Vehicle | |
---|---|
Length | 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m) |
Width | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
Height | 8 ft 3 in (2.51 m) |
Weight | 5,150 lb (2,340 kg) |
Capacity | Seven (two crew, five passengers) |
Engine | |
Fuel | Coal |
Boiler | Vertical |
Boiler pressure | 120 psi (830 kPa) |
Tubes | 50 x 1 in (25 mm) inclined tubes |
Engine | 2 cylinder simple expansion |
Valve gear | Stephenson link motion operating slide valves between the cylinders |
Bore | 5 in (130 mm) |
Stroke | 6 in (150 mm) |
Heating Surface | |
Total | 29 sq ft (2.7 m2) |
Firebox | 13 sq ft (1.2 m2) |
Tubes | 16 sq ft (1.5 m2) |
Grate Area | 2+1⁄2 sq ft (0.23 m2) |
Water Capacity | |
Boiler | 35 imp gal (160 L) |
Water Tank | 50 imp gal (230 L) |
The Grenville steam carriage was developed in 1875 by Robert Neville-Grenville, assisted by George Jackson Churchward. It was built around a boiler from a Merryweather & Sons fire engine, and could carry seven people including the driver, steersman and stoker.
The carriage is preserved at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, and is thought to be the oldest self-propelled passenger-carrying vehicle still in working order.
Neville-Grenville, the eldest son of Ralph Neville-Grenville, of Butleigh Court, Butleigh, Glastonbury, [3] is said to have received the first engineering degree from Cambridge University. He gathered several steam tractors, ploughs and other engines to work on the family estate. [1] He and Churchward met as apprentices at the South Devon Railway's works at Newton Abbot. [1] [4]
From 1874, in a collaboration that lasted fifteen years, they designed and built a steam-powered, passenger carrying road vehicle. Built on a 4 in × 2 in (102 mm × 51 mm) steel girder, [2] it had a single steering wheel turned by a tiller at the front, and two wheels on the driven axle at the rear. [1] The three wheels were each built up from 16 teak segments held together by an iron tyre, a design known as a Mansell wheel. Two parallel seats carry six passengers, including the driver, though the brakes may be operated by a separate brakesman on the driver's right. A fireman sits at the rear, stoking the fire and maintaining the water level in the boiler. [2] The boiler itself was taken from a Merryweather fire engine, [4] [lower-alpha 1] and supplies the twin cylinders (which replaced the original single-cylinder design). [6]
Once steam is raised, the driver steers and controls the reverse/cut-off lever from the front seat. Brakes are applied through a foot pedal. For steeper roads, a dog clutch can engage an epicyclic reduction gear with a 2:1 ratio. [2] [1] The fireman can top-up the boiler using a feed pump driven by an intermediate shaft, or an injector when the vehicle is stationary. On a level road, it can reach almost 20 mph (32 km/h), and consumes 4–5 imp gal (18–23 L) of water and 5–6 lb (2.3–2.7 kg) of coal per mile. [1]
The carriage was used around the Glastonbury area for about twenty years, until in 1898 it was converted to a stationary engine to power a cider-press. [2] In the late 1930s it was restored to working order by John Allen & Sons. [1] An account of this restoration is given by George Allen. [7]
In 1946 it was chosen to lead the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders' London Cavalcade in celebration of the British Motor Industry's fifty-year Jubilee. It was driven by Captain Allen, while its stoker "[could not] read or write...; he had never before been out of his native Sussex." [8]
It was gifted to Bristol City Museum in 1947 by Captain Philip L. Neville, the builder's nephew, [9] where, after years on static display, it was again restored to working order. Paul Elkin the driver, and his stoker Fred Lester, managed to get the vehicle to pass the MOT test, so that it could take part in the 1977 Bristol Lord Mayor’s Jubilee Procession. After this, however, the 1938 replacement boiler from Shand Mason & Co was found to be under the original specification, so it was taken off the road and Jefferies of Avonmouth tasked with repairing it. [1]
It was running again in 2000, in which year it was the oldest entrant to the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, completing it in about nine hours. [10] In 2009 it was loaned to the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, where it is thought to be the oldest self-propelled passenger vehicle that remains in working order. [10] [6] [2]
A railcar is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach, with a driver's cab at one or both ends. Some railway companies, such as the Great Western, termed such vehicles "railmotors".
