A NEW METHOD OR METHODS OF APPLYING ANIMAL POWER TO MACHINERY
Year: 1829

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
SHAW BRANDRETH, late of Liverpool, but now of London, Barrister-at-Law,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth
did, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing
date at Westminster, the Ninth day of September, One thousand eight hundred
and twenty-nine, in the tenth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said Thomas Shaw Brandreth, His especial licence, that I, the said Thomas
Shaw Brandreth, my executors, administrators, and assigns, and such others
as I, the said Thomas Shaw Brandreth, my executors, administrators, or assigns,
should at any time agree with and no others, from time to time and at all
times during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Ber-
wick-upon-Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad,
my Invention of "A NEW METHOD OR METHODS OF APPLYING ANIMAL POWER
TO MACHINERY;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that I,
the said Thomas Shaw Brandreth, should cause a particular description of the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in His said Majesty's High Court of Chancery, within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had,
will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas Shaw Brandreth, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is described
and ascertained in manner following (that is to say):-
The machinery to which my new method of applying animal power is most
particularly adapted is, a certain kind of locomotive machinery for moving or
drawing carriages along the roads that are commonly called railways. Such
locomotive machinery has hitherto been put in motion by steam power, and is
then called a locomotive steam engine, and is used to draw loaded carriages
after it along a railway; but such locomotive machinery being put in motion
by applying a horse or horses, or other animal or animals, to the same
according to my new method herein-after described, I call it a cycloped, for
drawing loaded carriages after it along a railway in lieu of a locomotive steam
engine: The said locomotive machinery or cycloped transports or conveys
upon or within itself the animal which impels it in such manner that the
said animal does not step or walk upon the roadway over which the cycloped
travels, but the animal acts with its feet (in the manner of walking) upon a
moveable platform, which is extended horizontally like an endless belt over
suitable rollers at the lower part of the cycloped, in order that. the platform
may be capable of circulating over such rollers when it is forcibly impelled. by
the feet of the animal. The wheels on which the locomotive machinery or
cycloped is mounted on the railway are fixed on the extreme ends of the axles
of certain of the said rollers over which the endless platform circulates as afore-
said; and therefore those wheels are turned round and the cycloped. is advanced
along the railway by the force which the animal exerts with his feet. to impel
the moveable platform, and cause it to circulate around the rollers. The
advantages I propose to attain by my new method or methods of applying
animal power to such locomotive machinery, in order to draw carriages along
railways thereby (in preference to the ordinary mode of attaching the animals
to the carriages that are to be drawn), are as follows:-The cycloped, when im-
pelled by animal power applied by my method, may be made to advance forwards
and-draw other carriages after it along the railway with a much quicker speed
than that which the animal gives with its feet to the moveable platform
upon which they tread: The animal always treads or steps with a speed best
suited to its natural habit upon the moveable platform, which is constructed
with a suitable surface to receive the action of its feet, and that surface is kept
free from. accumulation. of mud and loose gravel or stones; hence the animal
will be less fatigued in performing its work than by travelling in the usual
manner along an uneven road, and exposed, continually to tread upon sharp

page_text: stones, or to step into hollows which often contain mud and loose gravel.
This circumstance of the animal treading upon a prepared platform in the
locomotive machinery instead of the ordinary road is particularly advantages
when it is required to travel with rapidity; for, when a horse or other animal is
applied in the usual manner to draw carriages along a railway, the animal
must necessarily step along the road and advance thereon with the same
rapidity as the carriages that are drawn by the animal, consequently that
rapidity ought to be limited to the speed (which best suits the natural habit of
the individual animal employed; whereas, by my new method of applying
animal power to locomotive machinery (which, as aforesaid, I call a cycloped),
the motion given by the feet of the animal to the circulating platform is caused
to turn the wheels upon which the cycloped is mounted, and by that means to
advance the same along the railway, in order to draw other carriages after it;
hence, according to the size of those wheels, compared with the size of the
rollers over which the endless platform circulates, the speed of the travelling
along the railway will be greater than the speed which the animal gives with
its feet to the platform, and that should be such a speed as is most suitable to
the natural habit of the animal employed, the wheels of the cycloped being so
proportioned as to increase that speed to what it is required for travelling
along the railway; and hence, by my method of applying animal power to
locomotive machinery, carriages may be drawn along railways with a rapidity
which it would be quite impracticable to attain by the usual mode of applying
animal power to draw such carriages by a direct action.
For the more complete explanation of my Invention, I have hereunto
annexed a Drawing, which contains three views of the cycloped or locomotive
machinery for drawing carriages along a railway by the power of a horse,
which is applied thereto according to my new method. Figure 1 is a
lateral elevation of the machinery; Figure 2, a horizontal plan thereof; and
Figure 3, a transverse section. The same letters of reference are used to
denote the same parts in all the Figures. A, A, is the endless platform on
which the horse treads; B and C, two cylindrical barrels or drums over
which it is extended. The axis b, c, of each drum is mounted in suitable
bearings affixed to each end of the frame M, M, m, m, of the cycloped, and
the ends of each axis b and c project out each way beyond those bearings. The
four wheels G, G, G, G, which support the whole cycloped and run upon the
railway, are fixed fast on the extreme ends of each axis 6 and c. The motion
given to the drums B and C (when the endless platform A, A, is caused to
circulate around them by the treading action of the feet of the horse) being
transmitted by the axes b, c, to the four wheels G, the whole cycloped is caused

