George Stephenson - Early Locomotives

Early Locomotives

Cornishman Richard Trevithick is credited with the first realistic design of the steam locomotive in 1802. Later, he visited Tyneside and built an engine there for a mine-owner. Several local men were inspired by this, and designed engines of their own.

Stephenson designed his first locomotive in 1814, a travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway, and named Blücher after the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. It was constructed in the colliery workshop behind Stephenson's home, Dial Cottage, on Great Lime Road. This locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), and was the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotive: its traction depended only on the contact between its flanged wheels and the rail. Altogether, Stephenson is said to have produced 16 locomotives at Killingworth, although it has never proved possible to produce a convincing list of all 16. Of those that have been identified most were built for use at Killingworth itself or for the Hetton colliery railway. A six-wheeled locomotive was built for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway in 1817 but it was soon withdrawn from service because of damage to the cast iron rails. A further locomotive was supplied to Scott's Pit railroad at Llansamlet, near Swansea in 1819 but it too was soon withdrawn, apparently because it was under-boilered and also because of damage to the track.

The new engines were too heavy to be run on wooden rails, and iron rails were in their infancy, with cast iron exhibiting excessive brittleness. Together with William Losh, Stephenson improved the design of cast iron rails to reduce breakage; these were briefly made by Losh, Wilson and Bell at their Walker ironworks. According to Rolt, he also managed to solve the problem caused by the weight of the engine upon these primitive rails. He experimented with a 'steam spring' (to 'cushion' the weight using steam pressure), but soon followed the new practice of 'distributing' weight by utilising a number of wheels. For the Stockton and Darlington Railway, however, Stephenson would use only wrought iron rails, not withstanding the financial loss he would suffer from not using his own, patented design (see below).

Stephenson was hired to build an 8-mile (13-km) railway from Hetton colliery to Sunderland in 1820. The finished result used a combination of gravity on downward inclines and locomotives for level and upward stretches. It was the first railway using no animal power.

Other locomotives include:

• 1817-1848 The Duke for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway