Steam car

“ Whether steam will eventually get the upper hand of the petrol engine is at present uncertain. The steam car has the advantage over the gas-engine car in ease of starting, the delicate regulation of power, facility of reversing, absence of vibration, noise and smell, and freedom from complicated gears. On the other hand the petrol car has no boiler to get out of order or burst, no troublesome gauges requiring constant attention, and there is small difficulty about a supply of fuel. Petrol sufficient to give motive power for hundreds of miles can be carried if need be ”

“ The steam car has been more favoured of late, but here again you have the danger which must necessarily come from a live flame in connection with petroleum or petroleum spirit always called amongst motorists 'petrol' and most of the steam vehicles now upon the market are extremely expensive to run, in fact nearly three times as expensive as an internal combustion engine producing the same power. ”

“ He was the first to run a steam carriage for hire on a common road, and is still the only person who has ventured in a steam vehicle to traverse the most crowded streets of the metropolis at the busiest periods of the day; he has built a greater number of steam carriages (if not better) than anyone else, and has been thus enabled to try a greater variety of forms of construction, out of which to choose the best. ”

“ The steam car is made by five or six British manufacturers at the most, whereas the actual manufacturers of petrol cars in Great Britain numbered at the end of the year 1909 about seventy, whilst some four hundred other firms were actively engaged in the construction of cars and their parts, accessories and sundries. But the steam car appeals to those men who are or have been steam engineers, and to them the management of the steam generator and the burners constitutes no difficulty. ”

“ The reason why the car buying public gave enthusiastic patronage to gasoline cars and scant encouragement to steam cars was that the use of the steam car requires more mechanical knowledge than does that of the gasoline car, and the work of making repairs is more complicated. The man of today wants to do a thing in the easiest way. ”

“ Considerable space might be devoted to discussing the niceties of the art of driving a steam carriage, but they may be summarised as consisting in the maintenance of an even steam pressure and mean water level on all conditions of roads, with a minimum consumption of fuel and water. If the owner takes the trouble thoroughly to understand his car and its mechanism first, and then bears this rule in mind, he will soon acquire the art, and will learn to take advantage of every variation in the gradient and road surface. ”

“ Steam cars do not put such hard work on the tyres as those driven by petrol, as the engine power is softer in action, and nearly all of the steam cars are lighter in weight than the others. The transmission of the power from the engine to the road wheels is much simpler than it is in the case of the petrol car, but the boiler, burner, &c. ”

“ Among the various ways in which the steam engine has ministered to the social progress of our race, none is more important and interesting than the aid it has afforded to navigation. Before it lent its giant powers to that art, locomotion over the waters of the deep was attended with a degree of danger and uncertainty, which seemed so necessary and so inevitable, that, as a common proverb, it became the type and representative of everything else which was precarious and perilous. ”

“ The danger arising from the use of Steam Carriages, was stated to be two-fold;—that to which passengers are exposed from explosion of the boiler, and the breaking of the machinery, and the effect produced on horses, by the noise and appearance of the Engine. Steam has been applied as a power in draught in: two ways; in the one, both passengers and Engine are placed on the same Carriage; in the other, the Engine Carriage is merely used to draw the Carriage in which the load is conveyed. ”

“ FIG. 185.—TREVITHICK’S STEAM CARRIAGE, 1801.
It is not possible to trace the succeeding steps in steam carriage development by James and Anderson, by Gurney, in 1822, by Marcerone and Squire in 1833, by Russel in 1846, and many others; it is sufficient to [267] know that bad roads and the success attending the steam locomotive on rails diverted attention from the steam road carriage, and not until the latter part of the Nineteenth Century was there any marked revival of interest in this field. Then came first the ponderous road engine, known as a traction engine, and used for heavy hauling ”

“ Are there not Steam Engines in which the cylinder is within the boiler?—Yes; those are commonly used now in the high-pressure Steam Engines.
Have you ever considered what toll should be charged upon Steam Carriages, assuming that a Steam Carriage of 40 cwt, is equal to four horses, and does no more damage than four horses would do upon a road?—I should judge that there would be no need to fix them heavier than just to pay for repairing the road, whatever it may be; people are not to get their maintenance out of roads ”

“ Have the goodness to state to the Committee your opinion with respect to the wear of the road by Steam Carriages?—I think that the roads will not be injured so much by Steam Carriages in future as they have been, because there will be no need to chain the wheels; by putting the valve to the stop, the steam going off that has never yet been applied, there is no need to chain the wheel; that is very easily done; if the steam is prevented escaping; the piston must stand still, and it can be let down as gently as possible; they may either stop instantly or go as easily as they please ”

“ The steam-engines in motor-cars are not very different from the engines used to run locomotives, factory machinery, or street-rollers, but they are much lighter and, of course, smaller—very much smaller in proportion to the power they produce. It will be seen how compact and efficient these little steam plants are when a ten-horse-power engine, boiler, water-tank, and gasoline reservoir holding enough to drive the machine one hundred miles, are stored in a carriage with a wheel-base of less than seven feet and a width of five feet, and still leave ample room for four passengers. ”

“ He describes his trip as follows: “I may state that such a feat as going over the Ord of Caithness has never before been accomplished by steam, as I believe we rose one thousand feet in about five miles. The Ord is one of the largest and steepest hills in Scotland. The turns in the road are very sharp. All this I got over without trouble. There is, I am confident, no difficulty in driving a steam carriage on a common road. It is cheap, and on a level I got as much as nineteen miles an hour.” ”

