- The Salamanca
Infobox Locomotive
name="The Salamanca"
powertype=Steam
builddate=1812
builder=Matthew Murray
railroad=Middleton Railway
gauge= RailGauge|49|lk=on
weight=5 tons
imagesize=250
caption="The Salamanca"The Salamanca was the first commercially successful
steam locomotive , built in1812 byMatthew Murray ofHolbeck , for the edge railedMiddleton Railway between Middleton andLeeds . [cite book |title=The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Railways |author=Hamilton Ellis |publisher=The Hamlyn Publishing Group |year=1968 |pages=pp.20] It was the first to have two cylinders."The Salamanca" was a rack and pinion locomotive using
John Blenkinsop 's patented design for rack propulsion. A single rack ran outside the narrow gauge 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-flueboiler . The class 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 up to twenty years of service.cite web | url = http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/odcuri.Html| publisher = Catskill| title = Curiosities of Locomotive Design| accessdate = 2008-03-22]Four such locomotives were built for the railway. "The Salamanca" was destroyed six years later, when its boiler exploded. According to
George Stephenson , giving evidence to a committee of Parliament, the driver had tampered with the boiler safety valve. [cite book
last = Nabarro
first = Gerald
authorlink = Gerald Nabarro
coauthors =
title = Steam Nostalgia: Locomotive and Railway Preservation in Great Britain
publisher = Routledge and Kegan Paul
date = 1972
location = Lodnon
pages = 139
url =
doi =
id =
isbn = 0710073917]References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.