page_text: to travel along the railway, together with the horse which impels it. d, d, d,
are small rollers mounted on horizontal axles, which extend across the frame
M, M, from one side to the other, and turn freely on pivots at each end of
cach axle. The rollers d, d, bear up and support the platform A at the part where
the horse treads upon it, but they do not impede its circulating motion. The
moving or endless platform A, A, is composed of forty-two pieces of board of
elm (or other tough and light wood), two feet long, six inches broad, and one
inch and a half thick, which are applied edge to edge to make a plane two feet
wide and twenty-one feet long, which is afterwards doubled and the ends
joined together to form an endless band. Two pieces of strong wood one inch
and a half square, and nearly twelve inches long, are fixed across each board
near to the ends thereof, and on what I call the upper side (being that side at
which the feet of the horse are to act). These cross pieces, which I call
stiffeners, are firmly fastened to the narrow boards by screws or bolts, and
being across the grain of those boards give them strength. The ends of
the cross pieces or stiffeners extend each way beyond the edges of the
boards to which they are fastened, in order that the projecting ends of the
stiffeners may overlap the neighbouring boards, but they are not fastened
thereto. The stiffeners for one half the number of boards are fixed across
very near to the ends of the same, leaving only half an inch at each end
of each board beyond the stiffeners, but the stiffeners for the other half
the number of boards leave two inches of each end of each board beyond them.
The boards thus prepared in two different ways are put together edge to edge,
alternately a board of one kind and the adjacent board of the other kind,
so that the projecting ends of their several stiffeners will mutually overlap
the adjoining boards and interlock one by the side of another, in order to
unite the several boards into a continued plane or platform, which is made
rigid in one direction by the stiffeners, for they resist flexure of the plane
in that direction which would render it concave on the side to which the
stiffners are applied, but they permit the plane to bend and fold freely in
the other direction. The said forty-two boards are connected together by
applying two double ropes across all the boards on their under sides (that is, the
opposite side to that where the stiffeners are fixed), and binding all the boards
fast to those ropes; they are kept together edge to edge by the ropes in.a
continues platform without impediment to the flexibility thereof, and the
.platform being folded and applied around the drums B, C, and the several
rollers d, d, its two ends are brought together and joined into an endless
band by seizing the two double ropes together end to end. Each double
rope is prepared by splicing together the two ends of a tarred rope, half
an

