Locomotives

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A locomotive (from Latin loc - 'from a place', ablative of 'locus' = 'place' + Medieval Latin motivus = 'causing motion') is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train, and has no payload capacity of its own; its sole purpose is to move the train along the tracks. In contrast, many trains feature self-propelled payload-carrying vehicles; these are not normally considered locomotives, and may be referred to as multiple units or railcars; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but very rare for freight (see however CargoSprinter). Vehicles which provide the motive power to haul an unpowered train, but are not generally considered locomotives because they have payload space or are rarely detached from their trains, are known as power cars.

Traditionally, locomotives haul (pull) their trains. Increasingly common these days in local passenger service is push-pull operation, where a locomotive pulls the train in one direction and pushes it in the other, and is therefore optionally controlled from a control cab at the opposite end of the train. This is especially true of "High Speed Rail lines", such as Germany's ICE and France’s TGV trains.

Origins

The first successful locomotives were built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick. In 1804 his unnamed locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Although the locomotive hauled a train of 10 tons of iron and 70 passengers in five wagons over nine miles it was too heavy for the cast iron rails used at the time. The locomotive only ran three journeys before it was abandoned. Trevithick built a series of locomotives after the Penydarren experiment, including one which ran at a colliery in Tyneside where it was seen by the young George Stephenson.

The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murray's rack locomotive The Salamanca built for the narrow gauge Middleton Railway in 1812. This was followed in 1813 by the Puffing Billy built by Christopher Blackett and William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery Railway, the first successful locomotive running by adhesion only. Puffing Billy is now on display in the Science Museum in London, the oldest locomotive in existence.

In 1814 George Stephenson, inspired by the early locomotives of Trevithick and Hedley persuaded the manager of the Killingworth colliery where he worked to allow him to build a steam-powered machine. He built the Blucher, one of the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotives. Stephenson played a pivotal role in the development and widespread adoption of the steam locomotive. His designs considerably improved on the work of the earlier pioneers. In 1825 he built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway which became the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829 he built The Rocket which was entered into and won the Rainhill Trials. This success lead to Stephenson establishing his company as the pre-eminent builder of early steam locomotives, which ran on railways in the United Kingdom, the United States and much of Europe.

Read more at Wikipedia.org