"There's mischief in those tramroads," said a large canal owner, foreseeing they would one day push canal stock quite out of the market.
Improvements thus far had centred on the roads. To convey heavy loads easier and faster was the point aimed at. Nobody had yet thought of self-going teams. Watt, the father of steam-engines, said steam-carriages might be built. He, however, never tried one; but rather left the idea to sprout in the brain of an old pupil of his, William Murdock, who did construct a very small one, running on thin wheels, and heated by a lamp. It was a curious success in its way, and set other minds thinking.
One of these was a tin-miner of Cornwall, Captain Trevethick, a friend of Murdock, who joined a cousin of his in getting a patent for building a steam-carriage. It was built, and an odd piece of machinery it was. It ran on four wheels over a common road, looked like a stage-coach, and delighted both the inventor and his friends. They determined to exhibit it at London. While on its journey, driving it one day at the top of its speed, they saw a toll-gate in the distance; not being able to check it in time, bump it went against the gate, which flew open in a trice, leaving the affrighted tollman, in answer to their inquiries, "How much to pay?" only able to gasp out, "No—noth-ing to pay—drive off as fast as you can! nothing to pay!"
It reached London in safety, and was some time on exhibition. Multitudes flocked to see it, and some called it a "fiery dragon."
"Ah," said Sir Humphrey Davy, very much interested in the invention, "I hope to see the captain's 'dragons' on all the roads of England yet."
But the captain exhibited it only as a curiosity, the unevenness of the roads rendering it for all practical purposes a failure; and the captain had neither pluck nor genius enough to lay or clear a track for it himself. This was in 1803.
The idea, however, was in England, lodging itself here and there in busy brains; until at last a colliery owner in Newcastle, seeing the great advantage of having a locomotive on his tram-roads, determined to try what he could do. Accordingly he had one built after the Cornish captain's model. It burst up at starting. Noways baffled, he tried again. The engine proved a clumsy affair, moved at a snail's pace, often got off the rails, and at length, voted by the workmen a "perfect plague," it was taken off. The unsuccessful inventor was called a fool by his neighbours, and his efforts an apt illustration that "a fool and his money are soon parted." In spite of failure, Mr. Blackett had faith that the thing could be done. He built a third, and ran it on the tramroad that passed by old Bob Stephenson's cottage door. And George at his colliery, seven miles off, as you may suppose, listened to every account of it with profound interest. Over he went, as often as he could, to see "Black Billy," a rough specimen of machinery at best, doing very little service beyond what a good horse could do.
George carried "Black Billy" back in his mind to Killingworth, studying its defects and laying plans to improve it. I do not know how long he was coming to it, but he at length gave it as his opinion that he could make a better "travelling engine" than that.
Tidings came to Killingworth about this time that the trial of a new engine was to take place on a certain day at Leeds, and George did not lose the chance of being present. Though the engine moved no faster than three miles an hour, its constructor counted it a success. It proved, however, unsteady and unreliable, and at last blew up, which was the end of it.