page_text: inch diameter, and of such length that the endless rope so formed, when
closed like two ropes side by side and stretched, will measure rather less
than twenty-one feet. Each of these double ropes, when placed across the
under side of the boards, at three and a half inches from their ends, is firmly
fastened to each board lashings of marline passing round the double rope,
and through holes made at two inches from each edge of each board, the
marline passing round togles or small pieces of wood applied to the upper
side of the board across the holes. When the ends of the platform are
brought together to be united, the seizings are applied in the bights or double
ends of cach double rope. The upper surface of each of the boards in the
space between the stiffeners is nearly covered by nailing on a coarse piece
of hard wood fifteen inches long, five inches broad, and one inch thick, to
receive the feet of the horse and endure the wearing occasioned thereby; these
pieces leave spaces of an inch wide between them, and afford good hold for
the feet. The drums B and C are rollers or cylinders of wood twelve inches
diameter and two feet long. Grooves are turned at the parts where the
double ropes of the endless platform apply around the drums to receive
those ropes and turn the drums. The axles b and c of the drums B and C
are about three inches diameter, and the ends extend out each way so far
beyond the bearings that the wheels G, G, which are fixed on the ends of
them, will correspond to the rails of the railway. The wheels G, G, are
to be of the same kind as those commonly used for waggons on railways,
and of such a size as will give the cycloped the speed required for the travelling
on the railway when the horse impels or moves the plane beneath his feet
with a speed most suitable to his natural habits. The frame of the cycloped
consists of two horizontal side rails M, M, six inches by four, with uprights
m, m, of three inches square at each end. The bearings for the necks of
the two axles b and c are fastened against those uprights near to their lower
ends. Horizontal top rails n, n, are affixed to the upper ends of the uprights
at six feet high from the ground, and they are further supported by other
uprights o, o, as shewn in the elevation. The two sides of the frame aro
firmly united by horizontal transverse pieces four inches by three, morticed into
the main side rails M, M, leaving twenty-five inches clear space between those
rails for the endless platform to circulate in. The bearing rollers d, d, for
the platform are eight in number, four inches diameter, and twenty-four
inches long, with grooves turned in them to receive the double ropes, and
allow them to pass without compression. The iron spindles are three quarters
of an inch in diameter, they pass through all the length of the rollers, and
the ends are pivots, which rest in sockets fixed on the side rails M, M.

page_text: Pieces of board are fixed across from one side rail M to the other, beneath
the platform A, to fill up the intervals between the rollers d, d, in order
that the feet of the horse may not get down between the rollers, in case
the lashings which fasten the boards of the platform to the ropes should
break, or the ropes themselves, so as to leave wide intervals between the
boards. The inside of the space within the frame is lined with boards of
three quarters of an inch thick nailed against the uprights. This boarding
is set off from those uprights at the lower part, as is shewn in the end view
Figure 3; so as to leave only fifteen inches clear space withinside for the
feet of the horse immediately above the platform, whereby the boarding.
covers up and conceals the stiffeners and the ends of the boards of the
platform. This boarding is not represented in Fig. 1 because it would
conceal the parts. The uprights spread a little outwards, so as to leave
about twenty-eight inches clear space within the boarding at the top. Note,
the endless platform, when applied in its place around the rollers, should
swag or hang down in a curve six or eight inches lower in the middle than
under the drums B and C. The weight of that curve will tend to draw the
drums B and C together, and thus cause the platform and its two double
ropes to apply firmly around those drums, in order to give motion to them
without slipping. Note, also, those parts of the upper sides of the boards,
where the ends of the stiffeners of the adjoining boards overlap them, must
be cut away at the edges of the boards, but not at the middles thereof, so as to
form rounding curves across the width of the boards beneath the overlapping
stiffeners; this is done to allow the flexure of the plane when it passes around
the drums B and C, but the bearings for the extremities of the stiffeners
upon the middles of the adjoining boards being preserved, the flexure of the
plane downwards is prevented as before described. The horse is to be intro-
duced into his place upon the moveable platform, and between the boarded
sides of the frame, either by means of a trough bridge, or by loose boards, one
end of the frame being left quite open for that purpose. The horse is to be
harnessed with a collar, and chain traces to hook to the top rails n, n, a belly
band and back band, and also a breeching, all which are to be attached to
the same side rails. He may have a bridle or halter, and a manger trough fixed
across between the sides to eat out of; the shoes should be a little roughened,
but not raised behind. When the horse is urged to walk, the platform will move
under his feet, and give motion to the wheels of the cycloped, whereby it will
be advanced along the railway with a very increased speed; the direction of
that motion is with the horse's tail foremost. The other carriages that are to
be drawn along the railway by the cycloped are connected with a frame R,

