The First Locomotives

25.5.2: The First Locomotives

As a result of advancements in metallurgy and steam power technology during the Industrial Revolution, horse-drawn wagonways were replaced by steam locomotives, making Britain the first country in the world with modern railways.

Learning Objective

Characterize the first trains and their utilities

Key Points

  • The first recorded use of rail transport in Great Britain is Sir Francis Willoughby’s Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire, built between 1603 and 1604 to carry coal. As early as 1671, railed roads were in use in Durham to ease the conveyance of coal.The primitive rails were superseded in 1793 when Benjamin Outram constructed a tramway with L-shaped flanged cast-iron plate rails (plateways). Outram’s rails were superseded by William Jessop’s cast iron edge rails. Cast iron rails had a propensity to break easily, and the short lengths soon became uneven. In 1820, John Birkenshaw introduced a method of rolling rails in greater lengths using wrought iron, which was used from then onward.
  • The earliest railways were built and paid for by the owners of the mines they served. As railway technology developed, longer lines became possible, connecting mines with more distant transshipment points and promising lower costs. These longer lines often required public subscription to build and crossed over land not owned by the mine owners. As a result, they needed an Act of Parliament to build. The first line to obtain such an act, in 1758, was the Middleton Railway in Leeds. The first for public use and on cast iron rails was the Surrey Iron Railway, incorporated in 1799. The first passenger-carrying public railway was the Oystermouth Railway, authorized in 1807.
  • The first steam railway locomotive was introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804. Trevithick’s designs proved that steam traction was a viable proposition, although the use of his locomotives was quickly abandoned as they were too heavy for the existing track. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was the twin cylinder Salamanca, designed by in 1812 by Matthew Murray using John Blenkinsop’s patented design for rack propulsion for the Middleton Railway.
  • The proprietors of Wylam Colliery wanted to abolish horse-drawn trains in favor of steam. Two models, Puffing Billy and Blücher, were among the first successful designs. In 1821 an Act of Parliament was approved for a tramway between Stockton and Darlington.Traffic on the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was originally intended to be horse-drawn, but the Act was subsequently amended to allow the usage of steam locomotives. The railway was also empowered to carry passengers in addition to coal and general merchandise.
  • The first public steam railway in Scotland was the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), founded as company in 1823 but opened in 1830, was the world’s first intercity passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and operated by steam locomotives. Further, horse-drawn traffic could use the Stockton and Darlington upon payment of a toll.
  • To determine which locomotives would be suitable, the L&MR directors organized the Rainhill Trials. These were arranged as an open contest that would let them see all the locomotive candidates in action, with the choice to follow. The trials were won by Rocket, built by George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the L&MR. The line opened in 1830 with termini at Liverpool Road, Manchester and Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Key Terms

rack and pinion railway
A steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with this rack rail. The first railway of this kind was the Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, UK, where the first commercially successful steam locomotive, Salamanca, ran in 1812. This used a system designed and patented in 1811 by John Blenkinsop.
Stockton and Darlington Railway
A railway company that operated in northeast England from 1825 to 1863. It was the world’s first public railway to use steam locomotives. Its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington and was officially opened on September 27, 1825.
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
A railway that opened in 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom. It was the first railway to rely exclusively on steam power, with no horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be entirely double-track throughout its length; the first to have a signalling system; the first to be fully timetabled; the first to be powered entirely by its own motive power; and the first to carry mail.
Rainhill Trials
An important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October 1829 for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Five engines competed, running back and forth along a mile length of level track at Rainhill in Lancashire (now Merseyside). Stephenson’s Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials and was declared the winner. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.
plateway
An early kind of railway or tramway or wagonway with a cast iron rail. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. They consisted of L-shaped rails where a flange on the rail guided the wheels in contrast to edgeways, where flanges on the wheels guide it along the track. They were originally horse-drawn, but cable haulage and locomotives were sometimes used later.
Salamanca
The first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Holbeck using John Blenkinsop’s patented design for rack propulsion, for the edge-railed Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds. It was the first to have two cylinders. It was named after the Duke of Wellington’s victory at the battle of Salamanca which was fought that same year.

 

Early Rails

The first recorded use of rail transport in Great Britain is Sir Francis Willoughby’s Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire, built between 1603 and 1604 to carry coal. As early as 1671 railed roads were used in Durham to ease the conveyance of coal. The first of these was the Tanfield Wagon Way. Many of these tramroads or wagon ways were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. They used straight and parallel rails of timber on which carts with simple flanged iron wheels were drawn by horses, enabling several wagons to be moved simultaneously.

These primitive rails were superseded in 1793 when the then-superintendent of the Cromford Canal, Benjamin Outram, constructed a tramway with L-shaped flanged cast-iron plate rails (plateways) from the quarry at Crich. Wagons fitted with simple flangeless wheels were kept on the track by vertical ledges or plates. Cast-iron rails were a significant improvement over wooden rails as they could support a greater weight and the friction between wheel and rail was lower, allowing longer trains to be moved by horses. Outram’s rails were superseded by William Jessop’s cast iron edge rails where flanged wheels ran on the top edge of simple bar-shaped rails without the guiding ledges of Outram’s flanged plate rails. The rails were first employed in 1789 at Nanpantan at the Loughborough Charnwood Forest Canal.

