Rail-Moment: Septimus Norris and his Crampton

There are people in this world, who no matter how well they do, or how many successes they achieve, it's that one grand failure that sets them up for life. The one thing that everyone remembers above all, and no matter what you do, you can't seem to get away from. Here’s one of those grand flops. So grand in fact, that it caused a locomotive builder to shut down, and stained the reputation of one of America's most inventive designers. All thanks to a misunderstanding of physics, and the French. 

 

Septimus Norris (1818 to 1862) was one of America's more earlier locomotive designers, and he seemed to have a bit of a cloud over him. He did hit some home runs though. He built the first 4-6-0 ten-wheeler, helped pioneer level cylinders, and was one of the more influential people who developed the 4-4-0 wheel arrangement. Probably his most successful design was the pilot truck. This was a center-pivot two axle wheel-set. Arguably one of the best all-American locomotive innovations of the 1800s, and a key to unlocking the abilities of the 4-4-0.

A Norris, exported to the UK.

It's flexibility locomotives on uneven track no matter how sloppy the construction. Perfect for hastily constructed American right of ways that climbed over mountains and twisted through valleys. (The British had a knack to overbuild their roadbeds and make their track-work stupid perfect, so they never really saw the need for a pilot truck. That’s why you rarely see them on UK locos until the 20th century.)

However, he wasn’t exactly an exceptional designer either. Plenty of his innovations just outright didn't work, or some unforeseen circumstance thwarted it between the design table, and reality. One has to remember that while these men were educated in a sense, simple physics wasn’t simple to a generation of do-it-yourself steam engineers building the very foundations of an industry. Most were better at iron casting and blacksmithing than at figuring weights, wheel adhesion, and tractive effort tables. Almost all master mechanics from those years got their education by the school of hard knocks via an apprenticeship, not no fancy books. (In fact, most of them were writing the books on steam engineering) 

The Norris 4-2-0, one of the more successful designs.

The Norris Locomotive Works was started in 1832 as the American Steam Carriage Company by older brother William Norris and Major Stephen H. Long. The two men had experimented with steam engine building for years and had a few solid designs under their belt. Major Long later left the firm and William Norris was joined by his brother Septimus, who patented several locomotive-related inventions. The two brothers reformed the enterprise into the Norris Locomotive Works.

When Septimus took over the management of the spanking brand-new Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1848, he thought he had a foolproof scheme for success. There was a spanking new type of locomotive design circulating around in Europe, where the Norris brothers had a few, shall we say, business connections (see spies) and the plans for this new design had been surreptitiously re-routed to Septimus’ back pocket like a downloaded youtube video.

The design had been the 1845 brainchild of one Thomas Russell Crampton in England, and it was said by many who drink tea to be the best design for a high-speed passenger locomotive. It had been common knowledge for a while that the best way to get a fast machine was to give it big driving wheels, getting the longest stride for each stroke of the cylinder. However, this had a consequence that the bigger the driving wheels, the higher the axle center. The higher the axle center, the higher the boiler above it had to be placed. High boilers made for a top-heavy locomotive, which became unstable at high speeds, and prone to sudden upright existential crisis.

Crampton’s solution was to design a locomotive with a single stupidly large driving wheel with it's axle behind the boiler instead of underneath it. Crampton’s locomotive had low centers of gravity and better stability. The idea spread, and very soon Crampton locomotives were hauling fast passenger trains in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. In France, they became so popular that “Le Crampton” became synonymous with “Locomotive.”

In 1850, the Syracuse & Utica RR came knocking on the front door of the new Schenectady plant and wanted a fast locomotive. Septimus Norris knew exactly what to give them. Using his new 'jacked Crampton plans he rolled out the “Lightning,” a 20-ton machine with a set of 84-inch drivers, a pair of ridged carrying wheels under the boiler, and his own spin on the remix, a 4-wheel pilot truck in front. The locomotive had English-style Gooch valve gear, and as if flexing on his master of design piracy, Septimus even included front buffers instead of a cowcatcher and no cab.

The machine was tried out in January of 1850, and it flew as fast as the track— newly upgraded from wooden stringers and strap rails on blocks of stone, to iron rails on ties— would allow. Septimus and the Norris organization advertised the locomotive to be the beginning of a new age of American motive power. That must have been a thrilling ride being so close to the drivers with a open cab! I feel like the engineer learned real quick to keep his arms in.

The Lightning herself.

There was just one problem, well...okay a few problems including this things propensity to de-limb it's crew, but one major one. All the weight of the locomotive was carried on wheels other than the drivers. So adhesion and traction were virtually nil. All Cramptons had this issue. In Europe, where trains were short, cars were light, the land was level, and the roadbeds were advertised as billiard table, this wasn’t a problem.

However, on the Syracuse & Utica, the “Lightning” could barely pull her own shadow with a set of heavy American-made passenger cars chained behind her, The S&U’s primitive roadbed made the locomotive ride like a car-sick ten year old, which exaggerated the formally mentioned problems of being in an outside cab. To add insult to injury, the locomotive's design couldn't even achieve the high speeds it's American-designed counterparts could hold on the same track, and it's rough handling at the speeds it could reach caused the locomotive to constantly be in a state of self-disassembly. After a few months, the S&U’s management pulled the plug, and the “Lightning” was sidelined until she could be rebuilt into a conventional 4-4-0.

The “Lightning” fiasco was big news in railroad circles. There were other experimental Crampton designs tried by the Camden & Amboy RR, the Pennsylvania RR, and the Vermont Central RR. None seemed to work any better.

Septimus Norris’ reputation as a builder of locomotives was the real victim. Who wanted a locomotive from a builder who flopped as dramatically as Septimus? Trying to hock someone else's design no less. Poor Septimus went from an up and coming designer to a laughingstock. Customers at the Schenectady works took their business elsewhere, and Septimus and his brother Edward were forced to close the plant doors in 1851. Septimus Norris continued to build locomotives at the original Norris factory in Philadelphia until a “carbuncle” took him out in 1862. However, his reputation as a designer would never really recovered.

There is a silver lining for Schenectady Works. The works would reopen later, under the hands of John Ellis and Walter McQueen. With sound construction and more traditional designs, they made the operation into one of the nation’s largest. Including building the Jupiter and her sisters of Golden Spike fame. The Schenectady Works would eventually become the heart of the American Locomotive Co. after the turn of the century.

Man, isn't it a right bitch when your entire career, which is highlighted by such innovations that would last to the end of steam power, is reduced in history book to a few paragraphs describing your worst decision. The story of the “Lightning’s” failure is repeated in locomotive books to this day.