POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Model of Trevithick's 1804 tramway steam locomotive

Object No. B1561

This is a model of the world's first steam locomotive built by the Cornish engineer, Richard Trevithick, and first driven on a colliery tramway line in Wales in 1804. The model was made in England by C A Mills of Ruislip, Middlesex, whose Trevithick engine models are also in museum collections in Birmingham, Edinburgh and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. In Trevithick's engine the piston was forced down solely by the pressure of the steam fed into the cylinder. He got around James Watt's patented condenser by exhausting the steam straight into the air from the cylinder instead of first condensing it. Trevithick also did away with the overhead beam and connected the piston directly to a large rotating flywheel by a crank. Together, these advances produced a steam engine which was for the first time light and compact enough to mount on wheels. Meanwhile in France, an inventor by the name of Cugnot, had already built the world's first self-propelled steam vehicle in 1769 but it apparently did not operate well. Trevithick built his own steam road carriage and tested it in Camborne, Cornwall, in 1801. Despite opposition against it, he proved that that smooth wheels turned by an engine could have sufficient traction to propel a vehicle. He was convinced that high pressure steam could be used to propel engines on rails replacing the horse-drawn tramways all over Britain. Trevithick then engaged the famous ironworks, the Coalbrookdale Company, at Ironbridge, Shropshire, to build his engine. On 21 February 1804, the steam locomotive represented by this model, pulled five wagons containing 10 tons of iron and 70 passengers along 16 km of horse tramway from Penydaren to Abercynon in Wales. It travelled at a fast walking pace and took 4 hours and five minutes for the trip. From this historic journey, the groundwork was laid for further developments to follow. This culminated in 1829 when George Stephenson and his locomotive 'Rocket' won the famous Rainhill Trial to choose an engine to operate the world's first passenger railway between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. That victory unleashed the railway mania which swept Britain and spread around the world facilitating the movement of raw materials to the factories and the subsequent carriage of manufactured goods for sale throughout the world. Understandably, George Stephenson has overshadowed Trevithick in popular history. However, it was Trevithick's locomotive which had the essential features of the railway engines which would persist throughout the steam era. Its smooth, coupled, wheels, relied on friction on the rails to transmit the drive from the pistons. The high-pressure steam did not pass into a condenser but did its work then was exhausted up a chimney. This helped the draught through the firebox and thereby produced the characteristic puffing sound. So it is to Trevithick that we also owe the steam locomotive's famous 'chuff'. Raymond, Robert 'Out of the Fiery Furnace: the impact on Metals on the History of Mankind', Macmillan Company of Australia, South Melbourne, 1984. Margaret Simpson, Curator 2015