In the first place Stephenson resolved to make himself thoroughly acquainted with what had already been done. Mr. Blackett’s engines were working daily at Wylam, past the cottage where he had been born; and thither he frequently went to inspect the improvements made by Mr. Blackett from time to time both in the locomotive and in the plateway along which it worked. Jonathan Foster informed us that, after one of these visits, Stephenson declared to him his conviction that a much more effective engine might be made, that should work more steadily and draw the load more effectively. He had also the advantage, about the same time, of seeing one of Blenkinsop’s Leeds engines, which was placed on the tramway leading from the collieries of Kenton and Coxlodge, on the 2nd September, 1813. This locomotive drew sixteen chaldron waggons containing an aggregate weight of seventy tons, at the rate of about three miles an hour. George Stephenson and several of the Killingworth men were amongst the crowd of spectators that day; and after examining the engine and observing its performances, he observed to his companions, that “he thought he could make a better engine than that, to go upon legs.” Probably he had heard of the invention of Brunton, whose patent had by this time been published, and proved the subject of much curious speculation in the colliery districts. Certain it is, that, shortly after the inspection of the Coxlodge engine, he contemplated the construction of a new locomotive, which was to surpass all that had preceded it. He observed that those engines which had been constructed up to this time, however ingenious in their arrangements, had proved practical failures. Mr. Blackett’s was as yet both clumsy and expensive. Chapman’s had been removed from the Heaton tramway in 1812, and was regarded as a total failure. And the Blenkinsop engine at Coxlodge was found very unsteady and costly in its working; besides, it pulled the rails to pieces, the entire strain being upon the rack-rail on one side of the road. The boiler, however, having soon after blown up, there was an end of that engine; and the colliery owners did not feel encouraged to try any further experiment.