The San Francisco call., 1903-12-04
Old-Titne automobile.
BY MALCOLM MCDOWELL.
lAuthor OF shop Talk on the Wonders OF the
Crafts.')

Crafts
Copyright 1903. by Joseph B. Bowies)
Enthusiastic automobilists-and al
most every driver of the horseless
vehicle is an enthusiast-have ventur-
ed the opinion that nothing but the
lack of uniformly good roads prevents
the automobile from making the loco
tive a second-rate motor. This rather
large claim might provoke derisive
smile but for the recorded fact that
had it not been for the bad roads of
England just one hundred years ago
there might not have been any loco
motive. The automobile and locomo-
tive are self-movers-the one runs on
comon roads and the other on rail
roads-and the automobile is the ia
Their of the locomotive.
The original locomotive was an au-
tomobile-a steam carriage. designed
10 run on common roads and turn
pixies. It was designeHand construct
ed by a couple of coal-mining engin-
eers4Trevithick and Vivian-and was
the first high-pressure steam 'locomo-
tive" ever operated There had been
several models of low-pressure steam
.road-wagons' made before the Welsh
engineers put together the little
steam runa bout which became the orl-
ginal Of the modern automobiles and
locomotives. 1t was a compact little
affair with single cylinder and fly
wheel and it was tested-so one ac-
count reads-on Christmas day 1902.
But the little machine was only sue
cessful in that it proved the practica-
bility of using bigh-pressure steam for
propelling a vehicle.
Just one hundred years ago this
month Richard Trevithick was COM
pleting a high-pressure steam self
mover, which he placed on the tram
rails of a coal mine in Wales in 1904.
This was the first locomotive in that
II was the first automobile to be placed
on rails. But when Trevithick was
building 1t he intended running it on
turnpike. but the roadway was in
bad condition and he tried it on rails
of the coal mine tramway.
At the Worlds Fair in st. Louis
next year the centennial of the loco
motive is to be tremendously celebra-
ted. but it will be seen that the same
day can be as we'll called "automobile
day'-it's toss up which Trevithick' S
fndcnlne WdS-dl ouNO4iiOpilS VI d ~
connective.
The first quarter of the last century
developed an automobile craze much
more virulent than the devil wagon
Juror of to-day. The modern chauffeur
who has been haled into police courts
and fined by country Justices may find
large comfort in knowing that the first
automobilists were prosecuted, perse-
cuted, stoned, jeered, taunted. fined
prohibited and had a hard time of II
all around.
In the lS20's and '30's steam carriages
to run on common roads became such a
fad that the directors of toll roads and
the stage coach companies became
alarmed They slipped a number of lit
tie bills through Parliament permitting
toll roads to levy prohibitive tolls or
steam carriages and wagons. Thus in
| 1881 Mr.. Guerney, who built and oper-
ated several steam carriages, was
charged e2 and shillings for his
steam carriage on the Liverpool and
Prescott road: the ordinary toll for a
| loaded six-horse stage coach was but
4 shillings. On other turnpikes the
. steam carriages were compelled to pay
from five to seven times what the huge
numbering stage coaches were required
TO pay.
But notwithstanding persecution. fail
ures and bad roads. the steam carriage
was improved and grew in popularity
so that in 1893 eighteen steam coache;
and drags for carrying passengers were
built or building in London and its
vicinity Private steam carriages which
made from fifteen to twenty miles ar
hour were common, and many lines OF
steam coaches between large cities
transporting thousands of passengers
were established.
Some of these early automobiles car
ried an amazing steam pressure in their
boilers. The ordinary pressure was
from seventy to $50 pounds to the
square inch, but it is Of record that
some of the cracks" run by their titled
owners carried a steam pressure of 300
to 400 pounds to the square inch. The
chauffeur OF to-day, who, in his gaso-
line and racing car, equipped with ev-
erything that is up to the minute
drives his automobile seventy to eighty
miles an hour, is properly tagged
reckless" But what would you cal
the man who, with a crude, untrieo
machine, forced his boiler to carry 400
pounds pressure to the inch TO reach
the unprecedented speed of twent,
miles an hour?