Перевести текст, ))0) railways before the steam engine was invented long before the invention of the steam engine, goods had been carried in trucks with wheels that ran on parallel rails. in the middle ages, goods were carried in baskets on the backs of horses. stone, slate, and coal were very heavy goods for horses to carry in this way, and in germany a simple railway was in use in the early part of the sixteenth century. the trucks were pushed by men, for already they had found that the wheels moved more easily on rails than on the rough roads of those days. we know this from a book which was published in 1556 with pictures and diagrams of how they worked. here you can see a miner pushing a wagon of ore out of a mine. in england rails were first laid in the newcastle district, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were also short lines in north wales to carry slate, near bath for stone and in south wales for coal and iron. it was the coal trade in the newcastle district which led to the laying down of miles of rails. there were always boats arriving to fetch the coal and you can see how much more coal could be moved by one horse in this way than by pannier baskets.