EARLY INVENTORS IN LOCOMOTION.

CHAPTER I.

SCHEMERS AND PROJECTORS.

It is easy to understand how rapid transit from place to place should, from the earliest times, have been an object of desire. The marvelous gift of speed conferred by Fortunatus's Wishing Cap was what all must have envied: it conferred power. It also conferred pleasure. "Life has not many things better than this," said Samuel Johnson as he rolled along in the post-chaise. But it also conferred comfort and well-being; and hence the easy and rapid transit of persons and commodities became in all countries an object of desire in proportion to their growth in civilization.

We have elsewhere* endeavored to describe the obstructions to the progress of society occasioned by the defective internal communications of Britain in early times, which were to a considerable extent removed by the adoption of the canal system, and the improvement of our roads and highways, toward the end of last century. But the progress of industry was so rapid-the invention of new tools, machines, and engines so greatly increased the productive wealth of the nation-that some forty years since it was found that these roads and canals, numerous and excellent though they might be, were altogether inadequate for the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which was increasing in almost a direct ratio with the increased application of steampower to the purposes of productive industry.

The inventive minds of the nation, always on the alert—the "schemers" and the "projectors," to whom society has in all times been so greatly indebted-proceeded to apply themselves to the solution of the problem of how the communications of the country were best to be improved; and the result was, that the power * "Lives of the Engineers," vols. i. and ii.

of steam itself was applied to remedy the inconveniences which it had caused.

Like most inventions, that of the Steam Locomotive was very gradually made. The idea of it, born in one age, was revived in the ages that followed. It was embodied first in one model, then in another-the labors of one inventor being taken up by his successors until at length, after many disappointments and many failures, the practicable working locomotive was achieved.

The locomotive engine was not, however, sufficient for the purposes of cheap and rapid transit. Another expedient was absolutely essential to its success-that of the Railway: the smooth rail to bear the load, as well as the steam-engine to draw it.

Expedients were early adopted for the purpose of diminishing friction between the wheels of vehicles and the roads along which they were dragged by horse-power. The Romans employed stone blocks with that object; and the streets of the long-buried city of Pompeii still bear the marks of the ancient Roman chariotwheels, as the stone track for heavy vehicles on our modern London Bridge shows the wheel-marks of the wagons which cross it. These stone blocks were merely a simple expedient to diminish friction, and were the first steps toward a railroad.

The railway proper doubtless originated in the coal districts of the North of England and Wales, where it was found useful in facilitating the transport of coals from the pits to the shippingplaces. At an early period the coal was carried to the boats in panniers, or in sacks upon horses' backs. Next carts were used, and tram-ways of flag-stone were laid down, along which they were easily hauled. The carts were then converted into wagons, and mounted on four wheels instead of two.

Still farther to facilitate the haulage of the wagons, pieces of planking were laid parallel upon wooden sleepers, or imbedded in the ordinary track. It is said that these wooden rails were first employed by a Mr. Beaumont, a gentleman from the South, who, about the year 1630, adventured in the northern mines with about thirty thousand pounds, and after introducing many improvements in the working of the coal, as well as in the methods of transporting it to the staithes on the river, was ruined by his enterprise, and "within a few Years," to use the words of the

CHAP. I.]

COAL WAGON-WAYS.

49

ancient chronicler, "he consumed all his Money, and rode Home upon his light Horse."*

The use of wooden rails gradually extended, and they were laid down between most of the collieries on the Tyne and the places at which the coal was shipped. Roger North, in 1676, found the practice had become extensively adopted, and he speaks of the large sums then paid for way-leave--that is, the permission granted by the owners of lands lying between the coal-pits and the river-side to lay down a tram-way for the purpose of connecting the one with the other.

