Steam Application on Railroads and Locomotives-Final Product

Origins:

The development of steam engines started in the 1700s. With these engines there were various attempts to use them in railways and railroads. But the first successful creation of a railroad was made in 1804 by a British inventor called Richard Trevithick.

Since 1829 the production of steam locomotive railroads started to be more common, they were developed in several countries. Also in United States was made the first demonstration of the steam power on locomotives, but it wasn't made for a daily and production use. The first domestic locomotive manufacturing industry was established in 1830.

After this the production of steam locomotive railroads increased, the power and the speed was better and the creation of railroads was expanded to Europe and America, replacing the transportation and communication carried by horses.

First railroad made by Richard Trevithick

DeWitt Clinton domestic locomotive

Main parts of steam locomotives' structure:

Boiler: It is a device used to create steam by applying heat energy to water, using coal. It has two main components: firebox and the smokebox.

Steam circuit: This helps the locomotive to transport the steam through all the structure.

Chassis: This is what supports the structure of the locomotive and where it is mounted.

Running Gear: This is what helps to perform the motion system.

Fuel and Water: This is what propels the locomotive's structure.

Crew: Is the staff that controls and drives the locomotive.

Blueprints of a locomotive

Changes and progresses made by the Industrial Revolution:

The industrial revolution was a period that increased the human civilization and the technology. This caused a lot of positive changes in the production of steam locomotives and railroads. The power and the speed was increased, the system and functioning of them were performed, so they could be more efficient and help the people to transport in an easier and better way. These changes improved every part of the locomotive's structure, which was a great change and revolution for the means of transport.

Last steam locomotive to be built

This amazing work was done by: Julian Restrepo, David Rodríguez, Juan Pablo Zapata, Rafael Villegas, Nicolás Rodelo, Jaime Andrés Tamayo and Tomás Giraldo.

England during the Industrial Revolution

In this revolution England had several key aspects:

• What kind of houses did people have at the time?: There were tow types of houses, home of wealthy, which were like castles for rich people, just in the center of a giant garden; or the homes of the poor people, they shared toilets, they were small.
• What kind of meals did factory workers eat?: Factory owners were responsible for providing their pauper apprentices with food. Children constantly complained about the quality of the food. In most textile mills the children had to eat their meals while still working. This meant that the food tended to get covered with the dust from the cloth.It was very hard to get food in the industrial revolution due to little pay and poor wages.
• How much money did factory workers make?: They were payed about 1 shilling (a type of currency in that time), or about 5 pence these days. They were payed about 1 shilling, or about five pence in today money, but with inflation, it could be about six or seven pence.
• What were the working conditions?: Workers had to labor for many hours, often more than 12 hours a day, sometimes more than 14, and people worked six days a week. One of the main concerns about the number of textile workers was the safety of the factories. Unguarded machinery was a major problem for children working in factories. There were reports that every year there are nearly a thousand people treated for wounds and mutilations caused by machines in factories. Many of the workers were often abandoned from a moment that is when accident occurs. Their salary is stopped, no medical attendance is provided and no compensation is given.

As you can see, only life was good for wealthy or rich people, but for the less fortunate, they had to work under terrible conditions, only at the end to be surrounded around their master's plan to gain more money. However, most of these conditions are already solved.

The Last Differences Between Colombia and England

1. A) What country has more natural resources: Colombia or England? A// The country that has more natural resources between Colombia and England would be Colombia, because it's soil is able to breed anything. Also, Colombia has part of the biggest jungle of the world, which can have resources that we have yet to discover.

B) Why do you think are the reasons that Colombia didn't develop in science and technology like in England? A// It was essentially because of the wars, since Colombia didn't have any reasons to develop new technologies to win over their enemies. However, Colombia, seems to prefer "importing" technology to use their resources (money) on more regional tasks. Meanwhile, England really needed the technology, if not, they could've lost wars like World War 2 (however, they didn't really help with technology in that time) and the battle of Waterloo, also it must have been because England wanted to keep being a world wide potential.

