science

Steam Horse locomotive

Steam Horse locomotive is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Steam Horse locomotive rather than just read about it. In short: The Steam Horse was an early railway steam locomotive constructed by the Butterley Company in Derbyshire in 1813 by William Brunton (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.

Key takeaways

Steam Horse locomotive belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Steam Horse locomotive to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Steam Horse locomotive from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Steam Horse was an early railway steam locomotive constructed by the Butterley Company in Derbyshire in 1813 by William Brunton (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 were well served between towns by the canal system. From the pit head to the canals, horse-drawn wagonways had been constructed and steam engines were seen as no more than a noisy and dangerous novelty. However the Napoleonic Wars from 1799 to 1815 had brought a great increase in the price of fodder. Moreover, some such "railways" were being constructed on the steeper gradients within canals, as for instance on the Charnwood Forest Canal. Few believed that steel wheels on smooth steel rails would give enough adhesion until Robert Stephenson and William Hedley proved otherwise in 1813 and even the former considered 1 in 100 (1%) was the absolute maximum grade. Consequently, such steam operated systems as there were, were operated by cumbersome cables, or by the use of an expensive rack and pinion. 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 quarry at Crich to the Cromford Canal at Amber Wharf, some 1.25 miles (2.01 km) away. Brunton took out a patent, 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 9 ft (2.7 m) boiler rather than the original 5 ft (1.5 m) seems to have been built for the Newbottle Colliery in County Durham. This locomotive cost £540 and may have had two cylinders. During 1814 and 1815, it hauled loads up a 1 in 36 gradient at 3 miles per hour (4.8 km/h), 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) : 118-120 available on line

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Steam Horse locomotive

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Steam Horse locomotive claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Steam Horse locomotive before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Steam Horse locomotive ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Steam Horse locomotive

In research: Steam Horse locomotive appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Steam Horse locomotive in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Steam Horse locomotive is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Early steam locomotives, Explosions in England, Individual locomotives of Great Britain, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Steam Horse locomotive outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Steam Horse locomotive in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Steam Horse locomotive means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Steam Horse locomotive out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Steam Horse locomotive in simple terms?

Why does Steam Horse locomotive matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Steam Horse locomotive?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Steam Horse locomotive.