Ludwigsbahn, Germany's first steam railway

On 7 December 1835 the Adler, a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson's works in Newcastle and driven by the Englishman William Wilson, hauled the first train along the six-kilometre Ludwigsbahn from Nuremberg to Fürth. It was the first steam railway in the German states to carry passengers, and within a few decades railways had bound those states into a single economy.