Steam railway

“ Apply these feelings to the case of the coachmen who were born in an age that knew nothing of steam. Every stand-by was rooted up in the coming of railways, and the steam-engine was just as strange a monster to them as the electric dynamo is to many of ourselves. Often they could not transfer their allegiance to the railway, even though they starved. It was not always stubbornness or pride that held them aloof, but a certain and easily-understood lack of adaptability that forbade one who had held the reins to handle the starting-lever of the locomotive. ”

“ Hundreds and thousands of miles of railroads were built in different parts of the country. Now, great lines connect the north and south, the east and west. Huge engines, very unlike Stephenson’s little Rocket, travel a mile a minute: instead of taking weeks to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, people can make the journey in five days.
Before the steam railway was invented by an Englishman, an American inventor had applied the use of steam to water-travel and had invented a steamboat. James Watt, a Scotch inventor, had prepared the way by his invention of the steam engine. ”

“ No extensive system would care to operate its trains without the possibility of the exchange of cars with neighboring systems and until railway engineers are agreed as to the fundamental questions of frequency and methods of train control it is probable that no large project will be put in hand. A further opposition to be met is the mass of present-day, steam-railway methods and prejudices. The steam railway has a long history and each system has its highly-trained corps of operating engineers. ”

“ That almost all the progress which this country has made in the last half-century is mainly due to the development of the railway system. All the other vast developments of the power of steam, all the developments of manufacturing and mining industry would have availed but little for the greatness and prosperity of this country—in fact they could hardly have existed at all if there had been wanting those internal communications which have been furnished by the locomotive engine to railways brought into use by Stephenson. ”

“ But the circumstance which, so far as respects passengers, must give railways, as compared with canals, an advantage which cannot be considered as less than fatal to the latter, is the fact, that the great speed and cheapness of transit attainable upon a railway by the aid of steam-power will always secure to such lines not only a monopoly of the travelling, but will increase the actual amount of that source of profit in an enormous proportion, as has been already made manifest between Liverpool and Manchester. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These speculations show that the subject of railways was gradually becoming familiar to the public mind, and that thoughtful men were anticipating with confidence the adoption of steam-power for the purposes of railway traction. At the same time, a still more profitable class of labourers was at work—first, men like Stephenson, who were engaged in improving the locomotive and making it a practicable and economical working power; and next, those like Edward Pease of Darlington, and Joseph Sandars of Liverpool, who were organising the means of laying down the railways. ”

“ The fight for the grade is emphasised in watching an approaching train coming up the hill. It rounds the bluff on the opposite side of the valley, two ponderous 170-ton locomotives pulling and straining amid clouds of smoke and steam. Their joint labour produces a speed of about 15 miles an hour, and the roar created by the steam in harness is heard distinctly across the ravine. One follows the train on its winding course, for it is fully in sight the whole time as it swings round the curve at the end of the valley, and presently rushes by one with a terrible roar. ”

“ There are in Great Britain, as well as in the United States of America, many steamship lines which are either owned or controlled by railway corporations. On the south coast of England, from Harwich to Falmouth inclusive, almost the whole of the Anglo-continental passenger traffic is held by the great railway companies, who have made the various ports along that stretch of coast their termini. ”

“ Walker and Rastrick; and established the efficiency of the locomotive for working the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and indeed all future railways. The “Rocket” showed that a new power had been born into the world, full of activity and strength, with boundless capability of work. It was the simple but admirable contrivance of the steam-blast, and its combination with the multitubular boiler, that at once gave the locomotive a vigorous life, and secured the triumph of the railway system. ”

“ Trevithick, who a few years earlier had constructed several successful steam vehicles for use on the highways, in February 1804 completed the construction of a machine at Pen-y-darran, near Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales, for use at the Pen-y-darran Iron Works of Samuel Homfray. It is thought to have been the first steam locomotive ever propelled along a railway.
The first trip was made on Monday, February 13, 1804. Among the several trips made by the locomotive was one of 9 miles, between Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon, drawing 5 cars with a load of 10 tons of iron and 70 men. ”

“ At the present crisis, when any reduction in the expense of working the locomotive engine would justly be hailed as a boon to railway companies, this experiment will no doubt be regarded with deep interest as tending to their mutual advantage. I fully believe that the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway Company will willingly afford every facility towards the carrying out of this experiment. ”

“ In connection with the marvellous growth of our railway system there is nothing of so paramount importance and interest as the evolution of the locomotive steam engine.
At the present time it is most important to place on record the actual facts, seeing that attempts have been made to disprove the correctness of the known and accepted details relative to several interesting, we might almost write historical, locomotives. ”

“ The reporter, as before noticed, has various modes in view, by which the branch to Leith may be made of a very easy line of draught, or be thrown into a succession of levels, by a species of lockage or stepping. Where sudden acclivities occur on the line of a railway they are generally overcome by an inclined plane, of greater or less extent, according to the particular rise, and on this the loaded wagons are brought up by a steam-engine. ”

“ Even overseas where, broadly speaking, the type of individual railroad employee is not supposed to be as high as in this country, the enginemen are to-day used to all these modern devices, the hall-marks of the really modern steam locomotive. A keen-minded American who has known and loved locomotives all his life went over to France not many months ago and rode in the cab of one of those high-speed engines that haul the heavy expresses of the Northern railway from Paris to Calais, 180 miles in three hours and thirty-five minutes—a remarkable daily performance,—and he had his eyes opened. ”

