Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/181



Mr. W. A. Summers. 19 August, 1831. in our boiler, we now average with the present vehicle fifteen miles per hour.

Were you travelling for hire on that road?—We have never travelled for hire yet, but merely on experimental journies.

You have never made the experiment of weighing your Carriage to ascertain at what rate you can travel with any particular weight?—We never made the experiment except by carrying persons.

Do you find it easy to increase the velocity with any certain weight?—That depends on a great many circumstances; the state of the roads has very great influence on that; but our power is capable of being increased to almost any extent.

As an engineer, what should you say would be the greatest weight which can be carried by a Carriage weighing three tons at the rate of ten miles an hour?—I have no doubt it would be able to carry three tons at the rate of ten miles an hour besides itself; and after the improvements I have in view are completed. I have no doubt that much greater weights may be carried at that rate.

Have you ever tried it?—We have never tried it; but I ground my opinion on having seen the Steam blowing off at both safety-valves, with tremendous violence, during the time we were travelling at the rate of upwards of thirty miles an hour.

What distance have you ever continued travelling at the rate of thirty miles an hour?—We have continued travelling at the rate of thirty miles an hour, four-hours and a half very frequently, and could have continued to have gone longer bad we not required a fresh supply of water, our tank being not quite large enough.

How could you continue to travel at the rate of thirty miles an hour, when you have already given so low a mean of the average of travelling on account of your fire place?—Because it depends entirely on the quality of the fire; we have never found any difficulty in travelling over the worst and most hilly 'roads since our last improvement in the furnace, when the fire is in good order.