I have recently read in The Book of Secrets that the first time the steam locomotive started in England no one was willing to sit in it even after being paid money to do so becuase no one thought it would stop once started. In the end, it was proved by having 12 prisoners ride in it. Is this story true? I have my doubts since I cant find any similar info on the web.
Do you know what happened in England? When the first train started, no one was ready to sit in it -- no one! Many people were persuaded, bribed, they were given money to sit in the train, but at the last point they escaped. They said, "Firstly, steam cannot do such miracles. Such a simple thing as steam cannot do such miracles. And if the engine starts, that means that the devil is at work somewhere. The devil is running the thing, it is not the steam. And what is the guarantee that once the thing starts you will be capable of stopping it?"
So twelve criminals from the jail were brought as passengers. Anyhow they were going to die, anyhow they were sentenced to death, so there was no problem if the train was not going to stop. Then the mad driver who thought that it was going to stop, the scientist who had invented it and these twelve passengers who were anyhow going to be killed, they alone would all be killed. "Such a simple thing as steam," they said at that time. But now no one says this, because now it is working and you know it.