A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight trains.
The Rainhill trials was an important competition run from the 6 to 14 October 1829, to test George Stephenson's argument that locomotives would have the best motive power for the then nearly-completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR). Ten locomotives were entered, of which five were able to compete, running along a 1 mile (1.6 km) length of level track at Rainhill, in Lancashire.
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is most commonly applied to reciprocating engines as just described, although some authorities have also referred to the steam turbine and devices such as Hero's aeolipile as "steam engines". The essential feature of steam engines is that they are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term steam engine can refer to either complete steam plants, such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine.
Stephenson's Rocket is an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement. It was built for and won the Rainhill Trials of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be more efficient than stationary steam engines.
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels.
A Climax locomotive is a type of geared steam locomotive built by the Climax Manufacturing Company, of Corry, Pennsylvania. These had two steam cylinders attached to a transmission located under the center of the boiler, which sent power to driveshafts running to the front and rear trucks. Some 1,000-1,100 were built in three classes between 1888 and 1928.
A fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler invented in 1828 by Mark Seguin, in which hot gases pass from a fire through one or more tubes running through a sealed container of water. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the tubes by thermal conduction, heating the water and ultimately creating steam.
An 0-2-2, in the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, is one that has two coupled driving wheels followed by two trailing wheels, with no leading wheels. The configuration was briefly built by Robert Stephenson and Company for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
Novelty was an early steam locomotive built by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite to take part in the Rainhill Trials in 1829.
Marc Seguin was a French engineer, inventor of the wire-cable suspension bridge and the multi-tubular steam-engine boiler.
Henry Booth was a British corn merchant, businessman and engineer particularly known as one of the key people behind the construction and management of the pioneering Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&M), the world's first steam railway conducting both scheduled passenger services and freight.
Seguin & Co. was a company based near Lyon, France. The company was involved in several business activities, the first of which was textiles but it was best known for having developed the first suspension bridges in Continental Europe and France's first commercial railway company, the Saint-Étienne–Lyon railway.
Catch Me Who Can was the fourth and last steam railway locomotive created by the inventor and mining engineer Richard Trevithick. It was an evolution of three earlier locomotives which had been built for Coalbrookdale, Penydarren ironworks and Wylam colliery. Demonstration runs began in July 1808, and Catch Me Who Can was the first locomotive in the world to haul fare-paying passengers.
The Saint-Étienne to Lyon line is a railway linking Saint-Étienne to Lyon. The line was built between 1828 and 1833 by Camille Seguin and Marc Seguin at a cost of 14,500,000 FRF.
A boiler or steam generator is a device used to create steam by applying heat energy to water. Although the definitions are somewhat flexible, it can be said that older steam generators were commonly termed boilers and worked at low to medium pressure but, at pressures above this, it is more usual to speak of a steam generator.
Invicta is an early steam locomotive, built by Robert Stephenson and Company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne during 1829. She was the twentieth locomotive built by railway engineers the Stephensons, being constructed immediately after Rocket. Invicta marked the end of the first phase of locomotive design, which had started with Richard Trevithick's Coalbrookdale locomotive of 1802.
The South African Railways Class 15B 4-8-2 of 1918 was a steam locomotive.
Jean-Claude Verpilleux was a French mine laborer who became a leading engineer, manufacturer and inventor. He was involved in the design of early railway locomotives, and invented innovative steam-powered "grapple boats" driven by traction wheels running along the bed of the river or canal.
The Givors canal was built between 1761 and 1781 to carry coal, other goods and passengers from Rive-de-Gier to Givors on the Rhône, running beside the river Gier.