“ Whilst railway officers, with the intelligence for which they are justly distinguished, have always evinced a proper desire to be acquainted with the evolution of the “steam horse,” the spread of education has increased and quickened a desire for knowledge concerning the locomotive amongst all classes in a remarkable manner. ”

“ I am confident that a railway on which my engine can work is far superior to a canal. On a long and favourable railway I would start my engine to travel 60 miles a day, with from 40 to 60 tons of goods.” Taking Stephenson’s “day” to mean twelve working hours, his idea of maximum speed did not exceed five miles an hour at that time. Before this—in December, 1824—Charles MacLaren had published in the Scotsman his opinion that by the use of the steam locomotive “we shall be carried at the rate of 400 miles a day,” or an average speed of 331⁄3 miles an hour. ”

“ Before closing these remarks on modern Great Western Railway locomotives, some description of No. 36 is necessary. Here again we have an adaptation of American practice—a six-wheels-coupled engine, with a leading bogie, and an extension, smoke-box. The cylinders are inside, 20in. diameter by 24in. stroke, with the steam chests below them. ”

“ Land transport, though it had steadily increased in Europe, remained costly as well as slow till the era of railway construction began in 1829. The application of steam as a motive power and of electricity as a means of communicating thought has been by far the greatest factor in this long process of reducing the dimensions of the world, which dates back as far as the domestication of beasts of burden, and the invention, first of paddles and oars, and then of sails. ”

“ The electric railway possesses great advantages over horse or steam power for towns, in tunnels, and in all cases where natural sources of energy, such as water-falls, are available; but it would not be reasonable to suppose that it will in its present condition compete with steam propulsion upon ordinary railways. ”

“ The following were the principal arguments which influenced his mind to work out the use of the locomotive in a directly opposite course to that pursued by a number of ingenious inventors, who, between 1820 and 1836, were engaged in attempting to apply steam-power to turnpike roads. Having ascertained that resistance might be taken as represented by 10 lbs. to a ton weight on a level railway, it became obvious to him that so small a rise as 1 in 100 would diminish the useful effort of a locomotive by upward of fifty per cent. ”

“ The heating surface is made up as follows: Tubes, 995 sq. ft.; fire-box, 100 sq. ft.; grate area, 161⁄2 sq. ft.; working pressure, 150lb.; water capacity of tanks, 970 gallons; fuel space, 80 cubic ft.; weight, in working order, 51 tons. [Pg 264]
All of these engines are fitted with steam condensing apparatus to allow of working over the Metropolitan Railway between Snow Hill and King’s Cross and Snow Hill and Moorgate Street.
Fig. 107.—STANDARD EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE, CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS
Class T comprises the goods or shunting tanks. ”

“ When, in the early years of the nineteenth century, general attention was attracted to the possibilities and prospects of using locomotives on the railway in place either of horses or of stationary engines, further projects were mooted for employing steam-propelled vehicles on ordinary roads. ”

“ Though they ignored the railway, they recognized the steam-carriage.
But even a Report of the House of Commons, powerful though it be, can not alter the laws of gravity and friction; and the road locomotive remained, what it ever will be, an impracticable machine. Not that it is impossible to work a locomotive upon a common road, but to work it to any profit at all as compared with the locomotive upon a railway. Numerous trials of steam-carriages were made at the time by Sir Charles Dance, Mr. ”

“ No doubt the impracticability if not the utter impossibility, of operating steam locomotives over the heavy grades and severe curvature known to be necessary dissuaded him from the purpose until the recognized practicability of electric railway operation became apparent in 1892. ”

“ Origin of the steam railroad.—Soon after 1800 the American inventor, Evans, asserted more than once that he could manage to drive wagons on railways by steam. He expressed an idea that was by no means new, and that was then floating in the minds of many men. He said truly, however, that one step in a generation is enough, and that the monstrous leap from bad roads to steam railways could not be taken at once. ”

“ The “Globe” opened the Stockton and Middlesbrough Branch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway on December 27th, 1830. Her speed frequently exceed 50 miles an hour with passenger trains.
In consequence of a deficiency of water, she blew up in 1839. The engine was provided with a copper globe for the purpose of obtaining dry steam—hence her name “Globe.” She had four wheels, each of 5ft. diameter. ”

“ A larger and more powerful engine on the same principle was supplied to the Joint Locomotive Committee of the South Eastern and London and Brighton Railways, and when the Committee was dissolved the engine was taken over by the South Eastern Railway in 1845, and was numbered 123. The cylinders were 16in. diameter and 30in. stroke, or rather, two pistons each working a stroke of 15in. Heating surface was: box 73 sq. ft.; tubes 769 sq. ft.; steam pressure 95lb.; weight 18 tons; coke consumption 15lb. per mile. The driving wheels were 5ft. 6in. diameter. ”

“ The working pressure is now 170lb. per sq. in., there being 215 tubes of 15⁄8in. external diameter, 10ft. 41⁄2in. long. The other differences in the dimensions are tabulated below:—
Fig. 112.—LATEST TYPE OF EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE, SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY
[Pg 272] With the increased weight, boiler pressure, and heating surface of these engines, coupled with a compromise towards a steam dome, such fine locomotives ought to be quite equal to hauling the heavy trains run by the South Eastern Railway at high speeds. Mr. Stirling is to be congratulated upon the appearance of the machines. ”