A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine

by Robert Henry Thurston

A railroad between Manchester and Liverpool had been projected at about the time that the Stockton & Darlington road was commenced. The preliminary surveys had been made in the face of strong opposition, which did not always stop at legal action and verbal attack, but in some instances led to the display of force. The surveyors were sometimes driven from their work by a mob armed with sticks and stones, urged on by land-proprietors and those interested in the lines of coaches on the highway. Before the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railroad, the Liverpool & Manchester bill had been carried through Parliament, after a very determined effort on the part of coach-proprietors and landholders to defeat it, and Stephenson urged the adoption of the locomotive to the exclusion of horses. It was his assertion, made at this time, that he could build a locomotive to run 20 miles an hour, that provoked the celebrated rejoinder of a writer in the Quarterly Review, who was, however, in favor of the construction of the road and of the use of the locomotive upon it: “What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous, than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stage-coaches? We would as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve’s ricochet-rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate.”

It was during his examination before a committee of the House of Commons, during this contest, that Stephenson, when asked, “Suppose, now, one of your engines to be going at the rate of 9 or 10 miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine, would not that be a very awkward circumstance?” replied, “Yes, very awkward—for the coo!” And when asked if men and animals would not be frightened by the red-hot smoke-pipe, answered, “But how would they know that it was not painted?” The line was finally built, with George Rennie as consulting, and Stephenson as principal constructing engineer.

His work on this road became one of the important elements of the success, and one of the great causes of the distinction, which marked the life of these rising engineers. The successful construction of that part of the line which lay across “Chat Moss,” an unfathomable swampy deposit of peat, extending over an area of 12 square miles, and the building of which had been repeatedly declared an impossibility, was in itself sufficient to prove that the engineer who had accomplished it was no common man. Stephenson adopted the very simple yet bold expedient of using, as a filling, compacted turf and peat, and building a road-bed of materials lighter than water, or the substance composing the bog, and thus forming a floating embankment, on which he laid his rails. To the surprise of every one but Stephenson himself, the plan proved perfectly successful, and even surprisingly economical, costing but little more than one-tenth the estimate of at least one engineer. Among the other great works on this remarkable pioneer-line were the tunnel, a mile and a half long, from the station at Liverpool to Edgehill; the Olive Mount deep-cut, two miles long, and in some places 100 feet deep, through red sandstone, of which nearly 500,000 yards were removed; the Sankey Viaduct, a brick structure of nine arches, of 50 feet span each, costing £45,000; and a number of other pieces of work which are noteworthy in even these days of great works.

Stephenson planned all details of the line, and even designed the bridges, machinery, engines, turn-tables, switches, and crossings, and was responsible for every part of the work of their construction.

Finally, the work of building the line approached completion, and it became necessary promptly to settle the long-deferred question of a method of applying motive-power. Some of the directors and their advisers still advocated the use of horses; many thought stationary hauling-engines preferable; and the remainder were, almost to a man, undecided. The locomotive had no outspoken advocate, and few had the slightest faith in it. George Stephenson was almost alone, and the opponents of steam had secured a provision in the Newcastle & Carlisle Railroad concession, stipulating expressly that horses should there be exclusively employed. The directors did, however, in 1828, permit Stephenson to put on the line a locomotive, to be used, during its construction, in hauling gravel-trains. A committee was sent, at Stephenson’s request, to see the Stockton & Darlington engines, but no decided expression of opinion seems to have been made by them. Two well-known professional engineers reported in favor of fixed engines, and advised the division of the line into 19 stages of about a mile and a half each, and the use of 21 fixed engines, although they admitted the excessive first-cost of that system. The board was naturally strongly inclined to adopt their plan. Stephenson, however, earnestly and persistently opposed such action, and, after long debate, it was finally determined “to give the traveling engine a chance.” The board decided to offer a reward of £500 for the best locomotive-engine, and prescribed the following conditions:

1. The engine must consume its own smoke.

2. The engine, if of 6 tons weight, must be able to draw after it, day by day, 20 tons weight (including the tender and water-tank) at 10 miles an hour, with a pressure of steam on the boiler not exceeding 50 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 engine-man.

4. The engine and boiler must be supported on springs, and rest on 6 wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding 15 feet to the top of the chimney.

5. The engine, with water, must not weigh more than 6 tons; but an engine of less weight would be preferred, on its drawing a proportionate load behind it; if of only 41∕2 tons, then it might be put only on 4 wheels. The company to be at liberty to test the boiler, etc., by a pressure of 150 pounds to the square inch.