Would it have been possible for the steam locomotive to have been invented earlier?

[778]

The first ever steam locomotive was invented in 1802, but could it have been invented earlier (realistically)?

The first steam engine was invented in 1698 and horse drawn railways had been around since the 1550s. The early 1700s was probably too early for the steam locomotive to have been invented because the technology of the time was not advanced enough.

The earliest steam powered road vechicle was built in 1769 and the first steam powered boat in 1783. I would have expected the steam powered road vehicle to have been invented before the locomotive, but I am surprised we had steam powered boats 20 years before the first locomotive was built. I would have thought a steam powered boat would have been a more difficult invention?

Would it have been possible for the first locomotive to have been built in the late 1700s, but nobody thought of building one until Trevithick? Maybe there were unsuccessful attempts to build one before 1802, but we don't know about them?

 

[randyrippley]

weight reduction

doesn't really matter in a boat, does in a land based vehicle

 

[JGurney]

I would have expected the steam powered road vehicle to have been invented before the locomotive, but I am surprised we had steam powered boats 20 years before the first locomotive was built. I would have thought a steam powered boat would have been a more difficult invention?

Boats were less constrained by the weight of the engine, and not at all constrained by rail strength: ships can perfectly practically weigh hundreds of tons.
The roads of the time were mainly just unsurfaced dirt tracks, so a steam powered road vehicle, due to it's weight, was liable to cause severe surface damage such as rutting as well as be vulnerable to getting bogged down.
Steam power on railways was only practical once strong enough rails were available. The Pen-y-Darren Tramroad was the first to experiment with steam but abandoned it and went back to horse haulage because the rails kept breaking under the weight of the locomotive. It was another 20 years before suitable rails being available led to the Middleton and the Stockton and Darlington being able to make effective use of steam.

 

[Bevan Price]

In addition to rail strength, materials suitable for building robust steam locos might not have been widely available before around 1800.

 

[BayPaul]

Ships were very established technology, and very widespread, so it was a fairly straightforward step to add steam engines and paddles, effectively the concept didn't need to be invented, just the method of execution.
For steam locomotives, there weren't nearly so many horse powered tramlines as concepts, and these served much shorter range markets than was ideal for a steam locomotive. The concept of steel wheel adhesion on steel track had to be developed - not exactly obviously practical except with hindsight, plus the design of the locomotive, the economics of putting down tracks, plus all the weight and size issues mentioned abovd needed to be sorted.
Ships are basically much easier than trains!

 

[Jonny]

There were issues around patents - Boulton & Watt being one bloc, and Richard Trevithick being another. There were regular disputes that rumbled on in the earlier part of the 19th century. However, as the posts above point out. there were other issues so it probably cost about 30 years.

 

[edwin_m]

Watt greatly improved the earlier Newcomen engine in 1776, arguably creating the first "true" steam engine since the earlier ones relied on atmospheric pressure to fill a vacuum created by the steam. A Newcomen engine was much less efficient and it's unlikely a locomotive using this technology would have been able to do any useful work.

 

[Ken H]

I suspect you would need Whitworths worn on standard screw threads. Before he introduced his standard threads (1841) each nit and bolt was made individually by a blacksmith and a nut made for bolt A would not fit bolt B and vice versa.
Also we would need good steel in quantity. That came with the Bessemer Converter in the 1850's.

 

[Irascible]

Trevithick developed ( relatively ) high pressure boilers, didn't he? so his was probably the first practical land vehicle. There were less practical road vehicles in the 1700s & supposedly late 1600s.

 

[778]

Watt greatly improved the earlier Newcomen engine in 1776, arguably creating the first "true" steam engine since the earlier ones relied on atmospheric pressure to fill a vacuum created by the steam. A Newcomen engine was much less efficient and it's unlikely a locomotive using this technology would have been able to do any useful work.

Does this mean the steam locomotive could have theoretically been invented any time after 1776?

 

[Ken H]

Does this mean the steam locomotive could have theoretically been invented any time after 1776?

Depends what you mean by 'invented'. Theoretical drawings or a viable machine?
Remember, Leonardo Divinci invented aeroplanes. But we had to wait for the Wright brothers before we got actual flight.

 

[Taunton]

It takes a while for things to trickle through. The main consideration is materials technology. Steam power of locomotives became possible when steam power from the equivalent of a plodding stationary steam engine could be reduced to the small size and high pressure required to make a locomotive (plus its train) go.

Internal combustion engines and their fuel started to come along in the 1890s, but it took another 15 years for someone to combine the elements, including a wooden main frame that a carpenter could have made, into the first working aircraft.

Look at how Churchward's team, in around 1905, got the GWR AWS/ATC equipment going, and started to install it in volume, and likewise the French with their equivalent "crocodile", but it was another 50 years before the other railways of Britain started to accept the concept for themselves.

