19th century we're talking about and you know um it wasn't really the best i mean
the technology was still very very new and people were still getting their feet wet when it came
to the technology and figuring out how it worked and what it was good at and what it wasn't good at
and the potential it was still very very new territory when it came to science and
engineering and everything like that so understand that the reason why this explosion happened wasn't
necessarily due to ineptitude it was due to ignorance because they just didn't know
what they were dealing with safety standards hadn't been established and more importantly
the limitations of the technology had not yet been established as we all know
steam engines are built off pressure based system the power comes from steam pressure
now the inherent danger here that has to be rectified is that anything under pressure is
capable of just exploding bursting whatever you want to call it is always that kind of concern now
with understood mechanics you can build a product that won't result in such a catastrophic failure
and in fact it's important to mention that the steam boiler explosion we're talking
about with this particular locomotive was based off of the boiler integrity failing
this is very rare especially when you get to the 20th century by that point the understanding of
the limitations of the materials involved when it came to constructing a steam locomotive were
well understood and in fact steam explosions due to boiler failure were nearly unheard of in that
time frame but that was not so in the early 1800s again back then they didn't know the limitations
of what is effectively a container you stick your pressurized steam into they didn't know
what the limits of those materials were so it was possible to put the pressure just a bit too high
and cause a rupture and therefore an explosion and that is exactly what happened in 1815 in
philadelphia now i keep saying philadelphia and i probably should clarify for my american
audience i am not talking about philadelphia pennsylvania i am talking about philadelphia
county durham england in what is now the uk so not the philadelphia that american audiences
would immediately think of this is a completely different philadelphia over across the atlantic
with our friends over in the united kingdom hi guys i know you're listening we're talking about
your philadelphia and your steam explosion you had the first one congratulations i don't know
if that's really something to brag about but you did invent the technology so it kind of makes
sense that you would also have the first major mishap with it so i don't think anyone should
come down too hard in the uk all right I'm just saying I'm just defending my guys over across
the season looking out for you people i get mad at british real enough but i don't need to make more
enemies over there now the locomotive in question was known as Brunton's mechanical traveler which
okay i uh i suddenly realized some major context may be required for this particular thing
the mechanical traveler was an invention by William Brunton he was a Scottish engineer and
inventor and it did not operate like any steam locomotive you have probably ever seen in your
life but again this was early when the technology was new and we didn't really know what the heck we
were trying to do with it we were just trying for anything Brunton's idea here was to quite
literally emulate a horse with two mechanical legs that were powered by the steam engine and i'm
gonna give it to him here it was constructed in 1813 and for him to actually figure out a way for
a steam engine to work two mechanical legs i mean he basically made a steampunk metal gear alright
you know it wasn't really that big but you get my point like the mechanical nature of this actually
fascinates me it had to have been a trying effort to get it to work the way it does and it did
function like it did move forward the legs were the drive and it moved itself forward on rails
but it could only go about three miles per hour so it was also about as fast as a walking horse but i
guess that's to be expected it was designed to run on wagon ways which differ from railways slightly
wagon waves were also a set of rails effectively but they didn't have ties like we think of when
it comes to modern railways they were kind of built like into the ground or something just on
the ground and they were used to keep the wagon steady while either cables or horses pulled them
up from a mine shaft for example the mechanical traveler was meant to be a mechanized version of
that and i guess if you really want to get technical it still can be called a railway
but just not the way we would think of them it's also probably pretty obvious that um this
particular design never really took off because i think it's obvious this just wasn't gonna work
you know nearly as effectively as what would become the modern steam engine like it the
the the top speed the power output the the act of mechanizing actual physical legs with steam
power it was way too complicated for its own good and at no game but again early technology people
were trying a whole bunch of stuff and i gotta commend william brunton for his creativity here
and just making it work at all like honestly i'd be curious to see a recreation of it just to see
a little steam engine walking with a pair of legs like that like that'd be neat but you're here for
the big boom the explosion what happened well in 1815 the mechanical traveler was out being
tested in philadelphia county durham england now sources are limited on this because it was such an isolated incident
steam explosions only affect the crew on board but in this case there was a crowd of onlookers around
and at least 13 people were killed some sources say it was high as 16 it goes back and forth the
cause of the explosion was due to a boiler rupture when the pressure gets too high in a boiler they
explode that's a thing that happens now there are ways to prevent this but there are so many causes
in the mechanical traveler's case it actually had safety valves installed specifically to
prevent this problem however apparently those safety valves were actually screwed down
too tightly and this prevented them from going off resulting in the boiler giving way well before the
out the window nobody is willing to rebuild it or even test it further and to be fair it
never would have amounted to much because i mean pushing a locomotive around with a pair of legs
is not nearly as good as what we know steam engines to be nowadays so it was never going to
work out but it's kind of a shame that it had to result in a few people's deaths but in its defense
it wasn't like the mechanical trappers legs were the reason for the explosion that had nothing
to do with it it was a safety valve problem and believe me there are other steam explosions in the
1800s on more practical style steam locomotives that also suffered similar failures so it's not
like mechanical traveler is necessarily unique in that regard it just is unlucky enough to be
the first one so with that until next time this is darkness and I bid you all a fond farewell