The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 93.--TREVITHICK'S LOCOMOTIVE, 1804. THE FIRST TO RUN ON RAILS.]

The father of the locomotive and the first inventor of the Nineteenth Century who directed his energy to its development was Richard Trevithick, of Camborne, Cornwall. In 1801 he built his first steam carriage, adapted to carry seven or eight pa.s.sengers, which was said to have "gone off like a bird," but broke down, and was taken to the home of Capt. Vivian, who afterward became a partner of Trevithick. An old lady, upon seeing this novel and, to her, frightful engine, is said to have cried out: "Good gracious! Mr. Vivian, what will be done next? I can't compare it to anything but a walking, puffing devil." On the 24th of March, 1802, Trevithick and Vivian obtained British patent No. 2,599 for their steam carriage, and a second one was built in 1803 which was popularly known as Capt. Trevithick's "Puffing Devil." In 1804, at Pen y Darran, South Wales, a third engine was built, which was the first steam locomotive ever to run on rails. It is seen in the ill.u.s.tration, No. 93. It had a horizontal cylinder inside the boiler, a cross head sliding on guides in front of the engine, the cross head being connected to a crank on a rear gear wheel, which in turn meshes with an intermediate gear wheel above and between two other gear wheels on the running wheels. A fly wheel was on the crank shaft. The steam was discharged into the chimney, and the whole engine weighed five tons, and it ran, when loaded, at five miles an hour. In 1808 Trevithick built a circular railway at London within an inclosure, and charged a shilling for admission to his steam circus and a ride behind his locomotive. The engine here employed was the "Catch Me Who Can," and had a vertical cylinder and piston, without the toothed gear wheels shown in the ill.u.s.tration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 94.--BLENKINSOP'S LOCOMOTIVE, 1811.]

In Fig. 94 is shown Blenkinsop's locomotive of 1811. This was employed at the Middleton Colliery in hauling coal. It had cog wheels engaging teeth on the side of the rail. The fire was built in a large tube pa.s.sing through the boiler and bent up to form a chimney. Two vertical cylinders were placed inside the boiler, and the pistons were connected by cross heads, and, by connecting rods, to cranks on the axles of small cog wheels engaging with the main cog wheels. It drew thirty tons weight at three and three-quarter miles an hour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 95.--HEDLEY'S "PUFFING BILLY," 1813.]

In 1813 "Puffing Billy" was built by Wm. Hedley. There were (see Fig.

95) four smooth drive wheels running on smooth rails, which wheels were coupled together by intermediate gear wheels on the axle, and all propelled by a gear wheel in the middle, driven by a connecting rod from the walking beam overhead. Hedley's locomotive was used on the Wylam railway, and was said to have been at work more or less until 1862.

Most prominent among those who took an active interest in the development of the locomotive were George Stephenson and his son, Robert. Stephenson's first locomotive was tried on the Killingworth Railway on July 27, 1814. In 1815 Dodds and Stephenson patented an arrangement for attaching the connecting rods to the driving wheels, which took the place of cog wheels heretofore employed, and in the following year Stephenson, in connection with Mr. Losh, patented the application of steam cushion-springs for supporting the weight of the locomotive in an elastic manner.

In 1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway, in England, was opened for traffic, with George Stephenson's engine, "Locomotion," and was put permanently into service for the transportation of freight and pa.s.sengers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 96.--HACKWORTH'S LOCOMOTIVE, "ROYAL GEORGE," 1827.]

In 1827 Hackworth produced the "Royal George" (see Fig. 96), whose cylinders were arranged vertically at the rear end of the boiler, and whose pistons emerged from the cylinders at the lower ends of the latter, and imparted their power through connecting rods to cranks on the opposite ends of the axle of the rear driving wheels in a more direct manner than heretofore, and doing away with the overhead mechanism heretofore employed in most engines. Hackworth also improved the steam blast, put on the bell, and greatly simplified and modernized the appearance of the locomotive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 97.--GEORGE STEPHENSON'S "ROCKET," 1829.]

In 1829 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was completed, and the directors offered a prize of 500 for the best locomotive. George Stephenson's "Rocket," shown in Fig. 97, attained a speed of 24? miles an hour, and took the prize. Its success, however, was marred by the first railroad fatality, for it ran over and killed a man on this occasion. It embodied, as leading features, the steam blast and the mult.i.tubular boiler, which latter was six feet long and had twenty-five three-inch tubes. The fire box was surrounded by an exterior casing that formed a water jacket, which, by means of pipes, was in open communication with the water s.p.a.ce of the boiler.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 98.--"STOURBRIDGE LION," 1829.]

