A chronology of Locomotives

[Zor]

Coalbrookdale locomotive (1802): Designed by Richard Trevithick



Catch Me Who Can (1808): Designed by Richard Trevithick. Used to pull carriages around a round track as a carnival ride.


Salamanca (1812): The first commercially successful locomotive, on the middleton railway. Note that this locomotive has a wood barrel boiler. Such boilers worked, but had very low pressure limits and did explode.



Stourbridge Lion (1828): Built in England, this was the first Locomotive used in the United States, where it was tested in 1829 and first used in.


Rocket (1829):Built for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first two lane railway with a top speed of 45km/h. One of the most influential locomotives ever built.


French Locomotive (1830): The first French railway to use steam powered locomotion Saint-Etienne railway, which was constructed between 1827 to 1833, which first became active in 1830. French rail development was delayed by anti-rail reactionaries in the French government until 1842.


Atlantic (1835): An early American made locomotive using an unconventional 'grasshopper' steam engine. Americans were rather keen on this new technology.


Cherepanov Locomotive (1833): Two of these were built by the father and son inventing team of Yefim Alekseyevich and Miron Yefimovich Cherepanov, this was Russia's first locomotive. While they worked out alright, the Russian Tsars viewed railways as merely being toys. As such their use was limited to the Demidov mining faculties and russian rail development was delayed for decades.



A replica of the Alder (1835): Germany's first locomotive, built for the Bayerische Ludwigsbahn (Bavarian Ludwig Railway). German rail development was hampered by the fact that Germany was divided into a bunch of squabbling principalities. Thus showing why little countries should be combined into big countries.


Jenny Lind locomotive (1847): One of the first mass produced locomotive designs, this british designed model would be replicated many times in following years. The rail network in Britain at this time was growing rapidly, reaching over 10,000km by 1850.


The General (1855): US made 4-4-0 (two powered axles in the back, two non powered axles in the front). In 1861 group of Union Soldiers attempted to liberate this locomotive from slavocrat hands, driving it away while being presude by confederate soldiers for some time before abandoning it after it's fuel supply was exhausted.

Cont...

Zor

[Zor]

The General (1855): US made 4-4-0 (two powered axles in the back, two non powered axles in the front). In 1861 group of Union Soldiers attempted to liberate this locomotive from slavocrat hands, driving it away while being presude by confederate soldiers for some time before abandoning it after it's fuel supply was exhausted.


Union Pacific No. 119 (1868): A post bellum 4-4-0 Locomotive notable in that it and the Locomotive Jupiter met after traveling east and west respectively with the completion of the transcontinental railway. With this rail link, colonization of the american west greatly accelerated.


Locomotive No. 1/Class 150 (1871): Built in England, this locomotive was sold to Japan the Tōkaidō line, making it the first locomotive for Japan's first railway. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century the Japanese government aggressively perused the development of a national rail network to help develop the emerging industrial economy of Japan.

As a note of interest, this is a tender locomotive. In that it has a car which trails behind it full of coal and water. For long long distance trips trains would sometimes carry two tenders.


The Centepede (1855): The first 4-8-0 locomotive (two non powered axles in the front followed by eight non powered axles in the back), an experimental built for the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. As illustrated the centipede underwent numerous modifications during her lifespan.


CPR no. 229/The Mastadon (1882): Another 4-8-0 locomotive, more conventional in it's layout built for the Central Pacific Railroad. The success of this designed opened the gateway for future locomotives of the 4-8-0, so much so that they were also called Mastadons.


A 4-8-2T/Class A (1888): Built by Dübs and Company in Glasgow Scotland for Natal Government Railways in South Africa, this was the first class of locomotive built in the 4-8-2 configuration (two unpowered axles in the front, eight powered axles in the middle and a single powered axle in the back). This would be called a mountain class, as it was well suited for handling mountainous terrain.

This is a Tank Engine, those boxy things on the side are hoppers for coal and tanks for water. This means that a train can carry an extra car, but also means that it has a shorter range.



JGR Class 860 (1893): Japan's first indigenous produced locomotive, up until this point Japan had relied on foreign made locomotives (mostly English and American) using British rail gadge.


Experimental Electric Train (1879): Built by German engineer Werner von Siemens, this train had a 2.2kw engine and carried people at 14km/h over a 300 meter track.


Mather & Platt Electric Locomotive (1890): The City and South London Railway was the first electric railway for general use. In the confines of a subway, smoke from a steam engine would be a health hazard, general nuisence and would have adversely affects on machinery.



Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Electric Locomotive (1895): This electric locomotive was used to pull full fledged steam trains through a series of tunnels along a six and a half km long stretch of track.

More to come...

Zor

[Zor]

Class 0 Locomotive (1890-1928): A Russian Locomotive after the Russians got the hint that railways were a good idea. This design is in the 0-8-0 configuration (eight powered wheels, no unpowered wheels). This locomotive built the Trans-Siberian Railway. One of the most remarkable facts about this class of locomotive is the scale of it's production run, which I will let Vegeta why this is the case...



GWR 3700 Class 3440 City of Truro (1903): This British Locomotive is believed by many to be the first locomotive to attain a speed of more than 100 miles per hour.


