Railways developed with a similar speed in the VIctorian era. from the first experimental colliery engines in the 1820s to 600 ton express trains traveling at more than 100 MPH and thousands of miles of track in fifty years.Most of all there were huge increases in reliablility and efficiency. In the UK a lot of engines built in the 1890s were still in regular use in the 1950s. North Eastern Railway class E1 a small 060 tank engine was first built in the 1890s, When the railway companies were 'Grouped' by amalgamation in the 1920s the LNER built another batch as their standard tank engine and then in the 1940s when the railways were nationalised BR built another batch as their standard 060 tank. It's design couldn't economicaly be improved.
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