 

[Irascible]

Does this mean the steam locomotive could have theoretically been invented any time after 1776?

Cugnot's steam tractor dates from 1770, it just didn't run on rails.

 

[furnessvale]

If the work of Hero and Vitruvius 2000 years ago had been seen as more than toys, the world would be a very different place.

 

[DerekC]

Very early locomotives were pretty obviously pumping engines on wheels with vertical cylinders and spindly, complex valve gear. I guess a locomotive like that could have emerged thirty years before it did. I guess that nobody realised they needed such a thing. Once they did, there was a commercial application to pull through development and things developed fairly rapidly. The key to the solution was materials technology (initially wrought iron, then steel) that could deliver a reasonably lightweight and somewhat reliable machine that could haul more than a horse and rails that wouldn't break under its weight.

 

[778]

Cugnot's steam tractor dates from 1770, it just didn't run on rails.

Did the steam tractors built by Cugnot, and the early steam powered boats have any practical purpose, or were they just novelties?

 

[Irascible]

Cugnot tried to get the French army interested in his tractor to tow artillery, it wasn't just a curiosity. Trevithick's steam carriage was more practical, but 30 years in a technical revolution is a lifetime ( something most of us have lived through ).

 

[BayPaul]

Did the steam tractors built by Cugnot, and the early steam powered boats have any practical purpose, or were they just novelties?

By 1788 there was a practical steamboat carrying up to 30 passengers on the delaware river, at speeds of around 6mph. It wasn't a commercial success, but certainly wasn't a novelty.

 

[Rescars]

Very early locomotives were pretty obviously pumping engines on wheels with vertical cylinders and spindly, complex valve gear. I guess a locomotive like that could have emerged thirty years before it did. I guess that nobody realised they needed such a thing. Once they did, there was a commercial application to pull through development and things developed fairly rapidly. The key to the solution was materials technology (initially wrought iron, then steel) that could deliver a reasonably lightweight and somewhat reliable machine that could haul more than a horse and rails that wouldn't break under its weight.

Given the problem of rail breakage, does anyone know if steam power was applied to an inclined plane prior to the development of locomotives? This would seem to be much the same technology as that required for a mine winding engine.

 

[edwin_m]

Given the problem of rail breakage, does anyone know if steam power was applied to an inclined plane prior to the development of locomotives? This would seem to be much the same technology as that required for a mine winding engine.

I would guess almost all inclined planes were gravity worked until they started to be used on railways. The traffic was almost always heavier in the descending direction.

 

[Rescars]

I would guess almost all inclined planes were gravity worked until they started to be used on railways. The traffic was almost always heavier in the descending direction.

I am sure you are right about this.

It is interesting that the use of stationary engines for cable haulage (such as London - Blackwall and Camden bank, etc) and pumping Brunel's South Devon "atmospheric caper" and similar ventures came along after the use of locomotives had been established.

 

[Ken H]

I am sure you are right about this.

It is interesting that the use of stationary engines for cable haulage (such as London - Blackwall and Camden bank, etc) and pumping Brunel's South Devon "atmospheric caper" and similar ventures came along after the use of locomotives had been established.

Early ateam locos were badly under-powered. So inclines were difficult so they had to think of a different solution
Wasn't Goathland - Grosmont originally rope hauled but was replaced by an easier graded deviation.

 

[trebor79]

Not only materials technology allowing sufficiently strong rails, but also more precise engineering to allow a locomotive to be built.
If you go to the Wilton Pumping Station, there are two beam engines there. One dating from 17-something or other and the other from the early 1800's. The older engine bearings at for the beam are basically carpentry, with wedges hammered in to true them up. The newer engine has proper precision made metal bearing casings. It's a great example of how manufacturing technology advanced in the intervening years. Everything before the early 1800's was essentially a one-off made by hand, and it's very difficult to get the consistent quality needed, let along the practicalities of having non-precision made couplings etc whirling around at speed.

 

[O L Leigh]

The first ever steam locomotive was invented in 1802, but could it have been invented earlier (realistically)?

Perhaps, but probably not.

Part of the problem was that it wasn't until Trevithick started using high pressure steam that engines became small enough for them to realistically be used for self-propelled locomotion. Prior to that, low pressure steam engines, such as those designed and built by Watt, had been far too large, and scaling them down to make them practical for locomotion would have reduced their usable output.

