THOMPSON'S ROAD STEAMER.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 3993, 9 June 1870, Page 6

THOMPSON'S ROAD STEAMER.

Country settlers need no longer complain of the impossibility of getting their produce to market. Bad roads, or distance from a portage, need no longer appal the struggling farmer, for scientific invention has come to the rescue, and a species of traction engine has been perfected, by Mr. "W. R. Thomson, o£ Edinburgh, which will draw from 6 to 25 tons over the softest roads, at from 3 to 1 2 miles an hour, run over grass fields, climb ascents with a gradient of 1 in 8, plough fields, turn hi less space than horses, and carry its own fuel and water. For £500 an engine can be purchased which will draw 8 tons at the rate of 2^ to 6 miles an hour ; while, for double that sum, a 25-horse-power engine may be obtained, capable of drawing a weight of 25 tons up the same gradient and at the same speed. The great drawback in all previous traction engines has been their extreme weight and their liability to breakage. lit running on soft roads the ordinary traction' engine has constantly become " bogged," or has moved along so laboriously as to render it of no practical advantage over horses ; while on hard roads the weight of the engine itself, and the shocks experienced by the machinery caused frequent breakages, and cut up the roads fearfully. But in Mr. Thompson's road engine these effects are entirely absent. It runs with equal ease over hard and paved streets without jolting, over soft roads without sinking, over muddy roads without slipping, and over ploughed fields, upon ice and frozen snow, ancf through loose sand. It is small and light, and easily manageable. Indeed in Paris one of these engines ran for weeks with one of the great Versailles omnibuses attached to it, carrying 50 passengers. It went up a paved street beside the "Trocadere," where the gradients are one in nine ; crossed the Round Point at hours when it waa thronged with vehicles and equestrians, and in the beautifully level Paris streets easily attained a speed of 12 miles an hour. Another road steamer was used on the sea sands at Portobello, where it ran at the rate of 10 milea an hour, in the midst of a torrent of rain ; and, at Aberdeen, a five«ton road engine dragged out a 20-ton load, olimbing a gradient of 1 in 20, with single gear. But the test of all othera-whioh proved the wonderful adaptability of Thompson's road engine waa made at Edinburgh on the 17th September in last year. At the steam ploughing matches of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society, it ran down a lone grass hill, with a gradient of 1 in 4£, filled its tanks, and returned up the hill again; and, afterwards, two of Fowler's double-furrow ploughs were attached to it ; on it went, making four deep furrows perfectly straight, and even without a hand being put to the ploughs. Arrived at the end of the field.it turned with far greater ease than even horses could do, and ploughed its way back again up a hill with an incline of 1 in 12. While three horses were painfully struggling along with one double-furrowed plough through the exceedingly hard, dry, stiff soil, it was drawing its two double-furrow ploughs with such 'ease that it was evident there was an immense supply of power to spare. The road steamer, too, is quite free from the accidents to which horses are liable by becoming entangled in the chains, and when occasionally it accelerated its speed too much, a single " woa" would bring it to a stand. The engine can be employed equally ■well in plsughing, carrying manure, reaping, iuowing, or taking produce to market. But we will gwfi a few more instances of the extraordinary powers of Thompson's Road Engine. At Edinburgh a 6-ton engine was attached to four huge wagons filled with pig-iion, weighing together 34 tons, which it drew with the greatest ease from the top to the foot of Granton Road, with inclines of lin 18 to lin 25. Arrived at the top, it turned with its train in the road itself, and ran back again. Another road steamer conveyed a party of gentlemen from Granton to Leith,a distance of 2| miles, in 21£ minutes. Another 6-ton road steamer is employed regularly between Aberdeen and the Kettock flour-mills, its duty being to carry a load of 10 tons along a narrow, crooked, and greasy road, upanddown inclines of lin9to 1 in 7&. The engine makes four trips daily, and the whole consumption of coal each day is barely half-a-ton. The. Indian Government have given extensive orders for these engines, to be used in the conveyance of troops and stores on the Grand Trunk Road. In Ceylon, they are likely to 'be much in demand on the coffee plantations, the estimate being that a saving of £60i,jis effected in the conveyance of 10 tons of coffee a dis ance of . 125 miles by the engine, instead by the" ordinary bullock-drays. The Onger Coffee Company*' calculate upon a saving of as much as £5,468 a-year, or 60 per cent, on the expenditure for transport, by the use of Thompson's road engine. The Thompson road engine owes all its facilities, and. its exemption from the disabilities of other traction engines, to one device, as simple as it ia efficacious. The wheels, which are of great width, are surrounded by tires of vulcanised india-rubber. These thick bands of, india-rubber enable the road steamer to float : over the surface of the ground without the slightest damage, .while they likewise protect the machinery from all concussion. The intervention of the clastic tires between the wheel and the road acts in fact in the, same way on the roadway as if the engine were running; over a tramway of india-rubber. To prove how small is the crushing power between the surface of the road and the outer edge of the wheels, bits of coal, potatoes, carrots, to,, were placed in the path of the engine, and after it has passed over them they nave been pioked up unorushed, - , '.. ~ The ro>'d iteamer !■ exceedingly firm and oomp&fc -i It.: run» on. three «-whe6ls, larg^onea^juMTa smaller, one in front. iTi»india>rjftb,er tires for the three wheels of a; lO'horie vpower engine weigh 14c wt., and the'Hwa'ifrft'guiirded by flexible shields, formed U open »teel bars, which give an excellent bite or hold upon the ground; and while th(*y do not' in any T way interfere with the 'fljwtio play of the indiarubber, they afford such protection to it as to render it c virtually indestructible. -,The shields, which I are removable, are not used for driving over frozen snow,- as on- such surfaces iron will ■ iiot.-bite a an&fiere the indiarubber is* of ii»mense advantage, as it.runs.over them with .perfect «ase, and without slipping. In runnine through sand, also, aa in Egypt, the shields aye .dispensed with. *In the foregoing wo have compiled, from « . number /of circulars^ kindly sent to us)

