The ''Steam Horse'' was an early railway

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

constructed by the

Butterley Company The Butterley Company was an English manufacturing firm founded as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790. Its subsidiaries existed until 2009. Origins This area of Derbyshire had been known for its outcrops of iron ore which had been exploited at ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

in 1813 by

William Brunton William Brunton Senior (26 May 1777 – 5 October 1851) was a Scottish engineer and inventor. Early life He was the eldest son of Robert Brunton, a watchmaker (14 Aug 1748–1834) of Dalkeith, where he was born. He studied mechanics in his fath ...

(1777–1851). Also known as the ''Mechanical Traveller'', it had a pair of mechanical legs, with feet that gripped the ground behind the engine to push it forwards along the rails at about three miles an hour.

Design

The

collieries Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...

were well served between towns by the canal system. From the

pit head A headframe (gallows frame, winding tower, hoist frame,Ernst, Dr.-Ing. Richard (1989). ''Wörterbuch der Industriellen Technik'' (5th ed.). Wiesbaden: Oscar Brandstetter, 1989. pit frame, shafthead frame, headgear, headstock, poppethead) is t ...

to the canals, horse-drawn

wagonway A wagonway (or waggonway; also known as a horse-drawn railway, or horse-drawn railroad) was a method of rail transport, railway transportation that preceded the steam locomotive and used horses to haul wagons. The terms plateway and tramway (indu ...

s had been constructed and steam engines were seen as no more than a noisy and dangerous novelty. However the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

from 1799 to 1815 had brought a great increase in the price of

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food ...

. Moreover, some such "railways" were being constructed on the steeper gradients within canals, as for instance on the

Charnwood Forest Canal The Charnwood Forest Canal, sometimes known as the "Forest Line of the Leicester Navigation", was opened between Thringstone and Nanpantan, with a further connection to Barrow Hill, near Worthington, Leicestershire, Worthington, in 1794. It mar ...

. Few believed that steel wheels on smooth steel rails would give enough adhesion until

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson , (honoris causa, Hon. causa) (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of hi ...

and

William Hedley William Hedley (13 July 1779 – 9 January 1843) was born in Newburn, near Newcastle upon Tyne. He was one of the leading industrial engineers of the early 19th century, and was instrumental in several major innovations in early railway deve ...

proved otherwise in 1813 and even the former considered 1 in 100 (1 %) was the absolute maximum

grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.) * A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...

. Consequently such steam operated systems as there were, were operated by cumbersome

cables Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a he ...

, or by the use of an expensive

rack and pinion rack and pinion is a type of linear actuator that comprises a circular gear (the '' pinion'') engaging a linear gear (the ''rack''). Together, they convert between rotational motion and linear motion: rotating the pinion causes the rack to be d ...

. This makes Brunton's idea seem more reasonable, given that the Butterley Company were faced with a gradient of 1 in 50 between its

Limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

quarry at

Crich Crich is a village and civil parish in the English county of Derbyshire. Besides the village of Crich, the civil parish includes the nearby villages of Fritchley, Whatstandwell and Wheatcroft, Derbyshire, Wheatcroft. The population of the civi ...

to the

Cromford Canal The Cromford Canal ran from Cromford to the Erewash Canal in Derbyshire, England with a branch to Pinxton. Built by William Jessop with the assistance of Benjamin Outram, its alignment included four tunnels and 14 canal lock, locks. From Crom ...

at Amber Wharf, some away. Brunton took out a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

, No. 3700, dated 22 May 1813 for the locomotive. The Butterley locomotive cost a total of £240.

Newbottle

The historical record is scanty but it seems that the ''Steam Horse'' operated successfully for an unknown period. So much so, that another, larger, one with a boiler rather than the original , seems to have been built for the Newbottle Colliery, in

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

. This locomotive cost £540 and may have had two cylinders. During 1814 and 1815 it hauled loads up a 1 in 36 gradient at , but the colliery owners were not happy with it. On 31 July 1815, during a demonstration, the new wrought iron boiler exploded, killing thirteen spectators and injuring several others. The reason was that the safety valves had been screwed down too tightly and were therefore not working. The idea was not pursued afterwards. This incident was the first recorded railway disaster.

References

* Loughnan St. L.Pendred (1921) ''A Note on Brunton's Steam Horse, 1813,''Transactions of The Newcomen Society 02 (1921) : 118-12
available on line
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