The year 1837 introduced a period of great depression in all branches of industry, which continued until the year 1840, or later, and seriously checked all kinds of manufacturing, including the building of locomotives. On the revival of business, numbers of new locomotive-works were started, and in these establishments originated many new types of engine, each of the more successful of which was adapted to some peculiar set of conditions. This variety of type is still seen on nearly all of the principal roads.
The direction of change in the construction of locomotive-engines at the period at which this division of the subject terminates is very well indicated in a letter from Robert Stephenson to Robert L. Stevens, dated 1833, which is now preserved at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He writes: “I am sorry that the feeling in the United States in favor of light railways is so general. In England we are making every succeeding railway stronger and more substantial.” He adds: “Small engines are losing ground, and large ones are daily demonstrating that powerful engines are the most economical.” He gives a sketch of his latest engine, weighing nine tons, and capable, as he states, of “taking 100 tons, gross load, at the rate of 16 or 17 miles an hour on a level.” To-day there are engines built weighing 70 tons, and our locomotive-builders have standard sizes guaranteed to draw over 2,000 tons on a good and level track.
[44] Vide “Theatrum Machinarum,” vol. iii., Tab. 30.
[45] Evans’s prediction is less remarkable than that of Darwin, [elsewhere] quoted.
[46] See “Life of Trevithick.”
[47] For a detailed account of the progress of steam on the highway, see “Steam on Common Roads,” etc., by Young, Holley, & Fisher, London, 1861.
[48] “Life of Trevithick.”
[49] Printed by T. & J. Swords, 160 Pearl Street, New York, 1812.
[50] “Progress of the City of New York.”