Great innovations in travel: Steam Power

Modern travel would not exist today if it were not for steam power.

Steam power, really, you said? Heating water to create energy, and how does this concern how we travel – which is by plane, by train (electrically powered), and by car?

Well, steam power brought about trains and, thus, mass travel.

In truth, steam power was initially not for travel but for pumping water out of flooded mines. Steam-powered trains followed suit shortly thereafter.

The first trains transported goods – out of those mines and beyond. But those trains stayed idle on Sundays. So around 1820, they got re-purposed for the transport of people. And here comes a fascinating travel-specific innovation. I learned about it attending a business meeting with Thomas Cook some years ago (before that company so incomprehensibly chopped off its own head).

In England, north of London, around coal mines, people like Thomas Cook worried that workers misused their leisure time to go to the pub on Sundays. Soon Thomas Cook and the local temperance society hired trains to travel mine workers to transport them to the healthy open air – and to keep them away from pubs on Sundays.

Soon other private train companies followed suit – offering to transport people long distances to exotic destinations. Meanwhile, Thomas Cook became a travel agency, taking wealthy (this time) clients on overseas trips.

By 1850, steam power also accelerated sea travel. Considerably. Cutting the trans-Atlantic crossing from 40 days to 16 days on average. The initial big trade name here was Cunard until two new competitors went into business in the year 1850.

And how does this matter to travel? Well, in two ways. First, many, many more people travel. And second, they travel faster. And so they can travel more often. Explore more destinations.

Modern Tourism wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for steam power.

And yet, the invention of steam power is what first made mass travel as we know it today. And that never ceases to fascinate me.