''Steam Elephant'' was an early

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, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

from

North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...

Historiography

An illustration of the locomotive first came to modern attention in 1931 and it was then generally assumed to be the work of

George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and Mechanical engineering, mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victoria ...

. More recent interpretation is based on research carried out at

Beamish Museum Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, County Durham, Beamish, near the town of Stanley, County Durham, Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By di ...

for construction of a replica. This interpretation is based largely on contemporaneous paintings (one being the earliest known

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

of a steam locomotive, by an unknown artist) and other material from the Museum archives. It is from the paintings that the name ''Steam Elephant'' has become associated specifically with this locomotive.

Description and interpretation

''Steam Elephant'' was a six-wheeled locomotive of Stephenson gauge. It was built for the Wallsend Waggonway, an edge railway now known to have been of gauge. As with Stephenson's Killingworth locomotives of the year before, it had a centre-flue boiler with two vertical

cylinders A cylinder () has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infinite ...

of about set into its top centreline. The cylinders drove slide bar mounted beams which turned crankshafts driving the axles through 2:1 reduction gears between the frames. It had a tall, tapering chimney, the lower part being surrounded by a

feedwater heater A feedwater heater is a power plant component used to pre-heat water delivered to a steam generating boiler. Preheating the feedwater reduces the irreversibilities involved in steam generation and therefore improves the thermodynamic efficiency o ...

. It would have weighed about 7.5 tons and had a top speed of around and a load capacity of about 90 tons over a short distance. It is now considered to have been designed by

John Buddle John Buddle (15 September 1773 – 10 October 1843) was a prominent self-made mining engineer and entrepreneur in North East England. He had a major influence on the development of the Northern Coalfield in the first half of the 19th century, co ...

and William Chapman for the Wallsend Waggonway and colliery at

Wallsend Wallsend () is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies east of Newcastle upon Tyne. History Roman Wallsend In Roman times, this was the site of the fort of ...

on the north bank of the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden, Northumberland, Warden near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The ...

1815 Events January * January 2 – Lord Byron marries Anna Isabella Milbanke in Seaham, county of Durham, England. * January 3 – Austria, Britain, and Bourbon-restored France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Pr ...

using metal components supplied by Hawks of

Gateshead Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...

. It appears originally not to have been very successful at Wallsend, probably due to lack of adhesion on the wooden rails there, nor on trial at

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

. Following the introduction of

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

rails Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters * Railway track or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' (1967 fi ...

at Wallsend, it had a working life there longer than many contemporaneous locomotives, until at least the mid-1820s. There is evidence that it was then rebuilt for use at the Hetton collieries, working there for a further decade.

Replica

''Steam Elephant'' was recreated by

to work with passengers on its

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

"Pockerley Waggonway" in 2002, being assembled by

Alan Keef Alan Keef Ltd is a British narrow gauge railway engineering company which manufactures, overhauls, and deals in narrow gauge locomotives, rolling stock and associated equipment. History The limited company was formed in 1975 at Cote, Oxfords ...

. The replica was designed and built by engineers Ross Clavell, Jim Rees and Dave Potter, finished in 1998. Clavell also designed and built the famous weather vane atop the engine shed at Beamish.

References

{{early-steam-locos Early steam locomotives Individual locomotives of Great Britain Steam locomotives of Great Britain Standard-gauge locomotives of Great Britain