Spotlight: John Stevens

[@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

Yooo it's the train I drew when I was 6

[@channelsixtysix066]

😆

[@JonatanGronoset]

More Camden & Amboy madness! Those chaps were dedicated for certain. 4mm boiler plate!? I wouldn't run that thing even at gunpoint, and even moreso after the fact this paper tube of a boiler was the main structural component of the locomotive! The 4-4-0 that resulted in the rebuild is quite fashinating, though. Lovely organ performance, a man of many a talent you are!

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

Fascinating to see engineering drawings of this thing, such a ridiculous design getting so much worse, that firebox is especially suspect. What a disaster of a machine, but hauntingly fascinating.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Due to length I didn't cover the increasingly eccentric boiler designs - including a combustion chamber in the centre of the boiler barrel with a bank of tubes at either end. how on earth one was meant to clear the tubes, clear out any ashes etc from the combustion chamber or ensure it was actually water tight I've no idea.....

[@nicholas2198]

An interesting video as usual, I didn't know that the boiler plate thickness was so thin AND it was still being used as the main structure of the loco which is pretty alarming. A future video looking in detail at another American oddity, the Fontaine loco might be interesting?

[@K-Effect]

It looks like a "race" locomotive if there was ever such a thing. Lightweight and low center of gravity with tall 8 foot driving wheels. Just from a quick look, it doesn't look like it was Intended to pull anything but just to go fast

[@cr10001]

@@creamwobbly I can confirm (to my cost) the uselessness of those SUV's and their paper-thin sidewalls (just waiting for a rock to go through them) on any country road.

[@johnclayden1670]

Fascinating as always - and entertaining too. 4mm boiler plates acting as frames beggars belief. And they kept trying!

[@PaulinesPastimes]

Wow, another eccentric design from the same team of eccentrics. As you so comically pointed out, the poor fireman must have been on his hands and knees trying to fling coal to the front of the firebox. I also like the fact that they made the boiler out of very thin wrought iron plates and then decided to use it to support the entire thing. To be fair, I suppose they were trying out new ideas, or were they just misguided. Love the garden shed. 😄✔

[@TotoDG]

Seeing the thumbnail: “It’s Camden and Amboy, isn’t it?” After opening the video and reading the description: “Yup. I knew it.”

[@channelsixtysix066]

😆

[@malcolmtaylor518]

Using a Crampton on light track was asking for trouble. Photos and diagrams for this video exceptionally good.

[@ianbertenshaw4350]

Hundred paces??? I wouldn’t want to be on the same continent as it 🤣 Another fantastic , educational and entertaining video in the can Anthony ! Thank you !

[@lizzard3699]

3mm 😂😂😂 That sounds so crazy insane

[@garryferrington811]

Thanks for the vid! I've seen photos of this anomaly for ages but never discovered anything about it. What a contraption!

[@Orlandov12]

You know you messed up when the narrator can’t contain his laughter

[@barrydysert2974]

An utterly terrifying contraption.

[@thestarlightalchemist7333]

Chris Eden-Green and Anthony Dawson within 20 minutes? Awesome!

[@thisisaduck]

You really weren’t joking when you said the cab looks like a garden shed.

[@tonywolton]

I enjoy all your videos on early steam locomotives, a subject I find fascinating. At a time when locomotives in Britain were not just looking functional but also starting to look elegant, in the USA we have this 'Heath - Robinson' monster. I have seen a photo a photo before of this contraption; brilliant that you can give us in depth history.

[@electrik_loss]

4MM thick wrought iron boiler plates? Sounds like a steam-driven grenade to me, and it definitely played out as so.

[@sammurabi4743]

If you were to describe a steam locomotive to someone who's never seen one before in their life, I feel this is what would come to mind. It's like a caricature of a steam engine.

[@metal_wheels]

so true lol

[@thomashenderson3901]

Dimension nerd here. It's 4.76mm to two decimal places - Still frighteningly thin for boiler plates BUT thinner materials are less prone to cracking...

[@cr10001]

Look at it this way - a bigger (diameter) boiler with much thicker plates would explode at a much higher pressure. (Reflecting on that, the John Stevens would have been even safer with 2mm boiler plates ;)

[@peterluptak6860]

Finally. Great video as always.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Thanks!

[@nostalgiccameralife]

My understanding is that Dripps was not really sold on the idea, and didn't really see the point of building more after the first one - but Stevens pressed him to continue developing the design.

