trevithick

We should start our story at the beginning with the work of Cornishman Richard
Trevithick who shortly after building and testing the worlds first steam powered car in
Camborne in 1801 built the very first railway locomotive at Coalbrookdale in
Staffordshire in 1802. The pioneering ironworks at Coalbrookdale was the ideal place
to build and try out this first rail locomotive as it was probably the first carriageway to
be equipped with iron rails. The gauge was 4 foot two inches.

Not much is known of this first experiment other than the fact that this first
locomotive did not run for long, as there was an accident, which was followed by an
enquiry. The whole episode was hushed-up and the locomotive converted into a
stationary engine. Although records of this locomotive are scarce it is assumed that it
was similar to the later one built for use at Pen-y-Darren (see below).

Next Richard turned to passenger transport. He took out a patent for a passenger
carrying steam road carriage, also describing other uses for his new high pressure
engines. The steam carriage was assembled at Felton's carriage works at Leather
Lane, London, many of the engine components having been brought from Cornwall
where they were made. The engine may have been tested in another machine called
the Tuckingmill locomotive which was reported to have been stuck on the road
between Camborne and Redruth 'because its wheels could not get sufficient grip of
the road', but for which unfortunately no drawings are known to have survived

The first run was from the coach works through Liquorpond Street (now Clerkenwell
Road) into Gray's Inn Road, then past Lords Cricket ground (which at that time was
near Dorset Square) to Paddington and Islington before returning to Leather Lane.
Whilst the experiment was considered successful technically and the vehicle could
have been developed, it proved unpopular mainly because it terrified horses. It was
for this reason that the media and public largely ignored its significance. The aim of
building the carriage in London was to demonstrate to Londoners the powers of
Trevithick's patented high pressure steam engine in a road vehicle. He had already
demonstrated the ability of his steam engine to power a locomotive (1801), so
together with his cousin and partner, Andrew Vivian, they judged the time to be right
to profit from the patent in a road vehicle.

During a trip on a subsequent evening, Trevithick and his colleague crashed the
carriage into some house railings and as a result of this and lack of sales the vehicle
was scrapped, the engine being sent to work in a mill making hoops for beer barrels.
Ultimately the project to build a steam powered passenger carrying veicle was not a
success. It was too expensive and it needed two men and a bag of coal to do what a
horse drawn vehicle could do with one man and a bag of hay.

In 1804 Richard convinced Samuel Homfray, the owner of the Pen-y-Darren

ironworks near Dowlais, South Wales, to let him build another steam locomotive.
Homfray gave the go ahead and even had a wager with neighbouring ironmaster,
Anthony Hill, for 500 guineas (£525) that Richards locomotive would haul 10 tons of
iron over the 9 miles of the Pen-y-Darren tramway to Abercynon. Richards engine
design, had a single vertical cylinder, 8 foot flywheel and long piston-rod, and was
completed and ready for its first run on February the 14th.
People came from far and wide to witness the first running of this the second railway
engine. The wagons were loaded with iron, and 70 men also climbed on board and in
this air of great excitement, the engine started on it's journey. Unfortunately, like both
Richards steam car and first locomotive, disaster soon struck. The chimney of the
locomotive struck a low bridge and both were destroyed. Now as part of the wager
Samuel Homfray had given an undertaking that in the event of any mishap or
breakdown, Richard would repair the engine unaided, and in a short time Richard had
cleared the debris, repaired the chimney, and was back on board and underway
reaching a speed of five miles an hour to his destination at Abercynon.

Samuel Homfray had won the wager and the world had its first Railway.
Unfortunately the weight of the Locomotive, which had no form of suspension,
proved too much for the plate-way as it continuously broke the iron rails and so could
not be put to permanent use, and like the first engine is believed to have been
converted into a stationary engine.

