Steam engines were the first step towards independent transportation

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When you’re looking at modern transportation it’s easy to forget how different things have become. Internal combustion engines have provided a revolution in technology, allowing us to move away from animals, coal and steam. However, it’s easy to forget the processes that lead us to this point. And while in today's world, technology typically means chips, computers and electrical goods, in yesterday’s world it came in many different forms.

One of the most essential steps on the journey towards the automobile was the implementation of the steam engine. Used on railways, the ocean and even in early motor vehicles, the steam engine helped make travel both quicker and more efficient. It’s also a pretty interesting development cycle. Let’s check it out!

Early beam engine model featuring double parallel linkage, a revolution at the time. Source: Wikipedia

The Beginnings

Similar to internal combustion engines, steam engines were initially released as a design concept, and they would see continued development through the Industrial Revolution, becoming more efficient and more reliable with each iteration.

However, the earliest development of the steam engine was quite early in context. While they were mentioned around the 15th century, they started to make more regular appearances in documentation by the mid-16th century. These early concepts were rudimentary though, and would need further refinement to ensure that they were suitable for mass production purposes.

This would eventually come towards the end of the century, (1698)with steam engine pumps being used in an industrial role, pumping water out of underground mineshafts and undergoing experimental roles on the water, being assessed for its suitability to be operated in a maritime environment.

These early engines were hungry beasts though, and with these early models having little in the way of processing and reclamation systems, a large suitable water supply was consistently required for the steam engine to operate effectively. As well as this, skilled workers were needed to man the boilers and ensure that the steam engine remained within its operating parameters.

Early, steam-driven plough. Steam engines such as these helped with agricultural productivity. Source: Wikipedia.

Modernisation & Refinement

When the design was realised to be technologically sound, eventually work would turn to refining the design, making it more efficient in both work levels and fuel requirements. This new design featured some minor changes to assist in its new performance figures, but one of the biggest revelations was the addition of the condenser.

Added to aid water recovery and increase power the condenser helped the initial design to achieve a high standard of reliability, opening the world up to the implementation of steam-powered railways and ocean liners.


And while we’d normally expect a steam engine to have some vast differences from an internal combustion engine, the reality is that they were actually quite similar. Despite their different fuels and even designs, similar concepts exist. This includes an intake cycle, an exhaust cycle as well as a compression cycle, very similar to the “suck squeeze bang blow” concept of a 4-stroke engine in a modern automobile.

With these developments, the engines became simpler to run, more efficient and more importantly, more reliable. This made it more suitable for both maritime and mobile environments. We’re getting close to the golden years now!

Turbinia was the world's first steam-powered, ocean-going ship. Source: Wikipedia

The Golden Era

By the mid-1800s steam engines had well and truly solidified their role in modern applications, powering railways, boats, static applications and even agricultural equipment. And while early engines weren’t exactly performance powerhouses, compared to earlier animal-based systems their productivity was something else.

In the Golden Era, it wasn’t just trains and boats being fitted for steam. Even the humble bicycle received a makeover. Source: Wikipedia.

One of the biggest revelations came from the modern ocean-going liner. With early sailships reliant on the wind to achieve productivity and being vulnerable to environmental phenomenons like the Doldrums (a large, mostly windless patch of ocean in the Atlantic) steamships threw the previous records out the window. No longer would sailships spend days stuck at sea in inclement weather. Now, modern ocean liners would use their steam engines to achieve a consistent speed over each crossing.

However, it would take time for attitudes and acceptance of the new power plants to take hold. And because of this, we saw some pretty interesting designs with ships being fitted with steam powerplants AND backup sails. Eventually, though, the sails would be relegated to the history books, as more and more vessels adopted the steam plant as their primary method of propulsion.

These modern powerplants were so reliable, that they introduced a golden era of ocean travel. While the earlier sail-powered clipper ships did achieve large quantities of both freight and people moved, their inherent limitations around propulsion systems often made the journey a challenging one with much in the way of hardship faced by both passengers and crew. In the new, efficient steam era, however, ships ran much more reliably and because of this, we saw a decline in things like scurvy, as now, movements between ports would become much shorter.

Steam reliability allowed ships to become larger and faster. This is RMS Olympic’s rudder and screws in 1910. Check out the human for scale at the middle screw. Source: Wikipedia

The sea would continue to hold professional mariners, like fishermen, freighter crews and explorers, however now, the upper class would see life at sea as a prestigious and often luxurious experience, similar to the modern cruise liners of today.

Modern steam turbines use large rotors to achieve substantial levels of both power and reliability. Source: Wikipedia.

Modern Applications

With all this talk of old railways, steam-powered ships and steam-driven tractors, you’d be excused for thinking that this piece of technology has reached its twilight years in a world of jet-powered and diesel engines. Realistically though, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Although modern, steam-powered designs differ substantially from their historical counterparts, they still do hold a place in our modern world.

Rather than being used in small, mobile designs though, we’ll now typically see them in large, industrial applications generating huge amounts of power reliably. One of the most common applications of this is in nuclear power plants. With steam providing the power generation capabilities upstream of the reaction process, modern steam turbines provide enough power generation capabilities to light up entire cities.

Operating in a similar fashion to a jet engine, modern turbines work in phases and provide far more efficient recovery and fuelling systems than you’d see in earlier designs. We also see more digital applications becoming common, with power and engine management systems being able to drive steam engines far more precisely than any human could.

Steam is an essential part of the process for nuclear energy. Source: Wikipedia.

In Closing

It’s usually around this point that we’d close out the article, however, there is one final chance to sing the praises of the technological shift the move to steam provided.

While early steam engines weren’t exactly performance powerhouses they were pretty reliable. And while typically to run a steam engine we’d require coal, and water in large quantities the fact is that alternate transport methods at the time were frankly, even worse.

For most people of this era, the horse was where it was at, in either cart-pulled or a traditional saddle-based system. This meant that for long-distance transport, you’d need a supply of both food and water and if you happened to be moving through a town, you’d also need a livery or stables and a way to remove horse droppings from the street.

The steam engine solved the problem of long-distance travel once and for all. For many, this meant a step away from the humble horse.

On your journey, you’d also need water at specific points, and may god help you should your horse fall ill mid-journey. While the implementation of steam wasn’t entirely without incident or issue, its suitability as a modern transportation system was at the time, unmatched.
A fascinating point in time, wouldn’t you say?

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