''Puffing Billy'' is the world's oldest surviving
steam locomotive
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 (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
, constructed in 1813–1814 by
colliery viewer
A colliery viewer or coal viewer was the manager of a coal mine or colliery. The term was mostly used in the late eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, in the UK. In modern use, the viewer would be the senior and responsible mining engineer at a sit ...
William Hedley
William Hedley (13 July 1779 – 9 January 1843) was born in Newburn, near Newcastle upon Tyne. He was one of the leading industrial engineers of the early 19th century, and was instrumental in several major innovations in early rail transpor ...
, enginewright Jonathan Forster and blacksmith
Timothy Hackworth
Timothy Hackworth (22 December 1786 – 7 July 1850) was an English steam locomotive engineer who lived in Shildon, County Durham, England and was the first locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
Youth and early work ...
for
Christopher Blackett
Christopher Blackett (1751 – 25 January 1829) owned the Northumberland colliery at Wylam that built ''Puffing Billy'', the first commercial adhesion steam locomotive. He was also the founding owner of ''The Globe'' newspaper in 1803.
Lif ...
, the owner of
Wylam
Wylam is a village and civil parish in the county of Northumberland. It is located about west of Newcastle upon Tyne.
It is famous for the being the birthplace of George Stephenson, one of the early railway pioneers. George Stephenson's Birth ...
Colliery near
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
, in the United Kingdom. It was employed to haul coal
chaldron wagon
A chaldron (also chauldron or chalder) was an English measure of dry volume, mostly used for coal; the word itself is an obsolete spelling of cauldron. It was used from the 13th century onwards, nominally until 1963, when it was abolished by th ...
s from the mine at Wylam to the docks at
Lemington
Lemington is an area and electoral ward of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England.
History
Lemington has a strong industrial history. It is famous for its brick glassworks cone, built in 1787. The River Tyne used to pass very close to Lem ...
in
Northumberland
Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey.
It is bordered by land on ...
.
History
Precursors
In 1810 the
Durham Coalfield
The Durham Coalfield is a coalfield in north-east England. It is continuous with the Northumberland Coalfield to its north. It extends from Bishop Auckland in the south to the boundary with the county of Northumberland along the River Tyne in the ...
was disrupted by a major strike over the Bond system.
During this time
Christopher Blackett
Christopher Blackett (1751 – 25 January 1829) owned the Northumberland colliery at Wylam that built ''Puffing Billy'', the first commercial adhesion steam locomotive. He was also the founding owner of ''The Globe'' newspaper in 1803.
Lif ...
, owner of the
Wylam Colliery
Wylam is a village and civil parish in the county of Northumberland. It is located about west of Newcastle upon Tyne.
It is famous for the being the birthplace of George Stephenson, one of the early railway pioneers. George Stephenson's Birth ...
, took advantage of the pit's idleness to experiment with the idea of a locomotive-hauled tramway
worked purely by adhesion, rather than the
Blenkinsop rack system used on the
Middleton. These began with a simple hand-cranked wagon, converted from a coal wagon chassis with the addition of a central drive shaft and geared drives to the axles.
As this experiment was successful, by 1812 it was followed by Wylam's first prototype 'travelling engine', worked by steam. This was based on a combination of the test wagon, with a single cylinder engine and boiler atop it. Little is known of the design, although it has been said to have been inspired by Trevithick's Pen-y-darren locomotive. It is unclear whether the single cylinder was vertical or horizontal, and whether the boiler had a single straight flue or a
return flue. It may have been nicknamed ''Grasshopper''. The 'travelling engine' was successful as a prototype, but underpowered and prone to stalling when overloaded or faced by a gradient. It was however convincing enough as a demonstration to encourage Blackett to fund further locomotives.
''Puffing Billy''
''Puffing Billy'' was one of three similar engines built by Hedley, the resident engineer at Wylam Colliery, to replace the horses used as motive power on the tramway. In 1813, Hedley built for Blackett's colliery business on the Wylam Colliery line the prototypes, ''Puffing Billy'' and ''
Wylam Dilly
''Wylam Dilly'' is the second oldest surviving rail transport, railway locomotive in the world; it was built circa 1815 by William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam colliery, west of Newcastle upon Tyne ...
''. They were both rebuilt in 1815 with ten wheels, but were returned to their original condition in 1830 when the railway was relaid with stronger rails.
In the September 1814 edition of ''Annals of Philosophy'' two locomotives with rack wheels are mentioned (probably ''
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...
'' and ''
Blücher''), then there is mention of "another steam locomotive at Newcastle, employed for a similar purpose
auling 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
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
, London (later the
Science Museum
A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...
). He later sold it to the museum for £200. It is still on display there. Its sister locomotive, ''
Wylam Dilly
''Wylam Dilly'' is the second oldest surviving rail transport, railway locomotive in the world; it was built circa 1815 by William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam colliery, west of Newcastle upon Tyne ...
'', is preserved in the
National Museum of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...
in Edinburgh.
A replica has been built and was first run in 2006 at
Beamish Museum
Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it wa ...
. Another replica, built 1906 in a
Royal Bavarian State Railways
The Royal Bavarian State Railways (''Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen'' or ''K.Bay.Sts.B.'') was the state railway company for the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was founded in 1844. The organisation grew into the second largest of the German ...
workshop, can be found in the
German Museum
The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...
, Munich.
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 either side of the boiler, and partly enclosed by it, and drove a single
crankshaft
A crankshaft is a mechanical component used in a piston engine to convert the reciprocating motion into rotational motion. The crankshaft is a rotating shaft containing one or more crankpins, that are driven by the pistons via the connecting ...
beneath the frames, from which gears drove and also coupled the wheels allowing better traction.
![Puffingbilly-side](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Puffingbilly-side.jpg)
The engine had a number of serious technical limitations. Running on
cast-iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
wagonway
Wagonways (also spelt Waggonways), also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded Steam locomotive, steam-powered rail transport, railways. The t ...
plates, its eight-ton weight was too heavy and broke them, encouraging opponents of locomotive traction to criticise the innovation. This problem was alleviated by redesigning the engine with four axles so that the weight was spread more evenly. The engine was eventually rebuilt as a four-wheeler when improved
edge rails track was introduced around 1830. It was not particularly fast, being capable of no more than 5 mph (8 km/h).
Legacy
''Puffing Billy'' was an important influence on
George Stephenson
George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for ...
, 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 Billys name survives in the English language in the
intensifier
In linguistics, an intensifier (abbreviated ) is a lexical category (but ''not'' a traditional part of speech) for a modifier that makes no contribution to the propositional meaning of a clause but serves to enhance and give additional emotional co ...
''like billy-o'', but there are several alternative explanations for that phrase's origin.
In 1952, British
light music composer
Edward White wrote a melody named after the locomotive.
["Puffin' Billy" theme music]
/ref> The piece became ubiquitous in British media, being used on BBC Light Programme
The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...
's ''Children's Favourites
''Junior Choice'' is a BBC Radio programme originally broadcast from 1967 until 1982 with Christmas specials from 2007 until 2015 and again since 2017. Originally broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on Saturday mornings from 9.10 to 9.55 (later, ...
'', a radio request programme, from 1952 to 1966, and also appearing in numerous commercials and radio shows. The piece also became extremely popular in the United States, where it served as the theme for ''Captain Kangaroo
''Captain Kangaroo'' is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television program ...
'' from 1955 to 1974.
References
Further reading
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{{early-steam-locos
Individual locomotives of Great Britain
English inventions
Steam engines in the Science Museum, London
Early steam locomotives
Preserved steam locomotives of Great Britain
0-8-0 locomotives
5 ft gauge locomotives