Going loco

Picture the scene around 1790: a wrestling match in a Cornish pub. One huge wrestler grabs the other in a bear hug, flips him over, and stamps the imprint of his boots into the ceiling. This giant of a man, Richard Trevithick, was the father of the high-pressure steam engine, and the driver of the world's first steam locomotive.

The first useful steam engine, built by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, was a lumbering monster that filled a whole building, and was used only for pumping water out of mines. Sixty years later James Watt improved the steam engine so that it could drive machines, but he would not try high-pressure steam, and used his patent to block further development.

As soon as Watt's patent ran out, Richard Trevithick began making high-pressure steam engines that were far more efficient, and therefore smaller. He mounted one on a road carriage and on Christmas Eve 1801 drove some friends up Camborne Hill, until he hit a pothole and the vehicle lurched over. While the chaps celebrated the trip in the pub across the road, the boiler ran dry and the carriage burst into flames.

Nothing daunted, Trevithick built steam engines for industrial customers, including Sam Homfray at the Pen-y-Darren iron works in South Wales. Homfray produced pig iron, and sent it for sale in Cardiff. For most of the trip it could go by canal barge, but for the first ten miles to Abercynon the iron went on horse-drawn wagons. The loaded wagons were heavy, and to prevent them from sinking into the ground Homfray laid iron plates to make a primitive railway. I have ridden my bike there, and you can still see the grooves in the stones made by the iron plates.

Trevithick reckoned he could mount one of his new engines on wheels and tow the iron down the valley by steam power; when news of his boast got out a bet of £500 was laid against him.

So, on 21 February 1804, the world's first steam locomotive lumbered off down the Taff Valley, towing wagons with 10 tons of pig iron and 70 hangers-on. They had to go slowly, pausing to cut down overhanging trees that were too low for the smokestack, and the weight of the loco broke most of the iron plates under its wheels, but the journey was a success, and the steam railway was born.

Page last updated: Friday, 22 July 2005 22:35

Radio Times articles, from 2003-2005

Other articles

Going loco