railway operations. For example, in 1815, Johann Friedrich Krigar (de) built a copy of the Blenkinsop steam engine at the Royal Iron Foundry (de), Berlin, for Königshütte in Upper Silesia; and, in 1818, he built another locomotive for the 1.8-kilometre-long Friederiken-Schienenweg (de), a coal line near Geislautern in the Saarland, which had been converted in 1821 from wooden to iron rails. This engine worked, but failed to meet expectations due to its poor performance. Railways before 1871 In the first half of the 19th century, opinions about the emerging railways in Germany varied widely. While business-minded people like Friedrich Harkort and Friedrich List saw in the railway the possibility of stimulating the economy and overcoming the patronization of little states, and were already starting railway construction in the 1820s and early 1830s, others feared the fumes and smoke generated by locomotives or saw their own livelihoods threatened by them. Development The political disunity of three dozen states and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s but the growing importance of the Zollverein made the construction of a coherent infrastructure a necessity. The initial impetus to build was hampered by complicated negotiations on land ownership. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines did link the major cities; each German state being responsible for the lines within its own borders. During the 1820s, the nobility favoured costly and economically inefficient (but prestigious) canal projects over railways. In the 1830s, the growing liberal middle classes supported railways as a progressive innovation with benefits for the German people in general as well as for the shareholders in the joint stock companies that built and operated the railroads. Though private concerns such as the Nuremberg-Fürth Railway were superseded by state railway companies in the 1840s, the government companies copied many of the private companies' methods and organizational structures. Economist Friedrich List, speaking for the liberals, summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in 1841: First, as a means of national defence, it facilitates the concentration, distribution and direction of the army. 2. It is a means to the improvement of the culture of the nation.... It brings talent, knowledge and skill of every kind readily to market. 3. It secures the community against dearth and famine, and against excessive fluctuation in the prices of the necessaries of life. 4. It promotes the spirit of