WHY BRITISH STEAM WAGONS LEAD.
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After 1896 Steam for Long Reigned Supreme in the Heavier Categories, this Being Rendered Possible for Modern Road Transport by Peculiar Causes.
By Edward S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E., M.Inst.T.
BRITISH engineers pioneered steam on . common roads before they did so on rails, the earliest indications of comparative practical success having been given in 'the years 1785 to 1805. It was the fascinating history of steam on common roads between 1805 and 1835 that first drew me into road transport 32 years ago. I can recommend no study more attractive and stimulating; there is not Space here for summary, much less for record. The trail had been blazed before Victoria became Queen in 1837, but it was more quickly extinguished. Bad roads, heavy tolls, relatively poor constructional materials, the railway boom and fostered public hostility accounted for non-survival then. No lasting type emerged from this era, although the differential gear was introduced towards its close. By 1845 the first era of steam on common roads had closed.
The 'fifties saw the light, high-speed traction engine come along. Even rubber tyres were at times on the wheels of some. The Locoenotives Act of 1865 wiped out these prospects. LegislatiOn has never yet been kind to road transport.
Heavy traction engines and road rollers were next developed. The Act of 1878 stabilized their places in a measure, whilst that of 1898 made clearer a few difficult points of law and user.
Attention from British transport interests for modern steam-wagon development began with the French trials of 1894, which were organized by Le Petit Journal between Paris and Rouen. This interest came to a head three years later, when the Liverpool SelfPropelled Traffic Association sent a deputation to the first Pods Lourds trials held in and around Paris, which, the Automobile Club of France organized. Then followed the three series of Liverpool trials, 1898, 1899 and 1901, at all of which steam shone. Pioneer.road transport companies next went down like ninepins from 1901 to.1904. So much by way of introduction.
Water, Water—Not Everywhere, Roadside water in Britain may not always be clean, but it is usually to be had at short intervals. It is, or was, as a rule, free for the lifting. The wide distribution of non-tidal rivers and streams, taken in conjunction with an extensive canal system, had more to do with steam-wagon development in Britain between 1897 and 1907 than is generally realized. The suction hose seldom lacked a more or less suitable " home " in which to come to rest at critical moments. Hence the running stage of from 7 miles to 9 miles, which limitation did apply to the older steam wagons when roads and loads were heavy, failed to damn them at the outset. Britain's average rainfall and her riparian generosity provided suitable running stages, and thus, by ensuring time for evolution, saved the situation.
Few of the early steam wagons were able in practice to live through a waterless 15 miles except on dry and good roads. Fusible plugs not infrequently prevented burnt tubes in those far-off days, but, had our land been other than a comparatively wet one, it had never seen a steam-wagon industry established. I put this as reason No. 1 for the lead of which I write. Pkadside water supplies are now provided by combined action between the interested parties.
Coal and Coke.
In the days before petrol began effectively to challenge steam. which may be said to have happened some
11 years after the passing of the Locomotives Act in 1896, there were few coaling and watering stations. A steam wagon generally carried all the needful fuel where it might best be stowed. Coal and coke for a double journey did not always fit into the bunker space; an odd sack or two graced, or disgraced, the top of the cab where there was one, or travelled slung beneath the frame. Owners and drivers alike preferred. to see out-and-home supplies aboard. Quality of fuel in those days was best .assured by.purchases made from a single merchant. It is much the same to-day, but good-class fuel is now (bar strikes) obtainable at different points with more regularity.
No internal-combustion engine in any road motor has suffered or bofne such vagaries of fuel supply as those which befell the steam-wagon boiler in the good old days. More recently, happily, several leading houses have specialized in steam-wagon coals, whilst graded cokes have kept up the end of the gas industry in this market.
Britain's coal and coke have well backed its benevolent water supply in helping to evolve characteristic British steam -Wagons. Had all the coal and coke used under their boilers been good, the persistent and successful efforts of designers and manufacturers to produce dirt-proof grates and means of firing the boilers efficiently and keeping the tubes clean might never have been forthcoming. Conversely, had all the fuels used been really bad, the amazingly economical fuel and water consumptions on the road might not be on record as they are. Coals are variable, one knows, and sometimes almost anything black is allowed to pass as coal, but bow much worse are some cokes! Despite, and perhaps even because of, the dozens of varieties and qualities of all fuels offered and bought, with their volatiles, moisture, ash and other components at large amongst he great unknown, the boiler end of the job made good. Here we have reason No. 2 for the British lead. Good superheating clinched it.
Lubrication, Transmission and Brakes.
It is not my intention to enter into any detail. I pass over many other factors which have resulted in our compact British steam-wagon boilers, with their wonderful circulations and evaporative capacities. Broad considerations alone can be sketched in this brief survey. Yet one's memory is full of lubrication and non-lubrication episodes. Too much oil in the old days worked outside and not inside; it certainly showed where the wagon had been.
Breakages and other severe causes of loss—not 'merely of the frictional variety—were incapable of elimination until the Order of 1904, by increasing the unladen weight limit from three tons to five tons, gave protective scope to designers and estimators. BuYers of steam wagons reaped much benefit. Then came, by degrees, the effective challenge of the petrol vehicle in the heavier load categories (1907-1912), and with unerring realization our steam-wagon makers applied the lesson of modern steels where they had not done all that was possible before.
