Stephenson’s ‘Long Boiler’ locomotive and the dawn of railway vehicle dynamics

Abstract

Stephenson’s ‘Long Boiler’ locomotive of 1843, though commercially successful, acquired a reputation for bad riding. The problem was only partially understood at the time, but it stimulated the first attempt to analyse the dynamics of the railway vehicle in a scientific manner. Le Chatelier’s investigations resulted in his book of 1849 that contains a comprehensive account of the effects of the driving motion forces, which was subsequently applied generally to locomotive design. Le Chatelier could be said to have initiated the science of railway vehicle dynamics. However, his analysis of the lateral motions of locomotives was not correct and it was many years before a proper understanding was achieved. Modern knowledge of railway vehicle dynamics and computer simulation is applied to the complex behaviour of the ‘Long Boiler’ locomotive, giving insight to an important, but generally neglected, aspect of railway engineering of its day.

Keywords:

• ‘Long Boiler’ locomotive
• railway vehicle dynamics
• locomotive riding
• Robert Stephenson
• Louis Le Chatelier

Notes

1. E. L. Ahrons, The British Steam Railway Locomotive from 1825 to 1925 (London: The Locomotive Publishing Company Limited, 1927).

2. J. G. H. Warren, A Century of Locomotive Building by Robert Stephenson & Co. 1823–1923 (Newcastle-on-Tyne: Andrew Reid & Co., 1923), p. 346.

3. Ibid, pp. 371–405.

4. M. R. Bailey, Robert Stephenson-the eminent engineer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 188–92.

5. Gauge Commissioner’s Report. Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Commissioners (London: William Clowes and Sons, for HMSO, 1846), p. 18.

6. Discussion on T. R. Crampton, ‘On the Construction of Locomotive Engines,’ Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 8 (1849), 255.

7. ‘The Late Fatal Accident on the Norfolk Railway’, The Times, 14 January 1846, p. 5, col. 5.

8. Norfolk Railway Company – Mr. Stephenson's Report, Railway Times, 9, 31 January 1846, pp. 157–8, col. 1.

9. Warren, p. 373.

10. Gauge Commissioner’s Report, Appendix, p. 681.

11. Crampton, p. 256.

12. Gauge Commissioner’s Report, Appendix, p. 681.

13. G. B. Airy, Autobiography (Cambridge, 1896), p. 180.

14. Ibid, p. 183.

15. ‘Norfolk Railway Company – Mr. Stephenson’s Report’.

16. Crampton, p. 242.

17. Gauge Commissioner’s Report, p. 14.

18. Anon, ‘Improvements in locomotive-engines: steam carriage performance on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway’, Extract from the Manchester Guardian 26th February 1831, The Mechanics Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 397, 19 March 1831, pp. 35–40.

19. M. R. Bailey and J. P. Glithero, The Stephenson’s Rocket – A history of a pioneering locomotive (York: National Railway Museum, 2002), pp. 24–5.

20. D. K. Clark, Railway machinery: A Treatise On The Mechanical Engineering of Railways… (Glasgow: Blackie and Son, 1855), p. 8.

21. Warren, p. 311.

22. Clark, p. 165.

23. Ahrons, p. 56.

24. Warren, p. 373.

25. Clark, p. 166.

26. J. M. Edmonson, From Mecanicien to Ingenier: Technical Education and the Machine Building Industry in 19th Century France (New York: Garland, 1967), Chapter 5, Railway Engineers and Machine Builders.

27. L. Le Chatelier, Etudes sur la stabilite des machines locomotives en mouvement (Paris, 1849).

28. Clark, pp. 169–71.

29. Le Chatelier, p. 119.

30. E. S. Cox, ‘Balancing of Locomotive Reciprocating Parts’, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 31, (1942), 2–37.

31. C. Hamilton Ellis, Nineteenth Century Railway Carriages in the British Isles from the Eighteen-thirties to the Nineteen Hundreds (London, 1949), p. 16.

32. Le Chatelier, pp. 58–73.

33. Clark, p. 172.

34. A. H. Wickens, ‘The Dynamics of Railway Vehicles – from Stephenson to Carter’, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 212 Part F (1999), 209–17.

35. S. Bennett, A History of Control Engineering 1800–1930 (London: The Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1979), pp. 57–63.

36. E. J. Routh, Stability of a Given State of Motion (London, 1877); (Reprinted, London: Taylor and Francis, 1975).

37. F. W. Carter, ‘The Electric Locomotive’, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 221 (1916), 221–52.

38. A. H. Wickens, ‘A History of Railway Vehicle Dynamics’, in Handbook of Railway Vehicle Dynamics, ed. by S. Iwnicki (Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press, 2006).

39. F. W. Carter, ‘On the Stability of Running of Locomotives’, Proceedings of the Royal Society, 121, (1928), 585–611.

40. Clark, p. 20.

41. C. F. Dendy Marshall, A History of British Railways Down to the Year 1830 (London, 1938), pp. 147–8.

42. A. Vaughan, Isambard Kingdom Brunel – Engineering Knight Errant (London: John Murray, 1992), p. 102.

43. R. Stephenson, British Patent 5325, 23 January 1826, Axletrees to remedy the extra friction on curves to waggons, carts, cars, and carriages used on railroads, tramways, and other public roads. R. Stephenson, British Patent 6092, 11 July 1831 Improvements to axles and bearings of railway wheels.

44. Gauge Commissioner’s Report, questions 1628-9, p. 101.

45. Ibid, question 1795, p. 115; question 4246, p. 204; questions 6155-76, p. 315.

46. Ibid, question 6158, p. 315.

47. Clark, pp. 181–3.

48. Ibid, p. 182, Fig. 218.

49. A. H. Wickens, Fundamentals of Rail Vehicle Dynamics – Guidance and Stability (Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger, 2003), p. 13.

50. N. Wood, A Practical Treatise on Railroads. 3rd edn (London, 1838), p. 215.

51. Clark, p. 171.

52. Ahrons, p. 34.

53. Gauge Commissioner’s Report, question 1218, p. 82.

54. Warren, p. 393.

55. Gauge Commissioner’s Report, question 3462-4, p. 149.

56. ‘Norfolk Railway Company – Mr. Stephenson’s Report’.

57. The diaries of Sir Daniel Gooch, reprint of 1892 edition (Stroud: Nonesuch, 2006), p. 74.

58. Ahrons, p. 55.

59. Report of the Gauge Commissioners, questions 1311-2, p. 85.

60. A. O. Gilchrist et al., ‘The riding of two particular designs of four wheeled vehicle’, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 180 (1965), 99–113.

61. Clark, p. 187.

62. Ibid, p. 172.

63. Warren, p. 394.

64. Clark, p. 166, Fig. 183.

65. Warren, p. 400.

66. Clark, p. 169.

67. Le Chatelier, p. 25.

68. Ibid, pp. 26–7.

69. Wickens, Fundamentals of Rail Vehicle Dynamics, Chapter 2.

70. kindly furnished by Professor Simon Iwnicki, Institute of Railway Research, University of Huddersfield.

71. ORE benchmarking of vehicle dynamics programs, 1991, Office of Research and Experiment (ORE) of the International Union of Railways (UIC), Utrecht.

72. Clark, p. 297.

73. ORE Bogies with steered or steering wheelsets. ORE B176 Report No.1 Specifications and Preliminary Studies, 1989, Office of Research and Experiment (ORE) of the International Union of Railways (UIC), Utrecht.

74. J. J. Kalker, Three-dimensional Elastic Bodies in Rolling Contact (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990).