The first practical locomotive to run on a railroad in the United States was the "Stourbridge Lion," seen in Fig. 98. This was imported from England, and arrived in New York in May, 1829, and was tried in that year on a section of the Delaware & Hudson Ca.n.a.l Company's railroad. The boiler was tubular, and the exhaust steam was carried into the chimney by a pipe in front of the smoke stack as shown. It had vertical cylinders of thirty-six inch stroke, with overhead gra.s.shopper beams and connecting rods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 99.--LOCOMOTIVE "JOHN BULL," 1831.]

In Fig. 99 is shown the "John Bull," now in the National Museum at Washington, D. C. It was built by Stephenson & Co. for the Camden & Amboy Railroad, and was brought over from England and put into service in 1831. During the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, after a long rest in the Washington Museum, it made its way under its own steam to Chicago, drawing a train of two cars a distance of 912 miles without a.s.sistance. It further distinguished itself while there by carrying 50,000 pa.s.sengers over the exhibition tracks, and although sixty-two years of age at the time, showed itself quite capable of performing substantial work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 100.--BALDWIN'S "OLD IRONSIDES," 1832.]

Most of the early locomotives used in America were imported from England, but our inventors soon commenced making them for themselves.

The Baldwin Locomotive Works, of Philadelphia, has had a notable career in the field of locomotive construction. "Old Ironsides," built in 1832, was the first Baldwin locomotive, and it did duty for over a score of years. It is shown in Fig. 100. It had four wheels and weighed a little over five tons. The drive wheels were 54 inches in diameter, and the cylinder 9 inches in diameter, 18 inches stroke. The wheels had heavy cast iron hubs with wooden spokes and rims and wrought iron tires, and the frame was of wood placed outside the wheels. The boiler was 30 inches in diameter and had 72 copper flues 1 inches in diameter, 7 feet long. The price of the locomotive was $4,000, and it attained a speed of 30 miles an hour, with its train.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 101.--EIGHT-WHEEL Pa.s.sENGER EXPRESS LOCOMOTIVE, 1863.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 102.--EXPRESS Pa.s.sENGER LOCOMOTIVE, 1881.]

In Fig. 101 is shown a standard type of pa.s.senger locomotive of the period of 1863, and in Fig. 102 is ill.u.s.trated the period of 1881, which latter represents perhaps the greatest epoch of railroad building in the history of the world. According to Poor's Manual, $1,000,000 a day was the estimated cash outlay on this account for the three years up to the close of 1882, during which period 28,019 miles of railroad were opened up in the United States, or more than enough to girdle the entire earth.

Some idea of the wonderful growth of the railroad industry during this period is given by the following tables, which represent the yearly production of locomotives by the Baldwin Company alone for forty years prior to this period:

1842 14 1843 12 1844 22 1845 27 1846 42 1847 39 1848 20 1849 30 1850 37 1851 50 1852 49 1853 60 1854 62 1855 47 1856 59 1857 66 1858 33 1859 70 1860 83 1861 40 1862 75 1863 96 1864 130 1865 115 1866 118 1867 127 1868 124 1869 235 1870 280 1871 331 1872 442 1873 437 1874 205 1875 130 1876 232 1877 185 1878 292 1879 398 1880 517 1881 555 1882 563 1883 557

The present capacity of the Baldwin works is one thousand locomotives a year, and they have built up to this date about fifteen thousand locomotives, or nearly one-half of all the locomotives in use in the United States.

The successive steps of the development in detail of the various features of the locomotive are distributed over a long period, and are somewhat difficult to trace. The turning of the exhaust steam into the smoke stack was done by Trevithick as early as 1804, but its effect was greatly increased by Hackworth about 1827, who augmented its power by directing it into the chimney through a narrow orifice. This and the tubular locomotive boiler by Seguin in 1828, the link-motion in 1832, the steam whistle by Stephenson in 1833, the Giffard injector in 1858, and the Westinghouse air brake of 1869, are the most prominent features of the locomotive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 103.--STEPHENSON'S LINK MOTION.]

The link motion has been claimed both for the younger Stephenson and W.

T. James, of New York, the latter being probably its real inventor. Its purpose is to reverse the engine and also to cut off steam in either direction, so that it may act expansively. The form of link motion most generally used is shown in Fig. 103, and is known as Stephenson's. A B are two eccentrics projecting in opposite directions from the center of the common drive shaft, their rods being connected at their outer ends by a curved and slotted link C D. In the slot of this link plays a pin E, carried by a pendent swinging lever G F, which lever is jointed at its lower end to the slide valve rod H. A T-shaped lever I L K M has one arm at I connected by a rod with the slotted link at C. The opposite arm is provided with a counter weight at K to balance the weight of the link C D and eccentric rods, and the upright arm is connected at M to a rod operated by a hand lever P within easy access of the engineer. When the link C D is lowered the eccentric B imparts its throw to pendent lever G F and valve rod H, and the eccentric A will only swing the end C of the link without imparting any effect to the valve. When link C D is drawn up so that pin E is in the bottom of the slot, the eccentric A is active and B inactive, and as A has an opposite throw to B, the action of the valve is reversed. If link C D be drawn half way up, the pin E becomes the center of the oscillation of the link, and the valve rod is not moved at all. By adjusting the link nearer to or further from the central position, the throw of the slide valve may be made shorter or longer, and the steam cut off at a later or earlier period in the stroke of the piston.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 104.--LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE NO. 999.]

