STEPHENSON SOLVES THE PROBLEM
Stephenson was born on June 9, 1781, in the small colliery village of Wylam, on the river Tyne. His parents were extremely poor, and as the boy was sent to work as soon as he was large enough to find employment of any kind, he was given no education, even to the extent of learning the alphabet. It was only after he had spent many years in the colliery, and had finally worked himself up from the position of "picker" at three pence a day to that of fireman, that he was able to spend the necessary time and pennies to acquire something of an education. Then he attended a night school, learned his alphabet, was able to scrawl his name at eighteen years of age, and a little later could read, write, and do sums in arithmetic.
But if deficient in letters, there was one field in which he had no superior,—that was in the practical handling of a steam-engine. His position in the mine gave him a chance to study the workings of the engines then in use, and at every opportunity, on holidays and after working-hours, he was in the habit of dismantling his engine, and carefully studying every detail of its construction. Thus by the time he had reached his majority he was a skillful engineer, besides having many new ideas that had developed during his examinations of the machinery. But besides his knowledge of engineering, he was an accomplished workman in other fields. He was a good shoemaker, watch-and clock-repairer, and tailors' cutter, at all of which trades he worked at odd times to increase his income. Thus he was a veritable jack-of-all-trades; with the unusual qualification, that he was master of one.
By the time he was twenty-six years old he was holding the position of engineer to a coal-mining company, and had acquired the confidence of his employers to such an extent that he was permitted to build a locomotive for them—a thing that had been his ambition for several years. This was in 1807, the same year that Robert Fulton demonstrated the possibilities of steam navigation.
In the construction of this engine Stephenson introduced several novel features of his own inventing, although on the whole no new principles were involved; and in practice this engine showed several points of superiority over its predecessors. It would draw eight loaded wagons of thirty tons' weight at the rate of four miles an hour on an ascending grade of one in four hundred and fifty feet. But it had two very radical defects—it would not keep up steam and the noise of the steam-pipe exhausting into the open air frightened the horses of the neighborhood to such a degree that the authorities ordered the inventor either to stop running his engine, or suppress its noise. As an experiment, therefore, Stephenson arranged the exhaust pipes so that they opened into the smokestack, where the sound would be muffled. But when the engine was now tried he found to his surprise that this single expedient had solved both difficulties, the exhausting steam causing such an improvement in the draught of his furnace that double the quantity of steam was generated. This discovery helped to simplify later experiments, for the difficulty of keeping up steam had been one of the great obstacles encountered by the inventors.
Stephenson's second locomotive was an improvement over his first in many ways, but it was still far from being the practical machine that was to supplant horse-power. It could haul heavier loads than teams of horses, and was more convenient for certain purposes; but it was no more economical.
As yet the only use to which locomotives had been put was that of hauling cars in coal-mines. Indeed, the only railroads then constructed were those used in mines, the idea of utilizing such roads for passenger and freight traffic not having occurred to anyone until about 1820. Then the Englishman, Thomas Gray, suggested the construction of such a road between Liverpool and Manchester, advocating steam as the motive power. His idea was looked upon as visionary, and as he persisted in his efforts to interest prominent people in the scheme, he came to be very generally regarded as an enthusiastic but somewhat crackbrained fanatic.
But meanwhile the coal railroads were being extended to such lengths that they were assuming the proportions of modern railroads. The motive power on most of the roads was horses, although here and there a traction engine using chain or cable, was employed for certain purposes. In 1825, however, Stephenson began the construction of an improved locomotive, this time at his own modest establishment; and a little later this engine made the trial that really demonstrated the possibilities of steam locomotion, although this was not universally recognized until the success of the Rocket a few years later.
A great deal of excitement and speculation arose throughout the country when the trial day approached. Great crowds assembled from every direction to witness the trial; some, more sanguine, came to witness the success, but far the greater portion came to see the bubble burst. The proceedings began at Busselton incline, where the stationary engine drew a train up the incline on one side and let it down on the other. The wagons were then loaded.