News of Richard's success at Pen-y-Darren reached Christopher Blackett the owner

Wylam Colliery (Newcastle), who ordered a locomotive from Richard to run on a
five-mile wooden wagon way which had been built by the mine in 1748 to take the
coal from Wylam to the River Tyne. The engine was built at Whinfield's Foundry,
Gateshead owned by Trevithick's agent for the North East John Whinfield. It is
believed that other Trevithick engines may have been built at this foundry and
Trevithick himself mentions in January 1805 that he expected to visit Newcastle to
see some of his 'travelling engines'. There is also a report that a William Chapman had
such a locomotive, fitted with roughened wheels as stated in the Trevithick and
Vivian Patent of 1802, stored at his ropeworks in Tyneside. Richard sent John Steele
who had worked with him on the building of the locomotive at Pen-y-Darren to
supervise the construction of the Wylam engine. When completed it weighed five tons
and proved to be too heavy for the wooden wagon way and was left to rust. Richard
seems to have become disillusioned with this further set back and ceased to work on
locomotives. However, Davis Giddy of Trendrea in St. Erth. For many years the
Member of Parliament for Helston, persuaded him to have another go in 1808. It is
believed that Davis Giddy arranged for a piece of land known as Bedford Nursery
Grounds, now Euston Square to be used to demonstrate the device. This locomotive
was built to try and get the general public interest in this new form of transport. It was
run on a purpose built circular track pulling an open four-wheeled carriage. This took
place between 8th July and 18th September 1808 with tickets costing two shillings
(10 pence). On the 3rd of August, Richard won a large bet when he raced it against a
racehorse and won. A letter in the London Times dated October 16th 1829, says that
"public expectation rose to a high pitch : nothing less was talked of, nor thought of."
However nothing came of this design and Trevithick was later to accuse Watt and his
partner, Matthew Boulton, of using their influence to persuade Parliament to pass a
bill banning his experiments with steam locomotives.

But in 1813 Blackett, again contacted Richard and asked him to supply another
locomotive as he had been working on replacing the wooden track with a 5 foot gauge
iron one. Richard Trevithick told Blackett that he was to busy to build it, however, the
Science Museum in London has a plan showing a Trevithick style locomotive similar
to the design of his first Wylam Engine
but with a shorter boiler and larger wheels. The gearing is 3:2 instead of 2:1 used on
the built locomotive. As the gauge of this locomotive is 5 feet, it would imply that it
was designed for use at Wylam.

Blackett then instructed William Hedley the superintendent of Wylam Colliery, to

construct one. Was this based on or used parts from the locomotive supplied by
Trevithick? This was not a complete success and in Hedley's own words 'It went
badly, the obvious defect being want of steam'.

It was probably this machine that was seen by George Stephenson and after inspecting
it declared he could make a better one himself!

George Stephenson was born in 1781 in a cottage, which stood beside the wooden
waggonway that carried the coal from the Wylam colliery to the River Tyne. George
like Richard Trevithick grew up in the new age of the steam Engine, but whereas
Richard's father was the Mine Engineer at the Wheal Treasury mine in Cornwall,
George's was a simple Durham coal miner.

When Richard showed an aptitude for engineering his father took him to work
alongside him and it was not long before he was appointed as engineer at the Ding
Dong mine in Penzance. George on the other hand started his employment on a local
farm, herding cows but in 1795 at the age of fourteen he joined his father at the
nearby Dewley Colliery working underground. He knew he could do better for
himself and in 1799 he began to attend evening classes to learn to read and write. He
also showed an aptitude for engineering and earned extra money, in the evenings
repairing clocks and watches.

Meanwhile, Richards father had died in 1797 and Richard Jnr. was so respected that
he was immediately elected as leading engineer in the mining district at the age of
twenty six. In the same year he married Jane Harvey the daughter of John Harvey
owner and operator of the Hayle Iron foundry.

In 1802 the year Richard built the first steam locomotive, George got married to a
servant girl called Frances Henderson. He was also promoted to colliery engineman.
His interest in learning continued and he would spend every Saturday taking the
winding engine to pieces and then putting it back together again. His son Robert was
born a year later and in 1805, George took his young son to see Richard Trevithick
when the steam locomotive was being put together. The world of steam engineers was
a close one and the young engineman had met and discussed locomotives with
Trevithick and the others whilst they were working on the new locomotive that was to
run on the waggonway that passed his fathers front door.

