1849.1 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



71 



common road. Several ways were put forward for making the 

 common road, as by Macdam, with road metal; by Walker, in 

 laying down the Commercial-road to the Docks ; and by Mr. Ste- 

 venson, under the name of stone railways, as had long been done at 

 Nottingham.^" Whatever might be done with the common road, 

 stiU the railroad was better ; and therefore, whatever speed could 

 be got with the locomotive on the common road, a higher speed 

 would be got on the railroad. This must ever be so ; and there- 

 fore it is useless to hold forth that the common road locomotive 

 can ever beat the railway ; not, however, that the former has not a 

 field open to it ; and we believe the time is at hand when, after so 

 long waiting, it will be set going. It matters not that some forty 

 years have gone by since it first ran and was set aside, for a like 

 lot has befallen the railway more than once. Thus iron rails were 

 held to have failed, and so was the locomotive. Where the com- 

 mon road locomotive has the better, is where a railway is too costly, 

 and where it can set down travellers nigh their own homes. 



To go back again, we say the common road locomotives showed 

 the good of railways, and this in many ways ; for among others, 

 a railway would let the common road locomotive work in a straight 

 track, and free from the horses and wagons which beset the com- 

 mon road. It must be remembered, that the railway locomotive 

 was not at first looked upon only as a towing engine, but it was 

 thought passengers could be carried with it, as they were on the 

 railway coaches drawn by horses. It is worth remembering, like- 

 wise, that we are now getting back to whence we started, for Mr. 

 Samuel and Mr. Adams are about to put the steam-carriage on 

 the railway. 



Trevithick's first locomotive was run in the streets of London, 

 although he likewise built locomotives for railways. Oliver Evans 

 tried to bring out a steam-wagon for the road. Mr. Griffiths tried 

 the road locomotive in 1821;=' and in 1824, Mr. David Gordon.^^ 

 Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, and others, were likewise busy about 

 it. In 1825, Timothy Burstall and John Hill tried a steam-car- 

 riage. In the summer of 1827, this was run in the Westminster- 

 road, but the boiler burst.^^ 



The locomotive was very unlucky. Trevithick's first locomotive, 

 on the Merthyr Tydvil Railway, blew up ; so did Burstall's, in 

 1827 ; and so did Goldsworthy Gurney's, in 1835, which sealed the 

 lot of his steam-carriage Company, and stopped the running of his 

 carriages on the road between Glasgow and Paisley. = '' 



What was most looked to, both for common roads and railways, 

 was Samuel Brown's Gas Vacuum Engine. For this engine he 

 took out a patent in December, 1823,== and in 1824 a company was 

 got together for working the patent. The capital was 200,000/., 

 in shares of 10/. each ; and Brown was not to receive anything 

 until he had run a locomotive from London to York at the speed 

 of 10 mUes an hour ; and he held forth that he should get 20 

 miles. = ' In May, 1826, a gas vacuum locomotive was tried on 

 the high road at Shooter's-hill ; and in January, 1827, a small 

 boat, thirty-four feet long, with a screw propeller, worked by the 

 gas vacuum engine, was tried on the Thames. The result was not 

 held to be profitable, and the company was broken up.= ' 



Never, perhaps, was an undertaking brought forward with 

 greater hopes ; and as it drew its slow length along, these were not 

 speedily given up. Therefore, in most of the writings of the time 

 we are now speaking of. Brown's gas-engine is always named as 

 the wonder-worker that was to be.=^ 



We shall yet hear more of the gas vacuum engine ; for it is not 

 one of those things which dies though it may sleep. 



It will be seen that the public mind was opened to the belief 

 that a speed above that of horses would be reached ; and there- 

 fore there was greater readiness to listen to what was said of the 

 steam-horse. 



The ne.vt head we come to had less to do with the movement ; 

 but it must not be lost sight of. In his " Observations on a General 

 Iron Railway," Thomas Gray hints at the possibility of applying 

 the railway to canal towing-paths. He says of the railway (p. 10) : 

 " By laying an iron railway on the line of one of the most flourish- 

 ing of our canals, its superiority would be easily demonstrated ; 

 no further proof would be necessary to convince the public of the 



no Notes, by Mr. SteveDsoD, p. 15. 3i Ritchie on Railways, p. 22^, 



S2 Ritchie on Railways. 



sa Mechanics' Magaiine, Vol. V., p. 391, 436 ; Vol. Vlll., p. 42. Repertory of Pa- 

 tent Inventions. Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. 



3 4 Ritchie on Railroads, p. 230. 



3 a Stuart's Anecdotes of the Steam-Engine. MechaaicB* Magazine, Vol. II., p. 385. 



36 Mechanics' Magazine, Vols. II. and III. 



3 J Mechanics' Magazine, Vol. VII., p. 84. 



3 a William Chapman, C.E. in his Report on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, p. 15 



Dr. Fyfe, of the School of Arts at Edinburgh, in Maclaren's Railways, p. 41. 