page_text: which projects out behind for that purpose. The boy to drive the horse may
either ride in the carriage immediately following the cycloped, or, if that is
inconvenient, a seat may be fixed for him behind the frame by extending the
horizontal top rails n, n, out backwards, in order to support such seat with
suitable uprights from the frame R. The platform A, A, is rendered so firm
by the stiffeners that a horse feels perfect confidence to walk upon it, and I
have found horses to take to the work at once. Sometimes I place the drum B,
which is towards the horse's head, a little higher than the other drum C, so as
to give a little inclination to the plane on which the horse works, but this is
not very material. The above is the cheapest and lightest mode of construct-
ing the cycloped that I have yet tried; but many variations of that construction
may be made without departing from my Invention; for instance, straps or
webs, or chains, may be substituted for ropes, and cast-iron sheaves fixed on
axles may be substituted for the several drums and rollers. The ends of the
boards of which the platform is composed may be hooped with iron, or may
have pieces of iron fixed across them at the under sides, both to prevent splitting
and to bear upon the sheaves so as to avoid wearing away the wood. In cases
when my new method or methods of applying animal power to locomotive
machinery is required to be used on board boats or vessels, in order to impel
the same by revolving paddle wheels in lieu of steam power, the paddle
wheels of such boat or vessel (which must be substituted for the wheels G, G,
of the cycloped) being necessarily of a much larger diameter than the wheels
of the cycloped, the drums B and C will also require to be larger in diameter
than would be convenient in a cycloped for a railway, both on account of
weight, and also on account of the height to which the moving platform for the
horse would be elevated, if the drums B and C, and the wheels G, G, were
made much larger than represented in the Drawings.
Figure 4 represents one of the drums B or C for a cycloped, to explain how
wheelwork may be introduced to give changes of speed for either quick or
slow travelling on a railway (by my method of applying animal power to loco-
motive machinery), without altering the speed with which the animal acts with
his feet. The axis 6 of the drum has cog wheels p, q, fitted on each end of it,
instead of the large wheels that are to run on the railway, but those
wheels (G, G,) are fixed on a separate axis g, which extends across the frame,
and runs in suitable bearings affixed thereto on that axis.
Other cog
wheels h, k, are fitted, and are turned by the teeth of the before-mentioned
wheels sp, q. The wheels p and q are fitted on squares at the ends of the
axis b, so as to be capable of sliding along the axis, in order to place either
of the
cog wheels por q in the plane of its corresponding wheel h or k, that

page_text: their teeth may work together and transmit the motion of the circulating
platform to the wheels G, G, of the cycloped, which will advance in the
direction with the head of the horse foremost, and with a speed depending
conjointly upon the diameters of the drum B, the proportion of that pair of
cog wheels h, p, or k, q, which are engaged together, and the diameter of the
wheels G, G. The cog wheels at one end of the axis b, b, being of one pro-
portion, and those at the opposite end being of a different proportion, the
speed of the cycloped can be altered by using one pair of wheels instead of the
other. The wheels of that pair which is not in use being separated by moving
or sliding that wheel which is fitted on the axis b, b, so much along that axis
that the pair of wheels will be in different planes, and there will be no contact
between their respective teeth. The said cog wheels may be retained where
they are placed on the axis by pins, and they may be slided along the axis by
means of levers, as is commonly done in machinery for like purposes. Note,
the two pairs of cog wheels must never be engaged together at the same
time, but one pair must always be disengaged when the others are brought
into use. It may be convenient in some cases to disengage both pairs of cog
wheels; for instance, on railways having long descents down which the carriages
will run by themselves, the cog wheels may then be entirely disengaged, in
order that the platform on which the horse stands may not continue in circula-
tion or occasion the horse a useless fatigue, but leave him at rest all the time
the carriages are running of themselves. One pair of the cog wheels h; p;
may be suitably proportioned to enable the horse to draw the load of carriages
after the cycloped with a slow motion up an inclined or ascending part of the
railway, without any more than his usual exertion; and having surmounted the
difficult part of the journey, then the other pair of wheels k, q, being put
into gear instead, may have the proper proportion for impelling the same load
with an increased speed along the level railway, without any material alteration
of the speed or force with which the horse is to impel the moveable platform
with the feet. For a poney or a donkey, the weight and size of the machine
may be considerably reduced, and a still smaller might be made for a man.
The drums B and C may be made larger or smaller in diameter, according as
more power or more speed is required to be given to the wheels of the
cycloped:
Having now described the machinery by which my Invention is to be
carried into effect, I do hereby declare that what I claim as my. Invention
is, the particular new method or methods herein-before described of applying
.animal power to machinery for drawing carriages along railways, or for
impelling boats or floating vessels on water, and which method consists in

page_text: applying the feet of animals to act in the manner of walking upon a moveable
endless platform, so as to cause the same to circulate around rollers or
drums, which are connected either simply by axles, or else by cog wheels (in
the manner herein-before described), with the wheels which support the loco-
motive machinery on railways, or with the paddle wheels which act in the
water, if the machinery is used for impelling floating vessels.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Shaw Brandreth, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and thirty.
THOMAS SHAW (L.s.) BRANDRETH.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Fifth day of March, in the
year of our Lord 1830, the aforesaid Thomas Shaw Brandreth came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and thirty.