The aeolipile was a toy - essentially an unsealed kettle on an axle. It had no mechanisms for building up pressure that could actually do some work. Their metal

The aeolipile was a toy - essentially an unsealed kettle on an axle. It had no mechanisms for building up pressure that could actually do some work. Their metal working wasn't good enough to build precision machinery at scale and their steel production was virtually non-existent compared with the amount you'd need to make a railway. There also wasn't an economic incentive - transport involved crossing hard mountainous terrain or - more usually - coastal trading. And they didn't have large quantities of co-located iron and coal.