'' Salamanca'' was the first commercially successful

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 loco ...

, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Holbeck, for the edge railed Middleton Railway between Middleton and

Leeds Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...

, England and it predated

Stephenson's Rocket Stephenson's ''Rocket'' is an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement. It was built for and won the Rainhill Trials of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be m ...

by 17 years. It was the first to have two cylinders. It was named after the Duke of Wellington's victory at the

battle of Salamanca The Battle of Salamanca (in French and Spanish known as the Battle of Arapiles) on 22July 1812 was a battle in which an Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces at Arapiles, so ...

which was fought that same year. ''Salamanca'' was also the first rack and pinion locomotive, using John Blenkinsop's patented design for rack propulsion. A single rack ran outside the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller struc ...

tracks and was engaged by a large cog wheel on the left side of the locomotive. The cog wheel was driven by twin cylinders embedded into the top of the centre-flue boiler. The class was described as having two 8"×20" cylinders, driving the wheels through cranks. The piston

crosshead In mechanical engineering, a crosshead is a mechanical joint used as part of the slider-crank linkages of long reciprocating engines (either internal combustion or steam) and reciprocating compressors to eliminate sideways force on the piston ...

s slid in guides, rather than being controlled by a parallel motion linkage like the majority of early locomotives. The engines saw up to twenty years of service. Middleton Colliery 1814

It appears in a watercolour by George Walker (1781–1856), the first painting of a steam locomotive. Four such locomotives were built for the railway. ''Salamanca'' was destroyed six years later, when its boiler exploded. According to

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 f ...

, giving evidence to a committee of

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...

, the driver had tampered with the boiler's safety valve. ''Salamanca'' is probably the locomotive referred to in the September 1814 edition of '' Annals of Philosophy'': "Some time ago a steam-engine was mounted upon wheels at Leeds, and made to move along a rail road by means of a rack wheel, dragging after it a number of waggons loaded with coals." The item continues to mention a rack locomotive about a mile north of Newcastle ( Blücher at Killingworth) and one without a rack wheel (probably Puffing Billy at

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 Birt ...

). A model of the locomotive, built by Murray in 1811, is part of the collection held at Leeds Industrial Museum. It is the world's oldest model locomotive.

References

{{Steam engine configurations Rack and cog driven locomotives

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 Her ...

English inventions

Narrow gauge locomotives