Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/111



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. but for business which require only occasional working, or for working during only as many hours each day as horses can do without changing. Steam power loses its great advantage over horses, and in some cases they will do the work cheaper. One great item of the expence of Steam power is the first cost of machinery and engineers' wages, both which would be only the same for working twelve hours per day as for one hour and a half, which is the utmost that a Stage Coach horse can draw at ten miles an hour.—A Steam Coach should work twelve or fourteen hours in every twenty-four hours, to gain the full advantage of the system of Steam power over horse labour; the intervening ten or twelve hours will allow ample time for putting every thing in perfect order for the next journey, if the machinery is what it ought to be; and there should be a spare Coach for every two which are running, to allow time for more considerable repairs; hence I reckon that three Steam Coaches should keep up a double passage of 100 or 120 miles a day continually. Expensive machinery, which is only to be worked occasionally, will not in some cases do work so cheap as it can be done by men or by horses without machinery; and that I conceive to be the case with the extra cost, weight, strength and complication which must be given to the machinery of a Steam Coach, in order to enable it to go safely up steep hills without assistance. I apply these remarks to the present Steam Coaches, but future improvements may in time produce that species of machinery which will effect the going up hill with less difficulty than the present. It has been supposed that the diameters of the cylinders being larger than is necessary for going on level ground, they could be worked with a diminished strength of Steam to go on level ground, and stronger steam when going up bill. To get up ordinary and moderate hills, that is certainly the right plan; but it requires the strength of all the moving parts of the Engines to be made sufficient to bear the utmost force that the pistons can exert when impelled by the strongest Steam that is ever to be used; also, the large wheels which run upon the road