An ordinary gig horse will go at the rate of ten miles an hour, and maintain the speed for an hour and a half. Butcher-boys’ horses are wonderful at a spurt; but they could not maintain the pace for any distance. The stately carriage-horses—too highly fed, dressed, and cared for, to go at very high speed—can get over the ground at the rate of ten miles an hour; but they could not continue for any time at that speed. The ordinary carriage-horse, of less breed and mettle, will draw a heavier load, and can get over his nine miles an hour without distress. The large horses in the “unicorns”—the vans of Pickford’s and the other great establishments of the same character—being a cross between the cart and the carriage horse, can draw a less load than a cart horse, but at a speed that averages fully five miles an hour; whereas the cart horse, whilst easily drawing a load of upwards of a ton in weight, could not go any distance, without breaking down, at a higher rate than from three and a half to four miles an hour.
From the foregoing, it will be seen that there is a difference between the ordinary pace of the cart horse and the pace that the race horse can go for a short distance, of twenty-seven miles an hour—that is, the latter can go nearly eight times as fast as the former; but the difference of weight is more striking. A completely exact comparison is not possible, because in one case it is weight carried, in the other weight drawn—say eight stone against one ton and a quarter; one to twenty-five. We believe that the highest speed at which an English horse can draw a vehicle—but then it must be feather-weight and very high wheels—is at the rate of about seventeen miles an hour. The late Mr. Osbaldiston, of sporting memory, had a horse that slightly exceeded it. The American trotting horses of greatest celebrity trot nearly eighteen miles in an hour, and they never break into a gallop. “They are,” said a sporting friend of ours, “taught only to trot; they don’t know how to gallop.”
The difference between the extremes of engines in different classes is not so great as it is with horses; it is, nevertheless, considerable. The express engine, with its driving-wheel of diameter varying from six feet and a half to eight feet, can carry a light load of seventy to ninety tons on a good—that is, a comparatively level—roadway, at the rate of fully fifty miles an hour, and can maintain this pace with perfect safety for a length of 90 to 100 miles, provided she can be supplied with water, as can now be done by means of the trough. Were she with a load behind her, not exceeding three or four carriages, she could, as a matter of performance, and without reference to the question of safety, maintain, without difficulty, a rate of sixty miles an hour. A four-wheeled coupled engine, each of the four wheels being of six feet diameter, and with appropriate dimensions of heating-surface, draws easily 120 to 150 tons, at a running speed of forty miles an hour. An engine, similar in other respects, but with wheels of five and a half feet diameter, could run thirty-five miles an hour with an increase of load of from thirty to fifty tons. “Goods engines” of the most powerful class—that is, six wheels coupled—diameter of wheel four feet, can draw from 300 to 350 tons. This is also the diameter—in some instances it is even smaller—for the heavy engines used to ascend severe gradients.
In England we have no heavier goods engines on the narrow gauge than six-wheeled coupled. Their weight is about thirty-five tons. On the London and North-Western they are only thirty-one tons. Abroad, however, there are some few engines of much greater power. Thus, on the Orleans Railway, there is a ten-wheeled coupled tank locomotive with 19¾-inch cylinders, and 24 inches stroke. It is used principally to overcome a long and heavy gradient near Auvergne. The diameter of its wheels is three feet six inches. The “Steyerdorf,” an Austrian tank engine, which has run about 20,000 miles in the last four years, has ten wheels, six of which are coupled in one coupling, four others, being “bogie” wheels, are coupled together separately. There is also an extremely ingenious intermediate shaft by which the two separate couplings are connected together. All the wheels are of the same diameter—3 feet 3½ inches. The other principal dimensions are, cylinder 18¼ inches, length of stroke 25 inches. This locomotive is principally employed upon a line with very stiff gradients and sharp curves. Its maximum running speed does not exceed thirteen miles an hour.
The Northern of France Company has a few engines of immense power. Passengers between Calais and Paris may have observed them occasionally at stations. Their funnels lay horizontally on the upper surface of the boilers until near their extremities, when they bend upwards; their mouths are thus perpendicular, like the funnels of ordinary engines. The weight of each of these locomotives is nearly forty-five tons, and it is said that they can easily draw loads of 600 tons; but their adoption is not likely to he general. They must be very injurious to the road and very destructive of couplings, &c.
