Read and translate the text. Track of a sort had been developed over two centuries, culminating in the use of the iron rail by the end of the eighteenth century

Track of a sort had been developed over two centuries, culminating in the use of the iron rail by the end of the eighteenth century. Steam locomotives had gradually evolved from the static engines of the mid-1700s, through the experiments by Trevithick and Watt in the late 1700s and the primitive machines of Murray and other engineers, to the improvements evolved by George Stephenson, in developing what became the universal pattern for the railway locomotive.

Wagons running on tracks for the transport of coal, stone and so on had been used for nearly 300 years, but passenger carriages, specifically for railway use, had not been seen before. Indeed, with horse traction employed on the first lines there was hardly any difference between road and rail carriages. With the adoption of steam locomotives which could haul far greater loads, several carriages could be coupled together to form a train. It was soon realized that it was not necessary to provide individual wheels to each single carriage body and two or three bodies were mounted together on one underframe to form a longer carriage with separate compartments. Thus was born the traditional British compartment carriage which disappeared not far ago from the railway scene.