A toy locomotive – The spread of the railways even had an impact on the world of toys

In the nineteenth century railways transformed the way people travelled and goods were transported. In 1825 the first commercially operated railway line was opened in England. The first long-distance steam railway in the Habsburg Monarchy was the line between Vienna and Brno, opened to traffic in 1839. In the following decades the network, which was financed both by private investors, especially the banks, and by the State, grew to the extent that in 1914 there were almost 23,000 kilometres of railway in the Austrian half of the Habsburg Monarchy.