2. Make a short essay where you say what it should be done in Colombia to develop the science and technology. A// A way to get Colombia to develop more scientific development, would be getting more practice rather than theory, we already have the work of hundreds of scientists, aide from creating more theories, we should put to work these ideas and theories, to prove if it's wrong or correct.

This last point of was made by Juan Pablo Zapata.

Differences Between Colombia and England 5

1) What country did you know have more natural resources? Colombia or England.
A// Colombia because it has a lot of natural resources, also the being in the middle of the earth helps keeping out resources to produce all year long.

2) Why you believe Colombia didn't develop the science and technology, like happen with England?
A// Because England had more resources to lay on for example the others countries who can helped them different from Colombia.

3) Make a short essay that shows what we need to do in Colombia to develop the science and technology.
A// I think that Colombia has almost what it needs, the only thing is missing are ideas for working, some of them may take some things that can not be found in the country but with Ideas I think that the country could be better.

This point of view was made by one of our authors, Nicolas Rodelo.

Differences Between Colombia and England 4

1. A) What country has more natural resources: Colombia or England? A// I think that Colombia has more natural resources than England because Colombia has a big surface able for the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, the reason is that Colombia has a lot of fertile mountains and many of the fruits and vegetables grow in wet or high places and Colombia’s territory has a lot of that. Also Colombia has more livestock than England because the temperature and the terrain are better.

B) Why do you think are the reasons that Colombia didn't develop in science and technology like in England? A// I think that Colombia didn't develop in science and technology like in England because England was constantly fighting with other empires for power, territory and riches, because of this England needed to have better weapons, better armors and better soldiers to win the battles and conquer.
But in America this didn't happen. Before the discovery of America the tribes didn't have the same needs as England. The natives only needed to have shelter and enough food for the tribe, they didn't think a lot in having more territory or more power like in Europe.

2. Make a short essay where you say what it should be done in Colombia to develop the science and technology. A// In Colombia, we have a big problem, most of the population is poor, so they don’t have the money to access to a good education nor a university. But another part of the population has enough money to study in a good university; we can motivate those persons to study science or technology, saying them the advantages of those careers, also we can talk with the big technology companies to give opportunities to the graduates.

The fourth point of view was made by Julian Restrepo.

Differences Between Colombia and England 3

2. A. I think Colombia has more natural resources because Colombia has a more extensive territory with more mountains and different types of weather, which makes Colombia a perfect territory to cultivate all kinds of things. While England because being an island doesn't has much territory or mountains as Colombia.

2. B. Colombia didn't advanced as England in sciences and technology because here the natives didn't had wars and they didn't had much interactions with other tribes so the natives had to discover the things by themselves and didn't share they knowledge with other tribes, while in Europe was completely different, they had a lot of wars so they shared they knowledge with other countries so with their discoveries gave them advance more in both sciences and technology. Not only that, at the medieval age all the countries needed things that another country had so they needed to have new transportation to be faster at the other part so they made more and more investigations to the transportation to be better.

3. To make Colombia advance in science and technology first we need to have better education. This will make the future children more intelligent, get better jobs and they will want to interact with people of other countries, as travellings so they will discover new things and will make themselves some ideas about how making something better or even discover new things.

This post was made by another of our authors, Rafael Eduardo Villegas.

The world in 1800- Differences between Colombia and England

2/A/ What country do you think that has more natural resources: Colombia or England?
Answer: I think that Colombia and England have many natural resources, but they are of different types. For example, in Colombia you can find resources that come from nature and all the biodiversity that Colombia has, like: coffee, bananas, rice, potatoes, gold, cotton, sugar cane, oil, and others. While in England the resources you can find are more technology, scientific and educational, like: hydroelectric, thermal electricity, cattle, oil, natural gas and other things.
The following pictures are from England.

