Classic Steam Carriages

Walter Hancock’s ‘Enterprise’

The ‘Enterprise’ is a replica of one of a series of very early steam driven carriages built in London by the pioneering engineer Walter Hancock between 1824 and 1836.

The original Enterprise started running in 1833, carrying fare paying passengers in London and making occasional trips farther afield. It incorporated many of the best features of the time including several of Hancock’s own patents such as the artillery wheel. His method of suspending the vehicle on leaf springs and in particular of locating the rear axle in such a way that it could be driven from an engine within the carriage were very advanced for the time and wouldn’t have seemed out of date 100 years later. His use of a steering wheel was novel for the time also. The body was similar to the Shillabeer Omnibus - a successful design of horse drawn vehicle where up to 14 passengers sat in two rows facing each other.

The ‘Enterprise’ was operated by three men. A driver at the front steers and controls the speed with a regulator and an engine man who was in charge of maintaining the water level in the boiler. He appears to have travelled sitting on the half door of the engine room with his feet outside. A third man attended to the fire and rode on a platform at the rear behind the boiler. He was in charge of a large brake handle which may of been of some slight help(!) when descending hills. It is not clear how these three communicated when the carriage was under way as they are out of sight of each other! Top speed was about 20 mph (32 km/hr) but 10 mph (16 km/hr) was a more usual cruising speed.

The passenger seats act as water tanks and can contain up to about one ton of water giving a range of 10 to 20 miles before they need replenishing. It is not clear from descriptions of the time what the weight of the original vehicle was as these early pioneers, particularly Gurney tended to understate the weight, presumably to minimise the tolls but the replica weighs 3.2 tonnes.