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
Anderson said: "I produce and prove my steam drags before I am paid for
them, and I keep them in repair; consequently, neither the public nor the
company runs any risk. The first steam carriage built for the company is
nearly completed. It will speak for itself." In the Mechanic's Magazine,
June, 1839, a Dublin correspondent writes: "I was fortunate enough to get
a sight of Sir James Anderson's steam carriage, with which I was much
pleased. It had just arrived from the country, and was destined for London
in about three weeks. The engine weighs ten tons, and will, I dare say,
act very well. I shall have an opportunity of judging that, as the tender
is at Cork. It has a sort of diligence, not joined, but to be attached to
the tender, making in all three carriages. I talked a great deal about it
to one of his principal men, who was most lavish in its praises,
especially as regards the boiler." In August, 1839, the carriage arrived
in London.
In 1840, a report said: "Several steam carriages are being built at
Manchester and Dublin, under Sir James Anderson's patents, and one has
been completed at each place. At Manchester the steam drag had been
frequently running between Cross Street and Altrincham, and the last run
was made at the rate of twenty miles an hour, with four tons on the
tender, in the presence of Mr. Sharp, of the firm of Sharp, Roberts and
Company, of Manchester, and others." A newspaper of the same year reported
that an experimental trip of Anderson's steam drag for common roads took
place on the Howth Road, Dublin. It ran about two hours, backing, and
turning about in every direction--the object being chiefly to try the
various parts in detail. It repeatedly turned the corners of the avenues
at a speed of twelve miles an hour, the steam pressure required being only
forty-six pounds per square inch. No smoke was seen, and little steam was
observed. The whole machinery was ornamentally boxed in, so that none of
the moving parts was exposed to view, and it was found that the horses did
not shy at this carriage.
The company had great plans for travel communication by means of these
drags between the chief towns in Ireland, as soon as a few of the steam
carriages were finished. An even more pretentious scheme involved a
service in conjunction with the railway trains from London, carriages to
be run from Birmingham to Holyhead, whence passengers were to be conveyed
to Dublin by steamer; from Dublin to Galway the steam drags were to be
employed; and thence to New York per vessel touching at Halifax; thus
making Ireland the stepping-stone between England, Nova Scotia, and the
United States of America. But all these plans came to naught.
Anderson continued to take out patents down to as late as 1858. He devoted
more than thirty years of his life to the promotion of steam locomotion on
common roads.
ROBERT DAVIDSON
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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