In the report by the directors of the Monkland and Kirkintilloch railway, to the proprietors at their general meeting on the 1st of February, 1832, these engines are noticed in the following manner : —" Your committee have, as mentioned in last year's report, built two locomotive engines, which have been in employment on the railway for nearly six months, and the whole of the trade from the colleries to Kirkintilloch is now drawn by these machines. The com mittee, after much consideration, devolved the whole form and plan of these engines to Mr. Dodds, the superintendant. It was atm ugly urged by some of the proprietors that these engines should be got from England, and that the im provements of the engines adopted on the Liverpool railway should be intro duced in constructing those for the Company. On inquiry, however, no certain data could be obtained whereby to calculate what would be the expense of maintaining in repair such improved engines ; and it was also ascertained that they were very liable to be deranged, when working at the high speeds for which they are calculated. For these reasons, the committee devolved on Mr. Dodds the entire responsibility of the planning of the engine, and the result of their confidence has been in the highest degree satisfactory. Mr. Dodd•, in his plan and specification, adopted none of the recent improvements, except that of the copper tubes, suggested by Mr. Booth, giving however a great additional strength to these tubes. The contract for making the. engines was taken by Messrs. Murdoch and Aitken, Hill-street, Glasgow, and the committee are satisfied with their performance, except as to the time taken by them in furnishing the second engine. This is no small praise, considering they were the first locomotive engines constructed in Glasgow.
"The excellence of Mr. Dodds' plan and specification, so far as several months' trial can be considered a proof, is most satisfactory, as the engines have never been one day of work, except on two occasions, when injured by the malice or carelessness of certain waggoners on the road. On the other hand, the engines procured from England, by an adjoining railway company, (the Garnkirk,) have been repeatedly taken off the road, on account of needing repairs, &c. Since the date of this report, these engines have done all the trade to Kirkintilloch, and other places, for another year, and have not been off one day, or employed a single horse to assist them. These are facts, and the best criterion wilt reby to judge of their real performance, or to make comparison between them and other railway 'locomotive engines.
The cut on the following page is a view of this engine, with the tender attached. The connecting-rod between the two wheels has a ball and socket joint at each end, making universal joints. The wheels have a play of about one inch, to allow for turning in the above curve. cylinders are 101 inches diameter each, and the stroke is 2 feet; pressure of steam, 50 lbs. The average speed of these locomotive engines, is now 6 miles per hour • the regulation is 5 miles per hour, but they even double the regulated speed.
" In February 1831." ' observes Mr. Gordon, " Mr. Gurney having com pleted three steam carriages for Sir Charles Dance, that gentleman commenced running one regularly on the road betwixt Gloucester and Cheltenham, and continued so to do, constantly and successfully, for four months, until he (dis gusted with the opposition) withdrew his coaches." These steam carriages were employed as drags, to draw after them the passengers contained in a light carriage of the omnibus kind. One of these drags has been figured in a litho gaphic plate, by Mr. Gordon, of which the following cut is an outline ; from this, it appears that the " indispensable " separators, are entirely dismissed. The proportions of this machine give it an elegant and a light appearance. Its weight, however, having been stated to be only two tons, it was brought to the test of a weighbridge at Cheltenham or Gloucester, and found to be three tons. This fact is of little importance, except as it affecth calculations founded upon such erroneous data. The public mind has indeed been so abused by con tradictory statements on this as well as other points respecting these machines, that it is scarcely possible to extract the truth. Before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1831, Mr. Gurney stated that his first cartiages weighed four tons each ; but this fact did not prevent his "scientific friend," who had " scientifically investigated " it, from stating in the " Times " newspaper, that " the whole carriage and machinery weigh about 16 cwt., and with the full comple ment of water and coke from 20 to 22 cwt." Mr. Gurney further states in his