Fig. 104 is a type of the best modern express locomotive. This is the famous 999 of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. Its cylinders are 19 24 inches, driving wheels 86 inches in diameter, weight 62 tons, steam pressure 190 pounds. This engine hauls the Empire State Express at a speed of 64.22 miles an hour, excluding stops, or more than a mile a minute.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 105.--COMPOUND LOCOMOTIVE.]

In securing a higher efficiency and a greater economy in the use of steam, the most recent developments in the locomotive have been in the application of the principle of the compound expansion engine, in which two or more cylinders of different diameters are used, the steam at high pressure acting in the smaller cylinder, and being then exhausted into and acting expansively upon the piston of the larger cylinder. A fine example of the compound locomotive is shown in Fig. 105. The cylinders are arranged in pairs, the small high pressure cylinder above, and the larger low pressure cylinder below, both piston rods engaging a common cross head. The application of this principle of the compound engine is said to involve a saving in coal of over 25 per cent.

Prominent among modern improvements in steam railways is the air brake.

This invention is chiefly the result of the ingenuity of Mr. George Westinghouse, Jr., who, beginning his experiments in 1869, took out his first patents on the automatic air brake March 5, 1872, Nos. 124,404 and 124,405, which have since been followed up by many others in perfecting the system. The principle of the air brake is to store up compressed air in a reservoir on the locomotive by means of a steam pump. This air pa.s.sing through a train pipe connected by hose couplings between cars charges an auxiliary reservoir under each car. This reservoir is arranged beside a cylinder having a piston and a triple valve. Pressure in the train pipe is maintained constantly, and the power to work the piston to apply the brakes comes from the auxiliary reservoir beside it, which is set into action by a sudden reduction of pressure in the train pipe by the engineer through a special form of valve on the locomotive.

The air brake is capable of stopping a train at average speed within the distance of its own length, and so great a safeguard to life and property is it, that its application to a certain number of cars on every train is made compulsory by law.

The automatic car coupling is another important life-saving improvement.

Many thousands of these have been patented, but the "Janney" coupling, patented April 29, 1873, No. 138,405, is the most representative type.

The year 1900 is to witness the compulsory adoption of automatic car couplings on all cars. The "block system" of signals, by which no train is admitted on to a given section of track until the preceding train has left that section, improved switches, which are not dependent upon the memory of men, and steel rails, which const.i.tute nine-tenths of all tracks and serve to increase the stability of the track, are further modern safeguards against danger.

Sleeping cars were invented by Woodruff, and patented Dec. 2, 1856, Nos.

16,159 and 16,160. These, with the palace cars of Pullman and Wagner, the special refrigerator cars for perishable goods, cars for cattle, and cars for coal, multiply the equipment, swell the traffic, and supply every want of the great railroad systems of modern times.

The first railroad in the United States was built near Quincy, Ma.s.s., in 1826. The Pacific Railway, the first of our half a dozen transcontinental railways, was completed in 1869. The great Trans-Siberian Railway is nearing completion, and in the Twentieth Century a Trans-Sahara Railway will probably relieve the burdens of the camel, as it has already done those of the horse.

At the end of the year 1898 there were in use in the United States 36,746 locomotives, 1,318,700 cars, and the mileage in tracks, including second track and sidings, was 245,238.87, which, if extended in a straight line, would build a railway to the moon. The money investment represented in capital stock and bonds was $11,216,886,452. The gross earnings for the year 1898 were $1,249,558,724. The net earnings were $389,666,474. Tons of freight moved were 912,973,853. Receipts from freight were $868,924,526. Number of pa.s.sengers carried was 514,982,288.

Receipts from pa.s.sengers were $272,589,591, and dividends paid were $94,937,526. Add to the above the elevated railroads and street railroads, which are not included, and the immensity of the railroad business in the United States becomes apparent. In 1898 the United States exported 468 locomotives, worth $3,883,719. Mulhall estimates that the steam horse power of railroads in the world amounted in 1896 to 40,420,000, of which the United States had more than one-third. He also states that the railways in the United States carry _every day_, in merchandise, a weight equal to that of the whole of the seventy millions of persons const.i.tuting its population; that the total railway traffic of the world in 1894 averaged ten million pa.s.sengers and six million tons of merchandise _daily_; and that the total railway capital of the world reached in that year, 6,745 million sterling, or about thirty-three billion dollars.

