CHAPTER VL 



ROAD LOCOMOTIVES. 



Colonel Maceroni's steam carriages — Mr. Gurney spends ;^ioo,ooo 

 — Sir Isaac Newton's steam carriage — Reactionary propulsion — 

 Trevithick's and Griffith's steam carriages — Thirty-two to thirty- 

 five miles an hour — The " Era " runs eighteen miles an hour — 

 Steam carriages in and about London — Report of committee of 

 the House of Commons — Eighty-four miles in nine hours and 

 twenty minutes — Opposition to steam carriages — Restrictive 

 acts relating to road locomotives — Discouragement to road 

 locomotion — Electric carriages. 



About the time that railroads became estabhshed, 

 a very strong opinion existed amongst scientific men 

 that locomotives could be made available on the 

 high-roads, then gradually becoming deserted. This 

 idea was put into practice first by a Mr. Gurney, 

 who spent ^22,000 in experiments relating to travel- 

 ling by steam on common roads. 



Besides this gentleman, there was a Colonel 

 Maceroni, who accomplished several long journeys 

 at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour. His steam 

 carriages weighed about six tons, and a writer on 

 the subject says that they were under perfect control, 

 and that he w^as in the habit of running in and out 

 of London with them ; and that one of his locomotive 

 carriages was regularly worked between Paddington 

 and the Bank of England, along New Road, but 

 withdrawn after a time, as it did not pay in 



