Previous to the 18th century Europe did not have the metallurgy to work out the railway concept. I suspect the general idea was already around even in Antiquity but circumstances too sketchy and chaotic. The Greeks had already developed a sophisticated clock mechanism, I assume in brass.

Credit the Orient ca. 800 AD for innovations that encouraged metallurgy: gunpowder that made guns and cannons possible and paper that made printing presses possible.

Workers at Notre Dame have admitted they lit up on the job.