The Stanley Motor Carriage Company was an American manufacturer of steam cars that operated from 1902 to 1924, going defunct after it failed to adapt to competition from rapidly improving Internal combustion engine vehicles. The cars made by the company were colloquially called Stanley Steamers although several different models were produced.
De Dion-Bouton was a French automobile manufacturer and railcar manufacturer, which operated from 1883 to 1953. The company was founded by the Marquis Jules-Albert de Dion, Georges Bouton, and Bouton's brother-in-law Charles Trépardoux.
George Jackson Churchward was an English railway engineer, and was chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway (GWR) in the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1922.
A steam car is a car (automobile) propelled by a steam engine. A steam engine is an external combustion engine (ECE), whereas the gasoline and diesel engines that eventually became standard are internal combustion engines (ICE). ECEs have a lower thermal efficiency, but carbon monoxide production is more readily regulated.
A fireman, stoker or boilerman, is a person whose occupation it is to tend the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the boiler's firebox. On steam locomotives the title fireman is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually stoker. The German word Heizer is equivalent and in Dutch the word stoker is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as watertenders.
Thornycroft was an English vehicle manufacturer which built coaches, buses, and trucks from 1896 until 1977.
The term cab forward locomotive refers to various rail and road vehicle designs that place the driver's compartment substantially farther towards the front than is common practice.
Railmotor is a term used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for a railway lightweight railcar, usually consisting of a railway carriage with a steam traction unit, or a diesel or petrol engine, integrated into it.
Brooks Steam Motors, Ltd. was a Canadian manufacturer of steam cars established in March 1923. Its cars more closely resembled the Stanley Steamers in terms of engineering rather than the more sophisticated Doble steam cars. The company was formed from the defunct Detroit Steam Motors Corporation.
A steam bus is a bus powered by a steam engine. Early steam-powered vehicles designed for carrying passengers were more usually known as steam carriages, although this term was sometimes used to describe other early experimental vehicles too.
Merryweather & Sons of Clapham, later Greenwich, London, were builders of steam fire engines and steam tram engines.
The steam rail motors (SRM) were self-propelled carriages operated by the Great Western Railway in England and Wales from 1903 to 1935. They incorporated a steam locomotive within the body of the carriage.
Straker-Squire was a British automobile manufacturer based in Bristol, and later Edmonton in North London.
The history of steam road vehicles comprises the development of vehicles powered by a steam engine for use on land and independent of rails, whether for conventional road use, such as the steam car and steam waggon, or for agricultural or heavy haulage work, such as the traction engine.
A steam wagon is a steam-powered truck for carrying freight. It was the earliest form of lorry (truck) and came in two basic forms: overtype and undertype, the distinction being the position of the engine relative to the boiler. Manufacturers tended to concentrate on one form or the other.
James Hall Museum of Transport is a transport museum that aims to preserve and promote the history of over 400 years of transport in South Africa in particular, and Africa in general. It is the largest transport museum in Africa. It is located at Pioneers' Park beside the Wemmer Pan in La Rochelle, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was established in 1964 by Jimmie Hall and the City of Johannesburg.
John Grantham (1809–1874) was an English engineer, born in Croydon Surrey, who was involved in marine, railway and tramway engineering. He was the second son of another John Grantham. After leaving school, John (junior) worked with his father surveying routes for projected railway lines in England.
A steam railcar is a rail vehicle that does not require a locomotive as it contains its own steam engine. The first steam railcar was an experimental unit designed and built in 1847 by James Samuel and William Bridges Adams. In 1848, they made the Fairfield steam carriage that they sold to the Bristol and Exeter Railway, who used it for two years on a branch line.
A steam railcar, steam motor car (US), or Railmotor (UK) is a railcar that is self powered by a steam engine. The first steam railcar was an experimental unit designed and built in 1847 by James Samuel and William Bridges Adams in Britain. In 1848 they made the Fairfield steam carriage that they sold to the Bristol & Exeter Railway, who used it for two years on a branch line.