CHAP. ix. J THE LOCOMOTIVE. 461 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE LOCOMOTIVE 



I. STEAM ON THE RAILWAYS. THE FIHST LOCOMOTIVES. 



THE parent of the locomotive is the steam carriage. The first 

 attempts at carriages moved by steam date from the time of 

 a French engineer, Cugnot, who in 17G9 invented and constructed 

 at Paris a carriage which was intended to be moved by steam 

 along the ordinary roads. After him came Oliver Evans, who, in 

 Philadelphia in 1804, constructed the first carriage of this kind that 

 was seen in America. 



Locomotion on roads by means of steam could not succeed or 

 obtain the immense extension it now possesses but for the adoption of 

 a new kind of roadway. This was at first applied to the transport of 

 materials at coal mines. Thus we find in the year 1745 cast-iron 

 rails fixed on sleepers forming a mineral railway from Tranent to 

 Cockenzie in Scotland. At present there was no flange : this was 

 added afterwards. To Richard Trevethick belongs the merit of 

 inventing a self-acting steam-carriage to travel with flanged wheels 

 on rails. This was at work on the Merthyr Tydvil Railway in 

 1804. This locomotive was capable of drawing ten tons at a rate 

 of five miles an hour. Progress at this time was much impeded by 

 the idea that great speed could never be attained by smooth wheels 

 on smooth rails, or that a load could be drawn up an incline. Several 

 means of overcoming this practical difficulty were suggested, 1 when an 



1 For example, the employment of a toothed wheel working into a rack placed 

 between the rails, or movable jambs, which were alternately pressed against the 

 ground and then raised. 



