Richard Trevithick Giant of Steam
- Binding: Hardcover
- Publisher: Aurum Pr Ltd
- Publish date: 09/01/2000
Description:
On Christmas Eve 1801 a 30-year-old Cornishman took his friends for a ride on his new invention, a self-propelled steam engine. The road from Weeth to Camborne Beacon was a "stiffish hill", but the contraption "went up like a little bird". The age of steam-powered transport had, it seemed, arrived.
Expand description
The jubilant party retired to an inn to celebrate this success, forgetting to extinguish the boiler. In the ensuing explosion, the world's first locomotive was totally demolished.
Trevithick's successful but ill-fated locomotive of 1801 was followed by more inventions, both ingenious and eccentric. When he died suddenly in 1833 he was still penniless -- a prophet of the steam age who would win only posthumous honor.
Please Wait