Puffing Billy (locomotive)

Puffing Billy and Wylam Dilly was the first successful steam locomotives with Adhäsionsantrieb and are the oldest preserved locomotives ever. They were in 1814/ 15 to the 1860s on a mine train in northern England in use. A third locomotive of this type, called Lady Mary, was screened earlier and has not been preserved.

History

Although Richard Trevithick had already proven with his first locomotive that the friction between the wheels and rails sufficient to pull a train, John Blenkinsop 1812 went a different route and built his locomotives Zahnradlokomotiven. These proved indeed to be useful, but the rack rails were cumbersome and relatively expensive.

The owner of Wylam Colliery, Christopher Blackett was interested in locomotives Blenkinsop'schen design. He had only a few years earlier can lay new rails and conversion to gear operation seemed too expensive. Therefore, he turned to Richard Trevithick and when he refused, the pit director William Hedley to explore the possibilities of a locomotive that could run on the existing tracks.

The rails of the pit consisted of L- or U-shaped cast iron sections, and therefore the wheels of the vehicles did not need wheel flanges (see also history of development of railway track ). The track width was five foot ( according to other sources at 5 ' ½ ").

Hedley proved by experiments with a test vehicle driven by hand levers that a locomotive that was easy enough to ride on the rails of the mine can, could pull an economically sensible load. A first sample locomotive, which was based on the test vehicle, proved due to insufficient capacity of the boiler as a failure, but it was enough to convince Blackett.

So Hedley received in 1813 the contract to build a new locomotive. He was supported by Timothy Hackworth, the foreman of the forge of the pit, and the machine builder Jonathan Forster. The later called Puffing Billy locomotive proved successful, and in the next two years, followed by two more, nearly identical locomotives, which were given the names Wylam Dilly and Lady Mary.

The locomotives were capable of an approximately 50 -ton train in an hour on the along the Tyne running, five miles ( eight kilometers ) to move long distance between the mine in Wylam and the port of Lemington (now a suburb of Newcastle upon tyne ), which corresponds to a speed of 8 km / hr. As fast as they could go without stress is not known.

The operating weight of the machine was about nine tons; the tender weighed about four tons. Although the locomotives were constructed for this route, the tracks kept their weight in the long run was not. In order to better distribute the load, the locomotives after a few years, two additional axes and were received so therefore one of the first four-axle locomotives. The Puffing Billy preserved however, leave no traces demonstrate this conversion. The water tank rested on a fifth axis, which was hinged to the actual locomotive, a type uniaxial Tender ( see figure).

In this form were Puffing Billy and her sister locomotives in operation until on the track in 1830 "modern" rails were laid. The locomotives were then converted back to two axes and got wheels with flanges.

Wylam Dilly as a steam ship propulsion

In 1822, Wylam Dilly was mounted in the frame of a strike for the boatmen on one of the flat keelboats, which was a provisional steamer. Thus, the carbon boats were towed for a few months, and the machine had to be protected by the military against the strikers. Then Wylam Dilly was further used as a locomotive.

Whereabouts

Puffing Billy and Wylam Dilly remained until the early 1860s in use; No significant changes have been made more at this time to drive and boiler. Puffing Billy was already the oldest preserved locomotive and therefore aroused interest in history. 1862, the locomotive was on loan initially handed over to the Museum of Patents in London, which was to become the Science Museum later. Tough negotiations over three years eventually led to a sale at the museum for the price of £ 200

Wylam Dilly remained for some years in operation, but was rarely used since the transport of coal have now been settled largely on the North Eastern Railway. In 1868 the mine was closed and offered the locomotive for scrap price in an auction. Descendants of Hedley bought the machine, they were restored and handed over in 1882 to the Royal Museum in Edinburgh, where it still stands today.

The whereabouts of the third locomotive, Lady Mary, there is no information; very likely, however, it has already been retired for several years before 1860. Photographs of this locomotive does not seem to exist; the other two machines were made ​​only on the occasion of their transfer to the museums.

Replicas

Two operable replicas of the Puffing Billy exist; both corresponding to the condition of the locomotive to 1862.

The first was in 1906 at the initiative of Oskar von Miller in the central workshop of the Bavarian State Railways for the German Museum in Munich, where he still stands today. During demonstrations wheels and rods of the machine can be moved. The replica had a 1934 appearance in the film The steel beast, which was filmed for the 100th anniversary of the first German railway.

Another replica was completed in 2006 for the North of England Open Air Museum.

Technology

Construction

The frame of the locomotive consisted of wooden beams, on which the axles were mounted without suspension.

The cylinders were placed vertically above the rear wheels. This position was then preferred because with horizontal cylinders uneven wear of the piston and cylinder walls feared. The working upward piston rods were connected by levers and long rods with a temperature below the boiler crankshaft drive both axles through gears. In this case, between the crankshaft and lay shafts further gears, so that the direction of rotation of the crankshaft and the wheels were the same.

The complicated appearing linkage cylinders and drive rod connected to each other, was so constructed that one end of the horizontal lever always remained on the center of the cylinder, thereby cross head were redundant with slide rails. The feed pump is driven mechanically by one of the two levers that connected the piston rods with the rods.

With the change to four-axle arrangement of the gears has been changed: the boiler and engine were raised, and the gear on the crankshaft attacked now from above in a gear between the two inner axes. Due to the reduced distance between the axes of the intermediate gears could be eliminated.

Boiler, and tender

The boiler was designed for a pressure of about 3.5 bar and consisted of plates riveted together in wrought iron. The tube boiler had not been invented at that time, and at the Blenkinsop'schen locomotives ran along the flame tube through the boiler, where the furnace was located at one end while at the other end of the chimney was scheduled. The low heating surface this arrangement was approximately doubled by the flame tube of the Puffing Billy U-shape was arranged ( an arrangement which had been used in his Trevithick locomotives). Therefore, the fire door was off-center next to the chimney also staggered to the side, while in the opposite side of the boiler were no openings and these could therefore obtain a curved shape.

This peculiarity of the boiler brought with it that ran in front of the tender of the locomotive. The driver was standing on a platform at the rear end of the locomotive while the heater had its place on the tender. The locomotive was used in both directions, ie with drawn or Slid tender.

Cylinder and control

Puffing Billy was the first locomotive, in which the cylinders were outside of the boiler. Trevithick, Blenkinsop and even 1825 Stephenson had the inconvenient for maintenance preferred arrangement within the vessel, in order to prevent cooling and so that a condensation of the steam inside the cylinder. The Puffing Billy the cylinders were surrounded for this reason with a jacket which was connected to the boiler inside, so that hot water could flow around the cylinder.

The control system was driven by two parallel to the piston rods to the rockers arranged rods, which operated on two strokes at the end of each cylinder stroke rocker lever, which reversed the direction of steam. For starting or changing direction of travel these levers could be adjusted by hand. A use of steam as expansion later, based on control cams types, thus was not possible.

Specifications

The information in the table apply to the Puffing Billy in the withdrawal state. It is assumed that these data have changed over time and that the three locomotives have differed in details, since there has never been a real series production by 1815. In the pictures is example to recognize that the boiler of Wylam Dilly is slightly longer than that of the Puffing Billy, but it is unclear whether this difference has existed from the beginning or only arose in the context of a later reconstruction.

Naming

Puffing Billy was probably not the "official" name of the locomotive, but a nickname. It is recorded that William Hedley suffered from asthma, and according to an anecdote about the name of the Lok Schnaufender William, as an allusion to the disease of the designer was, in German.

It is also unclear when the other two locomotives got their name. With " Dilly " the people originally referred to the distance on the wrong locomotives.