Lives of the Engineers. Samuel Smiles
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periphery of the driving-wheels should be made rough by the projection of bolts or cross-grooves, so that the adhesion of the wheels to the road might be secured.
Following up the presumed necessity for a more effectual adhesion between the wheels and the rails, Mr. Blenkinsop of Leeds, in 1811, took out a patent for a racked or tooth-rail laid along one side of the road, into which the toothed-wheel of his locomotive worked as pinions work into a rack. The boiler of his engine was supported by a carriage with four wheels without teeth, and rested immediately upon the axles. These wheels were entirely independent of the working parts of the engine, and therefore merely supported its weight upon the rails, the progress being effected by means of the cogged-wheel working into the cogged-rail. The engine had two cylinders, instead of one as in Trevithick’s engine. The invention of the double cylinder was due to Matthew Murray, of Leeds, one of the best mechanical engineers of his time; Mr. Blenkinsop, who was not a mechanic, having consulted him as to all the practical arrangements. The connecting-rods gave the motion to two pinions by cranks at right angles to each other; these pinions communicating the motion to the wheel which worked into the cogged-rail.
Mr. Blenkinsop’s engines began running on the railway from the Middleton Collieries to Leeds, about 3½ miles, on the 12th of August, 1812. They continued for many years to be one of the principal curiosities of the place, and were visited by strangers from all parts. In 1816, the Grand Duke Nicholas (afterwards Emperor) of Russia observed the working of Blenkinsop’s locomotive with curious interest and admiration. An engine dragged as many as thirty coal-waggons at a speed of about 3¼ miles per hour. These engines continued for many years to be thus employed in the haulage of coal, and furnished the first instance of the regular employment of locomotive power for commercial purposes.
The Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812, endeavoured to overcome the same fictitious difficulty of the want of adhesion between the wheel and the rail, by patenting a locomotive to work along the road by means of a chain stretched from one end of it to the other. This chain was passed once round a grooved barrel-wheel under the centre of the engine: so that, when the wheel turned, the locomotive, as it were, dragged itself along the railway. An engine, constructed after this plan, was tried on the Heaton Railway, near Newcastle; but it was so clumsy in its action, there was so great a loss of power by friction, and it was found to be so expensive and difficult to keep in repair, that it was soon abandoned. Another remarkable expedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterley Works, Derbyshire, who, in 1813, patented his Mechanical Traveller, to go upon legs working alternately like those of a horse. [73] But this engine never got beyond the experimental state, for, at its very first trial, the driver, to make sure of a good start, overloaded the safety-valve, when the boiler burst and killed a number of the bystanders, wounding many more. These, and other contrivances with the same object, projected about the same time, show that invention was actively at work, and that many minds were anxiously labouring to solve the important problem of locomotive traction upon railways.
But the difficulties contended with by these early inventors, and the step-by-step progress which they made, will probably be best illustrated by the experiments conducted by Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, which are all the more worthy of notice, as the persevering efforts of this gentleman in a great measure paved the way for the labours of George Stephenson, who, shortly after, took up the question of steam locomotion, and brought it to a successful issue.
The Wylam waggon-way is one of the oldest in the north of England. Down to the year 1807 it was formed of wooden spars or rails, laid down between the colliery at Wylam—where old Robert Stephenson had worked—and the village of Lemington, some four miles down the Tyne, where the coals were loaded into keels or barges, and floated down past Newcastle, to be shipped for London. Each chaldron-waggon had a man in charge of it, and was originally drawn by one horse. The rate at which the waggons were hauled was so slow that only two journeys were performed by each man and horse in one day, and three on the day following. This primitive waggon-way passed, as before stated, close in front of the cottage in which George Stephenson was born; and one of the earliest sights which met his infant eyes was this wooden tramroad worked by horses.
Mr. Blackett was the first colliery owner in the North who took an active interest in the locomotive. Having formed the acquaintance of Trevithick in London, and inspected the performances of his engine, he determined to repeat the Pen-y-darran experiment upon the Wylam waggon-way. He accordingly obtained from Trevithick, in October, 1804, a plan of his engine, provided with “friction-wheels,” and employed Mr. John Whinfield, of Pipewellgate, Gateshead, to construct it at his foundry there. The engine was constructed under the superintendence of one John Steele, an ingenious mechanic who had been in Wales, and worked under Trevithick in fitting the engine at Pen-y-darran. When the Gateshead locomotive was finished, a temporary way was laid down in the works, on which it was run backwards and forwards many times. For some reason, however—it is said because the engine was deemed too light for drawing the coal-trains—it never left the works, but was dismounted from the wheels, and set to blow the cupola of the foundry, in which service it long continued to be employed.
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