"At the foot of this plane a locomotive, driven by Mr. Stephenson himself, was attached to the train. It consisted of six wagons loaded with coal and flour, next a passenger coach (the first ever run upon a railroad) filled with the directors and their friends, then twenty wagons fitted up with temporary seats for passengers, and lastly came six wagons loaded with coal, making in all twenty-eight vehicles. The word being given that all was ready, the engine began to move, gradually at first, but afterward, in part of the road, attaining a speed of twelve miles an hour. At that time the number of passengers amounted to four hundred and fifty, which would, with the remainder of the load, amount to upwards of ninety tons. The train arrived at Darlington, eight and three-quarter miles, in sixty-five minutes. Here it was stopped and a fresh supply of water obtained, the six coal-cars for Darlington detached, and the word given to go ahead. The engine started, and arrived at Stockton, twelve miles, in three hours and seven minutes including stoppages. By the time the train reached Stockton the number of passengers amounted to over six hundred."
From this description it will be seen that the coal roads had been extended to form interurban railways. In this connection it is interesting to note the increase of traffic that developed on this particular road in the years immediately following the invention of the practical locomotive. When the road was projected it was estimated that its maximum carrying capacity would not exceed 10,000 tons of coal yearly. A few years later, when locomotives had come into use, the regular yearly carriage amounted to 500,000 tons.
A CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN LOCOMOTIVE BUILDING.
Fig. 1.—The Blenkinsop locomotive, built in 1812–13 to work on the rack Railway between Leeds and the Middleton colliery, a distance of 3.5 miles. This was the first commercially successful enterprise in which steam locomotives were employed. Fig. 2.—Model of locomotive engine No. 1 of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, England, built by Messrs R. Stevenson & Company in 1825. This engine ran successfully for 21 years. Fig. 3.—The locomotive "Royal George" which worked on the Stockton and Darlington Railway 1827–1842. It will be observed that each of these engines antedated Stevenson's famous "Rocket." Fig. 4.—Shows, by way of contrast with these earliest types of locomotive, the "Twentieth Century Limited" train of the New York Central Railroad, and a racing automobile, either of which can easily make better time than a mile a minute, as against the two or three miles per hour of their prototypes.
The passenger coach on this first train, the first of its kind ever constructed for the special purpose of carrying passengers, was remarkable for its simplicity. One writer described it as "a modest and uncouth-looking affair, made more for strength than for beauty. A row of seats ran along each side of the interior, and a long table was fixed in the centre, the access being by the doorway behind, like an omnibus. This vehicle was named the Experiment, and was the only carriage for passengers upon the road for some time."
About this time the now famous Liverpool and Manchester Railway was projected. It was elaborately planned and carried out at an enormous expense. The construction of the road-bed was given special attention, although as yet the question of what motive power should be used had not been decided. Most of the directors and engineers favored the use of horses. The few that were in favor of steam did not favor the use of locomotives, but a system that would now be called a relay-cable system. According to this plan the road of about thirty miles was to be divided into nineteen sections, over each of which a stationary steam-engine was to work a chain or cable. But when the board of engineers appointed to investigate the possibilities of this system reported on the matter, it was found that there were several vital defects in such a system. For example, should any one of the sections of cable break or become inoperative, the entire line would have to stand idle; and furthermore, the cost of building and maintaining these nineteen stations offered serious financial obstacles.
It is an interesting fact that until the report of this board was made "not a single professional man of eminence could be found who preferred the locomotive over the fixed engine, George Stephenson only excepted." But with the glaring defects of the cable road, and the enormous cost of maintenance impressed upon the directors, the idea of the locomotive became at once more attractive, and the performance of Stephenson's locomotive was more carefully investigated. The upshot of these investigations was the offer of a prize of £500 for a locomotive that, on a certain day would perform certain duties named under the eight following headings:—
1. The engine must effectually consume its own smoke.
2. The engine, if of six tons' weight, must be able to draw, day by day, twenty tons' weight, including the tender, and water-tank, at ten miles an hour, with a pressure of steam upon the boiler not exceeding fifty pounds to the square inch.
