Next time you go on a train, try to imagine what the landscape was like before the railways came along. All those bridges, tunnels and stations give the impression that they have been there forever, don’t they?

As you travel in your comfortable carriage, it probably never crosses your mind that the place where you’re sitting might once have been impenetrable forest, rocks or marshland. Our ancestors started building the railways more than 170 years ago, and not only did they build them well, they managed to do so without diggers, electricity and mobile telephones. The work they did has been immensely useful, and it may well serve us into the next century. There are other oldenday inventions we still use today – the book, for instance. The book allows us to enter the mind of another person, or to travel in time. So there’s nothing to stop us visiting the railway builders of the distant past!