Not content with this weight, the Northern of France Company exhibited in the Paris Exhibition a four-cylinder twelve-wheel tank engine, made by Messrs. Gouin & Co., the weight of which, fully loaded with fuel and water, is 58½ tons. It has 1,920 feet of heating surface.
In 1863, M. Thouvenot, a French engineer, proposed, in a pamphlet published at Lausanne, the construction of a colossal locomotive, the weight of which was to be 82 tons, horse power 582, heating surface 5,512 square feet, estimated consumption of fuel 250 lbs. per mile. This engine was proposed principally with the view to the ascent of mountains by railway; yet the weight of the train was to be less than the weight of the engine—only seventy-four tons. The speed estimated was twelve miles an hour. No such engine has as yet been, or is ever likely to be, constructed.
The earliest passenger locomotive engines were all made with “inside cylinders,” that is engines, the cylinders of which were within the framework. The late Mr. Joseph Locke we believe first introduced “outside” cylinder engines, that is, cylinders outside the framework, and at once visible to the eye. The “Crampton” engines—a great favourite in various parts of the continent, especially on the Northern of France Railway, but never in England—all have outside cylinders. The outside cylinder engine was very popular some twenty years ago, but the tendency of engineers, especially since the introduction of steel-cranks, is to revert to inside cylinders. Even at the Crewe manufacturing shops, where formerly none but outside cylinder engines were built, engines with inside cylinders are now constructed. The same on the Great Eastern, and one or two other lines where outside cylinders were at one time exclusively adopted.
As regards locomotive makers—thirty-six years ago the trade did not exist in Great Britain. The following list comprises the names of about thirty firms and establishments, all actively engaged in the production of railway engines. Some can construct as many as 110 a year (Messrs. Sharp, Brothers, and Messrs. R. Stephenson & Co.), and there is none that cannot produce from twenty-five to thirty; their total capacity is about 1,500 engines per annum. Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co., and Beyer, Peacock & Co., of Manchester; Messrs. Robert Stephenson & Co., and R. & W. Hawthorn, at Newcastle; Messrs. Kitson & Co., Manning, Wardle & Co., Hudswell & Clarke, and the Hunslet Engine Company, Leeds; the Avonside Engine Company, at Bristol; Messrs. Hopkins, Gilkes & Co., Middlesboro’; the Canada Works, Birkenhead, now the property of Mr. Thomas Brassey; the Vulcan Foundry, Warrington; Messrs. George England & Co., New Cross, London; Messrs. James Cross & Co., St. Helen’s; Mr. R. Brotherhood, Chippenham; Messrs. Fletcher, Jennings & Co., Whitehaven; Messrs. Hughes & Co., Loughborough; the Yorkshire Engine Company, near Sheffield; the Worcester Engine Company, Worcester. The Steam-Plough Works at Leeds have recently commenced locomotive building, and have already despatched engines for Mexico. The Bridgewater Foundry, near Manchester, has resumed this class of work, and is now making engines for the Brighton Railway. Messrs. Ruston, Proctor & Co., of Lincoln, are now locomotive builders; also the Lilleshall Company. Besides these makers, the railway companies are themselves large constructors of locomotives. The Crewe Works turns out 120 new engines yearly. The Great Western Company make large numbers of engines, both at Swindon and at Wolverhampton; the Midland Company produce many engines at Derby; the Brighton Company make locomotives at Brighton, as do also the South-Eastern at Ashford, the South-Western at Nine Elms, London, and the London, Chatham, and Dover at the Longhedge Works, Battersea. So also do the Caledonian Company at Glasgow, the North-London at Bow, and the Great Southern and Western Company at Inchicore, near Dublin.
The largest locomotive works in Scotland are those of Messrs. Neilson & Co., of Glasgow, and we know, from personal knowledge and experience, that they produce excellent work. The Glasgow Locomotive Works, Glasgow, is also a large establishment, with capacity for very extensive business.