Cast iron rails had a propensity to break easily, and the short lengths soon became uneven. In 1820, John Birkenshaw introduced a method of rolling rails in greater lengths using wrought iron which was used from then onward.

Early Railways

The earliest railways were built and paid for by the owners of the mines they served. As railway technology developed, longer lines became possible, connecting mines with more distant transshipment points and promising lower costs. These longer lines often required public subscription to build and crossed over land not owned by the mine owners. As a result, they needed an Act of Parliament to build. The Acts also protected investors from unrealistic or downright fraudulent schemes. The first line to obtain such an act, in 1758, was a private coal-owner’s wagonway, the Middleton Railway in Leeds. The first for public use and on cast iron rails was the Surrey Iron Railway incorporated in 1799. It obtained an Act of Parliament in 1801 to build a tramroad between Wandsworth and Croydon in what is now south London. The engineer was William Jessop. Meanwhile, the first passenger-carrying public railway was the Oystermouth Railway, authorized in 1807. All three of these railways were initially worked by horses. The Surrey Iron Railway remained horse-drawn throughout its life. The Kilmarnock and Troon Railway, the first line in Scotland to carry passengers, was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1808 and was also built by Jessop.

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 Tramroad in South Wales (sometimes incorrectly called the Penydarren Tramroad). Amid great interest from the public, in 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 another locomotive in 1808, 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, designed by in 1812 by Matthew Murray using John Blenkinsop’s patented design for rack propulsion for the 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 railway for the line. This was despite the fact that Trevithick 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.

Blenkinsop’s rack locomotive Salamanca, Middleton to Leeds (UK) coal tramway, 1812, author unknown, riginally published in The Mechanic’s Magazine, 1829.

Salamanca was the first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812.

First Successful Railways

The proprietors of Wylam Colliery wanted to abolish horse-drawn trains in favor of steam. In 1804, William Hedley, a manager at the colliery, employed Trevithick to build a steam locomotive. However, it proved too heavy for the wooden track. William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth (another colliery employee) designed a locomotive in 1813 that became known as Puffing Billy. A year later George Stephenson, another of Wylam’s employees, improved the design with Blücher, the first locomotive to use flanged wheels keeping the locomotive on the track and had cylinder rods directly connected to the wheels in the manner of Catch Me Who Can.

In 1821 an Act of Parliament was approved for a tramway between Stockton and Darlington. Stephenson’s design convinced the backers of the proposed tramway to appoint Stephenson, who had recently built the Hetton colliery railway, as engineer. Traffic on the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was originally intended to be horse-drawn, but Stephenson carried out a fresh survey of the route to allow steam haulage and the Act was subsequently amended to allow the usage of steam locomotives. The railway was also empowered to carry passengers in addition to coal and general merchandise. The line was 25 miles (40 km) in length and had 100 passing loops along its single track and four branch lines to collieries. It opened in 1825. The first train was hauled by Stephenson’s Locomotion No 1 at speeds of 12 to 15 miles per hour (19 to 24 km/h). Four locomotives named Locomotion were constructed and were effectively beam engines on wheels with vertical cylinders.

Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, a watercolor painted in the 1880s by John Dobbin,the National Railway Museum, York. In the painting, crowds are watching the inaugural train cross the Skerne Bridge in Darlington. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business and the line was soon extended to a new port and town at Middlesbrough. While coal wagons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.

The first public steam railway in Scotland was the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. An Act of Parliament authorizing the railway was passed in 1824 and it opened in 1826.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), founded as company in 1823 but opened in 1830, was the world’s first intercity passenger railway, in which all the trains were timetabled and operated by steam locomotives. Further, horse-drawn traffic could use the Stockton and Darlington upon payment of a toll. The passenger-carrying Canterbury and Whitstable Railway opened three months before the L&MR. However, it used cable haulage by stationary steam engines over much of its length, with steam locomotives restricted to the level stretch. The L&MR was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials and finished goods between the port of Liverpool and mills in Manchester in northwest England.

To determine which locomotives would be suitable, the L&MR directors organized the Rainhill Trials. These were arranged as an open contest that would let them see all the locomotive candidates in action, with the choice to follow. The trials were won by Rocket, built by George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson. Rocket was the first locomotive to use a multi-tubular boiler, which allowed more effective heat transfer from the exhaust gases to the water. It was also the first to use a blastpipe, where used steam from the cylinders discharges into the smokebox beneath the chimney to increase the draft of the fire. With these innovations, Rocket averaged 12 miles per hour (19 km/h) achieving a top speed of 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) hauling 13 tons, and was declared the winner of the trials. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The line opened in 1830 with termini at Liverpool Road, Manchester and Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Later conjectural drawing of the Rainhill Trials: in the foreground is Rocket and in the background are Sans Pareil (right) and Novelty, author unknown, the Illustrated London News.

Stephenson’s Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the Rainhill Trials and was declared the winner. The Stephenson brothers were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.

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