The Era Of Steam

The beginnings

In 1769, the idea of ​​Ferdinand Verbiest was taken by the French Joseph Cugnot who has 23october what he calls his "steam dray", a truck powered by a steam boiler. Developed for the military, this is self-propelled truck for moving heavy guns. It reaches a speed of 2000 yards per hour, approximately 4 km / h for an average battery life of 15 minutes. The goblin has neither direction nor brakes, so he accidentally spills a wall during a test. An accident which nevertheless demonstrates the force developed by the vehicle nearly 7 meters long, but signaled the end of his career.

The Duc de Choiseul, Minister of Foreign Affairs, War and Navy is very interested in the project and closely following this innovation, which is a second model produced 1771. However, he left his position a year earlier than expected, and his replacement does not wish to proceed with the goblin, so that it is stored in the arsenal. The goblin will subsequently rediscovered by L.-N. Rolland, commissioner general of artillery in the 1800s, but Napoleon Bonaparte is not interested in this engin.

France is certainly not the only country to develop steam models. American inventor Oliver Evans is the origin of steam at high pression. He exhibited in 1797 his ideas about the past, but found little approvers and died before seeing his invention to the rank it occupies the nineteenth century. In 1801, Englishman Richard Trevithick introduced the first British road vehicle equipped with three wheels, which can carry 9 passengers, propelled the vapeur, called "London Steam Carriage" and travels aboard 10 miles through the streets of Londres. Fundamental problems concerning the management, suspensions and road conditions make the car "road" is abandoned, leaving the paths fer.