evidence—" The carriage which ran between Gloucester and Cheltenham weighs (by a letter from a magistrate, produced to the Committee,) nearly three tons ; it ought to weigh only 45 cwt. ; if it weighs three tons, there is extra weight, of which I know nothing. Those carriages at Gloucester were built principally under the superintendence of another person. I think it is possible to reduce the weight considerably as improvements go on." We must here make a brief digression, to state that we understand the three carriages were built and painted exactly alike, so that the public should not know how often they were changed; hence, we have recorded in print by our contemporaries, "a tabular view of 315 journeys performed by a steam carriage." The "another person," alluded to by Mr. Gurney, was that very able engineer, Mr.,Stone, who was Mr. Gurney's foreman, and superintended all the products of his manufactory. As respects the matter of the weight, which Mr. Gurney thinks it possible to reduce, we will just place before the reader, the evidence of Mr. Wm. Crawshay, jun. on this point. In the " Cambrian" newspaper, and dated Cyfaithfa Iron Works, 18th March, 1830, this gentleman says to the editor of the "Cambrian :"— " Sir,—As I have reason to expect that a report will be sent to you of the arrival of Mr. Gurney's steam carriage at my father's works at Hirwain, and of the experiments made of its powers on a railroad there, I think it better to inform the public (now so much interested in the subject of steam conveyance) through your medium, of the actual facts that have been witnessed in the experiments made, and under what circumstances." ' Mr. Gurney, at my most earnest request, while I was in London three weeks since, consented to bring one of his steam carriages which bad been built and adapted for drawing coaches on turnpike roads, to try her powers on our new railroad on Hir wain Common." Mr. Crawshay then proceeds to state that " he had considerable difficulty in persuading Mr. Gurney to accede to his wishes ;" however, the latter gentleman at length consented to gratify the inte rested, public ; and the engine was sent from London to Cyfaithfa by horses, and there fitted with nut-iron wheels, and otherwise adapted to the railroad. Thus prepared, " the engine, with water and fuel," Mr. Crawshay says, " weighed Mirty mot. ! " so that if we admit Mr. Gurney's evidence, and Mr. Crawshay's
" actual facts " to be both true, we must be prepared also to believe that the substitution of cast-iron wheels for wood, and the addition of the charges of water and fuel to a carriage previously weighing about 3 tons, must have been the cause of the extraordinary reduction of weight mentioned. After stating this " actual fact," Mr. Crawshay makes out a statement of the weight attached to the engine being 20 tons. 8 cwt. 2qrs. (the pounds and ounces are omitted.) Having " faithfully detailed " the particulars of this and other experiments of greater magnitude, this eminent iron-tnaster states, that" in all the cases named Mr. Gurney's engine has drawn from 15 to 16i times its own weight." Now, if we could exclude from our minds all idea of the foregoing pheno menon, and were, for argument's sake, to suppose that Mr. Gurney's evidence was on this point correct, does not the "actual fact" data become actually fictitious? and hence, are not the deductions actual farces? Perhaps Dr. Lardner or Mr. Alexander Gordon will help us out of the dilemma in which these accounts have placed us. We are anxious only that the unalloyed truth shall be told. (Note.—Mr. Gurney, upon being asked by the Committee of the House of Commons, "What is the greatest weight in proportion to its own weight, which any carriage draws on a railroad?" replied, "A carriage was originally supposed to draw only three times its own weight upon a railroad ; but in some experi ments which I made in Wales with Mr. Crawshay, of Cyfaithfa Castle, we found, in an experiment, that a carriage draws thirty times its own weight!") The valuable testimony of Mr. Crawshay, just noticed, was so highly prised, that we find another was boastingly published in the following year, from the same gentleman, and addressed to Sir Charles Dance. It is dated, Cyfaithfa Iron Works, 23d February, 1832. We regret that our space will only allow us to give the following brief extract, which, however, relates to the mans point :— " As, however, facts of past performances of any kind are more satisfactory than anticipations of the future, I beg to state to you, that in the past twelve months, between the let day of January 1831 and the 1st day of January 1832, the locomotive engine which I bought of Mr. Gurney, weighing only thirty-five hundred-weight, including every thing whatever belonging to it, with water and fuel in a working state, conveyed 42,300 tons of coal, iron-stone, and iron, exclusive of the carriages on which they were drawn, the distance of 2i miles upon our rail at Hirwain, in journeys of from 20 to 30 tons, asuited our convenience; during which time the entire consumption of coal was 299 tons, which, at 3s. per ton, amounts to 441. 