Vallauce, Considerations on the Expedience of Sinking Capital in Railways, p. 71. 



infinite advantage of this new mode." Again, at p. 12 : " Tlie 

 canal boats miglit be towed by steam-engines running on a railway 

 along the canal, which would ultimately be found less expensive, 

 and far more expeditious than the present method." The writer 

 of " The Finger Post," in 1825, recommended the use of locomo- 

 tives on the banks of canals. He says (p. 41) : " The canal com- 

 panies might lay down two narrow railroads on their towing-paths 

 at a comparatively trifling expense, whereon the locomotive en- 

 gines could travel, and the boats on the canal would follow or 

 precede them as methodically as the wagons on the road." He 

 thinks the resistance of the water to the boat, and the injury of 

 the water to the banks of the canal, are objections. This sugges- 

 tion was lost sight of ; and in 1835 and 1836 Mr. Egerton Smith 

 of Liverpool, and Mr. Hyde Clarke, had a contest as to which was 

 the originator of the system of towing canal-boats by the locomo- 

 tive.^" The former made out his claim to priority ; but only to 

 be beaten, as it seems, by Thomas Gray. Mr. Clarke attempted 

 to interest Mr. Crawshayand other ironmasters in this plan, but 

 fruitlessly ; and likewise proposed it for the navigations to Lan- 

 caster and Ulverstone, crossing the intended embankment over 

 Morecombe Bay, which was also adopted by Mr. Rastrick in 1837 ; 

 but no such system has been carried out. It seems suitable for the 

 towing-paths of ship-canals ; and although there are many diffi- 

 culties in the way of using the locomotive on common canals, yet 

 there are situations here, and in Belgium and France, where it 

 might be brought to bear. 



The sixth head brings us to the hooks which were written on 

 railways. Fulton had said something about them in his work on 

 canals in 1796, which was answered by Chapman in 1797, in his 

 " Observations on Canals." Fulton's estimate for a single line of 

 railway with sidings was 1,600/. per mile. Dr. Anderson, in his 

 " Recreations," gives 1,000/. as the estimate for a double line. In 

 1797, Mr. John Curr printed tlie " Coal Viewer's Practical Manual," 

 already named. These seem to be the earliest railway works. 



After them came many pamphlets and papers read before the 

 Society of Arts, the Newcastle Philosophical Society, and the 

 Highland Society. Tlie encyclopaedias gave very little attention 

 to railways. 



The first book on railways only was that of Nicholas Wood, 

 printed in 1825 ; and close upon which was that of Thomas Tred- 

 gold. Before these books the great authority was Mr. Stevenson, 

 in his Notes on the Papers before the Highland Society. An ac- 

 count of railways, by Mr. Cummings, we have not seen. It is 

 named " Origin and Progress of Railways," and was often quoted 

 in 1825. Mr. H. Palmers book was put forward for the sake of 

 his system of railways ; otherwise it would be of much good, for it 

 showed great research, and he had made many experiments. Mr. 

 Overton, C.E., wrote on railways in a book on the " Mineral Basins 

 of South Wales." 



The works of Nicholas AVood and Tredgold had the greater 

 weight, because they gave authentic fifjures and experiments, and 

 developed the scientific laws on which railway operations are 

 based. Palmer, as we have said, had done something in the way 

 of experiment, and was followed in the field of scientific investi- 

 gation by Mr. C. Maclaren, of the Scotsman, Mr. Sylvester, Pro- 

 fessor Leslie, and Mr. Roberts, of Manchester. The papers in the 

 Scotsman were copied into every newspaper throughout the land, 

 and were widely read. The scientific knowledge of the writer 

 was brought to bear to show the capabilities of the locomotive 

 system, and the powers which lay undeveloped within it. How- 

 ever we may differ with him in some of the laws he put forward, 

 yet it cannot be gainsayed that he took a bolder grasp of the 

 question than any man of the day ; and there is little of what he 

 foretold which has not since been borne out to the fuU. 



Mr. Sylvester's " Report on Railroads and Locomotive Engines" 

 was a timely service rendered to the Liverpool and Manchester Rail- 

 way Company, for it was brought forward at a time when the loco- 

 motive system was losing ground in Liverpool, and when the hands 

 of few men of knowledge were held up to help it. This little 

 book and the papers, of J\Ir. Maclaren, were brought out before 

 those of the two writers we have put at the head, and therefore 

 are the more worthy of honour, as they are those of leaders in a 

 new field of inquiry. 



The subscribers to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, in 1825, 

 engaged Professor Leslie, Mr. Jardine, and Mr. Buchanan, to make 

 experiments for them on the several questions involved in railway 

 construction and locomotion.'"' 



Mr. Roberts, of Manchester, undertook a series of experiments 



3 9 Railway Magazine, 2nd Series.- 



4 C. Maclaren, Railways, p. 54. 



-Liverpool Mercury, 