Class-E Locomotive (1912-24): Another Russian locomotive, this one in the 0-8-0 configuration. Some 11,000 of these locomotives were built, including derivatives. Making the Class-E the most extensively produced locomotive in human history.


JNR Class 9600 (1912-25): Japan's first mass produced locomotive. Some 770 of these were produced.


SŽD Eel2 (1924): Designed by soviet engineer Yuri Lomonosov and built in Maschinenfabrik Esslingen in Germany, this was the world's first practical Diesel Locomotive for main line use, even if only one of this class was built.

AA20-1 (1934): A huge prototype steam engine and the only one ever to be built in the 4-14-4 configuration. An absolute monster designed to be able to make use of low quality coal and be really big, powerful and impressive. It was so heavy that it put the rails it went over under considerable stress. As such it was briefly demonstrated, then put into storage, then scrapped in 1960. For five years this was the largest locomotive ever built.


LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard (1938): An English 4-6-2 streamliner locomotive with a wind tunnel tested areodynamic hull. This locomotive was notable for being able to achieve a speed greater than 200 km/h, making it the fastest steam locomotive ever built.


PRR S1 (1939): The Largest non articulated steam engine ever built, weighing in at 275.9 tonnes built in the 6-4-4-6 duplex configuration (six leading wheels, eight powered wheels powered by four pistons and six trailing wheels). Used as a show piece for the World Fair, it latter saw some use on the Pennsylvania railroad, but due to technical issues it was retired in 1948. It has a stylish Art deco design.

More to come...

Zor

[fordlltwm]

I hope Zod won't mind.

Narrow gauge (2') locomotives


The Princess
The worlds first* narrow gauge steam locomotive. Later extensively upgraded to look like this:


Her younger brother The Prince is still used on the Ffestiniog Railway for offpeak services, whilst her other surviving siblings are publicity tools, the Palmerston is at the Vale of Rheidol railway for the summer season, while the Welsh Pony / Merlan Gymraeg is undergoing a total restoration at the moment.



The Little Wonder. First successful application of the Fairlie patent and the basis for the majority of modern locomotives with it's bogie power units.

The Festiniog Railway still runs 3 Fairlies which do the majority of it's heavy lifting during the summer tourist season






In an attempt to improve on the Fairlie design Garratt designed a locomotive that had the tenders directly on the bogies with the boiler and cab suspended in between. This design was adopted by South Africa in both 2' gauge and 3'6" gauge as well. The first of these was the K1, which was also one of the few to have compounding cylinders.

The Festiniog Railway purchased the K1 from the manufacturers collection when Beyer Peacock closed in the sixties. It is now used on the Welsh Highland Railway due to the more favourable loading gauge not requiring it be cut down like use on the FR would.



Contiuing their theme of articulated engines the FR/WHR also own 4* NG(G) 16 Garrets that were imported from south africa including the last one made by Beyer Peacock in Britain.

To be continued...

[Irbis]

Class-E Locomotive (1912-24): Another Russian locomotive, this one in the 0-8-0 configuration. Some 11,000 of these locomotives were built, including derivatives. Making the Class-E the most extensively produced locomotive in human history.

Are you sure about 0-8-0? I see 10 wheels.

Also, technically, if you mean Russian "E", it's Ye class, as E is different letter in Cyrillic. Latin E would be Russian Э.

[Zor]

I hope Zor won't mind.

Go ahead.

Zor

[Enigma]

I love these photos. I love trains. Recently perused a bunch of vintage photos from shorpy.com and they've got a lot of train pics. I saw for the first time a locomotive maintenance shop with pics of trains hoisted up in the air to be re-wheeled. How they do it makes me cringe as I can't see it being any safe.

[Purple]

I love these photos. I love trains. Recently perused a bunch of vintage photos from shorpy.com and they've got a lot of train pics. I saw for the first time a locomotive maintenance shop with pics of trains hoisted up in the air to be re-wheeled. How they do it makes me cringe as I can't see it being any safe.

It probably is though. No industrialist worth his salt would permit his trains to just fall on people. They might get damaged.

[Enigma]

I love these photos. I love trains. Recently perused a bunch of vintage photos from shorpy.com and they've got a lot of train pics. I saw for the first time a locomotive maintenance shop with pics of trains hoisted up in the air to be re-wheeled. How they do it makes me cringe as I can't see it being any safe.

It probably is though. No industrialist worth his salt would permit his trains to just fall on people. They might get damaged.

Have you seen how they raise the locomotives?

Take a close look at this. Does this say "safe"?

[Purple]

Actually yes. If the cables are strong enough I see no issue with this.

[Soontir C'boath]

[Elheru Aran]

Have you seen how they raise the locomotives?

Take a close look at this. Does this say "safe"?

Honestly? If the equipment is up to the code of the period and was being handled by trained and experienced employees... it's probably safe enough. *I* would not get under it, but in general squishing workers is bad for employee morale, not to mention the expensive machinery might get damaged, so it's probably reasonably hazard-free as long as nobody does anything stupid.

[Soontir C'boath]

I just remembered:

[Enigma]

Never seen this type of train.