It is said that the highest railway speed ever attained by steam prior to 1900 was by locomotive No. 564 of the Lake Sh.o.r.e & Michigan Southern Railroad, made during part of a run from Chicago to Buffalo. In this run 86 miles were made at an average rate of 72.92 miles an hour. The train load was 304,500 pounds, and the 86 mile run included one mile at 92.3 miles an hour, eight miles at 85.44 miles an hour, and thirty-three miles at 80.6 miles an hour. On May 26, 1900, however, an experiment on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, made by Mr. F. U. Adams between Baltimore and Washington, demonstrated that by sheathing the train to prevent r.e.t.a.r.dation by the air, an average speed of 78.6 miles an hour was obtained, and for five miles on a down grade a speed of 102.8 miles an hour was reached.

The largest and most powerful locomotives in the world are those being built for the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad for hauling long trains of iron and ore, one of which has just been completed. Its cylinders are 24 32 inches; drive wheels, 54 inches diameter; weight, 125 tons; draw bar pull 56,300 pounds, and hauling capacity 7,847 tons.

One of these mammoth engines is capable of drawing a train of box cars, loaded with wheat, and more than a mile long, at a speed of ten miles an hour. This load of wheat would represent the yield of 14 square miles of land. No doubt it would greatly astonish our forefathers to know that at the end of the century we would have iron horses capable of carting away, at a single load, the products of 14 square miles of the country side, and do it at a gait faster than that of their local mail coach.

CHAPTER XII.

STEAM NAVIGATION.

EARLY EXPERIMENTS--SYMINGTON'S BOAT--COL. JOHN STEVENS' SCREW PROPELLER--ROBT. FULTON AND THE "CLERMONT"--FIRST TRIP TO SEA BY STEVENS' "PHNIX"--"SAVANNAH," THE FIRST STEAM VESSEL TO CROSS THE OCEAN--ERICSSON'S SCREW PROPELLER--THE "GREAT EASTERN"--THE WHALEBACK STEAMERS--OCEAN GREYHOUNDS--THE "OCEANIC," LARGEST STEAMSHIP IN THE WORLD--THE "TURBINIA"--FULTON'S "DEMOLOGOS," FIRST WAR VESSEL--THE TURRET MONITOR--MODERN BATTLESHIPS AND TORPEDO BOATS--HOLLAND SUBMARINE BOAT.

The application of steam for the propulsion of boats engaged the attention of inventors along with the very earliest development of the steam engine itself. Blasco de Garay in 1543, the Marquis of Worcester in 1655, Savary in 1698, Denys Papin in 1707, Dr. John Allen in 1730, Jonathan Hulls in 1737, Bernouilli and Genevois in 1757, William Henry (of Pennsylvania) in 1763, Count D'Auxiron and M. Perier in 1774, the Marquis de Jouffroy in 1781, James Rumsey (on the Potomac) in 1782, Benjamin Franklin and Oliver Evans in 1786 and 1789, John Fitch in 1786, and also again in 1796, and William Symington in 1788-89 were the early experimenters. Papin's boat was said to have been used on the Fulda at Ca.s.sel, and was reported to have been destroyed by bargemen, who feared that it would deprive them of a livelihood. Allen, Rumsey, Franklin, and Evans (1786) proposed to employ a backwardly discharged column of water issuing from a pump. Jonathan Hulls and Oliver Evans (1789) had stern wheels. Bernouilli, Genevois, and the Marquis de Jouffroy used paddles on the duck's foot principle, which closed when dragged forward, and expanded when pushed to the rear. Fitch's first boat employed a system of paddles suspended by their handles from cranks, which, in revolving, gave the paddles a motion simulating that which the Indian imparts to his paddle. Symington's boat of 1788 (Patrick Miller's pleasure boat) had side paddle wheels. Symington's next boat, built in 1789, and also owned by Patrick Miller, was of the catamaran type, _i. e._, it had two parallel hulls with paddle wheels between them.

Such was the state of this art when the Nineteenth Century commenced its wonderful record. No practical steam vessel had been constructed, as the efforts in this direction were handicapped by the crudeness of all the arts, and were to be regarded as experiments only, most of which had to be abandoned. The seed of this invention, however, had been sown in the fertile soil of genius, conception of its great possibilities had fired the zeal of the inventors in this field, and the new century was shortly to number among its great resources a practical and efficient steamboat.