B/ Why do you think and what are the reasons which explain why Colombia didn't develop in science and technology as like in England?
Answer: England developed in science and technology, because they had a privileged location, a good climate, energetic resources, flat terrains and navigable rivers. Colombia didn't have all these geographical advantages and England had many wars, so they needed a lot of technological and scientific resources, and Colombia didn't have many wars. In Colombia there were many slaves, so they just thought in doing their duties and surviving. The following pictures are from Colombia.

3/ Make a short essay in which you say what should be done to develop the science and technology?
Answer: I think that in Colombia the poverty affects a lot the country, because many people doesn't have access to a good education, so almost anybody has the privilege of studying science or technology. If Colombia improves that situation and reduces the violence, everyone would have access to a good education, so then Colombia can associate or ally with a country which has these advantages and become a very important country when talking about science and technology, because of the natural resources that Colombia already has.

This work was done by one of our authors, David Rodríguez Arbeláez.

Differences Between Colombia and England 1

1. A) What country has more natural resources: Colombia or England? A// I think Colombia; since it haven’t used its products and because of its geographic location, near the equatorial line that let a good development of the agriculture.

B) Why do you think are the reasons that Colombia didn't develop in science and technology like in England? A// I thinks it’s because England was under constant attempts of conquer so they needed create defense methods and develop the ones they already had, Colombia by the contrary was a country in development which had a really hostile atmosphere that difficult the conquer attempts.

2. Make a short essay where you say what it should be done in Colombia to develop the science and technology. A// I think that the science and technological development isn't a great importance subject, since this gets improved every day. The true importance subject is the poverty, a great part of the Colombia people (and the people all around the word) are being affected by the poverty. This makes us loose the effort people make to develop it since only a little part of us can get benefited by it. When we had solved the theme of the poverty everybody will get benefited by the science and technological developments and they will need to be improved to satisfy the needs of the community.

As you can see, this was an interesting point of view from one of our authors, Jaime Andres Tamayo.

This Week on the Blog...

This week we'll have several posts, including how was England on the Industrial Revolution, and differences between England on the present day with Colombia, using several points of view of our authors (did you really think I did this all alone?), right now we'll be publishing one of the points of views of one of our authors. Then the post of England on the revolution.

First Phase of The Industrial Revolution: Machines and Workers

Industrial revolution beginning:
The cause of the industrial revolution is because of the great power Britain gained due to some inventions and some discoveries they had making them the leaders with the world commerce.

Technical inventions:
Some of the inventions that gave ideas to the industrial revolution were from the pendulums of some clocks and of the glasses makers who used like a claw to break some things.

England worldwide leadership:
England was very well with commerce due to some inventions they had for clothes specially, but soon some countries in Asia were doing the same so England had ton make up with solutions which made easier to make the stuff and let them keep the leadership.

Machines triumph:
Thanks to the work mechanization and the appliance of heat to the new machine the English industry transformed.

Work mechanization:
Thanks to some ideas the industry of the clothes had a huge advance with the inventions to make the wool larger than before and more resistant but since this machines needed water to be used, were placed always near a river.

Heat application:
Due to an important invention James Watt had the force of production was greater making it easier to do the things and eventually be able to make more in a determined time, this made that some workers were fired.

Iron and carbon industry:
In the industrial revolution they came up with the idea to use Iron as a base material but its melting needed some natural oil so they started searching for carbon to see if it could be used, due to it success the industrial revolution progressed and they stopped cutting down so many trees.

Agriculturist revolution:
Due to the industrial revolution the agriculturist revolution was born.

Transformation of the agriculturist structures:
Due to some farms that the noble people had in the field the agriculture couldn't be taken as much advantage as it should so they made an agreement to concentrate the farms into some place to help the agriculture.

New cultivation techniques:
In the field new techniques were tried to improve the cultivation, due to this the agriculture improved in a 90% and due to the cost of these techniques and the machines some people had to sell they lands and immigrate to the city.

Demographic revolution:
Due to the improvements that England had in the industrial revolution they had more people than ever and the deaths were not so common so they tried to control the number of born babies and sent some people to the united states.

Sorry for the time taken for the first phase, we had some problems with it. Also the length of it was very long.