[@channelsixtysix066]

OK, a 3A wheel arrangement..... Is this some sort of joke? 01:29 Really? I can't imagine why. 03:55 A single set of 2.4m driving wheels, with most of the weight borne on the 3 sets of leading wheels, what could possibly go wrong? Now, I'm no engineer, let along a mechanical engineer, but even I can see this was never going to work. The ridiculous contraption was essentially a bomb with 4mm thick plate for the boiler WITH NO LOAD BEARING FRAMES !!

[@mr.theengie9010]

There was… more than one… That’s the biggest shocker of this video, never mind the exceedingly stupid design choices. Another fabulous piece of work as always

[@Poliss95]

100 paces is a bit close isn't it? I've heard of bits of exploding boilers travelling a very, very long way. How about a chapter on accidents and the beginnings of the railway inspectorate. One story that fascinated me was the train that had a dual brake system. Both air and vacuum brakes as I remember. Ice formed in a pipe and stopped the brakes from working.

[@channelsixtysix066]

The American Westinghouse brake was one of the great railway inventions of all time. Where a vacuum had to be formed to hold the brakes off. O.S.Nock wrote "Historic Railway Disasters", referring to brake systems and signalling.

[@cr10001]

@@channelsixtysix066 I can also recommend 'Red for Danger' by L.T.C. Rolt, dealing with the development of railway safety from the earliest times to the mid-20th century. I think it covers about the same topics as O S Nock's book - both are good reading. I don't know of any equivalent book covering American or European practice.

[@channelsixtysix066]

@@cr10001 Thank you. I'll have to have a look at that.

[@delurkor]

I saw a picture of this locomotive in one of my books many years ago. Thank you for its story. And thank you for your work.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

You're welcome

[@TheSaint491]

Do love your laugh of combined amusement and terror

[@sirrliv]

Honestly, if not for the Monster's name and bizarre drive linkages (not to mention the boiler layout, something I hadn't previously been aware of), this beast would have been a good second candidate for the Halloween special. That said, the Camden & Amboy were not the only early American railroad to experiment with Crampton-style locomotives. I can only hope that at some point we might also see a Rail Story on the "Lightning", the Syracuse & Utica Railroad's attempt to bring high speed to American rails, with at least marginally greater success than the "John Stevens" in design, but with almost the exact same results in performance; practically no pulling power, unable to maintain steam, and too delicately built for rough American frontier track. Of course, if we're sticking to the topic of bizarre Yankee oddities one cannot fail to note the Baltimore & Ohio's Camel locomotives (not to be confused with the later Camelbacks, though the two types are often incorrectly grouped together) and the veritable feud over the design between mad engineer Ross Winans and his protégée Samuel Hayes. Or there is the Philadelphia & Reading's "Novelty", which looks for all the world like an ordinary 0-8-0 towing a secondary boiler but is actually far stranger than that.

[@garryferrington811]

Later cab-over-boiler engines were actually called "Mother Hubbards." At some later point, that somehow got changed to "camelbacks," but I'm not sure that the railroads ever called them that.

[@nostalgiccameralife]

There is a direct evolutionary through-line from B&O's camels, to P&R's camelbacks. The P&R bought camels from Winans, these were modified extensively by James Millholland to burn anthracite. Millholland's successor was John Wootten who built off Millholland's designs and created the Wootten firebox for burning culm, and introduced the camelback locomotive. While they are not the *same* per se, the camelback is practically an evolution of the camel.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Winans, .... now there's a character.

[@Petelmrg]

Great video as usual; how lucky we are to be able to discuss and look back at this almost lunatic machine at a safe distance.

[@odenviking]

Thanks for a informative and intresting video on steam locos. 🇸🇪🇸🇪👍👍

[@raztaz826]

Dragster loco! 🤣🏎

[@thisisaduck]

That’s basically what they’re going for lol

[@marcbnaylor7340]

A very interesting video as always Anthony. I love your videos as I am very interested in the early locomotives of all countries. I can’t wait for the ready to run models of Lion to come out in 2022. Rapido and Hornby are making them.

[@manfredatee]

Thank you so much for making this video. These locomotives were absolutely bizarre, weren't they?

