History of Rail Transport in Great Britain To 1830 - Introduction of Steam Locomotives

Introduction of Steam Locomotives

The first steam railway locomotive was introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804. He was the first engineer to build a successful high pressure stationary steam engine, in 1799. He followed this with a road going steam carriage in 1801. Although that experiment ended in failure, in 1804 he built a successful unnamed rail going steam locomotive for the narrow gauge Merthyr Tydfil Tramroad in South Wales (sometimes - but incorrectly - called the "Penydarren Tramroad"). The Penydarren locomotive used a high pressure cylinder without a condenser, the exhaust steam being used to assist the draught via the firebox, increasing efficiency even more. These fundamental improvements in steam engine designs by Trevithick did not change for the whole of the steam era. Amid great interest from the public, on 21 February 1804 it successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men a distance of 9.75 miles (15.69 km) from Penydarren to Abercynon in 4 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed of nearly 5 mph (8.0 km/h). This locomotive proved that steam traction was a viable proposition, although the use of the locomotive was quickly abandoned as it was too heavy for the primitive plateway track. A second locomotive, built for the Wylam colliery, also broke the track.

Trevithick built a third locomotive in 1808, the Catch me who can, which ran on a temporary demonstration railway in Bloomsbury, London. Members of the public were able to ride behind at speeds up to 12 mph (19 km/h). However, it again broke the rails and Trevithick was forced to abandon the demonstration after just two months.

The first commercially successful steam locomotive was the twin cylinder Salamanca, built in 1812 by John Blenkinsop and Matthew Murray for the 4 ft (1,219 mm) gauge Middleton Railway. Blenkinsop believed that a locomotive light enough to move under its own power would be too light to generate sufficient adhesion, so he designed a rack and pinion system for the line. This was despite the fact that Trevithick had demonstrated successful adhesion locomotives a decade before. The single rack ran outside the narrow gauge edge-rail tracks and was engaged by a cog-wheel on the left side of the locomotive. The cog-wheel was driven by two cylinders embedded into the top of the center-flue boiler. Four such locomotives were built for the railway, and they worked until the early 1830s.