Salamanca is a steam locomotive built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Fenton, Murray and Wood for the Middleton Railway near Leeds, working in partnership with the railway's engineer John Blenkinsop. It used Blenkinsop's rack and pinion system, in which a toothed wheel engaged a rack rail alongside the running rails to provide extra grip for hauling coal wagons, and it was the first steam locomotive built with two cylinders. Salamanca is generally regarded as the first commercially successful steam locomotive, hauling coal profitably on the Middleton Railway for many years before an eventual boiler explosion destroyed it.
Facts
Sources
1. Salamanca (locomotive) (Wikipedia)
Infobox, builddate field
1812
In Group: British Pioneer Steam Locomotives, Lead sentence
Salamanca was the first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Holbeck, for the edge-railed Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds, England and it predated Stephenson's Rocket by 17 years.
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