Talk:Killingworth locomotives

Article name
I think that "Blucher" should redirect to Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. After all he wasn`t named after this locomotive. It was the other way around. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.137.121.49 (talk • contribs).


 * I think it's absurd that a locomotive which throughout the article is referred to as "Blücher" (note the umlaut) should have "Blucher" as its title. I don't want to interfere here without asking for other people's opinions, but what is going on here? &lt;KF&gt; 18:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Okay, it looks like what needs to happen here is that this article should be moved to "Blücher (locomotive)" to bring it more in line with other locomotive articles and "Blucher" should redirect to "Blücher" which is already a disambig page pointing to pertinent articles. Any objections? Slambo (Speak) 18:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No. That's exactly what I would do. Lots of redirects to be considered though. &lt;KF&gt; 19:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Didn't notice the date on the first comment above, so I thought there were more people involved in the discussion. Anyway, the move is done and I've gone through updating the redirects as appropriate. Slambo (Speak)  19:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Blast Pipe
While the originator of the blast nozzle is in some doubt, it is quite clear from Trevithick's own writing that he turned the exhaust up the chimney and observed the improved draught. I have therefore excised the following sentence from the article, pending discussion:

"Stephenson was not satisfied with the Blücher’s performance, but the lessons learned from its design allowed him to develop the steam blast, which allowed exhaust steam to go up the chimney, pulling air behind it and increasing draught. This greatly improved performance on subsequent models."

Globbet (talk) 23:46, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Is this the Blucher?
The locomotive pictured in this article looks very like the 1815 or 1816 Stephenson design of locomotive, rather than the 1814 geared locomotive that may have been given the name Blucher and would have looked very different. See Pre-1825 locomotives. In particular the Blucher had spur gears whereas the print shows the direct gears first suggested in his patent with Dodds of 28 Feb 1815 and prototyped later that year. In fact, the print shows "No. 2" on the tender which is reported to be an 1816 locomotive still in use in 1841. (See Smiles: Lives of the Engineers, 1862)

All the references in this article are tertiary sources which could well have merged these different designs. Does anyone have better information? Chris55 (talk) 11:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I note that in Pre-1825 locomotives, the only mention is "It is possible that another geared locomotive was constructed later in the year, and possible named Blucher ...", i.e. doubly doubtful. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * There was almost certainly a locomotive named Blucher (often spelled Blutcher) but little is known about it and many of the details in this article are wrong. e.g. it didn't have "cylinders directly connected to the wheels". The only engraving in Smiles is of the spur-gear. Most of the description in this article applies to the much more successful models developed in 1815 and 1816 which were very influential in getting both the S&D and L&M railways going.
 * It raises the issue of which is worthy of an article? I doubt that 2 articles are necessary or desirable. Would it be better to rename this article as "The Killingworth locomotives" and redirect "Blücher (locomotive)" to it? Chris55 (talk) 11:45, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

1822 loco still working in 1905?

 * "83 Years Old and Still 'In Harness'"
 * "The above engine was constructed in 1822 and is at the present time at work in the County of Durham."

