Steam locomotive
Locomotora de vapor
- Date
- 1804 · confidence high
- Place
- Merthyr Tydfil (Penydarren), Wales, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Richard Trevithick
- People
- 👤 Richard Trevithick1771–1833
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The first steam engine on rails to haul a load (10 tons of iron and 70 men) at the Penydarren ironworks. It demonstrated that wheel-to-rail adhesion was sufficient for traction.
Trevithick gave the first demonstration (1804); Blenkinsop (1812) and Hedley ('Puffing Billy', 1813) built the first locomotives in regular use, and George Stephenson ('Blücher', 1814) made them reliable. It is often wrongly attributed to Stephenson.
What it led to
- The railway as a system of mass land transport
- Lower costs for transporting coal and goods
- A new locomotive-building industry (Stephenson, Newcastle)
- The expansion of national markets
Built on
- Newcomen atmospheric engine1712
- Separate-condenser steam engine1765-1769
- Cugnot's fardier1769
- High-pressure steam engine1801-1802
- Cast-iron mine rails (tramways)
- Mine horse tramway
Made possible
- Public steam railway (Stockton and Darlington)1825
- First railway in Latin America (Havana–Bejucal)1837
- Crampton locomotive1846
- Standardized railway time1840-1847
- India's first railway (Bombay–Thane)16 de abril de 1853
- Africa's first railway (Alexandria–Cairo)1854
- Steam injector1858
- Meyer locomotive1861
- Japan's first railway: Shinbashi–Yokohama line14 de octubre de 1872
- Shay locomotivec. 1881
- Kaiping Railway (Tangshan–Xugezhuang)1881
- Railway standard time and time zones1879-1883
- Trans-Siberian Railway1891-1916
- Central Andean Railway (Lima–La Oroya)1870-1893
- Uganda Railway (Mombasa–Kisumu)1896-1901
- Diesel locomotive (Diesel-Klose-Sulzer)1912
- Stockton and Darlington public railway
- Rocket locomotive
- Railway time zone