Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,600 to 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a self-propelled steam engine on wheels.
In most locomotives the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. [|Variations] in this general design include electrically powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally.
Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick built the first steam locomotive known to have hauled a load over a distance at Pen-y-darren in 1804, although he produced an earlier locomotive for trial at Coalbrookdale in 1802. Salamanca, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray for the Middleton Railway, was the first commercially successful steam locomotive. Locomotion No. 1, built by George Stephenson and his son Robert's company Robert Stephenson and Company, was the first steam locomotive to haul passengers on a public railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, in 1825. Rapid development ensued; in 1830 George Stephenson opened the first public inter-city railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, after the success of Rocket at the 1829 Rainhill Trials had proved that steam locomotives could perform such duties. Robert Stephenson and Company was the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives in the first decades of steam for railways in the United Kingdom, the United States, and much of Europe.
Towards the end of the steam era, a longstanding British emphasis on speed culminated in a record, still unbroken, of by LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard; however, there are long-standing claims that the Pennsylvania Railroad class S1 achieved speeds upwards of 150 mph, though this was never officially proven. In the United States, larger loading gauges allowed the development of very large, heavy locomotives such as the Union Pacific Big Boy, which weighs and has a tractive effort of.
Beginning in the early 1900s, steam locomotives were gradually superseded by electric and diesel locomotives, with railways fully converting to electric and diesel power beginning in the late 1930s. The majority of steam locomotives were retired from regular service by the 1980s, although several continue to run on tourist and heritage lines.
History
Britain
The earliest railways employed horses to draw carts along rail tracks. In 1784, William Murdoch, a Scottish inventor, built a small-scale prototype of a steam road locomotive in Birmingham. A full-scale rail steam locomotive was proposed by William Reynolds around 1787. An early working model of a steam rail locomotive was designed and constructed by steamboat pioneer John Fitch in the US during 1794. Some sources claim Fitch's model was operable already by the 1780s and that he demonstrated his locomotive to George Washington. His steam locomotive used interior bladed wheels guided by rails or tracks. The model still exists at the Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus, US. The authenticity and date of this locomotive is disputed by some experts and a workable steam train would have to await the invention of the high-pressure steam engine by Richard Trevithick, who pioneered the use of steam locomotives.The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was the gauge Coalbrookdale Locomotive built by Trevithick in 1802. It was constructed for the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in the United Kingdom though no record of it working there has survived. On 21 February 1804, the first recorded steam-hauled railway journey took place as another of Trevithick's locomotives hauled a train along the -wide tramway from the Pen-y-darren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil, to Abercynon in South Wales. Accompanied by Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated a number of important innovations that included using high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine and increased its efficiency.
Trevithick visited the Newcastle area in 1804 and had a ready audience of colliery owners and engineers. The visit was so successful that the colliery railways in north-east England became the leading centre for experimentation and development of the steam locomotive. Trevithick continued his own steam propulsion experiments through another trio of locomotives, concluding with the Catch Me Who Can in 1808, first in the world to haul fare-paying passengers.
In 1812, Matthew Murray's successful twin-cylinder rack locomotive Salamanca first ran on the edge-railed rack-and-pinion Middleton Railway. Another well-known early locomotive was Puffing Billy, built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley. It was intended to work on the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. This locomotive is the oldest preserved, and is on static display at the Science Museum, London.
George Stephenson
, a former miner working as an engine-wright at Killingworth Colliery, developed up to sixteen Killingworth locomotives, including Blücher in 1814, another in 1815, and a Killingworth Billy in 1816. He also constructed The Duke in 1817 for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway, which was the first steam locomotive to work in Scotland.In 1825, Stephenson built Locomotion No. 1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north-east England, which was the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829, his son Robert built in Newcastle The Rocket, which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials. This success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the UK, US and much of Europe. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened a year later making exclusive use of steam power for passenger and goods trains.
United States
Before the arrival of British imports, some domestic steam locomotive prototypes were built and tested in the United States, including John Fitch's miniature prototype. A prominent full sized example was Col. John Steven's "steam wagon" which was demonstrated on a loop of track in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1825.Many of the earliest locomotives for commercial use on American railroads were imported from Great Britain, including first the Stourbridge Lion and later the John Bull. However, a domestic locomotive-manufacturing industry was soon established. In 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Tom Thumb, designed by Peter Cooper, was the first commercial US-built locomotive to run in America; it was intended as a demonstration of the potential of steam traction rather than as a revenue-earning locomotive. The DeWitt Clinton, built in 1831 for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, was a notable early locomotive.
, the original John Bull was on static display in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The replica is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
Continental Europe
In Germany, the first working steam locomotive was a rack-and-pinion engine, similar to the Salamanca, designed by the British locomotive pioneer John Blenkinsop. Built in June 1816 by Johann Friedrich Krigar in the Royal Berlin Iron Foundry, the locomotive ran on a circular track in the factory yard. It was the first locomotive to be built on the European mainland and the first steam-powered passenger service; curious onlookers could ride in the attached coaches for a fee. It is portrayed on a New Year's badge for the Royal Foundry dated 1816. Another locomotive was built using the same system in 1817. They were to be used on pit railways in Königshütte and in Luisenthal on the Saar, but neither could be returned to working order after being dismantled, moved and reassembled. On 7 December 1835, the Adler ran for the first time between Nuremberg and Fürth on the Bavarian Ludwig Railway. It was the 118th engine from the locomotive works of Robert Stephenson and stood under patent protection.In Russia, the first steam locomotive was built in 1834 by Cherepanovs, however, it suffered from the lack of coal in the area and was replaced with horse traction after all the woods nearby had been cut down. The first Russian Tsarskoye Selo steam railway started in 1837 with locomotives purchased from Robert Stephenson and Company.
In 1837, the first steam railway started in Austria on the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway between Vienna-Floridsdorf and Deutsch-Wagram. The oldest continually working steam engine in the world also runs in Austria: the GKB 671 built in 1860, has never been taken out of service, and is still used for special excursions.
In 1838, the third steam locomotive to be built in Germany, the Saxonia, was manufactured by the Maschinenbaufirma Übigau near Dresden, built by Prof. Johann Andreas Schubert. The first independently designed locomotive in Germany was the Beuth, built by August Borsig in 1841. The first locomotive produced by Henschel-Werke in Kassel, the Drache, was delivered in 1848.
The first steam locomotives operating in Italy were the Bayard and the Vesuvio, running on the Napoli-Portici line, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
The first railway line over Swiss territory was the Strasbourg–Basel line opened in 1844. Three years later, in 1847, the first fully Swiss railway line, the Spanisch Brötli Bahn, from Zürich to Baden was opened.