The origins of the railroad : The locomotive of Trevithick , 1804 .

History of the locomotives.

The history of the early days of the locomotive is closely related to the evolution of the automatic steam vehicle devised to circulate in the roads and later left aside after being developed the transport on tracks. The idea to tend a special pair of rails for the wheels of the load vehicles goes back to the time of the Romans, who were used to paving with stone blocks located in parallel channels the portion the road through where they passed the wheels.

The same method was adopted frequently in the early times of the operation of the stone coal deposits in England, where this coal was transported from the mines in railroad cars drown by horses . Towards the 1630, nevertheless, an individual called Beaumont ran seating wood tracks with the same object; and by the end of XVIII century it was of current use railroads with wood tracks that had a cleared superior surface, adjusting to them the channeled rims of the iron wheels of the wagons; it also was appraised the advantage for the economy represented by the easier transportation ascending or descending the slopes, reducing the hills, filling up the depressions of the land and constructing bridges on the rivers.

Later the wood tracks were covered with strained iron plates, to extend their duration diminishing the wearing down, and in 1776 a railroad was constructed in Sheffield (United Kingdom) tending prismatic strained iron bars on wood beams.

Starting off from these coarse principles, the modern railroad was developed, a road composed of parallel steel rails supported by ties and providing a track for locomotive-drawn trains or other wheeled vehicles , with its heavy woods resting on divided stone and maintaining prismatic steel tracks that weigh of 45 to 65 kilograms per meter, with all its complete cohort of auxiliary elements: nails , signals, dispositions for rescue, etc.

The locomotive in its childhood and its first vacillating steps .

At the end of 18th. century , the steam engine became a real and positive factor in the industry, and different attempts had been made to apply it to the road vehicles. The merit to carry out the construction of the first locomotive that marched on tracks corresponds to Richard Trevithick, that, in February of 1804, used a locomovible machine to carry coal in the road of Penydarran, in South Wales , United Kingdom.

Locomotive of Blenkinsop, 1812

The first locomotive used successfully

The locomotive of Trevithick, according to the most authorized references, was very similar to the attached figure in this page . The boiler was made of strained iron with inner furnace, and the products of the combustion were directed to a chimney located in the same end of the mouth of the firebox . The steam engine, that is to say, the cylinder with the piston, was arranged vertically, and the connecting bars represented in the figure by the D, that acted as a connecting rod, and the L, connected with the motor axis.

The steam, after having operated, escaped by the chimney to increase the shot, and this system it depended on the friction of the driving wheels on the tracks to assure sufficient traction power . The pressure of the steam was about 40 pounds by square inch; so that strictly speaking it was a machine of high pressure. The safety valve, E , prevented an excessive pressure in the boiler. This locomotive worked well, but its economic results were not satisfactory.

The following successful attempt to obtain a steam locomotive was done by Blenkinsop in 1812. This machine, as it appears in the corresponding figure , had two cylinders of 203 millimeters of diameter each one and arranged vertically , like in the machine of Trevithick. The connecting bars, nevertheless, acted on axes with pinions that rotated a great dented wheel, that matched as well in the edges of the rails of the track . The supporting wheels of the machine were not, then, driving wheels. The machine of Blenkinsop was followed, in 1813, by another denominated " Puffing Billy ", devised by Blackett, that almost completely agreed upon the same Blenkínsop's system in the general structure of the vehicle, but that obtained the effect of traction by means of the supporting wheels, like in the locomotive invented by Trevithick.

Locomotive Killingworth , 1816

Locomotive "Puffing Billy" , 1813

But the same time, Jorge Stephenson, engineer of the coalmine of Killingworth, England , had been working in the resolution of the problem, and in 1814 introduced his first machine, denominated the " Blucher ", which had a boiler of 863 millimeters of diameter and 2.43 meters in length, with a heating tube of 507 millimeters of diameter. The cylinders had 203 millimeters of diameter, being the race of the piston of 609 millimeters. This locomotive did not defer greatly from any of its precedents; but in the second machine devised by the same Stephenson, and constructed the following year, he began to show the originality that gave him the merit and the triumph of making a locomotive a commercial success. In this machine, the connecting bars were in direct communication with the four wheels, and both axes were connected by rods that acted on trees inside the bearings. The rods later were replaced by chains, as it is seen in the attached figure. In a third locomotive, constructed by the same Stephenson, the boiler was transported in steam cylinders, anticipating then the future disposition of the support by springs .

