The inventor of the world's first steam locomotive is considered to be the Englishman Richard Trevithick. Perhaps not everyone will agree with this fact, but it was he who received a patent for his invention in 1802. Trevithick was indeed a genius inventor, but a lousy businessman. Richard died in 1831 in poverty. Even his grave has not survived.
Probably many believe that steam locomotives were a rather slow mode of transport. This is not so, the maximum officially registered speed of the locomotive is 201.1 km / h. So in 1938, the English steam locomotive A4 No. 4468 "Mallard" was able to accelerate. The record remained unbroken.
The first victim of a steam locomotive is called a member of the British Parliament, William Harkinson. Tragedy struck in 1830 at the opening ceremony of the railway line between Liverpool and Manchester. During the ceremony, Harkinson was hit by a train and died several hours later from his injuries.
Can a steam locomotive collide with a steamboat? It turns out that it can. This happened in 1913 in Ohio (USA). During the flood, the water level in the lake, also called Ohio, rose sharply, and the railroad track was flooded. The machinist took the risk to lead the train even in this situation. As a result, a river steamer crashed into the locomotive.
Steam locomotives of the "Ov" series, popularly called the "sheep", began to be produced in Tsarist Russia in 1912. These hardworking steam locomotives were considered the most reliable and unpretentious. They could work on a wide variety of fuels: coal, peat, fuel oil, wood. Some "sheep" could be seen on the railways of the USSR even in the fifties.
The most massive steam locomotive in the world was also produced in our country. Steam locomotives of the "E" series were produced for almost the entire first half of the twentieth century. As a result, about 11,000 of them were manufactured. These locomotives are very popular with filmmakers, they can be seen in many domestic films, for example, such as "The Elusive Avengers", "Officers", "The Cranes Are Flying", "The Admiral" and many others.
In 1932, the first passenger steam locomotive of the 1-4-2 series was produced at the Kolomna steam locomotive plant. By the decision of the labor collective, it was named IS - "Joseph Stalin". At that time, the IS was the most powerful passenger steam locomotive in Europe, capable of speeds up to 150 km / h. At the same time, the USSR produced freight steam locomotives of the FD series (Felix Dzerzhinsky). In the sixties of the last century, when the country was fighting the consequences of Stalin's personality cult, steam locomotives of the IS series were renamed FDP (Felix Dzerzhinsky "passenger")
There is an assumption that in 1816 Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, who became Russian Emperor Nicholas the First a few years later, during his visit to England met the famous engineer George Stephenson, who is considered one of the "fathers" of railways. The Grand Duke became interested in the locomotive, and even risked a ride on it, moreover, as a stoker, not a passenger.
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