History of steam road vehicles
The first half of the 19th century saw great progress in steam vehicle design, and by the 1850s it was viable to produce them on a commercial basis.
Later steam vehicles used cleaner liquid fuel (kerosene), were fitted with rubber tyres and condensers to recover water, and were lighter overall.
The size reduction necessary for road transport meant an increase in steam pressure with all the attendant dangers, due to the inadequate boiler technology of the period.
[2][3] It also seems that the Belgian vehicle served as an inspiration for the Italian Grimaldi (early 1700) and the French Nolet (1748) steam carriage successor.
Cugnot's fardier a term usually applied to a massive two wheeled cart for exceptionally heavy loads, was intended to be capable of transporting 4 tonnes (3.9 tons), and of travelling at up to 4 km/h (2.5 mph).
[7] In 1801 Richard Trevithick constructed an experimental steam-driven vehicle (Puffing Devil) which was equipped with a firebox enclosed within the boiler, with one vertical cylinder, the motion of the single piston being transmitted directly to the driving wheels by means of connecting rods.
In the context of Trevithick's vehicle, an English writer by the name of "Mickleham" in 1822 coined the term Steam engine: In 1805 Oliver Evans built the Oruktor amphibolos (literally Amphibious digger), a steam-powered, flat bottomed dredger that he modified to be self-propelled on both water and land.
[9] In around 1830 or 1831 Summers and Ogle based at the Iron Foundry, Millbrook, Southampton, made two three-wheeled steam carriages.
The distance, full seven miles, was cleared, not withstanding the crowded state of the roads, in thirty one minutes, and the sudden and narrow ascent to Mr Rothschild's made with perfect precision, which was hardly to be expected from so long and ponderous a vehicle.
The party was most urbanely and kindly received by Mrs and Mr Rothschild, and after having partaken of refreshments returned to Baker street.More commercially successful for a time than Trevithick's carriage were the steam carriage services operated in England in the 1830s, principally by associates of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and by Walter Hancock among others and in Scotland by John Scott Russell.
Sir James C. Anderson and his engineering partner Jasper Wheeler Rogers were the first to bring steam-propulsion vehicles to Ireland.
Rogers and Anderson created their versions of these devices in the 1830s and early 1840s where they advocated for an island-wide conveyance network that would use Ireland's mail coach roads.
Jasper Rogers built his Irish steam-driven cars in a former flint-glass factory, Fort Chrystal, located on what is now known as Dublin's East Wall.
Accompanying Rogers' and Anderson's interests in improvements in Irish conveyance of goods and people, they particularly advocated steam-propelled individual vehicles because the operators, road network staff, and work crews needed to maintain the system were much more encompassing than those used by a railway system alone, at a time when Rogers and Anderson were trying to maximize Irish wage employment.
Rogers' and Anderson's steam-vehicle system called for numerous way-stations for refueling and supplying fresh water, and at the same time, these stations could house a "road police" as well as telegraph depots.
In France the situation was radically different from the extent of the 1861 ministerial ruling formally authorising the circulation of steam vehicles on ordinary roads.
From the 1860s onwards, attention was turned more to the development of various forms of traction engine which could either be used for stationary work such as sawing wood and threshing, or for transporting outsize loads too voluminous to go by rail.
[30] The basis of the buggy which he began building in 1865 was a high wheeled carriage with bracing to support a two-cylinder steam engine mounted on the floor.
[26][27][32][25] The only Michaux-Perreaux Steam velocipede made is in the Musée de l'Île-de-France, Sceaux, and was included in The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition in New York in 1998.
In 1869 the road steamer built by Robert William Thomson of Edinburgh became famous because its wheels were shod with heavy solid rubber tyres.
He then turned to T. M. Tennant and Co of Bowershall Iron and Engine Works, Leith for their manufacture, but as they could not keep up with demand in 1870 some of the production was moved to Robey & Co of Lincoln.
These included one to Italy (for an experiment of public transport in Bergamo), three to Austria (Vienna) and others to Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ireland, Chile, Russia (Moscow) and Greece.
The entire vehicle was enclosed and fitted with windows all around, carried six people, and even had two driving mirrors for observing traffic approaching from behind, the earliest recorded instance of such a device.
In 1892 painter Joens Cederholm and his brother, André, a blacksmith, designed their first car, a two-seater, introducing a condensor in 1894.
[41] The development by Léon Serpollet of the flash steam boiler[42] brought about the appearance of various diminutive steam tricycles and quadricycles during the late 80s and early 90s, notably by de Dion and Bouton, these successfully competed in long-distance races but soon met with stiff competition for public favour from the internal combustion engine cars being developed, notably by Peugeot, that quickly cornered most of the popular market.
[43] In 1906 the land speed record was broken by a Stanley steam car, piloted by Fred Marriott, which achieved 127 mph (204 km/h) at Ormond Beach, Florida.
The introduction of assembly-line mass production by Henry Ford, which hugely reduced the cost of owning a conventional automobile, was also a strong factor in the steam car's demise as the Model T was both cheap and reliable.
Other high-performance steam cars were built by Richard J. Smith of Midway City, California, and A.M. and E. Pritchard of Caulfeld, Australia.
[46][48] On 25 August 2009 a team of British engineers from Hampshire ran their steam-powered car "Inspiration" at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, and averaged 139.84 mph (225.05 km/h) over two runs, driven by Charles Burnett III.
The car was 7.62 m (25 ft 0 in) long and weighed 3,000 kg (6,614 lb), built from carbon fibre and aluminium and contained 12 boilers with over 2 miles (3.2 km) of steam tubing.
