The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated: With an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain axioms for railway speculatorsLardner, Dionysius
History
The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated: With an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain axioms for railway speculators
Lardner, Dionysius
Steam-engines -- Early works to 1850
A steam carriage constructed by Mr. _Gurney_, weighing 35 cwt.,
working for 8 hours, is found, according to his statement, to do the
work of about 30 horses. He calculates that the weight of his
propelling carriage, which would be capable of drawing 18 persons,
would be equal to the weight of 4 horses; and the carriage in which
these persons would be drawn would have the same weight as a common
stage coach capable of carrying the same number of persons. Thus the
weight of the whole--the propelling carriage and the carriage for
passengers taken together--would be the same with the weight of a
common stage coach, with 4 horses inclusive.
(108.) There are two methods of applying locomotives upon common roads
to the transport of passengers or goods; the one is by causing the
locomotive to carry, and the other to draw the load; and different
projectors have adopted the one and the other method. Each is attended
with its advantages and disadvantages. If the same carriage transport
the engine and the load, the weight of the whole will be less in
proportion to the load carried; also a greater pressure may be
produced on the wheels by which the load is propelled. It is also
thought that a greater facility in turning and guiding the vehicle,
greater safety in descending the hills, and a saving in the original
cost, will be obtained. On the other hand, when the passengers are
placed in the same carriage with the engine, they are necessarily more
exposed to the noise of the machinery and to the heat of the boiler
and furnace. The danger of explosion is so slight, that, perhaps, it
scarcely deserves to be mentioned; but still _the apprehension_ of
danger on the part of the passengers, even though groundless, should
not be disregarded. This apprehension will be obviously removed or
diminished by transferring the passengers into a carriage separate
from the engine; but the greatest advantage of keeping the engine
separate from the passengers is the facility which it affords of
changing one engine for another in case of accident or derangement on
the road, in the same manner as horses are changed at the different
stages: or, if such an accident occur in a place where a new engine
cannot be procured, the load of passengers may be carried forward by
horses, until it is brought to some station where a locomotive may be
obtained. There is also an advantage arising from the circumstance
that when the engines are under repair, or in process of cleaning, the
carriages for passengers are not necessarily idle. Thus the same
number of carriages for passengers will not be required when the
engine is used to draw as when it is used to carry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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