car

July 11, 2005 7:04 AM

I've heard stories before about how the first automobiles did not have their own steering, and were meant to be driven on rails. But I've not been able to find any corroborating evidence. Is this just an urban myth, or has anyone heard of this as well?
posted by jgballard to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

I think "first automobile" gives a pretty reasonable set of Google results.
posted by caitlinb at 7:28 AM on July 11, 2005

the first powered land transport was the train, as far as i know. is that what you mean?
if not, maybe you need to explain how what you're thinking of is different to a train?
posted by andrew cooke at 7:29 AM on July 11, 2005

Would you really call this an automobile? Sounds more like a personal train to me.

Car of the Year, a fun book that was in my grade school library, began in 1895 with a funny little German car (called a Duryea, IIRC) that had steering and ran under its own power. I seem to recall that the entry for that car mentioned steam-powered, rail-traveling widgets such as you describe but declined to call them automobiles for these reasons.

The car of the year 1896 was Henry Ford's prototype Quadricycle.

Anyway, if you're interested in early automotive history, you could do worse than this book - it has B/W pictures of every car, including the Mercer Runabout, Stutz Bearcat, and Jordan K ("Somewhere west of Laramie..") I see someone's selling a copy for $6, too.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:33 AM on July 11, 2005

There are, or were, cars with an extra set of wheels suitable for use on railroad tracks. They were designed to facilitate access to remote sights not serviced by roads.
posted by Cranberry at 2:38 PM on July 11, 2005

Mr Scotte, my great-great-grand-father, was a train and automobile maker in Lyons, France, circa 1890, and while he used a soon-to-be-outdated technology (steam), his cars had their own steering, though some of them could be used on rails.

See pictures here and here. There's a portrait of Andre Citroen on the left of the second picture but it's really a Scotte steam car from 1892.
posted by elgilito at 3:07 PM on July 11, 2005

The type of vehicle Cranberry mentions is called Hi-Rail (similarities to the 3-track O gauge model trains entirely coincidental?). I was just poking around one on Saturday; it's a fascinating adaptation.

One of the earliest "self-propelled vehicles" was built in 1765 (!) by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. The first vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine was Siegfried Marcus's handcart in 1870, though he wouldn't produce a more recognizable automobile until 1888, shortly after Carl Benz developed the first true automobiles.

The key problem appears to have been that wood or coal and a steam-powered engine were generally too heavy, so required the support of rails. It wasn't until the considerably more compact ICE was developed that self-propelled vehicles were available that could travel on any surface. Development was also hampered by Britain's "red flag" law mandating a flagman (!) for steam-powered vehicles on the public roads. This may have meant that there were many interim vehicles designed for railway use that never came to fruition. (Even today there are inventors who dream of hooking up cars like trains, and rail-based "personal rapid transit" concepts.)

So there's a connection, but I think it's overstating things. It seems clear that self-propelled vehicles preceded the railway.
posted by dhartung at 10:43 PM on July 11, 2005