[@trainguy2780]

I’m pretty sure this is the only American locomotive with 8 ft driving wheels also great video👍

[@germantanker131johnny2]

I love the organ and piano music in your videos. Do play them yourself?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Thankyou. I do, yes :-)

[@Steamtramman719]

Didn't Norris build the banking engines for the Lickey incline? I saw the stone once in Bromsgrove Cemetery erected following the death of the crew when one of them exploded. I've a feeling they had an odd wheel arrangement.

[@richardswiderski4985]

What a strange looking engine.Great video as usual.

[@connormclernon26]

I’ve noted that the American early locomotives adopted cabs earlier than the Brits. Why is that?

[@nostalgiccameralife]

American winters are much more harsh than those in England, or even Scotland really. Average winter temps in Albany for instance, are about half that of those in Edinburgh.

[@thisisaduck]

Pretty sure the summers are hotter in some places too. Shade is always nice.

[@channelsixtysix066]

@@nostalgiccameralife That may be so, but there is no excuse for British locomotives to go without any sort of crew protection at all. Even later on, the GWR were especially stingy when it came to even providing a minimal cab on their locomotives. It took the appointment of Charles Collett, in 1922 before things changed.

[@mikebrown3772]

There's that 'Monster' dome again!

[@metal_wheels]

damn that looks like something out of any railfan's nightmare

[@mattevans4377]

The high up driving position reminds me of the camel back locomotives

[@TrainBoi227]

It looks like the prototype for the Wooden Railway "Stephen the Original Engine", but with the wheels switched around.

[@worldtraveler930]

How about doing a study on the steam engines of the Darjeeling mountain railway in India?!?

[@bskorupk]

I wonder how much the use of the Boiler as a Frame contributed to Boiler Explosions on less experimental designs? Why don't Traction Engines have this problem?

[@channelsixtysix066]

Good point. The 4mm thick boiler plate didn't help things. If you look at the design of a traction engine, the boiler is relatively stubby as it extends beyond the firebox. All the weight and load is on the massive rear wheels, by necessity. The front wheels only have to steer it. Steam traction engines are beautiful beasts. 😊 Even modern tractors haven't really changed from the traction engine concept. the engine and transmission from a solid chassis.

[@cr10001]

Most steam locomotive boilers (and probably traction engine boilers too) are made of quite thick plating and extremely strong. Since stress in a pipe wall is proportional to diameter (and pressure), the larger the boiler diameter, the thicker the wall needs to be. So the John Stevens at just 3 foot diameter, could afford to be just half the thickness of a more normal-proportioned boiler. But - 4mm is still alarmingly thin, and doesn't allow much for loss by corrosion.

[@Samstrainsofficially]

@@cr10001 I work on a loco with a boiler of about 70 litres capacity, it's tiny. Even this is made of plate about 20mm thick. The idea of a boiler this big with 4mm plate is terrifying coming from todays environment of over engineering for safety

[@otakurailfan]

What an interesting video. The Monster was weird for sure. The John Stevens is downright mad. The boiler plate being a mere 3/16in alone is pretty thin. Shouldn't be at least double the thickness? Ashamed they didn't them as standard 4-4-0 locomotives from the start.

[@mikoajstanaszek7979]

When narrow gauge?

[@owainlloyddavies7107]

did the firebox have a water jacket? and in general does a horizontal boiler need a water jacket? 🤔

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Yep. Firebox was surrounded by water, like pretty much all locomotive fireboxes. Some have a 'dry back; ie no water spaced but 99.9% have water around five of the six sides.

[@liamlittle2494]

This locomotive seems to be the kind of thing most five years olds would draw when told to illustrate a “choo-choo”.

[@pvtimberfaller]

4:50ish. Incorrect. Lengthening the stroke would increase torque, larger diameter, horse power. Neither of which would increase tractive effort caused by too light of a locomotive. They all have to be in balance depending on what use the locomotive is designed for. Using an actual frame, a 4 wheel truck in the front would have helped. Not sure about the “3/16” boiler plate thickness. I supposed it’s possible but I’m not sure it would be enough to act as a frame. It would hold pressure okay.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Shorter stroke would have improved a) efficient use of steam and b) the starting characteristics of the locomotive. Once running I am sure it was fine but the problem was the starting transient.

[@pvtimberfaller]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Just the opposite, steam has usable energy as long as it has pressure. Efficient use is dependent on cutoff. Mississippi paddle steamers are an excellent example with a 6' stroke. Properly designing the locomotive for the job required. A lot of which engineers were just guessing at, at the time it was built. Longer stroke gives higher torque, the lever principle. Short stroke high speed passenger locomotives have always been hard to start compared to long stroke freight locomotives.

