Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common RoadsWeeks, Lyman Horace
History
Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common Roads
Weeks, Lyman Horace
Automobiles -- History
Sir James C. Anderson became associated with James, and in 1829 they built
another carriage. This weighed nearly three tons, and the first trials
were made round a circle of one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. When
it was finally ready to be brought out it was loaded with fifteen
passengers and driven several miles on a rough gravel road across Epping
Forest, with a speed varying from twelve to fifteen miles an hour. Steam
was supplied by two tubular boilers, each forming a hollow cylinder four
feet six inches long. The tubes of which the boilers were composed were
common gas pipe, one of which split on one of the trips, thus letting the
water out of one of the boilers and extinguishing its fire. Under these
circumstances, with only one boiler in operation, the carriage returned
home at the rate of about seven miles an hour, carrying more than twenty
passengers--at one period, indeed, it is said, a much greater number;
showing that sufficient steam could be generated in such a boiler to be
equal to the propulsion of between five and six tons weight. In
consequence of this demonstration that the most brilliant success was
attainable, the proprietors dismantled the carriage and commenced the
construction of superior tubular boilers with much stronger tubes.
Shortly after Anderson and James commenced to build another steam
carriage, which was ready for use in November, 1829. This engine was not
intended to carry passengers, but to be employed for drawing carriages
behind. Four tubular boilers were used, the total number of tubes being
nearly two hundred. These boilers were enclosed in a space four feet wide,
three feet long, and two feet deep. The steam from each boiler was
conducted into one main steam pipe one and one-half inches in diameter,
and the communication from any one of the boilers could be cut off in case
of leakage. Four cylinders, each two and one-quarter inch bore and nine
inch stroke, were arranged vertically in the hind part of the locomotive,
and two of them acted upon each crank-shaft as before, giving a separate
motion to each driving wheel.
The exhaust steam was conducted through two copper tanks for heating the
feed water to a high temperature, and thence passed to the chimney. The
steering-gear consisted of an external pillar containing a vertical shaft,
at the upper end of which small bevel-gearing was used, giving motion to
the vertical shaft, whose bottom end carried a pinion gearing into a
sector attached to the fore axle. The motion of the crank-shafts was
communicated to the separate axles of the driving-wheels by spur-gearing
with two speeds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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