Absolutely. It's amazing to think that in France in the 1770s you had Cugnot and has Fardier and also Jouffroy d'Abbans experimenting with steam boats - another invention the development of which was curtailed through politics.

Railways certainly would be different - They would have a centre running rail....🤣

@@BassandoForte Lifesize Lionel...🤔

I think going back and introducing Cugnot to a condensor would have been a greater leap forward.

@@heatherroseisrflyer why? high pressure steam was the way forward to make a steam engine small and powerful enough to be self-moving!

The French were ahead of all nations concerning technology back then : The first balloon, the first iron covered battleship, the first self propelled car, the first telegraph, the first mechanical computer, the first camera both for still and motion pictures, the latex, the first photovoltaic panel, first Gyroscope, radioactivity, blood transfusion, stethoscopes, vaccination... and the guillotine. Unfortunately for them they focused a lot on the latter.

That must have been a very interesting trip to the DMV. "So you said it's an early car. What year? 1900? 1905?

@@splicetape9435 It would actually be registered as a replica. I had to go through the process of getting a bonded title, (of course, different states have different laws, so don't quote me on this,) and they had an option for "replica" as a description for the automobile in question.

@@markhenry5294 florida its SUPER EZ

Personal combustion? You burn the driver?

Perhaps it would be better to say self propelled? As in, a vehicle that travels on roads and it not pulled/pushed by animals or people.

Is Henry Ford really seen anywhere as the inventor of the automobile? I think he is rightfully known for making the automobile a mass transport vehicle and for his new modern production line (though this too, was not entirely new). As for the automobile, even if you only consider IC engines, Benz made his first car 30 years before the model T. Brands like Peugeot and Panhard (as well as Benz, obviously) were already making fairly large numbers of production cars as early as the 1890's. But Ford certainly made the car available for the average american citizen, something that would not happen in europe until the 1940's and 50's.

Glad it helped!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thankyou, Jean. I'll re-record the audio. It is indeed - there's a lot of French industrial history which often gets ignored by Anglophone books etc. Thomas Newcomen is often considered the 'inventor' of the Steam Engine but what about Denis Papin? And as I covered on this channel M. Giffard and the first powered, controlled flight.....I should also look at the Marquis Joffrouy d'Abbans and his steam boat. I'm more or less self-taught with my French. I was an award-winning German Student at School (perhaps not surprising given my ancestry) but haven't used it since school, whereas I've used French perhaps every single day since. I've studied French Military and Poltical history for the best part of twenty years and my Masters Degree was a study of the French Army in the Crimean War, and I've written several books on the army of Napoleon III. And gone to places like hte Musee de l'Armee and the Chateau de Vincennes to do archive research.

jean bonnefoy, this bull (me) has seen a red flag. the first powered flight in america was probably not by the wright brothers but by someone they had met, a german immigrant named whitehead. apparently, the wright brothers, or their family, offered their first plane to the smithsonian institute on the condition that there will be no consideration of claims that whitehead beat the wright brothers for the title of first powered flight.

@@creamwobbly well story goes they tried to loose everything 2 save weight. Even possibly crapping off side

judging by the licence plate in the video, seems it is in florida

Wow so you actually found an original model and not a replica, now we need to know if a 1886 Benz original model exists

@@tros_725 Not just an original model - THE original model. I was surprised by how large it is. The boiler would be a good 1.5- 2 meters in diameter at it's widest point.

Cugnot intended for the engine unit to be able to be coupled to *any* horse drawn vehicle in lieu of the limber and horses.

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory of course the weight would counterbalance the weight of the load. Reminds me too of those Rushton Petrol 3wheel trailer movers and similar used by the post office and rail companies -a pain to drive in a straight line 1

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Gosh, I've known about this steam vehicle since childhood, but never knew that! So the steam engine and its driving wheel really is a mechanical horse, "harnessed" in the same position as a horse, all very logical.

Perkins came up with a variety of "patent circulators" to help hot water and steam circulate in a locomotive boiler. They were put on a trial on the Liverpool & Manchester railway as Perkins claimed to reduced running costs, and that his patent device would prevent or at least mitigate sludge deposition in boiler barrels and furring of tubes. Suffice to say, the "patent circulator" did not live up to Perkin's expectation under actual trial conditions. Thereafter it got a bit acrimonious.