[@matteomarmiroli1713]

A steam powered bomb! I am not surprised one of them exploded just after delivery!

[@Smacstac]

Would love to see your thoughts on the Holman locomotive. Both of them. They are in so many words. The most deranged locomotives ever put to rail.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

But not an original idea: John Melling the locomotive superintendent of the Liverpool & Manchester in 1838 patented a very, very similar type of locomotive. There's no evidence it ever ran but he clearly undertook experimental work on wheel wear, rail wear, adhesion etc. he made a convincing case.

[@Smacstac]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory yes. But the Holman locomotive wasn't designed to be anything revolutionary. It was designed to scam the general population. And unlike mellings loco the Holman actually ran and had a service life.

[@pilotbug6100]

Not to mention this is such an eyesore

[@Skyhawk996]

The front six wheels look like tank road wheels. I was hoping the train had tank treads for some reason.

[@jackswallowell7790]

I wonder if anyone's made a scale model of this engine yet. It's a pretty neat design

[@survivingworldsteam]

I started on a static (non-powered) HO Scale model of it; but stopped when I got to the point of trying to model the valve gear and driving rods. What is hard to fathom from side views is not just how tall, but how narrow this thing was. The eight foot drivers meant that everything had to fit within the gauge of the track; with that long, low slung boiler of less than standard gauge in diameter with the huge steam dome and stack on top; it looks positively freaky next to a conventional 4-4-0. The walkways that normally runs in the middle of each side of the boiler is replaced with a single walkway on top of one side of boiler. Unless they scrapped all but a few bits when they rebuilt them as 4-4-0s; I doubt they were much good either. That long narrow boiler with the low pressure due to what it was made of would have made for a very wet running locomotive.

[@neilkelly3849]

These last two uploads...... Are you making them up?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Nope. Fully researched, I assure you.

[@TalenGryphon]

This looks like the steam engine equivalent of a Big Wheel: Good for burnouts and little else. Or like a steam locomotive a child who knew very little about trains would draw

[@XanthinZarda]

For those reading along at home stuck using systems of measurement which base themselves on barleycorns, 4 mm is not even a half inch. This is so alarmingly thin as even a machinists hammer, much less a proper sledgehammer could pierce the boiler with a misaimed swing.

[@owainlloyddavies7107]

since making a steam engine for uni I've been on a steam binge

[@sebastianthomsen2225]

just 4mm bolier plate....... WHAT! 😨 what madman tought that was a good idea?!?!?

[@the4tierbridge]

Are all these videos on the Camden & Amboy leading up to something special? Or is it just a coincidence?

[@turkeytrac1]

The un-Crampton, Crampton.... what a strange beast.

[@Wutzofilms]

Wow! I had read of these, but had no idea, how suicidal their design really was! Using such a thin boiler, as a structural element no less, must have been absolutely terrifying for the crew. In Comparison, the "Monster" almost seems to be a sensible design and that's saying something! Judging from the illustrations, the fireman would have to kneel in the tender, hurling coal pieces into the firebox. Must have been insanely tiresome.

[@survivingworldsteam]

If you look @4:57; the fireman stood on the front of the tender, not on the locomotive. He would be shoveling coal at roughly the same height as he would a conventional boiler, but would have to throw it hard to reach the front of the grate. The drawing @2:23 implies there was a steam space with stay bolts over the firebox, though @AnthonyDawsonHistory did not color it in. I thought I read something about a firedoor also being on top of the firebox; thought that drawing does not imply it; just at the rear like a conventional firebox.

[@Steamer96]

Do one on the Horrible Horrendous Holman locomotives.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

The crazy ones on roller skates?

[@Steamer96]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Yes those things.

[@robinfryer479]

Wrought Iron is a very TOUGH material, no longer made. Steel is “stronger” but its Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio are quite different. Modern ‘wrought iron’ is actually mild steel. The effect of hot, wet, steam on the strength of ferrous metals is to weaken them. The logic of locomotives with a low centre of gravity, was falsely intuitive. Basically, such a locomotive would spread tracks, instead of rolling on its springs. Crampton Locos didn’t persist for long in GB, but we’re popular and successful in France or on the continent. Listening to the narrator (if his given facts were correct) made my hair stand on end. The dialogue is like an April Fool. Norris sold a handful of their locomotives to one of the early ‘midland’ railways, in England.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

The best way to describe the Norris locos in Britain is "miss-sold". A very sorry saga of Snake Oil Salesmen

[@thomasshaftoe461]

There's a early locomotive called The Freak.

