Puffing Billy locomotive (Micromodels H1)
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Puffing Billy locomotive (Micromodels H1).jpg) (i)
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An assembled miniature card "Micromodels" model of the Puffing Billy locomotive.
The model was part of the three-locomotive set, H.1. Famous Historic Locos, which included Puffing Billy, Rocket and Locomotion, and sold for 2'6.
About the original locomotive
Puffing Billy was one of two prototype coal-hauling locomotives built in around ~1814 by William Hedley. Hedley had previously been experimenting with cable-hauled designs and designs with toothed drivewheels: the Puffing Billy was the world's first commercial locomotive to use modern-styled "smooth" wheels and rely solely on friction between the drive wheels and the track (with the weight of the locomotive pressing the wheels hard against the tracking). The locomotive achieved this partly by using "four wheel drive" - by powering all four wheels (0-4-0) rather than just a single pair.
The Puffing Billy was used to haul coal from Wylam Colliery to the River Tyne. The locomotive is now on display in the Science Museum in Kensington (catalogue number 1862-2). Its sister-locomotive, the Wylam Dilly, is on display at the Royal Museum, Edinburgh.
External links
- Micromodels Set H.1., Famous Historic Locos (worldofmicromodels.com)
- Three Micromodels of Locomotives, Yale University Library Holdings (yufind.library.yale.edu)
The locomotive
- Puffing Billy at the Science Museum (sciencemuseum.org.uk)
- Wylam Dilly at the National Museum of Scotland (nms.ac.uk)
- Puffing Billy (Wikipedia)
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