An old engraving of a Victorian ‘road steamer’ carrying a coal wagon, made by Robert Thomson, Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. It is from a mechanical engineering book of the 1880s. This steam locomotive featured rubber tyres on its three wheels and, unusually for the time, the driver sat at the front of the vehicle. It used logs in the upright boiler. Robert William Thomson (1822–1873) was the Scottish inventor of the pneumatic tyre in 1845. The resilience of the stout rubber tyres allowed his lightweight five-ton steam engine to cause little damage to the roads compared to heavier vehicles.
An old engraving of a Victorian ‘road steamer’ carrying a coal wagon, made by Robert Thomson, Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. It is from a mechanical engineering book of the 1880s. This steam locomotive featured rubber tyres on its three wheels and, unusually for the time, the driver sat at the front of the vehicle. It used logs in the upright boiler. Robert William Thomson (1822–1873) was the Scottish inventor of the pneumatic tyre in 1845. He worked as a railway engineer. In 1867 he patented solid India-rubber tyres for his road steamers. The resilience of the stout rubber tyres allowed his lightweight five-ton steam engine to run on hard or soft surfaces, over obstacles and negotiate hills causing very little damage to the roads compared to heavy traction engines. Thomson's first road steamers, manufactured in his own small Leith workshop were fitted with three wheels, the small single wheel at the front being directly below the steering wheel. Thomson's road steamers, often drawing four fully loaded coal wagons totalling 40 tons up and down steep hills, were a great draw on the streets of Edinburgh.
Size: 4252px × 2667px
Location: Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Photo credit: © M&N / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1800s, 19th, black, boiler, century, coal, early, engine, engineering, engraving, equipment, freight, historical, history, hundreds, illustration, industrial, industry, leith, machine, machinery, mechanical, nineteenth, pneumatic, power, powered, revolution, road, robert, rubber, scotland, scottish, steam, steamer, thompson, thomson, tire, traction, tractor, trailer, transport, tyre, vehicle, victorian, waggon, wagon, wheel, wheeled, white
