>it wasn't until the 19th century that humans devised

>>3313294
Is there any technological reason why railroads couldn't have come earlier? Steel, coal, wheels, etc. were all very old tech by the 1830s.

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>>3313324
>Is there any technological reason why railroads couldn't have come earlier?

I've always wanted an alt-history Roman horse drawn rail system.

>>3313395
What benefits would horse-drawn rail over horse-drawn carriages over Roman roads?

>>3313324
Metallurgy, machining. High pressure steam is pretty dangerous.

>>3313324
Math, manufacturing, engineering, and (this is very important and way too often overlooked) legal framework didn't get there yet. It's all very incremental.

>>3313324
It could've arisen in Africa but the white man was oppressing Africans.

>>3313324
The Bessemer process wasn't patented until 1856.
>The Bessemer process revolutionized steel manufacture by decreasing its cost, from £40 per long ton to £6–7 per long ton, along with greatly increasing the scale and speed of production of this vital raw material.

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>>3313294
*blocks your path*

>>3313324
>Is there any technological reason why railroads couldn't have come earlier?
They were invented in the african kangdomz before whitey stole the technology

Well, horses are very fucking fast.

>>3313294
Maybe skiing? Particularly over very very long distances.

>>3313324
High pressure steam engines.

>>3313428
>>3313429
>>3313432
>>3313476
Thanks everyone.

>>3313416
Ever ridden a car over cobblestone? Rails make the movement much easier.

>>3313429
>legal framework
What do you mean ?

>>3315612
..

Millions of years of evolution created a super fast, very complex, biological speed demon.

>why couldn't humans make sething as fast in a few thousand years?!?!

>>3315668
I assume he means company bonds system (to raise the money for this kind of large work). As well as eminent domain laws to get the land to build the railways.

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>>3315845
This

Why does no one realize that horses are LITERAL DEMONS?! Just look at those things!
They could kill a man with ease if they wanted, they are tall and they are very fast.
They don't even have any fur to hide their grotesque body.

Show me one animal that does look more like a demon than a fucking horse.

[spoiler]Don't forget their demon dongs holy shit[/spoiler]

>>3317465
Horses have fur, what are you talking about?

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>>3313294
>Light the fucking fuses, Huang.
>Pls, no. This is stupid.
>STFU Bitch, its alchemy, you wouldn't understand.

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>>3317554
NOT ENOUGH

>>3313324

Efficient steam engines were not a thing before James Watt.

>>3313432
railroads still existed before that

>>3317716
Shitty iron ones yea

>>3313324
The Romans had carts on rails in their mines. Not exactly a cross-country railroad, but it IS rail transportation.

What confuses the shit out of me is that the bicycle took so long to invent.
>wheel invented in ~4500BC
>bicycle invented in 1817
Why? It can't be a lack of technology, bikes are simple as shit. Two wheels on a frame. That's it. They don't need (relatively) high-tech materials either; rubber tires are nice but not essential. You don't need steel for the chain either, plant fiber rope would work fine.

>>3318752
shocks
comfortable seat
roads not made out of ass cobblestone
roads not made out of mud
horses

>>3318779
>shocks
not 100% required. They had carts without them.

>comfortable seat
They had saddles since ~700BC. There's no reason to think they couldn't put a seat on a wooden frame.

>roads
Bikes can go off-road fine. Most roads also were not cobblestone, but instead were hard packed dirt.

>horses
way, way more expensive than a bicycle. You don't need to feed a bicycle.

>>3318662
7000 miles existed in britain by the 1850s and 9000 in the US. a small number but still impressive considering it had been invented a few decades earlier

>>3317566
>welcome to Jackass

>>3318802
Biggest thing is incredibly fine metalwork, to make the thing light enough to move, nevermind be able to turn.

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>>3319402

The earliest bicycles were made of wood and had no drive mechanism whatsoever.