 John Birkinshaw

John Birkinshaw was a 19th-century railway engineer from Bedlington, Northumberland noted for his invention of wrought iron rails in 1820 (patented on October 23, 1820 

Up to this point, rail systems had used either wooden rails, which were totally incapable of supporting steam engines, or cast iron rails typically only 3 feet in length.These cast iron rails, developed by William Jessop and others, only allowed very low speeds and broke easily and although steam locomotives had been tested as early as 1804 by Richard Trevithick, these experiments had not been economically successful as the rails frequently broke.