Anyone care to comment on this photo? Andy Dingley (talk) 00:04, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I was wondering about that too, but I've managed to track this beast down. Sadly its age appears to have been exaggerated, though its design is certainly archaic. It's now owned by the National Railway Museum, which has loaned it to the Beamish Museum. NRM's page on it claims it was originally built by Stephenson and Nicholas Wood for Hetton Colliery in 1822 and remained in service until 1912. However, its claimed 1822 origin appears to have been a misunderstanding which was not corrected for a long time. According to Beamish Museum, which calls it "Hetton Lyon", it was actually built by the colliery in 1851-52 (see, for example, this Beamish Flickr entry, these blog postings, and this article). Its design used much older techniques, which is what had misled earlier researchers. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 02:51, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting, thanks. Certainly an archaic design for the 1850s!  Probably worth an article here too. Does Hetton Lyon have enough credibility to use as a name? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't vouch for it based on what I've found. The Beamish Museum would probably know more. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 19:18, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Locomotive names
It seems incongruous that the locomotive would have been named "Blücher" in 1814, supposedly after the Prussian general's timely arrival at the Battle of Waterloo, when the battle itself didn't take place until the following year. Clarification please. --GBev1987 (talk) 20:41, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Possibly after Battle of Leipzig 16–19 October 1813 or Battle of Katzbach 26 August 1813. The former was in many ways equivalent to Waterloo - Napoleon has chased back to France and sent into exile after both battles. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * First of all, Blucher may have been later than was thought. Current thinking in steam history is that the first loco was My Lord and Blucher was second. A Century of Locomotive Building is an old book, scholarship is a bit more precise these days and it's recognised to not always be entirely accurate on the early locos. See Lyon for another early loco with a problem history in the early books.
 * As to Blucher, then he was a household name in Britain in 1814, even if not yet "the saviour of Waterloo". Waterloo was simply the culmination of the 1814 campaign, of which Blucher had been one of the main leaders. Also there's no confirmation that the loco was named from the outset (although this seems likely). I wouldn't see Waterloo as being a definitive earliest possible date for the naming. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:42, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

User:DeWiSm, talk page User talk:DeWiSm added the following comment to the main page at 07:43, 3 March 2017. I have moved it here verbatim. "(I believe that Blucher is a later misunderstanding of the local name by which George Stephenson’s Killingworth loco was known. In the Northumberland dialect, bloacher describes a large beast or unwieldy tool.  See / search the nineteenth century books https://archive.org/stream/northumberlandv128hesluoft/northumberlandv128hesluoft_djvu.txt and https://archive.org/details/glossaryofnorthc00brocuoft  (DS))" Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I've looked up the two references given. Brockett defines "Bloacher" as "any large animal",   Heslop repeats this definition but adds a further link: "any large animal.  See BLUTCHER."   The definition of "Blutcher" is "a heavy, unwieldy instrument, or thing.  It is also applied to describe a huge animal."   This is more interesting in that "Blutcher" is specifically defined (Brockett doesn't mention the word) and refers to inanimate objects.  However it must be treated with caution since it is three-quarters of century after both the general and the locomotive – indeed it would be possible to conceive the locomotive giving rise to the dialect term.  The Oxford English Dictionary doesn't mention either term.


 * All this is of course blatant WP:OR by both DeWiSm and myself! Can anyone supply a secondary or tertiary source linking the dialect terms to the locomotive?  Even a reference in a newspaper would allow it creep into the main article! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd want to see etymology to confirm that a Geordie "bludger" pre-dates Blücher himself, and wasn't just a later corruption of his name. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:29, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi Andy. The "Bloacher" term looks pretty clear, Brockett was working from earlier MSS and books.  He published in 1825, so a realistic date for writing would have been 1824 or 3, that is only 10 years after the loco.  If the word was new then it would have been ignored, Brockett was recording a vanishing dialect.  "Blutcher" though is more problematic; Heslop was published in 1892, nigh on 80 years later. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:19, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * My point was this - do we know that Geordie didn't adopt "blutcher" from Blücher himself, then apply it to the loco? Although there does seem to be little history of Geordie culture and dialect from before the railway age, when people like Smiles started to take an interest. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:35, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No, we don't know either way. In legal parlance the dialect is on a list of suspects, possible with a "case to answer", but a long way off conviction!  Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I've traced an interesting reference to "Blutcher" in Smiles' Life of the Engineers. Although the Lives is dated 1862, Smiles mentions in his preface: "the original appearance of this work some six years ago under the title of "The Life of George Stephenson'",  so a date of 1856 can be tentatively applied.  Dealing with Stephenson's time at Killingworth Smiles says: "Although a considerable advance upon previous locomotives, "Blutcher" (as the engine was popularly called) was nevertheless a somewhat cumbrous and clumsy machine".

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Image change
Is this article about Blucher, or the more common Killingworth types, with chain coupling rather than gears? The image change today is quite unrepresentative for those. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:11, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No problem, I've moved the Blucher picture down and restored the drawing of the chain coupling locos Railfan23 (talk) 21:41, 29 September 2018 (UTC)