All these locomotives were devised to drag wagons of coal at little speed from mines of particular property, and for a long time, after having used them with a recognized success in that kind of job, the wagons destined to passengers still continued being dragged by horse, and only by force of persistence Stephenson obtained allowance to construct three locomotives for the new Stockton and Darlington railroad , of which he was named engineer-chief in 1823, and that was constructed to use horses as a mean of traction .

The "Locomotion" , built by Stephenson in 1825 , over the first railroad bridge .

The railroad of Stockton and Darlington was the first in which the locomotives were used with regularity for the transport of passengers and merchandise. The cavalries were thus discarded.
The supremacy of the locomotive was definitively and totally consecrated in the contest inaugurated by the Company of the railroad of Liverpool and Manchester to decide what traction method would be the best one for its new rail , and offering a prize for the best solution. The plan counted , of course, with the opposition of the Companies of diligences and the land owners along the way. Stephenson, that had been named engineer-chief , was greatly ridiculed after assuring that he could construct a locomotive that would march at the speed of 30 kilometers per hour. During the debate that for the concession was originated in the House of Commons, a member of a Committee of this Camera asked to him: "Let's suppose now that one of your machines is marching at the rate of two and a half or three kilometers per hour and that a cow crossed the line and intercepted the way of the machine, wouldn't it be a very delicate circumstance ?, to which the engineer responded "Yes , very delicate for the cow." And when asked if the people and the animals would not be intimidated themselves by the red chimney of the locomotive, he answered back with very good sense: "But how they would know to distinguish if the chimney did not go painted ? " .

The locomotive  "Rocket" built by  Stephenson in 1829 and winner of a public contest . 

The first attempt to test a commercial use of the locomotive in America was carried out in 1829 by the Company of the Channel of Delaware & Hudson, which imported from England the locomotive "Stourbridge Lemon" to work in the line of 25 kilometers from Carbondale to Hones (Pennsylvania). But that the tracks were too weak, and the use of the machine was stopped immediately .
The first locomotive constructed in the United States of America was a small model, designed by Peter Cooper and tried successfully in the railroad of Baltimore to Ohio. The tubes of the boiler were done with rifle barrels, and the machine developed only 1.43 horsepower. This was the principle, and just in a short time they appeared, in the order that follows, the locomotives denominated: "Best Friend", 1830; the "West Point", 1831; the "Sonth Carolina", 1831; the "Witt Clinton", 1831; the "Atlantic", 1832; the "Old Ironsides", 1832.
The last machine mentioned was the first locomotive constructed by Matthias W. Baldwin, founder of the great factories of locomotives "Baldwin", in Philadelphia. The development of the locomotive marched then by good way in the United States; and many special facilities, several of which were destined to become famous world-wide institutions, began to occupy the place of what were in the beginning small factories destined to construct machines in general, and without nothing of the special instruments that are common in the modern industry.

Locomotive "South Carolina" , 1831 .

Locomotive  "Best Friend" , 1839

Locomotive  "West Point" , 1831 .

Other accessories, such as the bell, the whistle, the sand table, etc., were added to the locomotive later, increasing the gross weight to more than 30 tons. Since then it has been constructed machines of greater power and dimensions ; but the general characteristics of the steam locomotive , in which the alterations have not been truly fundamental, were finally determined more precisely around the year 1850.

Photo of 1925 of the "Twentieth Century Limited", the most famous train of the world at the beginning the XX Century, this luxurious and fast train circulated from New York to Chicago, crossing a distance of 1,546 kilometers on the lines of the New York Central in 20 hours, it was provided with all the necessary comforts for long trips.

Photo 1920 - Entrance to the tunnel of the Summit ("La Cumbre") on the Andes in Chile's side .

Locomotive of the Argentine State Railways , built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the heavy service in the government railways of the Huapi-Viedma section in the province of Rio Negro . Powered by petroleum.

Los viejos tiempos - The old times | Español : Historia de la locomotora

The development of the locomotive, old photos | Great locomotives in the 1930's | Electrical locomotives in the dawn of XX Century | Operation of a steam locomotive | Photos of old locomotives | History of the automobile , the steam engine | History of the Aeronautics

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