Steam Horse locomotive
The Steam Horse was an early railway steam locomotive constructed by the Butterley Company in Derbyshire in 1813 by William Brunton. Also known as the Mechanical Traveller, it had a pair of mechanical legs, with feet that gripped the ground behind the engine to push it forwards along the rails at about three miles an hour.
Design
The collieries were well served between towns by the canal system. From the pit head to the canals, horse-drawn wagonways had been constructed and steam engines were seen as no more than a noisy and dangerous novelty. However the Napoleonic Wars from 1799 to 1815 had brought a great increase in the price of fodder. Moreover, some such "railways" were being constructed on the steeper gradients within canals, as for instance on the Charnwood Forest Canal.Few believed that steel wheels on smooth steel rails would give enough adhesion until Robert Stephenson and William Hedley proved otherwise in 1813 and even the former considered 1 in 100 was the absolute maximum grade. Consequently, such steam operated systems as there were, were operated by cumbersome cables, or by the use of an expensive rack and pinion.
This makes Brunton's idea seem more reasonable, given that the Butterley Company were faced with a gradient of 1 in 50 between its Limestone quarry at Crich to the Cromford Canal at Amber Wharf, some away. Brunton took out a patent, No. 3700, dated 22 May 1813 for the locomotive. The Butterley locomotive cost a total of £240.