The boiler was fastened on the front of the car, which moved on three wheels—the steam acted only on the foremost wheel.
The speed of Cugnot's locomotive was about three miles an hour. On the first trial it ran into a building and was broken to pieces.
In 1784 the famous Watt patented a steam locomotive engine in England, which, however, never was put to use.
In 1802, Trevethick and Vivian patented a locomotive, which, in 1804, traveled at the rate of five miles an hour, drawing behind it a load of ten tons of coal.
Several other "traveling engines," as they were then styled, were invented by other mechanical engineers with only moderate success, it being reserved for Stephenson, in 1811, to build the first locomotive that should prove of practical use.
About this time a man named Thomas Gray, of Nottingham, England, brought upon himself the contempt and ridicule of the whole English nation by pushing forward the idea of the locomotive in connection with coal mines.
Old No. 1.
"It is all very well to spend money on these railway schemes," said a member of parliament about that time referring to Gray's projects, "it will do some good to the poor, but I will eat all the coals your railways will ever carry."
127,000,000 tons were carried recently in one year, on English railroads alone. What a tough time this parliamentary slow coach would have had to swallow all that!