This illustration is dated less than one year after the line’s opening. Very soon the trains were carrying people and a bewildering array of goods and animals between two of the most important cities in industrializing England. While costly and at first temperamental, trains would radically reduce transportation costs. The distance between Liverpool and Manchester is about 35 miles. By 1900, over 250,000 miles of track had stitched the world together, enough to go around the world more than ten times!