However, no-one was really thinking about using steam to power a transport revolution. Even Trevithick was more interested in showing the superiority of his high pressure designs in terms of cost and output compared to the preceding low pressure engines in existing applications (e.g. mine pumping, driving machinery, etc) than he was in looking for novel applications. He wasn't particularly interested in the first two or three locomotives that used his steam engines, with each being essentially a private venture, and only briefly got onboard with this new idea in 1808 with "Catch Me Who Can" before losing interest once more. Another 21 years then elapsed before the Rainhill Trials when the whole notion of steam hauled transportation took off and locomotive technology got the kick in the pants that it needed. During the intervening period, locomotives were seen as a fairly niche and purely industrial technology and not much development had taken place.

 

[billio]

Given the problem of rail breakage, does anyone know if steam power was applied to an inclined plane prior to the development of locomotives? This would seem to be much the same technology as that required for a mine winding engine.

Hay Inclined Plane, Ironbridge. Probably not the first but still there.

 

[DerekC]

I would guess almost all inclined planes were gravity worked until they started to be used on railways. The traffic was almost always heavier in the descending direction.

For quarries yes, but not for mines. I have a book (unfortunately lent to somebody at present) which has examples of winding engines hauling mine waggons up the inclined tunnels of some drift mines - where the adit was downwards from the mine top.

I am sure you are right about this.

It is interesting that the use of stationary engines for cable haulage (such as London - Blackwall and Camden bank, etc) and pumping Brunel's South Devon "atmospheric caper" and similar ventures came along after the use of locomotives had been established.

I think this has a lot to do with power to weight ratio. Using the Davis equations on the Wikipedia data about the initial trip of "Locomotion No 1" suggests a maximum power output of about 60hp at 12mph (assuming level track) for a machine weighing about 9 tons including tender and fuel. Wikipeda also suggests a tractive effort of 1900lbf (sorry this is all in imperial units) which gives about the same drawbar horsepower if that could be sustained at 12mph on level track. I think that's probably high - I doubt that the boiler could sustain that for long. Put Locomotion at a gradient of 1 in 40 (say) and it might just about start a load of five S&D chaldron waggons of the size of the one in the Science Museum. (1T 18cwt tare, 2T 14cwt load) and haul it very slowly up the gradient.

To sustain a heavy traffic over a relatively long railway (like the Stockton & Darlington) it would have been very expensive and operationally difficult to divide the trains at the inclines and run extra locomotives for bank duty - so they put in cable haulage for these sections. The same argument would apply to Camden Bank - and the bank at the Liverpool end of the Liverpool & Manchester, for example. The London - Blackwall and South Devon examples are a bit different - both were clearly looking for a better solution than steam locomotives for a whole railway, keeping the heavy power plant fixed and simplifying the rolling stock. You could argue that this was eventually delivered by electrification!

 

[Rescars]

Perhaps, but probably not.

Part of the problem was that it wasn't until Trevithick started using high pressure steam that engines became small enough for them to realistically be used for self-propelled locomotion. Prior to that, low pressure steam engines, such as those designed and built by Watt, had been far too large, and scaling them down to make them practical for locomotion would have reduced their usable output.

However, no-one was really thinking about using steam to power a transport revolution. Even Trevithick was more interested in showing the superiority of his high pressure designs in terms of cost and output compared to the preceding low pressure engines in existing applications (e.g. mine pumping, driving machinery, etc) than he was in looking for novel applications. He wasn't particularly interested in the first two or three locomotives that used his steam engines, with each being essentially a private venture, and only briefly got onboard with this new idea in 1808 with "Catch Me Who Can" before losing interest once more. Another 21 years then elapsed before the Rainhill Trials when the whole notion of steam hauled transportation took off and locomotive technology got the kick in the pants that it needed. During the intervening period, locomotives were seen as a fairly niche and purely industrial technology and not much development had taken place.

So sad that Watt dissuaded William Murdoch from developing his steam carriage which he built in the 1780s because he wanted to use strong (high pressure) steam, which Watt apparently mistrusted. IIRC Murdoch and Trevithick were neighbours in Redruth.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

A big spur to the early development of locomotives was the soaring price of horse fodder during and immediately after the Napoleonic War. That was a big spur for the development of the Middleton Colliery line in 1812. There was a bit of a hiatus when the price of fodder dropped. Then the Stevensons showed what locomotives were capable of doing on the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Given the problem of rail breakage, does anyone know if steam power was applied to an inclined plane prior to the development of locomotives? This would seem to be much the same technology as that required for a mine winding engine.

Thomlinson’s North Eastern Railway, published in 1914 quotes a line at Birtley Fell on 17 May 1809 as the first fixed engine for hauling wagons above ground on an incline.

 

[Alanko]

The Greeks had that device called an 'aeolipile' in the 1st century CE. Expanding steam was exhausted via angled pipes from a sphere mounted on an axle. This would cause the sphere to rotate.

It doesn't look like anybody thought to harness this power for any particular use.