[@alexcanine4948]

cool

[@marrrtin]

Crampton was the Ferrari of his day.

[@uniquely.mediocre1865]

I love cramptons... but oh boy these locomotives... are something lol

[@bl7355]

If it looks too complicated & weird to work, it usually is....

[@CindyDijkema]

this looks like a cartoon locomotive

[@FQP-7024]

I'm beginning to suspect that any remotely unique or cool looking engines were failures

[@Peasmouldia]

Come back Heath Robinson, all is forgiven... Ta.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

It looks like it was designed by a child and the way it functioned you'd presume it was

[@Tak3anap]

In all honesty these locomotives shouldn't even count as crampton locomotives

[@cr10001]

That thing looks utterly idiotic in the photo. But unlike many odd-looking designs, that start to make some sense when explained, this one gets *worse* the more you examine it, in every possible way. It seems to have the unusual distinction of not incorporating one useful idea.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

The daft thing is, Cramptons in Europe were eminently succesful locomotives. It's just that Stevens and Dripps thought they could go one better.....

[@cr10001]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Yes. In the days when 'single drivers' were adequate for train weights, the (European) Crampton was perfectly adequate for fast (by the standards of the day) light (by later standards) trains. Stevens and Dripps just took it to extremes, in a situation where it wasn't well suited anyway. It's like they saw a Crampton - long low boiler, little wheels at the front, big wheel at the back - and thought "We'll make it longer and lower, with more little wheels and a bigger big wheel, and that will be even better" :)

[@malcolmgibson6288]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@CindyDijkema]

thanks i hate 6-2-0 locomotives

[@newobanproductions]

Question: Why couldn't the John Stevens 6-2-0s work properly or have issues made worse instead of being fixed? My Answer: Backwards American logic.

[@nostalgiccameralife]

In perfect fairness to Robert Stevens, he was an accomplished marine engineer, his boats and engines were considered not only state or the art for the era, but among the best, if not the best in use in the world at the time. His father, John Stevens had constructed a twin-screw steamboat with water tube boiler *in 1804* (the engine and propellers of which still exist), and one might rightly consider them something like the steamboat equivalents of George and Robert Stephenson. Sometimes genius in one area doesn't translate to another (another example: Brunel who was brilliant as a civil engineer, but blundered repeatedly with his locomotives, adoption of atmospheric railways, etc.).

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

I think Stevens was obstinate. Stubborn. Rather like Brunel or Ericsson. Determined to do things his own way. Find his own path. Thought he knew better than others, and was perhaps unwilling to learn from others or past mistakes. He had a very original mind and his marine engine designs were very good. But excellence at marine engine building does not neccessarily equate with excellent locomotives. I also thing he and Dripps wanted to go one better. Prove the "new world" was as good, and perhaps better than the "Old world". Cramptons in Europe were excellent machines; fast reliable runners until eclipsed by heavier and heavier trainloads around 1870. Even then some held on in secondary routes until about 1900 (France and Belgium had some incredibly antique locomotives running around). Its as if he saw the Crampton locomotive but failed to understand it or wanted to build something bigger and better, applying the Crampton principal ad absurdam. He could have simply emulated Crampton, but no had to go bigger and better. Firstest, mostest, bestest and all that.

[@nostalgiccameralife]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory It's a common story through the ages: some engineer has a string of successes under their belt, and then they think they can do anything, they start start thinking things like "surely, I will revolutionize the world of transport with latest invention, the Sinclair C5".

[@ironhorsethrottlemaster5202]

You need some new music or no music at all besides that point very interesting video

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

I do it all myself to avoid paying royalties as most of the royalty-free stuff is rubbish. If you could suggest a royalty-free alternative?

[@ironhorsethrottlemaster5202]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory yes look at the man called wintergatan marble machine he has been making this machine that makes music and he also makes music that you can buy the rights for for a dollar and you can play his music on your videos plus it would get his name out there a little check out the first marble machine song and thenLook 50000 marble song video and he talks about how where you can go to pay for a license to use his music it's also very good beautiful and interesting music peace out into the world have a great day

[@topgear3487]

This engine is american I:(

[@channelsixtysix066]

If I were a self-respecting American railroad engineer back then, I'd feel somewhat .... embarrassed.