Machine-powered transportation

The most fundamental transformation that has ever taken place in transportation was the introduction of machine power. For the first time in history power was produced within a vehicle from fuels that were either part of the original lading or periodically added to its charge. Energy production took place within a machine or reactor whose motions were transformed into propulsive movement. This change may be termed the arrival of the era of machine-powered transportation.

The earliest engines were highly inefficient. They were used to pump water from mines or to refill reservoirs and later to wind cables in elevators within mines. The Boulton and Watt steam engines developed in England in the latter half of the 18th century could produce only a modest output in relation to their fuel consumption. Improvements that increased steam pressures above a single atmosphere allowed the size and weight of engines to be reduced so they might be installed in vehicles.

Like a number of machines, the steam engine was not the invention of a single person in a single place, but James Watt, a builder of scientific instruments at the University of Glasgow, was most directly responsible for a successful design. Though it improved over a period of a generation, the steam engine was fully operable by 1788. Watt entered into a partnership in Birmingham in 1775 with the manufacturer Matthew Boulton, whose firm Soho Works constructed 496 steam engines, many of which were used, as the earlier steam engines of the British engineer Thomas Newcomen, to pump water from mines or to operate waterworks. It was only at the end of Boulton and Watt's partnership that the machinery was applied to transport vehicles.

The key to that introduction was in the creation of a more efficient steam engine. Early engines were powered by steam at normal sea-level atmospheric pressure (approximately 14.7 pounds per square inch), which required very large cylinders. The massive engines were essentially stationary in placement. Any attempt to make the engine mobile faced this problem. The French military engineer Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot had made one of the first applications of higher-pressure steam when in 1769 he developed a tricycle (with two cylinders) at first intended as a tractor for moving cannon; this is commonly thought of as the first automobile.

When two proponents of steam locomotion—Richard Trevithick in Wales and Oliver Evans in Delaware and Pennsylvania—conducted the earliest successful experiments with steam locomotives in the first decade of the 19th century, they both sought to use high-pressure steam. But most of the steam engines constructed and put to use in the last quarter of the 18th century were of Boulton and Watt manufacture and were large and rather weak.

II. Look through the text again and answer the following questions:

1. What were the first engines like?

2. Who was the manufacturer of the first steam engines?

3. What was the main problem that faced the manufacturers of the engines?

4. Who and when developed an engine with two cylinders?

5. Who conducted the earliest experiments with steam locomotives? Were they successful or not?

III. Match the words with their definitions and make up your own sentences with these words:

1. consumption a) the act of applying to a particular purpose or use;

2. experiment b) to make or become smaller in size, number,etc.;

3. application c) perfected, made better in quality;

4. to manufacture d) marked by a favourable outcome;

5. improved e) vapour into which water is changed when boiled;

6. to reduce f) to place equipment in position and adjust for use;

7. steam g) to raise air or liquid into or from smth.;

8. successful h) the act of consuming;

9. to pump i) to process or make a product from a raw material;

10. to install j) a test or investigation;

IV. Read the following statements and discuss them with a partner:

1. For the first time in history power began to be produced within a vehicle from fuels.

2. The earliest engines were highly inefficient.

3. The steam engine was not the invention of a single person.

4. The machinery was applied to transport vehicles only at the end of Boulton and Watt's partnership.

5. Most of the steam engines constructed in the 18th century were large and rather weak.

Giving your opinion you may find the following expressions helpful:

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