Steam locomotive facts for kids

Steamranger RX 207 steam train going through Mount Barker, South Australia

A steam locomotive is a steam powered railway locomotive. It was used a lot between about 1830 and 1970. Afterwards, diesel and electric locomotives were used more often. The first steam locomotive was made by Richard Trevithick for a railway used for moving iron at an ironworks in Wales. A steam locomotive works by burning a fuel like coal in a special space called a firebox. This produces hot gases that rise and go through tubes in a boiler - a large space with water in it. This heats the water, producing steam. The steam is then taken through another tube to a cylinder. The steam then pushes the piston which in turn pushes a metal rod that is connected to the wheels, making the locomotive move. The steam then rises out through the chimney.

Steam locomotives are still today used in many developing countries where the railways have not yet been electrified.

History
Images for kids
See also

History

Britain

The earliest railways employed horses to draw carts along rail tracks. In 1784, William Murdoch, a Scottish inventor, built a small-scale prototype of a steam road locomotive in Birmingham. A full-scale rail steam locomotive was proposed by William Reynolds around 1787. An early working model of a steam rail locomotive was designed and constructed by steamboat pioneer John Fitch in the US during 1794. His steam locomotive used interior bladed wheels guided by rails or tracks. The model still exists at the Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus. The authenticity and date of this locomotive is disputed by some experts and a workable steam train would have to await the invention of the high-pressure steam engine by Richard Trevithick, who pioneered the use of steam locomotives.

Trevithick's 1802 Coalbrookdale locomotive

The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive, was the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Coalbrookdale Locomotive, built by Trevithick in 1802. It was constructed for the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in the United Kingdom though no record of it working there has survived. On 21 February 1804, the first recorded steam-hauled railway journey took place as another of Trevithick's locomotives hauled a train along the 4 ft 4 in (1,321 mm) tramway from the Pen-y-darren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil, to Abercynon in South Wales. Accompanied by Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated a number of important innovations that included using high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine and increased its efficiency.

Trevithick visited the Newcastle area in 1804 and had a ready audience of colliery (coal mine) owners and engineers. The visit was so successful that the colliery railways in north-east England became the leading centre for experimentation and development of the steam locomotive. Trevithick continued his own steam propulsion experiments through another trio of locomotives, concluding with the Catch Me Who Can in 1808.

The Salamanca locomotive

The Locomotion at Darlington Railway Centre and Museum

In 1812, Matthew Murray's successful twin-cylinder rack locomotive Salamanca first ran on the edge-railed rack-and-pinion Middleton Railway. Another well-known early locomotive was Puffing Billy, built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley. It was intended to work on the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. This locomotive is the oldest preserved, and is on static display in the Science Museum, London.

George Stephenson

George Stephenson, a former miner working as an engine-wright at Killingworth Colliery, developed up to sixteen Killingworth locomotives, including Blücher in 1814, another in 1815, and a (newly-identified) Killingworth Billy in 1816. He also constructed The Duke in 1817 for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway, which was the first steam locomotive to work in Scotland.

In 1825, George Stephenson built Locomotion No. 1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north-east England, which was the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829, his son Robert built in Newcastle The Rocket which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials. This success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the UK, US and much of Europe. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened a year later making exclusive use of steam power for passenger and goods trains.

United States

The Stourbridge Lion

Many of the earliest locomotives for American railroads were imported from Great Britain, including first the Stourbridge Lion and later the John Bull (still the oldest operable engine-powered vehicle in the United States of any kind, as of 1981) however a domestic locomotive-manufacturing industry was quickly established. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Tom Thumb in 1830, designed and built by Peter Cooper, was the first US-built locomotive to run in America, although it was intended as a demonstration of the potential of steam traction, rather than as a revenue-earning locomotive. The DeWitt Clinton was also built in the 1830s.

Continental Europe

The first railway service outside the United Kingdom and North America was opened in 1829 in France between Saint-Etienne and Lyon. Then on 5 May 1835, the first line in Belgium linked Mechelen and Brussels. The locomotive was named The Elephant.

Photo of the Adler made in the early 1850s

In Germany, the first working steam locomotive was a rack-and-pinion engine, similar to the Salamanca, designed by the British locomotive pioneer John Blenkinsop. Built in June 1816 by Johann Friedrich Krigar in the Royal Berlin Iron Foundry (Königliche Eisengießerei zu Berlin), the locomotive ran on a circular track in the factory yard. It was the first locomotive to be built on the European mainland and the first steam-powered passenger service; curious onlookers could ride in the attached coaches for a fee. It is portrayed on a New Year's badge for the Royal Foundry dated 1816. Another locomotive was built using the same system in 1817. They were to be used on pit railways in Königshütte and in Luisenthal on the Saar (today part of Völklingen), but neither could be returned to working order after being dismantled, moved and reassembled. On 7 December 1835, the Adler ran for the first time between Nuremberg and Fürth on the Bavarian Ludwig Railway. It was the 118th engine from the locomotive works of Robert Stephenson and stood under patent protection.

