SECOND STEAM WAGON OF CUGNOT (1770)

The invention of the steam engine, towards the end of the XVII century, relived the speculations on the possibilities of flying and of giving propulsion to vehicles, setting out many interesting and peculiar suggestions about the resolution of these problems. An English man, called Francisco Moore, invented a vehicle automobile, in 1769, and he was so sure about his good success, that him and many of his friends sold their horses. But Watt was not so enthusiastic about the use of the steam engine for the vehicles, and it seems that he discouraged to those wanted to solve this problem. In this period of speculation and experiment, the first steam locomotive was born in 1769 which got to transport travelers. It was invented by a French, Nicholas Cugnot .

In his first race took four people, at the speed of 3.62 kilometers per hour. Cugnot was commissioned immediately by the French Government to construct a more perfected and more powerful machine, than could drag cannons . This second machine is still conserved and it is, without doubt, the most interesting and venerable machine in the history of the steam locomotion . In England, William Murdock, one of Watt's assistants , invented a small steam locomotive for roads , in 1774, of which he said that it marched at the speed of 10 to 13 kilometers per hour; and another English man, Trevithick, who later became famous for constructing the first locomotive that marched on tracks, invented the first steam vehicle , in 1802.