(A) Containing the data and descriptive matter relating to existing inventions and mechanisms, devised by other for operating two cylinder compounds—published at home and abroad—together with the experience and opinions of the members of the committee on coördinate branches of the subject
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1892
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 545 KB
- Volume
- 133
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The pen of locomotive history has recorded little or nothing of practical value during the first twelve centuries of our era.
Whether the announcement of M. Pambour, made in the year 1835, that "locomotive engines were the first of all engines," be true or not, we can refer with confidence to the words of Roger Bacon, written more than 600 years ago, in which he says : "We will be able to propel carriages with incredible speed without the assistance of any animal."
The long years succeeding this prophecy were filled with "speculations wild and visionary theories absurd" (so the records tell us), down to the date of Ramsay's English patent in 1618, which; in the quaint language of the time, offers us : "~ farre more easie and better waye for the carrying of coaches, carts, drayes and other things, going on wheels, than eve*" yet was used or discovered."
Even the great Sir Isaac Newton, in the year 1680, tries his hand at inventing a road locomotive, but whether it ever passed beyond "the idea 0nly for other minds to work upon," history is silent.
The period of fruitful experiment with locomotive engines having cylinders and pistons and the necessary valve gear with linkages to cranks, begins with a French engineer, named Cugnot, in the years 1763 to 1770, and was continued by Murdock in 1784, and by Trevithick and Vivian in 1800, who at once solved the problems of high-pressure steam and simplicity of construction. Our "Watt of America "--Oliver Evans--in 1804, built that odd machine which was at home on land or in water, and, in common with Murdock, used the "grasshopper engine," with vertical steam cylinder.
Gurney's steam coach of 1828 is interesting as showing a horizontal cylinder having rod connections from a piston to a cranked driving-wheel axle, upon which is an eccentric for working the valve, arranged for cutting off at half stroke and with a link for reversing. He also used one of the earliest "sectional boilers," in which lie carried steam of seventy pounds pressure per square inch.
But when the celebrated Rainhill trial came off in October 6, 1829, Stephenson's "Rocket" held the track al(me, having more than performed all the stipulated conditions. This was the result of Stephenson's resolve in 1813 to make himself thoroughly acquainted with what had already