Beginning of Locomotive 1 1 



locomotive some years before Murdoch 

 began his quite successful experiments with 

 a model engine. There is some doubt 

 about this; what is known definitely is 

 that both men were working at the same 

 idea, with the same conviction, and at the 

 same period. 



Records have recently been unearthed 

 which show that Trevithick had ordered 

 certain engine parts as far back as 1800-1. 

 There are notes of the cost of boiler 

 plates and castings, which were apparently 

 bought from the Hayle foundry near St. 

 Ives. Trevithick appears to have built 

 the engine at John Tyack's smithy, near 

 Camborne. 



It is a thousand pities that data of this 

 period is so scanty, for while many writers 

 ascribe three locomotives to Trevithick in 

 these years, it cannot be said definitely 

 what kind they were, or whether there 

 were as many as three. It is history now 

 that this clever designer had a road loco- 

 motive at work before 1800. The story of 

 how he startled the toll-gate keeper near 