A century later, Arthur Young observed that not only had these roads become greatly multiplied, but formidable works had been constructed to carry them along upon the same level. "The coal wagon-roads from the pits to the water," he says, "are great works, carried over all sorts of inequalities of ground, so far as the distance of nine or ten miles. The tracks of the wheels are marked with pieces of wood let into the road for the wheels of the wagons to run on, by which one horse is enabled to draw, and that with ease, fifty or sixty bushels of coals."+

Saint Fond, the French traveler, who visited Newcastle in 1791, described the colliery wagon-ways in that neighborhood as superior to any thing of the kind he had seen. The wooden rails

*Harleian MSS., vol. iii., 269.
"Six Months' Tour," vol. iii., 9.

D

were formed with a rounded upper surface, like a projecting moulding, and the wagon-wheels being "made of cast iron, and hollowed in the manner of a metal pulley," readily fitted the rounded surface of the rails. The economy with which the coal as thus hauled to the shipping-places was urged by Saint Fond an inducement to his own countrymen to adopt a like method of transit.*

Similar wagon-roads were early laid down in the coal districts of Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland. At the time of the Scotch rebellion in 1745, a tram-road existed between the Tranent coalpits and the small harbor of Cockenzie, in East Lothian; and a portion of the line was selected by General Cope as a position for his cannon at the battle of Prestonpans.

In these rude wooden tracks we find the germ of the modern railroad. Improvements were gradually made in them. Thus, at some collieries, thin plates of iron were nailed upon their upper surface, for the purpose of protecting the parts most exposed to friction. Cast-iron rails were also tried, the wooden rails having been found liable to rot. The first iron rails are supposed to have been laid down at Whitehaven as early as 1738. This castiron road was denominated a "plate-way," from the plate-like form in which the rails were cast. In 1767, as appears from the books of the Coalbrookdale Iron Works, in Shropshire, five or six tons of rails were cast, as an experiment, on the suggestion of Mr. Reynolds, one of the partners; and they were shortly after laid down to form a road.

In 1776, a cast-iron tram-way, nailed to wooden sleepers, was laid down at the Duke of Norfolk's colliery near Sheffield. The person who designed and constructed this coal line was Mr. John Curr, whose son has erroneously claimed for him the invention of the cast-iron railway. He certainly adopted it early, and thereby met the fate of men before their age; for his plan was opposed by the laboring people of the colliery, who got up a riot, in which they tore up the road and burned the coal-staith, while Mr. Curr **Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides," vol. i., 142.

CHAP. I.]

ORIGIN OF THE RAILWAY.

51

fled into a neighboring wood for concealment, and lay there perdu for three days and nights, to escape the fury of the populace. The plates of these early tram-ways had a ledge cast on their outer edge to guide the wheel along the road, after the manner shown in the preceding cut.

In 1789, Mr. William Jessop constructed a railway at Loughborough, in Leicestershire, and there introduced the cast-iron edge-rail, with flanches cast upon the tire of the wagon-wheels to keep them on the track, instead of having the margin or flanch cast upon the rail itself; and this plan was shortly after adopted in other places. In 1800, Mr. Benjamin Outram, of Little Eaton, Derbyshire (father of the distinguished General Outram), used stone props instead of timber for supporting the ends or joinings of the rails. Thus the use of railroads, in various forms, gradually extended, until they became generally adopted in the mining districts.

Such was the growth of the railroad, which, it will be observed, originated in necessity, and was modified according to experience; progress in this, as in all departments of mechanics, having been effected by the exertions of many men; one generation entering upon the labors of that which preceded it, and carrying them onward to farther stages of improvement. The invention of the locomotive was in like manner made by successive steps. It was not the invention of one man, but of a succession of men, each working at the proper hour, and according to the needs of that hour; one inventor interpreting only the first word of the problem which his successors were to solve after long and laborious efforts and experiments. "The locomotive is not the invention of one man," said Robert Stephenson at Newcastle," but of a nation of mechanical engineers."

Down to the end of last century, and indeed down almost to our own time, the only power used in haulage was that of the horse. Along the common roads of the country the poor horses were "tearing their hearts out" in dragging cumbersome vehicles behind them, and the transport of merchandise continued to be slow, dear, and in all respects unsatisfactory. Many expedients were suggested with the view of getting rid of the horse. The #66 'Railway Locomotion and Steam Navigation, their Principles and Practice." By John Curr. London, 1847.