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory the son wasn't much different from the father either, slew of inventions that no one remembers that are probably a touch overblown at the time. Edit, and the grandson...🙄

best of luck trying to steal that for a collection.

Thanks

Cugnot basically intended his self-propelled "wheel" to replace horses and limbers on trasditional road vehicles. This meant he couldn't put the engine behind the wheel, it had to go in front so it could couple up in place of the traditional limber. It was capable of turning in the same space as horses. The Replica built in France has been shown to operate for over and hour and a half without needing refuelling or the water tank filling up again. It was also officially measured at 6mph by a police radar gun. So for its day it was not that slow and could travel a reasonable distance without a break.

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Also it was meant to haul cannons, so you needed the back area to be available for cargo space.

Many thanks for your kind words. Yes as soon as I uploaded the video I realised I'd pronounced Cugnot incorrectly! Sadly I can't re-record the audio. I looked in the army archives at Vincennes the other year about the fardier but couldn't find anything obvious about it. What annoys me most in Britain is the ignorance shown about it, and how Cugnot is dimissed as a failure - not just hitting a metaphorical brick wall due to the politics, but a literal one crashing into the house of the Bishop of Paris. A story I can't find any record of in C18th records in France but which appears in English just after Cugnot's death. There should be a dossier on Cugnot somewhere at Vincennes or the Archives Nationale. I look forward to seeing the results of your work sometime. We could always collaborate on KZfaq.

There'd be no need for pistsons - you've already got rotary motion, so just connect it to a gear train! Basically a turbine, so Turbomotive or Turbinia 2,000 years earlier!

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory True! Though, to get the sort of power to drive a vehicle, I imagine the inventor would also need to think of an efficient way to harness that energy - perhaps by taking inspiration from waterwheels or an Archimedean screw, or by lining up a series of Hero’s steam balls attached to an axle, then gearing that axle to the wheels (the Antikythera mechanism shows the ancient Greeks had the ability to manufacture precise gears and had a knowledge of gearing ratios - not sure whether or not they understood force differential, though). If, for the second design, the steam balls were contained within a cylinder, it could act as a condenser to catch water to be pumped back into the boiler via an injector (if the ancient Greeks managed to figure out siphons, it’s not too far of a stretch they could figure out steam injection technology if they put their minds to it). Alternatively, they could use two boilers - one that’s fired and another that’s cool and acts as a condenser for the waste water; they could then move the heat source over to the other boiler when the first boiler is exhausted.

Cannot. Unsee.

"High pressure" refers to steam being used ABOVE atmospheric pressure.

The cylinders act on the down stroke only. To go astern, the pawl of the ratchet is changed over, so that the wheel is turned on the upward stroke of the piston rod. This looks like the action of a double-acting engine; but it is not. The upward driving stroke is powered by the downward stroke of the cylinder on the other side, through the balance beam visible behind the two cylinders.

Cugnot's Fardier a Vapeur is considered to be the world's first automobile.

"Car" is "carriage" shortened.

Cugnot definitely deserves credit, but surprisingly there is evidence from a car built in 1459-1460 by Leonardo Da Vinci

Yes, Richard Trevithick over thirty years later.

That's the first time I have heard that slant on it. It is usually said that development was due to the economics of shifting more load plus people experimenting with new technology, but it's possible your reason could be a factor. Worth considering anyway.

The steam road coaches were killed off by Turnpike trusts - whilst several Parliamentary Select Committees in the first half of the 1830s found them a succesful and rapidly maturing technology, the rapid spread of Turnpike Roads, managed for profit by Trusts who could establish their own bye-laws killed them off. Turnpike trusts charged excessive tolls for steam carriages and by the end of the decade the steam coach was basically dead. Many Turnpike Trusts also stipulated no steam engine could be used or erected within 20 yards of the road - a very real challenge to the use of agricultural engines. Turnpike trusts were very powerful and influential, often made up of the local Gentry and with the ear of Parliament.... The 'Red Flag' Act of 1864 was a modification of an earlier piece of legislation from 1861. The 1864 Act stated any road locomotive had to have a crew of three and during daylight hours be proceeded by a man with a red flag 100 yards ahead to warn horses and horse drawn traffic and help them around the road locomotive. It stated locomotive could not produce smoke and that the safety valves could not lift in built up areas. It also granted local authorities the right to make bye laws to manage the hours during which a road locomotive could pass over its roads, often down to Parish level. These local authorities tended to be very conservative and imposed very tight restrictions on road engines often to a few hours, usually at night. The Act, however, didn't apply to agricultural engines. A new Act in 1871 made the 1864 Act less onerous by saying the red flag man had to be only 20 yards ahead and said any restrictions on road locomotives had to be more reasonable - as some very unreasonable locla laws had been imposed. It also legislated about bridges and the use of road locomotives over bridges - but again individual cases were left to local authorities.....There was favourable Parliamentary Select Committee reporting on road locomotives in 1896 which, approved steam (and others) on the road. Finally in 1898 (as late as that!) you get the Road Locomotive Act which abolishes the red flag man; abolishes the need for three men on the engine; and says they can move about in daylight. 🙂🙂

