190th Anniversary of 1st railway line in Continental Europe

Belgium also had a lot of private railways (the last one closed in the 1950ies). The idea the government had was to kind of start the process by constructing a couple of lines, and have the private sector do the rest. Interestingly in the beginning the emphasis was on freight, hence the original network had Mechelen as a central hub, not Brussels.

From 1787 in German industrial Ruhr area operated the first rail network of horse-pulled wagons on iron-ways.

In December of same year 1835 the German Adler was starting to connect Fürth with Nuremburg. More details in German language.

I don't want to be too nitpicky, like pointing out that railway should really be 'steam-powered railway' or 'machine-powered railway' since it is true that before this time animals and humans were used to move cars on rails.,
but it seems a bit odd to say that Germany was doing anything in 1787 or 1835 when there was no "Germany" before 1871.

Maybe you meant Bavaria?

It's also interesting to tease out the connections between mining engineering, railroad engineering, and skyscrapers -- elevators are derived from mining and railroad technology.

Of all the many things that happened on past May 5ths, I chose a railroad-related one purposely in order to pander to Nigel, but I think he is on the road, so perhaps not checking the forum so often....