the tramroad, the other end of which was attached to a train of empty waggons placed at the bottom of the parallel road on the same incline, dragged them up by the simple power of gravity. But this applied only to a comparatively small part of the road. An economical method of working the coal trains, instead of by horses,—the keep of which was at that time very costly, from the high price of corn,—was still a great desideratum; and the best practical minds in the collieries were actively engaged in the attempt to solve the problem.
In the first place Stephenson resolved to make himself thoroughly acquainted with what had already been done. Mr. Blackett’s engines were working daily at Wylam, past the cottage where he had been born; and thither he frequently went to inspect the improvements made by Mr. Blackett from time to time both in the locomotive and in the plateway along which it worked. Jonathan Foster informed us that, after one of these visits, Stephenson declared to him his conviction that a much more effective engine might be made, that should work more steadily and draw the load more effectively.
He had also the advantage, about the same time, of seeing one of Blenkinsop’s Leeds engines, which was placed on the tramway leading from the collieries of Kenton and Coxlodge, on the 2nd September, 1813. This locomotive drew sixteen chaldron waggons containing an aggregate weight of seventy tons, at the rate of about three miles an hour. George Stephenson and several of the Killingworth men were amongst the crowd of spectators that day; and after examining the engine and observing its performances, he observed to his companions, that “he thought he could make a better engine than that, to go upon legs.” Probably he had heard of the invention of Brunton, whose patent had by this time been published, and proved the subject of much curious speculation in the colliery districts. Certain it is, that, shortly after the inspection of the Coxlodge engine, he contemplated the construction of a new
locomotive, which was to surpass all that had preceded it. He observed that those engines which had been constructed up to this time, however ingenious in their arrangements, had proved practical failures. Mr. Blackett’s was as yet both clumsy and expensive. Chapman’s had been removed from the Heaton tramway in 1812, and was regarded as a total failure. And the Blenkinsop engine at Coxlodge was found very unsteady and costly in its working; besides, it pulled the rails to pieces, the entire strain being upon the rack-rail on one side of the road. The boiler, however, having soon after blown up, there was an end of that engine; and the colliery owners did not feel encouraged to try any further experiment.
An efficient and economical working locomotive, therefore, still remained to be invented; and to accomplish this object Mr. Stephenson now applied himself. Profiting by what his predecessors had done, warned by their failures and encouraged by their partial successes, he commenced his labours. There was still wanting the man who should accomplish for the locomotive what James Watt had done for the steam-engine, and combine in a complete form the best points in the separate plans of others, embodying with them such original inventions and adaptations of his own as to entitle him to the merit of inventing the working locomotive, in the same manner as James Watt is to be regarded as the inventor of the working condensing-engine. This was the great work upon which George Stephenson now entered, though probably without any adequate idea of the ultimate importance of his labours to society and civilization.
He proceeded to bring the subject of constructing a “Travelling Engine,” as he then denominated the locomotive, under the notice of the lessees of the Killingworth Colliery, in the year 1813. Lord Ravensworth, the principal partner, had already formed a very favourable opinion of the new engine-wright, from the improvements which he had effected in the colliery engines, both above and below
ground; and, after considering the matter, and hearing Stephenson’s explanations, he authorised him to proceed with the construction of a locomotive,—though his lordship was, by some, called a fool for advancing money for such a purpose. “The first locomotive that I made,” said Stephenson, many years after, [82] when speaking of his early career at a public meeting in Newcastle, “was at Killingworth Colliery, and with Lord Ravensworth’s money. Yes; Lord Ravensworth and partners were the first to entrust me, thirty-two years since, with money to make a locomotive engine. I said to my friends, there was no limit to the speed of such an engine, if the works could be made to stand.”
Our engine-wright had, however, many obstacles to encounter before he could get fairly to work with the erection of his locomotive. His chief difficulty was in finding workmen sufficiently skilled in mechanics, and in the use of tools, to follow his instructions and embody his designs in a practical shape. The tools then in use about the collieries were rude and clumsy; and there were no such facilities as now exist for turning out machinery of an entirely new character. Stephenson was under the necessity of working with such men and tools as were at his command; and he had in a great measure to train and instruct the workmen himself. The engine was built in the workshops at the West Moor, the leading mechanic employed being the colliery blacksmith, an excellent workman in his way, though quite new to the work now entrusted to him.
In this first locomotive constructed at Killingworth, Stephenson to some extent followed the plan of Blenkinsop’s engine. The boiler was cylindrical, of wrought iron, 8 feet in length and 34 inches in diameter, with an internal flue-tube 20 inches wide passing through it. The engine
had two vertical cylinders of 8 inches diameter, and 2 feet stroke, let into the boiler, working the propelling gear with cross heads and connecting rods. The power of the two cylinders was combined by means of spurwheels, which communicated the motive power to the wheels supporting the engine on the rail, instead of, as in Blenkinsop’s engine, to cogwheels which acted on the cogged rail independent of the four supporting wheels. The engine thus worked upon what is termed the second motion. The chimney was of wrought iron, round which was a chamber extending back to the feed-pumps, for the purpose of heating the water previous to its injection into the boiler. The engine had no springs, and was mounted on a wooden frame supported on four wheels. In order to neutralise as much as possible the jolts and shocks which such an engine would necessarily encounter from the obstacles and inequalities of the then very imperfect plateway, the water-barrel which served for a tender was fixed to the end of a lever and weighted, the other end of the lever being connected with the frame of the locomotive carriage. By this means the weight of the two was more equally distributed, though the contrivance did not by any means compensate for the absence of springs.