The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-11-11
RAILROAD NEWS.
The First Passenger Train a
Century Ago.
Was Operated by Trevith ok in
London.
ROAD MADE NO PROFIT
And Was Finally Given Up by
Promoter.
Other Items of Interest in Rail-
way Circles.
ROAD MADE NO PROFIT

The first steam passenger train was
run in London a century ago. This
interesting event has escaped public
notice, and it might be overlooked had
not w. B. Paley contributed an article
on the subject to the current number
of the Railroad Age Gazette. In part
Mr. Paley says:
The precise date on which Richard
Trevithick's experiments with a loco
motive, drawing a common road car
riage upon Hanged rails or plates. be-
gan is matter of some uncertainty,
but there is every reason to suppose
1t was on Monday. August 1. 1908.
The locality was somewhere in the
angle formed by the Tottenham Court
road and the New road-now called the
Euston road, London, probably as near
" as possible at the north end of Tor
rlnSton Square, neighborhood Well
known to the many Americans who pre-
fer boarding houses to hotels on their
visits to London. Here, on what was
then a piece of waste ground, Trevi-
thick erected a circular boarded in
closure, charging 5 shillings for admis-
sion to see the performance of his en-
CINE.
The trials seem to have proceeded from
a bet between Trevithick and some
person or persons unknown as to the
relative capacities for work of a loco
motive engine and of a race horse. The
affair was to be decided at Newmarket
races in October, 1903, the London ex-
periments being made probably to as
certain what chance an engine might
have.
Whether the untimely end of these,
the cost of laying a railway or plate
way for the engine at Newmarket, and
of getting it there. or the difficulty of
arranging fair terms, rendered the bet
void is not known, but no trace can
be found that anything was done at
Newmarket in connection with the
wager. A contemporary account says
that 1t was for the sum of 100000 that
the engine was the favorite, the scheme
being to see which could go farthest in
"a hours, starting at the same time.
In those days the making of absurd
bets upon every imaginable subject was
very common. and Thevithick, having
previously won a smaller bet over his
locomotive performance in South
Wales, was the more likely to enter
into another.
The engine used was a different one,
apparently simply the boiler of pump
ing or dredging engine, mounted on four
smooth wheels, with a single vertical
cylinder sunk in it. From a cross
beam at the top end of the piston rod
long connected rods worked the pair
of wheels Immediately below through
pins in the latter.
The sort of boiler Trevithick common
ly used had a castiron shell about an
inch thick. say feet long, and 8 or
A feet in diameter One end was slight
~ convex. the other open, with an out
side hange round the edge. On this
end was fitted a wrought iron cover
provided with a return f1ue of the same
material. Bars being laid in this to
form a CRATE, and a funnel added to
the other end outside the plate, the
latter was bolted to the fange and
made steam-tioht-
Thus the heating arrangement could
be taken out bodily. permitting the
most perfect examination or cleaning of
the barrel
One of these boilers is at the South
Kensington museum. They were heavy
of course, and not very trustworthy, |
though probably the numerous failures
with them were largely due to ignorant
management.
Trevithicl gave notice in the papers |
that the Racing Steamengine" would |
commence its performance on Tuesday, |
July 10, 1908, at IL a. m. Probably it |
did begin then, but next day it's pro-
prietor had to announce that it was
put off till the 18th, the ground I'M |
der the railway, on which it was to |
run, being too soft and spongy, requir- |
ing additional support of timber"
However, he wrote to a friend on |
Thursday July %, that he had taken |
up the whole of the timber and iron, |
square. down on the ground" He had |
nearly all the road laid again, which |
now appears very firm" The engine |
was pushed round by hand to test the
No account appeared. that the pres
ent writer has been able to trace of |
the actual results of the trials. No no |
tice was given when they would finish, |
nor in fact when they would begin, |
other than the one quoted, but as the |
letter of July IS says. the writer hopes |
it viii all be complete by the end of |
this week" Monday. August 1, was
no doubt the actual date.
Nearly 40 years later one who had
ridden round the circular railway, tim
ing the speed as IL miles an hour. wrote |
that the engine ran for some weeks,
when a rail broke. and made the en-
CINE fly off at a tangent and upset, the |
ground being very soft at the time"
! AS poor Trevithick had spent all his |
means on the Enclosure and costly re- |
laying. while very few people came to
see the show, he gave it up and the
engine was not put on the road again.
CAN SELL BONDS.