I hope to do a video on the first steam boat built by Jouffroy d'Abbans under Louis 16th.

It is. The Fardier Cugnot was built to move heavy artillery. At that time heavy artillery pieces were dismantled and transported on what in English is termed a "sling carriage" and in French an "affut fardier" - the barrel was carried slung beneath the "affut fardier" and the carriage eight dismantled (if it was a garrison carriage with small truck wheels) or if it was a field carriage pulled by a gun team of horses - but much lighter, obviously, without the barrel. When it came to put the gun back together, a gin was used - a three legged crane based around an A-frame - to winch the barrel back in position. Cugnot's "Fardier" was essentially such an "affut fardier" but with a steam engine attached in lieu of the limber and horse team. He didn't design the back half, jsut the engine unit at the front. The plan was that the engine unit could be connected to any reasonable large vehicle.

@AnthonyDawsonHistory Folks really underestimate steam power, I think.

Indeed. Sadly what it did need was support at Court - which it did not have.

That's very naughty. It definitely had two!

absolutely!

Yes. Developed by a Swiss army officer working for France Jean Maritz and his son, Jean Maritz jr.

It is interesting that steam engines came from the convergence of technologies formed from the cannon boring, brewing (copper boilers), and Bell making (bronze foundry and machining pre cannon). One can only wonder whether steam engines would have been invented if Europeans hadn't been religious, boozy, and warlike.

You could start by making a relevant comment on the videos instead of playing some childish game

Someone has to be :-)

@@misterflibble6601 You say you're not a child at heart, and yet you love trains. Curious.

Not a dud - killed off by politics. It worked perfectly well :-)

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory His mindset was on military use rather than attempting to improve the boiler for example and didnt think of cranked inclined cylinders rather than the verticle cyinders of steam pumps. We never really got Steam Tractors that I can think of, but the Steam wagons of Foden and Sentinel had the kind of front wheel drive that this unit has. At least one Sentinal was equipped with pnuematic tyres in the 1970s and could do 60mph along the motorway (stopping distance was a big longer than the normal trucks on the road though !!

Steam tractors certainly exist, they are just called traction engines. But in europe they never really caught on like in the US. Most european farmers went from horses to diesel.

@@slome815 Certainly in UK there were a variety of steam traction engines in a variety of formats - Road Rollers for macadaming roads, steam lorries for carriage of goods, farmers and haulage traction engines ( eg used by pickfords and others for the haulage of heavy made plant - often boliers and stationary large engines for loom work or pumping purposes ), the steam plough - often worked in pairs with a chain winch underslung on each road locomotive which would haul a plough or plough systems accross a field from top to bottom, showmans engines - often would generate electricity for lighting as well as a direct drive for various fairground rides - though many would have their own small boiler and engine system, with the showmans engine hauling a road consist of up to four vehicles. The steam tractor was a sort of short steam lorry often fitted with a winch and used a lot in forestry operations it could again haul a trailer or two of loaded wagons. Examples of each are often on show at the likes of the Great Dorset Steam Fair each year.

@@highpath4776 Yes, the Uk has a good deal more, but mainland europe has fairly few. And I don't think it was anywhere as widespread as in the US. Nor are the engines as huge as in the US. I noticed when I was visiting the car and tractor museum bodensee, that out of their huge old tractor collection, almost all of the steam traction engines were american. The first german tractors really only start with hot bulb engines. Obviously there will be some exceptions to this.