New Technology Created During The Industrial Revolution

1. Ford Motor company introduced the assembly line.
2. The mechanic loom was created by Edmund Cartwright.
3. Planter and the thresher.
4. Hydraulic systems for some of the constructions.
5. New tendencies as the combustion to transform the metal.
6. The piano at 1709.
7. The English dictionary at 1755.
8. At 1798 Edward Jenner studied the smallpox vaccine.
9. 1799: Napoleon's troops discovered the stone wall.
10. The fist typing machine.
11. The clock.
    

Third Phase of The Industrial Revolution: Technological Revolution

This phase can be considered to be started from 1920 to our actual year. In this year (1920) there were many advancements like the creation of the communication tools, and the transport tool. The aviation and astronautics received great improvements; also, people started working in the use of atomic energy, electric energy and the cybernetics.

Alexander Graham Bell showing for the first time ever, the telephone.

An important trait of this era was the called “Industrial Automation”, controlled by the computers. In the industrial production many processes of assembly were developed by robots.

Machines working on a car without being controlled by people

Second phase of The Industrial Revolution: Technical Revolution

The technical advances and the economic development caused by the industrial revolution, started in a stronger way in the 1840s. On this phase the changes were basically centered in the revolution of comunications and means of transport. The invention of the railways were one of the most important advances of this stage. The first locomotive was invented in 1814, but it was very slow. Then, locomotives with more power were constructed. The invention of railways increased the development of the industrial revolution and was a great step for the improvement of the heavy industry.

The invention of the steamships were also very important on this phase.

In 1803, Fulton designed the first steamship. He was not supported by the French government, so he went to United States where his ideas were accepted. Later he constructed the "Clermont", a steamship. After this, steamships were constructed universally, and even transatlatic ships were constructed, which expanded the routes between all the continents. The Titanic was the biggest steamship that has been ever constructed.

Although the industrial revolution started in England, it expanded through other countries. These are one of the most important countries which marked in the history of the industrial revolution.

France: Since the 19th century, France industrialized basically in the textile and steel industry. They started to construct their machines in their own country. Also the progress was encouraged by the public works and the railroads, the mechanization became very common and important.


Germany: The custom union was established, which helped to create a great market. The railroad tracks grew until a point that in 1850 there were 6000 km of railroad tracks. Germany became a great industrial major power of the world.


United States: It was the second industrial major power of the world. The natural resources, the raiways, the wave of emigrants and others were the causes of their fast industrial development.


Japan: Since the "Meiji"revolution, which occured in 1868, Japan started a modernization process.

The Steam Application

The steam was started to be used in the first stage (1760-1840) of the industrial revolution. Before the application of the steam, many workers had to make the hard work of moving things and carrying heavy stuff. Also the water was one of the most important sources of power. The steam was used to pump water from mines but it wasn’t very efficient. But everything changed when James Watt a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer invented in 1765 the first efficient steam machine used in the industrial revolution.

This invention was so important and very efficient that four years later the textile industry started to use this type of machines. The steam machines were the first step to the industrial development because it can produce faster and it can do it without stopping because it was fuelled principally with coal.

Many of these ideas spread into North-America and Western-Europe and some years later to the whole word. The steam changed the society in an enormous way because it replaced the power of many workers making the production of cloth, machines, metals, etc. more economic, more efficient and faster.

Some years later the textile industry made more improvements to the steam machines; this made the inventors to think in different ways of using the steam. In the first years of the century XIX the steam was used in other industries and activities, such as the transportation industry where the locomotives started to use the steam as power for their engines. And another important activity where the steam was used, was in the furnace, this made more effective the production of metals and new machines that were taken to North-America and Western-Europe.

As a conclusion the steam was a very important step for the industrial revolution, it changed many things in society and the industry. But we have to remember that before James Watt many others inventors and engineers such as Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen contributed to the development of the steam engines.

A Watt steam engine, the steam engine that propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world

Steam engine designed by Newcomen

Steam engine invented by Boulton and Watt in 1784