=Dow/>

The first iron rails laid in Britain were at the Darby Ironworks in [[Coalbrookdale]] in 1767.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/286/Railways-in-Britain |work=Quakers in the World |title=Railways in Britain}}</ref>

When [[steam locomotive]]s were introduced, starting in 1804, the track then in use proved too weak to carry the additional weight. [[Richard Trevithick]]'s pioneering locomotive at [[Richard Trevithick#"Pen-y-Darren" locomotive|Pen-y-darren]] broke the [[plateway]] track and had to be withdrawn. As locomotives became more widespread in the 1810s and 1820s, engineers built rigid track formations, with iron rails mounted on stone sleepers, and cast-iron chairs holding them in place. This proved to be a mistake, and was soon replaced with flexible track structures that allowed a degree of elastic movement as trains passed over them.<ref name=Dow/>