3. The boiler must have two safety-valves, neither of which must be fastened down, and one of them completely out of the control of the engineer.
4. The engine and boiler must be supported upon springs and rest on six wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding fifteen feet to the top of the chimney.
5. The engine with water must not weigh more than six tons, but an engine of less weight would be preferred although drawing a proportionately less load behind it; if of only four and one-half tons it might be put on four wheels.
6. A mercurial gauge must be affixed to the machine, showing the steam pressure about forty-five pounds to the square inch.
7. The engine must be delivered, complete and ready for trial, at the Liverpool end of the railway, not later than October 1, 1829.
8. The price of the engine must not exceed £550.
What strikes one as most peculiar in this set of requirements and specifications is the first clause—that of the engine consuming its own smoke; for even at the present time this is considered a difficult problem. But this was not so considered by the inventors of that time, their great stumbling-block being the high speed required. Ten miles an hour struck most of them as absurd and out of the question.
One eminent person, who was to become later one of England's leading engineers, stated publicly that "if it proved to be possible to make a locomotive go ten miles an hour, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel for his breakfast." It is not recorded whether or not this terrible threat was carried out.
But there was more than one engineer and engine-builder who took a more sanguine view of the prize offer. The firm of Braithwait & Ericsson signified its intention of competing, with a locomotive that they named the Novelty. Another firm entered the contest with an engine called the Sans-pareil; still another firm entered the Perseverance; and George Stephenson was on hand with the now-famous Rocket.
In the series of trials that followed, the Sans-pareil and the Perseverance were so clearly outclassed by the other two competing locomotives that they need not be considered here; but the Novelty and the Rocket were close competitors. The Novelty, indeed, made such a good showing, and afterwards proved to be such a good locomotive, that although it lost the contest, many competent judges have since regarded it as equal to the Rocket, if not superior, in principle. Be that as it may, later experiments proved conclusively that the cause of failure on the final day of the prize contest was due to defects in workmanship rather than to defective principle of construction.
The Novelty has been described as having the appearance of "a milk-can set in the rear end of a wagon, with a little smokestack in front looking like a high dashboard." It carried its supply of fuel and water in the "wagon-box" part of the engine frame, in front of the boiler, so that it required no tender. On its first trial, running without any load, it reached a speed of twenty-four miles an hour—a speed more than double the "stewed engine-wheel" limit. But at each subsequent trial, although it hauled loads for short distances, some part of its machinery became disabled, so that it was necessarily regarded as inferior to its more stable rival, the Rocket.
CUGNOT'S TRACTION ENGINE AND THE "NOVELTY" LOCOMOTIVE.
These vehicles are shown together here because of their similarity of plan of construction. Cugnot's original engine (upper figure) was built in France in 1769. The vehicle shown above was made in 1770, after Cugnot's designs, for the French Government. It was intended for the transportation of artillery, and the specifications called for a carrying capacity of about 4-1/2 tons and a speed of 2-1/4 miles per hour on level ground. Cugnot's original engine had attained this speed on a common road while carrying four persons; notwithstanding which fact the machine above shown was for some reason never given a trial. It is now preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. It is particularly noteworthy that the successful road engine of Cugnot was constructed in 1769, the year in which James Watt took out the first patents on his steam engine. Just 60 years elapsed before Stephenson's "Rocket" convinced the world of the feasibility of transportation by steam-power.
The locomotive shown in the lower figure competed in the famous tests of 1829 against the "Rocket" and the "Sans Pareil." It excited much interest, attaining a speed of almost 32 miles per hour when running light, but owing to breakdowns was unable to fulfill the required tests and was therefore withdrawn from the competition. It was afterwards used commercially.
