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By around 1848 a man named Goldsworthy Gurney had over-the-road steam motor buses running on regular schedules between London and the high-rent resort town of Bath. These things had a stagecoach body mounted on a big frame containing a simple 2-cylinder engine driving a cranked rear axle. Aft of the stage-coach body (second-class rode outdoors on top) was a box containing a water-tube boiler with two drums, very much like a power plant or ship boiler. It may have had an economizer, too. I don't know how the thing was fired, but there were four tall steamboat stacks and two `scape pipes. In front of the coach was a big squirrel-cage fan for draft. The thing had a steerable front axle that was itself steered by a pilot axle under the control (?) of a tillerman, a deal familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Lombard log hauler.

Author:	bobyar2001 [ Tue Jan 03, 2006 10:22 am ]
Post subject:	Trevithick steam coach
Replica of a steam road coach of 1803, built by Richard Trevithick. I think it is in Australia: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/c ... wtrains.py

Author:	Aarne H. Frobom [ Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Trevithick steam coach
Not sure what this picture would have showed, since it wouldn't open for me. but the British steam stages were a fascinating example of advanced technology. By around 1848 a man named Goldsworthy Gurney had over-the-road steam motor buses running on regular schedules between London and the high-rent resort town of Bath. These things had a stagecoach body mounted on a big frame containing a simple 2-cylinder engine driving a cranked rear axle. Aft of the stage-coach body (second-class rode outdoors on top) was a box containing a water-tube boiler with two drums, very much like a power plant or ship boiler. It may have had an economizer, too. I don't know how the thing was fired, but there were four tall steamboat stacks and two `scape pipes. In front of the coach was a big squirrel-cage fan for draft. The thing had a steerable front axle that was itself steered by a pilot axle under the control (?) of a tillerman, a deal familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Lombard log hauler. I believe Trevithick also had a line of these running with a different design of omnibus. Think about the date: 1840's. That was in advance of most of the railway mania. Railroads obsoleted this operation, but some histories tell that the real death blow was dealt by horse-stage operators. They enacted the so-called "red flag law" which limited all road vehicles to 4 mph, and required that they be preceded by a man on foot with a red flag. The law was still in place in the 1890's when the rest of Europe began experimenting with automobiles, and it retarded automobile use in Britain. The British had a 50-year head start on the rest of the world in road transportation, but threw it away with regulation. It is intriguing to think what might have happened if the steam road coaches had remained in operation, and acted as a catalyst for development of lightweight internal-combustion power plants. Maybe the British could have eventually developed a Diesel engine that didn't leak. Odd memorial note: one of the first Michigan soldiers to die in the current Iraq war had the name Richard Trevithick.

Author:	bobyar2001 [ Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Richard Trevithick
I also worked briefly with a Richard Trevithick, on the VTR. Last I knew he had left and was working on a shortline in Arizona. He hadn't heard of the one who invented the steam locomotive..

Author:	survivingworldsteam [ Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Trevithick steam coach
Aarne H. Frobom wrote: By around 1848 a man named Goldsworthy Gurney had over-the-road steam motor buses running on regular schedules between London and the high-rent resort town of Bath. These things had a stagecoach body mounted on a big frame containing a simple 2-cylinder engine driving a cranked rear axle. Aft of the stage-coach body (second-class rode outdoors on top) was a box containing a water-tube boiler with two drums, very much like a power plant or ship boiler. It may have had an economizer, too. I don't know how the thing was fired, but there were four tall steamboat stacks and two `scape pipes. In front of the coach was a big squirrel-cage fan for draft. The thing had a steerable front axle that was itself steered by a pilot axle under the control (?) of a tillerman, a deal familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Lombard log hauler. In 1830; Gurney also built what is called a "steam drag". It was basically a tractor unit that pulled a conventional coach. The frame and two cylinder engine from his "steam drag" has survived and is on display at the Museum of Transport, Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, Scotland, UK; there has been talk of building a replica around it. The remains and a drawing showing the steam drag with the frame and engine outlined in red also appear on my Surviving World Steam Vehicle CD-ROM. -James Hefner Hebrews 10:20a Surviving World Steam Project

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