And what of brakes? Well, they did not exist, as we require them, until about 1910.. They hare been excellent since the war, but are not final as I write. Provision for reversal of pressure admission in a steam cylinder remains effective in law for most wagons. The sufficiency of a brake on a transmission shaft is even
now under further Departmental review with the object of defining sucb brakes more closely.
The recent derision of the courts that a brake drum is part of the wheel and not of the brake is a point of more importance than may at first sight appear. Two sets of shoes acting on the same drum are, in virtue of it, now accepted as two independent brakes.
Tyres.
• Iron tyres, shrunk on to the wooden felloes by heating and quenching, gave no end of trouble on the 1897-1898 steam wagons in Britain. Steel and hydraulic pressingon succeeded quickly. Solid rubber felt its way, at a cost of 4d. to 6d, per mile run, some ten years later. Steady improvements in manufacture, lower costs for raw rubber and the growing volume of experience amongst users have rapidly put metal tyres into the background, until we now see giant pneumatics close upon us. for our steam wagons. .Come they will, and almost_ before we are conscious. of the fresh change. .Road transport owes more to no single factor for its economic triumph than to progressive rubber-tyre developments; and here, too, Britain now leads.
Other Countries, Other Priorities.
America first went ahead with the electric, France and Germany with the petrol vehicle. Britain persevered with steam, as steam alone was found capable of moving her industrial loads ; there was no acceptable or commercial 5-ton petrol lorry available before the year 1907, and in that year they had no margin in hand. Thereafter, for another 10 years almost, it was usually deemed commercially unwise to draw a trailer behind a petrol-driven lorry or wagon. Thus, for a full 20 years after the passing of the 1896 Act, steam, id fact, reigned supreme in the field of the 10-ton load divided between motor and trailer. It continues strongly entrenched, but not unrivalled, in the conveyance of such loads.
The priority of steam in Britain was also numerical until about the year 1908. Small vans using internal combustion then increasingly came into service, as well as large numbers of motorbuses with like power installations. No exact figures are procurable. For the heaviest work, however, steam remained unequalled until about 1920, and it,can still lay claim to a 50-50 ratio in some of our cities and ports. It clings tenaciously, holding the fort for transport against the possibility of unrestricted advances in charges for petrol. The petrol-driven articulated six-wheeler has been its challenger.
Britain's Lead.
The' preferences for and priorities of other types in other manufacturing countries have aided Britain in her unquestioned lead of the world in steam wagons. The armies in France had a few big fleets of British steam wagons at work, and splendid was the service which they rendered. Exports, of course, are bound to be determined by water-supply conditions, but these yearly totals are by no means negligible in the aggregate.
Britain's lead has not by any means been so fully exploited as it can and will be. Steam is certainly not dead. There are related models yet to be derived by new adaptations, apart from rail-cars, geared shunting locomotives, self-contained travelling cranes, chaintrack combinations, tractors, articulated six-wheelers, portable electric lighting and power sets, portable mills and travelling showmen's outfits, which already do so well. Further " cousins" are, I feel confident, in the making. They all .help to maintain output and thus to keep down costs.
Stearn or Petrol ?
This article must not savour of a catalogue, but the merits of steam must be sung before I conclude it. A 030
tabular statement Of respective points of -superiority, as. between steam and petrol, is therefore given in a form which does not seek to exclude features unfavourable to either source of motive power :
Although economy is on the side of steam, convenience and performance at times condition it in favour of petrol.
The ranks of steam-wagon drivers can be recruited from railway shops, the mercantile marine, naval engine-room ratings, a . variety of industries and by special training, but there is still a larger candidature to drive petrol vehicles. Compared with 20 years ago, in order to train a steam-wagon driver, the work nowadays is "child's play," whilst makers furnish simple driving and running instructions for their better guidance.
In fleet operation it often pays to have depot men to draw (or bank) fires and clean up at night, and to fire up and raise steam in the morning. Unit construction facilitates general overhauls, and standardization of parts has made replacements easy. Makers now hold adequate stocks of spares at suitable centres.
The steam wagon is more truly British than any, and its consistent use of British fuel should commend it pre-eminently to all who believe in the slogan "Buy British." The 'steam wagon, in my view, deserves to regain much of the ground which it primaril3, lost to the petrol wagon between 1909 and 1913, when the inevitable Change-over from metal to rubber tyres was all too tardily recognized by some makers. The wartime preference overseas for the petrol lorry resulted in at least 150,000 new petrol drivers being trained, as against only some 4,000 new steam drivers. This adverse volume of men rendered available to handle the newer power has never been seriously combated or met, by makers of steam wagons, and it is only of late that the many improvements in these vehicles have begun to re-attract labour, as they undoubtedly now should do to a marked extent.
The old question, " Steam or petrol?" is by no means settled entirely in favour of petrol. Steam men keep well_in the forefront; their outputs remain good, and the work done by their vehicles rewards the indomitable British will by which they have survived the petrol avalanche.
Steam is, I repeat, the only safeguard of Britain against petrol's domination. It appears to stand no chance in the load categories up to 3 tons, but thereafter its upward curve begins to grow steeper and steeper. It will be a sorry day for Britain if steam is ever allowed by those who make steam wagons to lose its present pride of place at the heavy end of our load scale.
Finally, it is because of her area being so copiously watered by non-tidal rivers, streams and canals in the first place, and because of her distributed supplies of good coal and coke in the second, that Britain has built and used more steam wagons than all other countries of the world put together. This has enabled British makers to produce only the best. It is experience that tells. Those who can use steam will go farther and fare worse if they do not recognize the outstanding excellence of this pre-eminently British product.