Puffing Billy (locomotive)

Precursors The first steam-powered locomotive on rails was built by Richard Trevithick in either 1802 or 1804. He built several locomotives, and although the success of his 1802 locomotive at Coalbrookdale is questioned, his 1804 locomotive ran near the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales successfully enough to haul five wagons of iron for nine miles, winning a wager. Its excessive weight cracked the iron rails, rendering it impractical, and steam locomotives were not adopted at the time. In 1810, the Durham Coalfield was disrupted by a major strike over the Bond system. In the September 1814 edition of Annals of Philosophy two locomotives with rack wheels are mentioned (probably Salamanca and Blücher), then there is mention of "another steam locomotive at Newcastle, employed for a similar purpose [hauling coals], and moving along without any rack wheel, simply by its friction against the rail road". From the context, this is at a different location to Blücher, so is probably Puffing Billy. Puffing Billy remained in service until 1862, when Edward Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery, lent it to the Patent Office Museum in South Kensington, London (later the Science Museum). He later sold it to the museum for £200. It is still on display there. Its sister locomotive, Wylam Dilly, is preserved in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Two replicas exist: one, built in a Royal Bavarian State Railways workshop in 1906, is at the German Museum, Munich; the other, at Beamish Museum, was first run in 2006. == Design ==

Puffing Billy incorporated a number of novel features, patented by Hedley, which were to prove important to the development of locomotives. It had two vertical cylinders, one on each side of the boiler, and partly enclosed by it, and drove a single crankshaft beneath the frames, from which gears drove and also coupled the wheels allowing better traction. The engine had a number of serious technical limitations. It was only capable of at most and its eight-ton weight broke the cast-iron wagonway plates, resulting in criticism from locomotive opponents. This problem was resolved by doubling the number of axles to better distribute the weight. The engine was eventually rebuilt with two axles when improved edge rail track was introduced around 1830. == Legacy ==

Puffing Billy was an important influence on George Stephenson, who lived locally, and its success was a key factor in promoting the use of steam locomotives by other collieries in north-eastern England. It has been suggested that Puffing Billy's name survives in the English language in the intensifier like billy-o, but there are several alternative explanations for that phrase's origin. == References ==