A NEW OR IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF PORTABLE TRACTION OR ROAD ENGINE
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by David Bleloch, senior, and David
Bleloch, junior, at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st
September 1877.
DAVID BLELOCH, senior, and DAVID BLELOCH, junior, both of the Firm of David
Bleloch and Son, Saw Mills and Wagon Works, Charlestown, in the County of Fife,
North Britain. A NEW OR IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF PORTABLE TRACTION OR
ROAD ENGINE."
"
This Invention has reference to a new or improved road engine propelled by a
simple arrangement of levers and mechanism with feet, instead of being propelled as
usual by wheels, which in this case are only used as rolling and carrying wheels,
and which improvements will be of great utility as applied to traction engines for
road and agricultural purposes where great power is required with smaller or
lighter engines than formerly, which engine we propose to term a "steam horse,"
as it acts somewhat like the limbs of a horse in pulling the load. And the nature
of the Invention consists in the application of a new or improved arrangement of
duplex or toggle levers ranged nearly vertical, preferably near the end of the
boiler and engine with the upper limbs longest, and fulcrumed on a frame and
cross bar near the top of the engine, and reciprocated at the lower ends in guides
and with feet on the lower ends of the short limbs of the levers, which are connected
at their "knee" joint to the free end of connecting rods, one set preferably close to
the boiler inside the frame, and one outside, between the frame and the back wheels,
and another when desired outside the wheels on each side, that is, one, two, or three
on each side of the carriage, the respective pairs acting nearly at the same time all
in front of the axle of the back wheels, the other ends of the connecting rods being
worked by eccentrics or cranks on a shaft mounted preferably in journal bearing
blocks secured to the frame below the front end of the engine and boiler, and
actuated through a spur wheel or spur wheels on it, gearing into pinions on the crank
shaft of the engine, preferably nearly above the eccentric shaft, carried in bearing
blocks projecting up from the frame and with connecting rods leading back from
the cranks to the steam cylinders, secured to the side frames under or at the sides of
the back end of the boiler, which is preferably made of the horizontal tubular class
used for agricultural portable engines, with the fire-box and driver's platform behind

page_text: the back axle and large carrying wheels at this end, the front end of the engine
being preferably carried on a small wheel or wheels on a steering boggie under it,
with levers in front of the engine and clinins or rods carried; back over the top, or at
the sides of the boiler, to hand wheels, levers, or other equivalent at the platform
end for raising and lowering the axle end of the boggle frames and swivelling or
steering it.
The upper joint ends of the long toggle levers and their cross bar might be
mounted across above the boiler in slots at the top of standards secured to the side
frames, with india-rubber or spiral springs above them to give tho desired pressure
or weight on the pushing limbs and feet, which lie backwards from the knee and
catch on the ground behind the reciprocating knee joint which in being pushed back
by the connecting rods and eccentrics propel the carriage forward.
And for pro-
pelling backwards without turning the carriage, a duplicate set of lower limbs and
feet may be fitted to the knee joint, and angled forward therefrom instead of back-
wards, which when let down would act by the pulling action of the connecting rods,
so as to propel the carriage backwards, all otherwise substantially as described in
reference to the back feet which propel forwards, the set of feet not in action being
raised and hung by chains, or otherwise quite clear of the ground. And although
this engine or carriage has been described as mounted on or with a horizontal
tubular boiler, it will be understood that the whole arrangement and new propelling
mechanism might be mounted on the frame of, and with a vertical steam boiler, with
the reciprocating propelling toggle levers working preferably close in front of the
boiler, with the axle of the large back wheels passing across near the other side, under
the platform, so as to throw the greater weight of the whole on to the upper ends of
the toggle limbs, as in the horizontal boiler arrangement.
In some cases, as for working on paved or hard roads, joints may be formed close
down to the feet, as the ankle joint of the horse's leg, which would prevent the heel
of the foot from requiring to rise by the reciprocation of the knee or toggle joint of
this improved propelling lever.