The introduction of railroads in industrialized countries brought about changes such as:
- Optimization in the shipping of goods over long distances, this is, goods could be shipped in a much shorter time, hours or days, instead of weeks or months, which greatly reduced the retail price of products.
- Enabled people living in the countryside to emigrate in large amounts to the cities in search of jobs in the factories.
- Helped boost up the economy of the towns and cities located along the railways.
- Greatly cut down on the time required by people to travel from one end of a country to the other which promoted a large amount of business to be carried out.
- Provided a land means of transportation that could operarte almost under any climate condition, unlike horse-driven vehicles that were unable to traverse roads in rainy or snowy seasons.