The Eagle

On 7 December 1835, the history of the railway in Germany began with the inaugural journey of the “Königl. privilegierte Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft” between the Bavarian industrial cities of Nuremberg and Führt. The locomotive “The Eagle” came from England from the factory of R. Stephenson. The carriages, similar to the stagecoaches, were built by local wheelwrights.

The almost straight track of the Ludwigsbahn was 6 km long. It was not connected to railway lines built later.

Contemporary witnesses report that during the inaugural journey, passengers and spectators were so impressed by the excessive speed of up to 30 km/h that some of them felt dizzy or sick from the sight or the wind of the journey. The cattle in the adjacent pastures reportedly panicked.

The original train is no longer preserved. For the 100th anniversary of the railway in 1935, a prototypical operational replica was built, which survived the Second World War but was almost completely destroyed in a devastating fire at the Nuremberg Railway Museum in 2005. In 2007, the train was restored and delights railway enthusiasts large and small with special trips.

Source: wikipedia