The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-08-30
From the Kansas City star.

From the Kansas City star.
TN celebrating many important events
in history from the birth of gerat men
= to beginning of great industries. we
have overlooked the centenary of one
event, which had great influence on the
development of our civilization. For it
was just 100 years ago that the first To-
comotive to do train hauling was set to
work at some coal mines in England.
The idea of using steam for propelling
land carriages had been discussed in n
half hearted way by the philosophers who
lived in the declining years of the French
monarchy From the great amount OF
talk and discussion little was actually ac-
complished. An officer in the French
army did invent an engine which used
high pressure steam in ITO 1t was in
tended for military purposes but as/it
could make a speed of only about three
miles an hour with great effort it did not
prove successful.
Several years later William Murdock, IN
assistant to Boulton and Watt, the engine
builders, made road engine which he ran
around the country roads of England.
But the development of the high speed en-
gine was due chiefly to the efforts of an
American inventor. Oliver Evans Evans
built dredging scow weighing about two
tons, which he mounted on wheels and
propelled through the streets OF Phiadel-
phia. The first attempt to run a steam
driven vehicle on rails was made by Rich
ard Trevithick in 1903 An engine was
made which pulled a few cars, but it was
so complicated that 1t was impracticable
for regular work., and was abandoned
after a few trials.
For the next ten years there was con-
siderable effort made to produce a loco
motive that would, work satisfactorily.
But it was in the coal mines in the north
of England that the first success was at
tanned. The only method that was at first
used to transport the coal was by pack
horse. Then when the roads for wheeled
carriages were made. carts were intro
duced, and this first step in mechanical
appliance increased the load that one
horse could carry.
The next improvement was The laying CT
wooden bars or rails for the carts to run
on, and this was followed by the substitu-
tion of four-wheeled wagon for the two
wheeled cart. Then slips of iron were at
tached to the wooden rails. Soon after
this came the iron tramway, the upright
flange of the bar acting as a guide to keep
the wheel on the track. The next logical
step, of course, was the transferring OF
the fiange to the Wheel an Improvement
which enabled cast iron edge rails to be
used
All these improvements of course made
the transportation of coal much more
rapid, and meant a great gain in profits.
Two workmen in the employ of the wy
lam colliery, who were above the common
mechanics, took a keen interest in me-
chanical traction. One was William He'd
ley and the other Timothy Hackwortll.
Hedley superintended series of experi-
ments with rails, and found that the or
dinary weight of locomotive would pre-
vent the wheels from slipping. One of
the chief faults of Trevithick's locomotive
was that the power was too great for the
weight available for adhesion.
Hedley then designed a locomotive
which was built by Heckworth, who was
blacksmith. That engine was put TO
work in 1872 and hauled coal cars as far
as its capacity went, but the boiler proved
to be faulty. This was remedied in sec
ond engine which Hedley had constructed
in 1918. The new engine was called the
Putting Billy.
Puffing Billy was the beginning of the
grasshopper type of locomotive which
was used in variety of notifications
until 1929, wnen the directors of the Liv-
erpool and Manchester railway offered a
prize of s25OO for locomotive which would
meet certain requirements. Robert
Stephenson won that prize with his
Rocket. This invention introduced an
entirely new type Of locomotive.
The success of stephenson's Rocket
turned the attention Of locomotive design
ers to the simplifed form Of engine. Be-
fore that time hundreds of grasshopper
engines were at work in colleries, they be-
ing the only type used for hauling. So it