Prototype for everything dept. - Stephenson's Rocket 1829

[Simon_100]

Test your track laying skills against the master!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXBwzC4JYC0&t=175s

[Chops]

I have marveled at this Buster Keaton film, and oft wondered how they pulled off the special effects of the Byzantine rail. Clearly, special effects were in the infancy of the 1920's. Nothing indicates that it was other than self propelled.

Has anyone seen the actual Rocket, in York, I think? I am most curious how Stephenson contrived to move the water from the tender to the boiler. One could not just walk into a parts depot and grab a hose off the shelf. Has anyone seen, or better yet, photographed the hose that would have been used?
What research I've done suggests it would have been a stitched leather elongated tube affair. The ingenuity of the man and his son never fails to astonish me.

[Walkingthedog]

There is a copper pipe connected to the bottom of the water barrel. That is connected to a pipe on the boiler probably as you say by a leathers hose. Not sure if the water was pumped by hand.

I saw the Rocket in the Science Museum in London. Not sure where it is now. I know York has a replica but might have the original as well.

[2027Joe]

REF> The Rocket.

When the old "Transport Museum" was at Clapham in London, before being moved to York, on a plinth outside was a large replica of Rocket.

I believe that this was taken up to York when the NRM first opened.

[Simon_100]

I have marveled at this Buster Keaton film, and oft wondered how they pulled off the special effects of the Byzantine rail. Clearly, special effects were in the infancy of the 1920's. Nothing indicates that it was other than self propelled.

Has anyone seen the actual Rocket, in York, I think? I am most curious how Stephenson contrived to move the water from the tender to the boiler. One could not just walk into a parts depot and grab a hose off the shelf. Has anyone seen, or better yet, photographed the hose that would have been used?
What research I've done suggests it would have been a stitched leather elongated tube affair. The ingenuity of the man and his son never fails to astonish me.

I think I've seen it when I was a kid but can't really remember where as I've been to Clapham, the Science Museum and York ...

Tye inginuity of all of thes epioneers is staggering, think of the Atmospheric line at Dawlish, South Devon Railway - OK, it failed! - and the early railway telegraph systems that had to invent insulation for the wires, if I remember rightly pig fat was one of the prototype materails tried out but the rats climbed up the posts and ate it!

[Mountain Goat]

There is a copper pipe connected to the bottom of the water barrel. That is connected to a pipe on the boiler probably as you say by a leathers hose. Not sure if the water was pumped by hand.

I saw the Rocket in the Science Museum in London. Not sure where it is now. I know York has a replica but might have the original as well.

One can usually tell which is which because the origional had its cylinders moved later in its life to the horizontal position, while the replicas were all made with the cylinders in the origional vertical position.

[Chops]

I cannot imagine the skill and ingenuity to fabricate a water and pressure tight leather hose. If you gave me modern tools and all the supplies, I doubt I could figure it out in ten years. If memory serves, hah, hah, there was a rather simple, but clever one way valve, that I could never understand, as one would assume the steam pressure of the boiler would simply slam it shut, but somehow this apparent defect was overcome.

Stephenson, Jr. wrote to his remarkable father, that during hydrostatic testing, shortly before the Rainhill Trials, that the back of the boiler was bulging out by a factor of 1/8th of an inch, and that this was worrisome in that the boiler might rupture. Additional stay bolts were fitted to correct the issue. That these blokes could measure stuff down to 1/8th of an inch, in the absence of a clear reference point, in 1829, boggles the mind.

In my research, it was never clear to me how a prototype boiler would be tested for pressure. I'd rather imagine it would something like this: "Oy, you over there, Chops, look lively and shovel on some coke" and they would stand at a safe distance and wait to see if Chops was blown to kingdom come. Not so, they would pump the cold boiler full of cold water to a pressure greater than the expected operating pressure and look for leaks.

Again, slapping together an adequate pump, strong enough to create pressure of what, about 35 psi, and double that pressure, is a remarkable feat of engineering and mechanical skill. These guys were making a complex bit of machinery out of nothing.

[RAF96]

I marvel that these self taught engineers could do the calcs for bridge loadings. Where do you start with determining the forces involved and transferring those loads into material capabilities.

[Simon_100]

I marvel that these self taught engineers could do the calcs for bridge loadings. Where do you start with determining the forces involved and transferring those loads into material capabilities.

Here in Spain they kept to the old ways until the 'forties! Testing a bridge on the Lleida - La Pobla de Segur line that finally opened in 1951!

[RAF96]

I have seen that dead load methodology used to test the structural strength of a micro-lite aircraft.
It was supported inverted on trestles and the wings and tail and fuselage loaded with sand-bags until it passed the calculated static G load bearing.
In the bigger aircraft world we had a dynamic test rig that comprised a complete wing mounted in a whiffle-tree (also whipple-tree) rig with hydraulic jacks running computer loading into the structure to simulate accelerated actual sortie patterns. This kept the test article ahead of the fleet so any failures could be monitored and fed back into service by way of inspection and repair.