The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

CHAP, vm.] BLENKINSOP'S ENGINES. 81
extending from the Middleton collieries to the town of Leeds, a
distance of about three miles and a half, on the 12th of August,
1812.* They continued for many years to be one of the principal
curiosities of the neighbourhood, and were visited by
strangers from all parts. In the year 1816, the Grand Duke
Nicholas (afterwards Emperor) of Russia observed the working
of Blenkinsop's locomotive with curious interest and expressions
of no slight admiration. An engine dragged behind it as many
as thirty coal-wagons at a speed of about three miles and a
quarter per hour. Xliese engines continued for many years to
be thus employed in the haulage of coal, and furnished the first
instance of the regular employment of locomotive power for
commercial purposes.
The Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812, endeavoured
to overcome the same fictitious difficulty of the want of adhesion
between the wheel and the rail, by patenting a locomotive to
work along the road by means of a chain stretched from one
end of it to the other. This chain was passed once round a
grooved barrel-wheel under the centre of the engine : so that,
when the wheel tui-ned, the locomotive, as it were, dragged
itself along the railway. An engine, constructed after this plan,
was tried on the Heaton Kailway, near Newcastle ; but it was
so clumsy in its action, there was so great a loss of power by
friction, and it was found to be so expensive and difficult to keep
in repair, that it was very soon abandoned. Another remarkable
expedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterly Works,
Derbyshire, who, in 1813, patented his Mechanical Traveller to
go -wpon legs, working alternately like those of a horse ! f But
the engine never got beyond the experimental state, for, in one
of its trials, it unhappily blew up and killed several of the bystanders.
These, and other similar contrivances with the same
object, projected about the same time, show that invention was
actively at work, and that many minds were now anxiously
labouring to solve the important problem of locomotive traction
upon railways.
• Annals of Leeds, vol. ii. p. 222.
t A description of Mr. Brunton' s locomotive is given by Dr. Lardner in his
work on " The Steam Engine," 7th edition, p. 338.
4*