The Sans-pareil was considerably over the maximum weight and according to a strict interpretation of the stipulations, should not have been allowed to contest; but although this question of over-weight was waived by the judges, and the engine given a fair trial, it showed such a capacity for consuming fuel without any corresponding ability to perform work, that it was decided inferior to the Novelty and the Rocket. The Perseverance was clearly outclassed by all the other competing engines, as its maximum speed was only five or six miles an hour.
The most consistent performer, and the final prize-winner, as everyone knows, was Stephenson's Rocket, the direct ancestor of all modern locomotives. The boiler of this locomotive was horizontal, as in modern locomotives, cylindrical, and had flat ends. It was six feet in length and a little over three feet in diameter. The upper half of the boiler was used as a reservoir for steam, the lower half being filled with water and having copper pipes running through it. The fire-box, two feet wide and three feet high, was placed immediately behind the boiler. Just above this, and on each side, were the cylinders, two in number, acting obliquely downward on the two front wheels of the engine, the piston-rod connecting with the driver by a bar pinned to the outside of the wheel, as in modern American locomotives.
The engine with its load of water weighed a trifle over four tons—seemingly little more than a toy-locomotive, as compared with the modern monsters more than thirty times that weight. But for its size the little Rocket was a marvelous performer, even as judged by recent standards. On the first day of the contests over the two miles of trial tracks, it covered twelve miles in considerably less than an hour, shuttling back and forth over the road. The next day, as none of the other engines was in condition to exhibit, Stephenson offered to satisfy the curiosity of the great crowd that had gathered—a crowd that contained representatives from all over the world—by an unofficial trial of the Rocket. He coupled the little engine to a car, loaded on thirty-six passengers, and took them for a spin over the road at the rate of from twenty-six to thirty miles an hour.
The following day some of the competing locomotives were still unable to exhibit, and again the Rocket was given a semi-official trial. Hauling a car loaded with thirteen tons' weight, it ran back and forth over the two-mile road, covering thirty-five miles in one hour and forty-eight minutes including stoppages. The maximum velocity attained was about twenty-nine miles an hour. As this performance was duplicated on the day of the official trial, the Rocket was declared the winner, and awarded the prize.
THE FAMOUS LOCOMOTIVES "ROCKET" AND "SANS PAREIL."
Stevenson's celebrated "Rocket" is known to everyone as the winner of the competition for the prize of 500 pounds offered in 1829 by the Directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The "Sans Pareil," which, like the "Rocket," is still preserved at the South Kensington Museum in London, competed unsuccessfully for the prize. Though not equal to the "Rocket" it was in many respects a well-made locomotive. It was purchased by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company and saw many years of active service.
Naturally there were many minor defects in the construction of this first locomotive, although most of them were too trivial and unimportant to affect the excellence of the machine as a whole. But it had one serious defect: the inclination of the cylinders caused the entire machine to rise and fall on its springs at every double stroke, producing great unsteadiness when running at any considerable speed. This was corrected a few months later by the suggestion of Timothy Hackworth, who drew plans for a locomotive having horizontal cylinders to be used on the Stockton & Darlington Railway. His plans were submitted to Stephenson, who constructed an engine from them called the Globe, which differed from the Rocket in having the cylinders not only horizontal, but placed on the inside of the wheels. A little later Stephenson built the Planet on much the same lines as the Globe, and this engine became the model for engine builders the world over. It is an interesting fact that American engineers adopted, and still cling to, Stephenson's original plan of having the cylinders act on rods attached to the outside of the wheels as in the Rocket, while English engineers have always built their locomotives with the cylinders on the inside, as arranged on the Planet.
Since the time of the Planet the general shape and arrangement of most locomotives has remained unchanged. In America the inclemencies of the climate compelled the invention of the cab; and it was here also that the bell, whistle, pilot, and sand-box were first introduced. But by 1850 the present type of locomotive had been produced; and although constant modifications are being introduced, the general appearance of the locomotive remains the same, the difference being mostly in the bulk.