for ' the purpose, a detailed description of ( the capabilities of the engine, and we may now pass on to give some figures > showing the coat of the different varieties. It is .calculated that when running on an average road the consumption will be under two pounds of coal per mile for each ton of gross load, and the consumption of water is about' seven pounds to each pound of coal. Wjieh Wood is used instead of coal the consumption'will 1 be three times that of coal.' An eight ton road steamer parries 250 gallons of water and 6cwt. of coal, the water lasting half a-day, and the coals a whole day. Trains of wagons to carry from four to five" each are supplied at from i'ss to £70, and the axles, wheels, springs, and necessary iron works may be supplied to the colonies without the bodies. These would cost from £35 to £55. One man and a youth are required to -work a. road steamer and train. An 8-horse-power road steamer suitable for ploughing and agricultural purposes costs £520, and patent ploughs adapted to the engine cost from £56 to £100. A road engine of 3-horse-power, having a comfortable covered carriage mounted on the wheels, with seats for four passengers inside, and with seats for servants, costs £500. It will run at a speed of eight to ten miles an hoitr. It ia mounted on springs, and one man can steer and attend to the fire. A road steamer capable of drawing a patent omnibus, with 65 passengers, costs £550; and a road steamer capable of carrying 105 passengers, or two omnibuses carrying 50 each over hilly roads at the rate of seven miles an hour, costs £650. The road steamer can be turned with the utmost facility on the -most crooked " roads 'of ordinary width, and the goods wagons and omnibuses, when' in tow, follow its track round corners and through gateways with the utmost precision. Mr. Thompson's patent omnibuses, on indiarubber wheel tires, to carry 40 passengers, cost £320 ; an omnibus to carry 65 passengers, £375 ; to carry 105 passengers, £450. The road steamers are manufactured by Messrs. T. M. Tennant and Co., Leith; and Mr. R. W. Thompson, C.E., Edinburgh, is the patentee. The circular specifies that, for foreign orders one-third of the amount nrast be paid in cash, the balance on delivery at the works after trial, unless the orders go through an English broker or merchant. We have gone thus fully into a description of the road steamer, because it is obviously exactly the sort of thing that would be of immense value in this country, especially in some of the country districts. The high pi ice ought not to be a difficulty, for one engine might be made to do the work of almost a whole district, and it might therefore be purchased on the co-operative system. To show its adaptability for bad roads, we may mention what occurred recently in England, when a number of military engineers^ were watching the performances of one oi L these road steamers. The road steamer was driven round and round in a field saturated with melted snow. The road steamer left the merest trace on the slushy ground, while the wheels of the vehicle behind cut it into deep ruts. But as the engine passed over these ruts, when retracing the circle, it effaced them ; and, by-and-by being detached and allowed to run over the ground alone, it repaired the surface, and made it perfectly smooth and even,