“ Evans’ interest in the steam carriage forthwith ceased, but in his writings, published about that time, he remarked: “The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines from one city to another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air with such velocity, changing the scene in such rapid succession, will be the most rapid exhilarating exercise. ”

“ This was the first real steam carriage constructed in this country, the Philadelphia machine of Evans being but a rude affair, although it involved the essential principles of steam propulsion. The Blanchard carriage was perfectly [Pg 69] manageable, could turn corners and go backwards and forwards with all the readiness of a well-trained horse, and on ascending a hill the power could be increased. Its performance on the highway was altogether satisfactory, and a patent was issued to its inventor. ”

“ Their chief offence was said to be covering the roads with loose stones some inches deep, a proceeding well calculated to injure the steam omnibuses. Unfortunately for the steam omnibus people’s story, there is no explanation given of how it was that their rivals were permitted to interfere with the public roads. But how the rumour arose is easily explained. The inventors of steam carriages had proclaimed loudly that their vehicles would not wear out the road as quickly as ordinary carriages, for they had wide tyres and, of course, no horses’ hoofs. ”

“ Steam power has very little corresponding danger, being perfectly controllable, and capable of having its power reversed to retard in going down hill. It must be carelessness that would occasion the overturning of a steam carriage. The chance of breaking down has been hitherto considerable, but it will not be more than in stage coaches when the work is truly proportioned and properly executed. ”

“ The limitations under which the early steam car laboured have, in the main, disappeared, for the modern steamer can travel nearly as far without requiring to refill the boiler as a petrol car can travel without replenishment of the fuel tank. The electric car is still the luxury to be employed in towns and in covering short distances, for the weight of the accumulators has not been greatly reduced, despite sensational announcements made from time to time.
An interesting feature of the motor movement has been the steady growth in popularity of the motor cycle. ”

“ A steam-carriage of ten horse power cannot under any circumstances, when it encounters a newly mended part of the road, or a softer soil, put forth an additional power for a minute or two, as a team of horses can do; so that equality of exertion is nearly indispensable for the full advantage of an engine. We accordingly find that the opponents of steam-travelling on common roads, gained their object by covering the highway with a coating of broken stones fourteen inches deep. ”

“ As compared with a petrol car, the main advantages of a steam vehicle may be summarised in its quietness and evenness of running, ease of starting and restarting, and the great range in the power of the engine, which stops and starts with the car, and can also when necessary be used as a very powerful brake. ”

“ The steam-engine itself, which supplies us with such unbounded power, owes its present perfection to this most admirable means of giving to metallic objects the most precise and perfect geometrical forms. How could we, for instance, have good steam-engines if we had not the means of boring out a true cylinder, or turning a true piston-rod, or planing a valve face? ”

“ In the early days of railway construction vehicles were used which combined a steam locomotive with an ordinary passenger carriage. After being abandoned for many years, the "steam carriage" was revived, in 1902, by the London and South Western and Great Western railways for local service and the handling of passenger traffic on branch lines. Since that year rail motor-cars have multiplied; some being run by steam, others by petrol engines, and others, again, by electricity generated by petrol engines. ”

“ Nevertheless, as the transportation of passengers on railroads is found to be attended with less liability to loss of life or injury of person than their carriage by stage-coach, it will be found, very probably, that the general use of steam in transporting freight on common roads may be attended with less risk to life or property than to-day attends the use of horse-power.
The Steam Fire-Engine is still another form of portable engine. It is also one of the latest of all applications of steam-power. The steam fire-engine is peculiarly an American production. ”

“ The driving wheels, being fully proved not to slip upon the road, do not produce any effects more injurious than the ordinary rolling wheels; consequently the wear occasioned by a steam carriage upon a road is not more than that produced by a carriage drawn by horses of an equivalent weight and the same or equal tires; but the wear produced by the pounding and digging of horses' feet in draught is many times greater than that produced by the wear of any carriage. ”

“ It has a muffle for the steam exhaust and the whole weight is 550 pounds. It is one of the lightest and cheapest of automobiles, runs easily at ten to twelve miles an hour, and is an efficient hill-climber. Although naming the steam automobile first because of its earlier genesis, it is not to be understood as representing at present the most popular type of motor carriage, although it bids fair to become so. ”

“ The novice who first examines a steam car may possibly be somewhat appalled at its apparent complication, but if he examines the pipes and connections generally, and ascertains their exact mission, he will soon see that the apparently bewildering multiplicity of parts is not very formidable after all. ”

“ We ought to go down on our knees when one of these mighty caravans, car after car, spins by us, under the mystic impulse which seems to know not whether its train is loaded or empty. We are used to force in the muscles of horses, in the expansive potency of steam, but here we have force stripped stark naked,—nothing but a filament to cover its nudity,—and yet showing its might in efforts that would task the working-beam of a ponderous steam-engine. ”

“ Nathan Read, of whom an account will be given hereafter, when describing his attempt to introduce steam-navigation, planned, and in 1790 obtained a patent for, a steam-carriage, of which the sketch seen in Fig. 43 is copied from the rough drawing accompanying his application. In the figure, A A A A are the wheels; B B, pinions on the hubs of the rear wheels, which are driven by a ratchet arrangement on the racks, G G, connected with the piston-rods; C o is the boiler; D D, the steam-pipes carrying steam to the steam-cylinder, E E; F F are the engine-frames ”