December 24, 1801
A steam-powered road vehicle was introduced to the public during a test run that began in southwestern England’s town of Camborne. This full-sized vehicle had been designed and built by Richard Trevithick (1771-1833), a prolific inventor and mining engineer from that region. Trevithick nicknamed his creation the Puffing Devil.
Six passengers were on board this vehicle for its experimental journey on Christmas Eve. Mechanical engineer Andrew Vivian (1759-1842), Trevithick’s cousin and business associate, was the person who operated the vehicle that day. He maneuvered the Puffing Devil down what is now Fore Street before steering this vehicle up Camborne Hill. Vivian subsequently transported his passengers to the nearby village of Beacon.
This pioneering road trip inspired the still-popular folk song Camborne Hill, which includes the following lyrics:
“Going up Camborne Hill, coming down,
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down,
The horses stood still,
The wheels turn around,
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down.”
The Puffing Devil was not the first self-propelled mechanical land vehicle. In 1770, for example, French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725-1804) built a three-wheeled, full-size vehicle powered by steam. However, Trevithick’s higher-pressure steam engines – along with such additional innovations as better weight distribution – helped make the Puffing Devil and the other vehicles that Trevithick went on to manufacture all the more reliable and therefore a lot more influential over the long haul.
A strong case can be made, as a matter of fact, that Trevithick’s contributions to road and rail transportation helped pave the way not only for the Industrial Revolution throughout the 19th century but also present-day surface vehicles across the globe. (The accompanying photo of a replica of the Puffing Devil was taken in 2004.)
Photo Credit: Chris McKenna (Thryduulf, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thryduulf) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
A video about the Puffing Devil can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JAHPDZzsnbY
For more information on Richard Trevithick, please check out https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Trevithick,_Richard
Transportation History 
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