For
fifty years inventors had been turning out steam engines of
considerable promise in the model stage, but of little practical
performance. Indeed, about 1803, a Cornishman named Trevithick
had produced a locomotive which was used for a time to transport
metal and ore to the Pen-y-darran iron works in South Wales. The
heavy engine so damaged the tracks that it was soon dismounted
and degraded to the work of a steam pump. In 1812 a cog-wheel
locomotive, invented by a Mr. Blenkinsop, began running in a
colliery a few miles out of Leeds, and served very well its
purpose to haul heavy trains almost as fast as a horse could
walk. The next year a Derbyshire mechanic produced a "Mechanical
Traveler," the legs of which were moved alternately by steam, but
the bursting of its boiler on its trial trip put an end to its
picturesque career of doubtful usefulness.
One Mr. Blackett, an enterprising collier of Wylam, introduced
the ideas of Trevithick and Blenkinsop to the Tyneside and so
brought them under the observant eye of the Killingworth
enginewright, who had such a clever way of smoothing away
difficulties in complicated machinery. After repeated and costly
experiments, Mr. Blackett evolved a type of locomotive which,
though noisy and clumsy, did better work than any of its
predecessors.
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