The Austria, the first locomotive in Austria

In 1837, the first steam railway started in Austria on the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway between Vienna-Floridsdorf and Deutsch-Wagram. The oldest continually working steam engine in the world also runs in Austria: the GKB 671 built in 1860, has never been taken out of service, and is still used for special excursions.

In 1838, the third steam locomotive to be built in Germany, the Saxonia, was manufactured by the Maschinenbaufirma Übigau near Dresden, built by Prof. Johann Andreas Schubert. The first independently designed locomotive in Germany was the Beuth, built by August Borsig in 1841. The first locomotive produced by Henschel-Werke in Kassel, the Drache, was delivered in 1848.

The first steam locomotives operating in Italy were the Bayard and the Vesuvio, running on the Napoli-Portici line, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The first railway line over Swiss territory was the Strasbourg–Basle line opened in 1844. Three years later, in 1847, the first fully Swiss railway line, the Spanisch Brötli Bahn, from Zürich to Baden was opened.

Images for kids

LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard is officially the fastest steam locomotive, reaching 126 mph (203 km/h) on 3 July 1938.
LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman was the first steam locomotive to officially reach 100 mph (160 km/h), on 30 November 1934.
The Locomotion at Darlington Railway Centre and Museum
A 1848 scale model of the La Gironde in a museum at Le Creusot
First locomotive in Russia. 1834
A steam locomotive with the boiler and firebox exposed (firebox on the left)
Aftermath of a boiler explosion on a railway locomotive, c.1850
Thermal image of an operating steam locomotive
Running gear animation
Steam-cleaning the running gear of an "H" class locomotive, Chicago and North Western Railway, 1943
Running gear of steam locomotive
Water gauge. Here the water in the boiler is at the "top nut", higher than the normal maximum working level.
A locomotive takes on water using a water crane
A locomotive crew in France
The boiler safety valves lifting on 60163 Tornado, creating a false smoke trail
Pressure gauges on Blackmore Vale. The right-hand one shows boiler pressure, the one on the left steam chest pressure.
Watering a steam locomotive
South African Class 25 condensing locomotive
"Wakefield" brand displacement lubricator mounted on a locomotive boiler backplate. Through the right-hand sight glass a drip of oil (travelling upwards through water) can be seen.
Big-end bearing (with connecting rod and coupling rod) of a Blackmoor Vale showing pierced cork stoppers to oil reservoirs
Preserved Great Western Railway locomotive 7802 Bradley Manor, with two oil lamps signifying an express passenger service, and a high-intensity electric lamp added for safety standards
A typical AWS "sunflower" indicator. The indicator shows either a black disk or a yellow and black "exploding" disk.
U-127, the 4-6-0 oil burning De Glehn compound locomotive that pulled Lenin's funeral train, in the Museum of the Moscow Railway at Paveletsky Rail Terminal
A South Australian Railways 400 class Garratt locomotive, built in 1952 to a Beyer, Peacock & Company design by Société Franco-Belge. Articulation is enabled by pivots at the ends of the locomotive's central frame.
David Lloyd George Leaves Tan-y-Bwlch Station, Gwynedd - a Fairlie locomotive on the Festiniog Railway, Wales
Ljungström steam turbine locomotive with air preheater, c.1925
Fireless locomotive
Heilmann locomotive No. 8001, Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest
The Gov. Stanford, a 4-4-0 (using Whyte notation) locomotive typical of 19th-century American practice
Esh 4444 0-10-0 at Varshavsky Rail Terminal, St. Petersburg
Great Western Railway No. 6833 Calcot Grange, a 4-6-0 Grange class steam locomotive at Bristol Temple Meads station. Note the Belpaire (square-topped) firebox.
60163 Tornado on the East Coast Main Line in 2016
California Western Railroad No. 45 (builder No. 58045), built by Baldwin in 1924, is a 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive. It is still in use today on the Skunk Train.
The 200th steam locomotive built by Clyde Engineering (TF 1164) from the Powerhouse Museum collection
60163 Tornado, a new express locomotive built for the British main line, completed in 2008
Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad 425 being readied in Pennsylvania, US, for the daily tourist train in 1993
Er 774 38 0-10-0 on Steam Special Train in Moscow 11 July 2010
2-6-0 type "N3" steam locomotive built by Beyer, Peacock & Company in 1910 and restored 2005–2007 by the Uruguayan Railfan Association (AUAR). The photo shows the locomotive with a passenger tourist train in March 2013 at a Montevideo railway station museum.
South African Class 26, the Red Devil