Trevithick Day - Camborne - Cornwall April 30, 2022
Demonstration run of Trevithick's PUFFING DEVIL replica operating on Basset Street.
On Christmas Eve 1801 the Cornish engineer took some of his friends of a ride on his “Puffing Devil,” the first steam-powered passenger vehicle.
Unlike the steam engine pioneered by the Scotsman James Watt, Trevithick’s “Puffing Devil” used “strong steam”–that is, steam at high pressure.
Trevithick’s engines were extremely versatile: They could be put to work in mines, on farms, in factories, on ships and in locomotives of all kinds.
Trevithick was born in 1771 in a mining village in Cornwall, England. He was a terrible student–his teachers thought he was a “disobedient, slow, obstinate, [and] spoiled boy” who would never amount to anything, and in fact he was basically illiterate his entire life–but he loved to tinker with tools and machines.
In 1790, Trevithick went to work as a steam-engine repairer, first at Wheal Treasury and then Ding Dong mines. In his spare time, he worked on an invention of his own: a steam locomotive that would be powerful enough to carry people and things but compact enough to be practical.
On Christmas Eve 1801, Trevithick’s Puffer (so named because it puffed steam into the atmosphere) was ready at last. The machine had a pressure-operated piston connected to a cylindrical horizontal boiler and was large enough to seat all the onlookers who were eager to accompany Trevithick on his test run.
A few days later during further tests, the “Puffing Devil” broke down 3. The engine was left under some shelter with the fire still burning whilst the operators retired to a nearby public house for a meal of roast goose and drinks.
Meanwhile the water boiled off, the engine overheated and the pioneering road locomotive was destroyed. Trevithick considered it a minor set back and from the ‘Puffing Devil’ Richard Trevithick developed his first railway locomotives which paved the way for future railway development.
In 1996, the Trevithick Society decided to build a working replica of ‘Puffing Devil’ to mark its bicentenary (see photo at the top of the article). The machine was completed in time for 2001 Trevithick Day, and since then has joined a host of other steam powered vehicles parading through the streets on the day — often accompanied by renditions of Camborne Hill.
In this film clip the replica ‘Puffing Devil’ can be seen operating in Basset Street, Camborne.
