Puffing Billy (locomotive)

Puffing Billy

Puffing Billy as seen from the front

Type and origin Power type Steam Builder William Hedley, Jonathan Forster and Timothy Hackworth Build date 1813–1814

Specifications Gauge 5 ft (1,524 mm) Driver dia. 39 in (991 mm) Loco weight 8.25 long tons (8.38 t; 9.24 short tons) Fuel type Coal Boiler pressure 50 psi (0.34 MPa) Cylinders 2 Cylinder size 9 in × 36 in (229 mm × 914 mm)

Performance figures Maximum speed 5 mph (8 km/h)

Career Operators Wylam Colliery Retired 1862 Current owner Science Museum, London Disposition static display

Puffing Billy is the world's oldest surviving steam locomotive, constructed in 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley, enginewright Jonathan Forster and blacksmith Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne, in the United Kingdom. It was the first commercial adhesion steam locomotive, employed to haul coal chaldron wagons from the mine at Wylam to the docks at Lemington-on-Tyne in Northumberland.

Puffing Billy was one of the three similar engines built by Hedley, the resident engineer at Wylam Colliery, to replace the horses used as motive power on the tramway. In 1813 Hedley built for Blackett's colliery business on the Wylam Colliery line the prototypes, "Puffing Billy" and "Wylam Dilly". They were both rebuilt in 1815 with ten wheels, but were returned to their original condition in 1830 when the railway was relaid with stronger rails.

In the September 1814 edition of Annals of Philosophy two locomotives with rack wheels are mentioned (probably Salamanca and Blücher), then there is mention of "another steam locomotive at Newcastle, employed for a similar purpose [hauling coals], and moving along without any rack wheel, simply by its friction against the rail road". From the context this is at a different location to Blücher, so is probably Puffing Billy.

Puffing Billy remained in service until 1862, when Edward Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery, lent it to the Patent Office Museum in South Kensington, London (later the Science Museum). He later sold it to the museum for £200. It is still on display there. Its sister locomotive, Wylam Dilly, is preserved in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.