Winkelschienengleis, Curr und Drehschemelwagen

When regarding our Currian rail car, it is not so much the wagon itself that is of interest but rather the rails. They did not originate from one of the coal mines managed by Curr but from an aboveground stretch of
rails connecting various Welsh mines together. The individual rails are one yard long, i. e., 0.914 metres,
and rest on crude stone joists. The track width is five English feet, which is 1.524 metres. In those days that
was the standard width of the transport wagons in use.
Iron rails have significant advantages over wooden ones: They are smoother and thereby produce considerably less friction with the iron wheels. This means that less expenditure of force is required to pull the loads. They are more level and dimensionally stable than rails made from timber and, additionally, more
durable when exposed to the elements. For these reasons, practically every rail laid since the end of the 18th century has been made of iron.
For a long time horses were used as the means to pull the wagons over the cast iron rails. Then, in 1804, as a result of a wager, a “steam horse” was placed on the rails. The world’s first steam locomotive, built by
Richard Trevithick (1771–1833), proceeded to pull ten tons of iron and five wagons carrying 70 men from the Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil to the Glamorganshire canal in Abercynon. It took four hours and five minutes for it to complete the 15.7 kilometre stretch of track. The machine was supposedly able to travel as fast as 25 kilometres per hour when unladen. Despite this proof of proficiency, the use of steam locomotives still failed to gain wide acceptance because they were simply too heavy for the existing rails. The use of rails along with wagons with this type of design quickly spread to other mines, quarries, foundries and to transport routes servicing canals in the industrial regions of England.