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John Blenkinsop
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John Blenkinsop (1783-1831) was an English mining engineer and an inventor in the area of steam locomotives, who designed the first practical railway locomotive.
He was born in Rothwell, near Leeds, and was apprenticed to his cousin, Thomas Barnes, the Northumberland coal viewer. From 1808 he became Agent to Charles John Brandling who owned the Middleton Colliery near Leeds.
In 1758 the colliery built a wagonway to carry coal into Leeds, using horse-drawn vehicles, now known as the Middleton Railway.
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John Blenkinsop (1783-1831) was an English mining engineer and an inventor in the area of steam locomotives, who designed the first practical railway locomotive.
He was born in Rothwell, near Leeds, and was apprenticed to his cousin, Thomas Barnes, the Northumberland coal viewer. From 1808 he became Agent to Charles John Brandling who owned the Middleton Colliery near Leeds.
In 1758 the colliery built a wagonway to carry coal into Leeds, using horse-drawn vehicles, now known as the Middleton Railway. Not all the land belonged to Branding and it was the first railway to be authorised by Act of Parliament since this would give him power to obtain wayleave.
Richard Trevithick had begun building steam locomotives, and in 1805 his work culminated in an engine for the Wylam Colliery. The cast iron plate rails were unable to take the engine's heavy weight, and the locos had been abandoned. However shortages of horses and fodder brought about by the Napoleonic Wars had made steam more attractive, and encouraged further development. Moreover, the new iron edge rails, laid at Middleton Railway around 1807, were stronger.
While many people, such as William Hedley, felt that adhesion should be adequate with a locomotive weighing around five tons, Blenkinsop was less sanguine. In 1811 he patented (No 3431), a rack and pinion system for a locomotive which would be designed and built by Matthew Murray of Fenton, Murray and Wood in Holbeck.
The general opinion of the time was that a locomotive would draw up to four times its weight by adhesion alone (assuming good conditions), but Blenkinsop wanted more, and his engine, weighing five tons, regularly hauled a payload of ninety tons. The first was The Salamanca, built in 1812 and three more followed: Prince Regent, Lord Willington and Marquis Wellington. Locomotives were also built for collieries near Wigan and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A locomotive of this pattern was also made by the Royal Iron Foundry at Berlin. They had the first double-acting cylinders and, unlike the Trevithick pattern, no flywheel. The cylinders drove a geared wheel which engaged with the rack beside one rail. One of the geared locomotives was described as having two 8"x20" cylinders, driving the wheels through cranks. The piston crossheads worked in guides, rather than being controlled by parallel motion like the majority of early locomotives. The engines saw about twenty years of service.
The design was quickly superseded when the rolled iron rail, which could bear the heavier adhesion locomotives, was introduced in 1820. This was quickly adopted by George Stephenson and others.
Blenkinsop died in Leeds in January 1831, and is buried in Rothwell parish church.
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