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
A small steam drag or tug to draw an attached coach or omnibus was the
next production of the Hancock establishment, which had already attained
more than local fame. This was built for a Herr Voigtlander, of Vienna,
and on one of its trial trips it carried ten persons and an attached
four-wheeled carriage with six persons in it. With this load a speed of
fourteen miles an hour on the level was attained, and eight to nine miles
an hour on up grades.
Beginning in August, 1834, the Era and the Autopsy were run daily in
London between the City, Moorgate and Paddington. During the ensuing four
months over four thousand passengers were carried. Each coach carried from
ten to twelve passengers, and the trip from Moorgate to Paddington, five
miles, was made in a half hour, including stops. On the trial trip a speed
of twelve miles an hour, exclusive of stops, was maintained.
Later in the same year the Era, with its name changed to the Erin, was
sent to Dublin, Ireland, where it was exhibited and run in and about the
city, by Hancock, for eight days, before it was reshipped to Stratford.
Next in turn came a drag of larger size than any before built, with an
engine of greater capacity. On the trial trip this drew, on a level road,
at a speed of ten miles an hour, three omnibuses and one stage coach with
fifty passengers. In July, 1835, the trip to Reading, a distance of
thirty-eight miles, was made in three hours forty minutes twenty-five
seconds; actual running time, exclusive of stops, three hours eight
minutes ten seconds, at a moving rate of over twelve miles an hour.
Subsequently, this drag was made over into a carriage, like the others of
the Hancock type, fitted for eighteen passengers, and named the Automaton.
In August, 1835, the Erin ran from London to Marlborough, a distance of
seventy-eight miles, in seven hours forty-nine minutes, exclusive of
stops, averaging nine and six-tenths miles an hour. The return from
Marlborough to London was accomplished in seven hours thirty-six minutes,
exclusive of stops, an average of nine and eight-tenths miles an hour. In
the same month the Erin made the run from London to Birmingham at the rate
of ten miles an hour.
In 1836, Hancock ran all his carriages on a regular route on the Stratford
and Islington roads for a period of twenty weeks, making in that time
seven hundred and twelve trips, covering four thousand two hundred miles,
and carrying twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty-one passengers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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