Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> This book is a reprint of the impressive and now extremely scarce volume published in 1923 to celebrate the centenary of the locomotive building firm of Robert Stephenson & Company. Since two of the four original partners in the firm were George Stephenson and his son Robert the book is much more than a mere account of the proceeding of a successful manufacturing enterprise; it is virtually a history of the development of locomotive design and building techniques between the years 1823 and 1923. The author in fact takes us back further and gives a brief survey of the progress of locomotive invention from its beginning and a summary of the lives of the Stephensons before embarking on a detailed analysis of the accomplishments of the Company. Most attention is paid to the first 35 years with a particularly well documented chapter on the famous Rainhill trials of 1829 which in some respects marked the definite arrival of the steam locomotive as an accepted form of transport-although the Stephensons had already built fifty-five engines before the Rocket which won this competition. Other chapters are devoted to the design of the Rocket itself and the subsequent Planet to the evolution of the link motion and to the much-debated blast-pipe.