17s. • the wages of the engineer 521., and those of the boy 151. 12s. together, exclusive of the trifling repair of the'engine, and the oil and other little matters required for its use, 1121. 9s., or less than one farthing per ton per mile, for the goods conveyed ; and I must not omit to observe to that had there been nearly double the work to do on this road, the engine would have done it with little or no increased expense, as she was invariably working idle for the purpose of keeping the boiler full, about one half of her tim?." To readers who do not calculate, this statensent appears highly flattering; but a very little investigation will, we think, show it to be the reverse. Let us first look to the horse-power exerted by the engine : if we take the wool estimate of horse-power at 1501 constant force, at 24 miles per hour, and estimate the resistance of the Hirwain railway, which is upon a dead level, and has been formed since that of Manchester and Liverpool, at the same resistance as that on the latter, which is Nth of the insistent weight, we have 150 X 240 X 8 hours X 310 days = 89,280,000 lbs. 7 2240 = 39857 tone drawn by one hone in the year. It however, we take the estimate of a borse's power, made by Mr. Bevan, (whose results are much more entitled to confidence than these of any other experimentalist, on account of the much more extended scale of his experi ment.%) we shall have 163 lbs. as our datum for a horse's power, (being the mean force exerted by each horse out of 144 at ploughing ;) and this increased estimate we find makes the number of tons drawn by one hone's power 43,311 in 310 days of ordinary work. This powerful engine, ther;fore, did the work of one of Mr. Bevan's horses. Let us next examine its economy in the consumption of fuel, as compared to other locomotive engines. Mr. Crawshay says that 299 tons of coal were consumed in drawing the 42,300 tons ; as to the price of the coals, the wages, and the waste by idle work, the same circum stances attend other engines on other railroads, and can only affect this calcula tion by unnecessarily mystifying it ; we shall, therefore, not notice them. Now 42,300 tons conveyed 2; miles, are equal to 105,750 tons conveyed one mile ; and from some experiments made on the Manchester and Liverpool railway, it was found that about ten ounces of coal were sufficient to convey one ton one mile. But after making every allowance for waste, Mr. Wood, in his Treatise on Railroads (see page 405) considers 11b. adequate to each ton ; consequently, the 105,750 tons conveyed one mile by Mr. Crawshay, ought to have been taken (at 1 lb. rer ton) by 47 tons of coal, instead of the 299 tons consumed by Mr. Gurney s engine. Mr. Gurney's improvements in railway locomotion, therefore, consist in rendering the cost of fuel six times greater than it was previous to this notable experiment, which has gone the round of all the journals, and, we believe, hitherto, without comment ! The friends of Sir C. Dance state, that his carriages were stopped from running between Gloucester and Cheltenham owing to there having been 9 or 10 inches depth of rough stones laid across the road, at the instigation of the horse coach proprietors ; and that, although the power of the engines was sufficient for fair average roads, they were " not powerful enough to travel satisfactorily on a road so treated ; but Sir Charles Dance bad seen sufficient to convince him, that little more power than what he possessed would be sufficient to overcome all the obstacles of common roads ; he did not therefore desert the cause, but continued his inquiries and experiments, daily becoming better acquainted with his subject, and yet not so well satisfied with himself, but that he became desirous of consulting practical experience, and this brought hint acquainted with Messrs. Mandalay and Field, whose practical skill, aided by Sir Charles Dance's information, enabled them to fit up one of the old carriages in such a manner, as to show results far greater than any thing which had before been accomplished by steam carriages upon common roads.' This alludes to a journey to Brighton, the particulars of which we cannot insert, but they are given by Mr. Gordon in his Treatise. The connexion between Sir Charles Dance and the engineers just mentioned led to the taking out of a patent in 1833, which we shall notice in its proper place.