When the trial failed with the breaking of the wooden rails all went quiet for a while.
In 1808, George moved to Killingworth Colliery where four years later he was
promoted to become the colliery's engineer. He was at Killingworth when the second
attempt to build a locomotive for the Wylam waggonway again failed. But George,
convinced that locomotives were the future persuaded his boss Nicholas Wood to let
him have a go at building one.

A year later in 1814 he had succeeded in building a steam powered loco which
was able to pull a load of thirty tons up a hill at a speed of four miles per hour. He
named his engine "Blutcher" after a general in the Prussian Army, who had helped
Britain defeat Napoleon and was later to claim that the Blutcher's pulling strength was
"worth fifty horses".

Like most engineers, George had an inquiring mind. Never satisfied with an invention
but always striving to make improvements. Within a year he had changed the design
making Blutcher even more efficient and went on to build a total of sixteen
locomotives over the next five years with most of them being used locally in Durham.

Engineering inventors also tend to work on more than one idea at a time and this was
the case with both Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson. Trevithick produced
many other inventions in his lifetime including containerisation for ships, a dry dock,
a surface condenser, central heating, refrigeration and the screw propeller. In 1808
following his demonstrations in London with the "Catch Me Who Can" and its failure
to make any headway with his steam transport ideas he again became disillusioned
and turned to the problems of dredging the River Thames. He invented the steam
dredger and received sixpence for every ton lifted from the bottom of the river. But in
1810, he came down with typhus, and returned from London to Cornwall, where he
fell into bankruptcy, however, once again his massive spirit and a little bit of luck
came to the rescue when he was asked to apply his steam-engine technology to the
problems of de-watering silver mines in South America. In 1814, he sent nine of his
engines to Peru, and two years later, he followed to oversee their transportation up
treacherous mule trails and installation at the silver mines above 14,000 feet at Cerro
de Pasco.

Richards involvement in this venture meant that he spent the next 12 years abroad at a
time when the railways began to be developed. It was probably the reason that
Cornwall waited so long before it entered the railway age.

Whilst the mines of South America took one Cornish rival out of George Stephenson's
life the problems of gas in coal mines was to bring him in contact with another. The
coal mining industry was prone to gas explosions and in 1815 George began to try to
find a way in which the miner could be safe guarded and on the 21st of October 1815
he tested his first safety lamp successfully in a dangerous part of Kennilworth
Colliery. His later lamp became known as "the Geordie" and was very popular with
the Durham and Northumbrian miners. However, at the time George was working on
his invention, Cornishman Humphrey Davy was working on the same thing. It is
ironic that where as Cornishmen get really annoyed when Stephenson is claimed to be
the inventor of the locomotive, The people of Newcastle, and Durham got just as
annoyed to hear the claim that Davy invented the safety lamp. In the London Times of
January the 20th 1818, there is a report of a dinner held in Newcastle headed "The
Real Inventor of the Safety Lamp." The dinner was to honour and present to George
Stephenson a very large silver tankard as a mark of respect for his invention of the
Miners Safety Lamp. Many speeches were made and evidence presented to enhance
the claim. The Royal Society of which Cornishman Davis Gilbert (changed his name
from Giddy on marriage) was a prominent member and to which Davy himself had
been secretary, held an enquiry and gave the verdict in favour of Davy as being the
true inventor of the Miners Safety Lamp.
But back to the railway. In 1819 George Stephenson was asked by the colliery to
build a railroad eight miles long to take coal from one of their mines at Hetton to
Sunderland. George used a mixture of locomotive and fixed engines on this railway.
He had learned that to be successful loci's needed to run on a railway that was as flat
as possible. He therefore made the first section flat by engineering works. The next
section raised the wagons some 250 feet by the use of a fixed engine and cables. For
the next two miles the wagons travelled down an inclined plane similar to the one
adopted on the Hayle railway in 1837. Finally, locomotives took over again for the
last two miles to the river. George Stevenson had created the first ever commercial
railway not to use any animals. He also set the gauge at four feet eight and
a half inches.