Ask anyone whom they think built the first railway locomotive and they will probably say George Stephenson. But, in fact, the railway locomotives are invented by Richard Trevithick and first demonstrated in February 1804.
Richard Trevithick (England) was born in the heart of the Cornish tin-mining area. His father was a mine manager, and Trevithick duly become a mining engineer; devoting his talents to the improvement of the steam engine. At the time James Watt (Scotland, known as the father of steam) had a virtual monopoly on stationery steam engines, but Trevithick demonstrated that steam could be used at far greater pressures than Watt had envisaged, a considerable advance in steam technology that led directly to the development of steam locomotives.