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Editor's Note: This is the second in a two-part series about Richard Trevithick, the British inventor who built the first railway steam locomotive and pioneered the use of "strong steam" in mining, maritime and agricultural applications. Part 1 ran yeserday.
 Ultimately, Richard Trevithick's "Penydarren" made only three trips. Each time, the seven-ton steam engine broke its cast-iron rails, leading Samuel Homfray to cut his losses and abandon the project altogether. Trevithick found work with Christopher Brackett, owner of the Wylam Colliery in Northumberland, but was unable to develop a steam locomotive that was light enough for Blackett's wooden wagonway. The "Wylam" engine weighed five tons, far more than the heaviest horse-drawn coal wagon. Trevithick's next project, the construction of a tunnel under the Thames, almost cost him his life. When a 5-ft. high, 950-ft. tunnel collapsed, the inventor was nearly drowned by the sudden inrush of water.
 After his first brush with death, Trevithick returned to his native Cornwall, where he designed a locomotive called "Catch Me Who Can" and built a circular railway. For a shilling apiece, thrill seekers could visit "Trevithick's steam circus" and travel at speeds up to 12 mph around Torrington Square, near the present day Euston station in London. "Catch Me Who Can" was too heavy for its cast-iron rails, however, and public interest remained limited. Facing financial difficulty, Trevithick abandoned the collapsed tracks and focused upon mining, maritime and agricultural applications for "strong steam", steam that is highly pressurized through the use of multiple cylinders.
 The last phase of Richard Trevithick's life was filled with inventions and adventures alike. After earning a patent for a steam-driven dredger, Trevithick built iron tanks, docks, masts, and buoys in partnership with Robert Dickinson, a West India merchant. Trevithick then endured typhoid fever and bankruptcy before inventing the "Cornish boiler", a machine which featured sealed fire tubes and doubled the efficiency of pumping engines built by rivals Matthew Boulton and James Watt. In 1812, Trevithick built a highly-efficient, experimental, high-pressure steam engine which became known as the "Cornish engine". In that same year, the inventor installed a non-condensing version in a threshing machine on a farm at Probus, Cornwall. Cheaper to run than the horses it replaced, the "Cornish engine" lasted for 70 years.
In 1816, Trevithick traveled to Peru to visit a silver-mine that used one of his high-pressure steam engines. A grateful Peruvian government granted him mining rights, but war forced Trevithick to flee on foot. After passing through Ecuador and Colombia – a journey which nearly killed him – he met Robert Stephenson, a British civil engineer who loaned Trevithick enough money to return to England. During the remaining years of his life, Richard Trevithick built a closed-cycle steam engine, invented a storage-room heater, and began work on a reaction turbine.
Richard Trevithick died, penniless, on April 22, 1833.
Resources:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAtrevithick.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Trevithick
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/energyhall/section9.asp
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Re: Richard Trevithick - Part 2
