"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 he 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 "the 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 tram-road 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," as the locomotive was called—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 in 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 constructer counted it a success. It proved, however, unsteady and unreliable, and at last blew up, which was the end of it.
What did George think then? He more than ever wanted to try his hand at the business. Lord Ravensworth, knowing enough of Stephenson to have faith in him, hearing of this, advanced means for the enterprise. Good tools and good workmen were alike wanting; but after much labour, alteration, and anxiety, in ten months' time the engine was completed and put on the railway, July 25, 1814.
Although the best yet made, it was awkward and slow. It carried eight loaded waggons of thirty tons weight at a speed not above four miles an hour. The want of springs occasioned a vast deal of jolting, which damaged the machinery, and at the close of a year's trial it was found about as costly as horse-power.
How to increase the power of his engine? that was the puzzling question which George studied to answer. He wrestled with it day and night, and at length determined to try again. In due time another was built, "Puffing Billy," which most persons looked upon as a marvel; but, shaking their heads, they prophesied it would make a terrible blow-up some day. "Puffing Billy," however, went to work, and worked steadily on—a vast advance on all preceding attempts. It attracted little or no attention outside the narrow circle of the collieries. The great men of England did not know that, in a far-off nook of the realm, there was slowly generating a power, under the persistent thought of an humble working-man, which before many years would revolutionize the trade of the kingdom, and create a new source of wealth.
GEORGE STEPHENSON'S FIRST ENGINE.