Before the railway, canals were king.
Gerald England/Wikimedia Commons
Gerald England/Wikimedia Commons
For a brief period, a system of canals of purpose-built canals and waterways flourished around England, designed to take raw goods to industrial centers throughout the country.
This era was short-lived, however, as technological advances like the railway rendered these canals obsolete. Many of them still exist, but in the vast majority of cases, it’s been decades — if not a century — since they were used to transport significant goods. They’re now home mostly to pleasure boats.