I was looking on the Internet and found out that JOHN FITCH, born in Winsor Conneticut, is the Inventor of the "First Railroad Steam Locomotive" [Between 1780 and 1794]and the Flanged Wheel running on Rails [ Not to mention the STEAM BOAT] though he was only able to make a Model and demonstrated it, in order to get funding for a full sized version, to President GEORGE WASHINGTON. There`s much to read about this on the Internet, so I thought I`d suggest that Forumites might like to go read about this Invention.

I would respectfully suggest that we do a little more research on this gentleman.

I remeber doing a school report on the inventor of the steam engine back in 6th grade. The "first" inventor was hard to determine because the definition of steam engine varied so much. I'll have to dig that paper back out.

If you go to GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH you can find a picture of the STEAM LOCOMOTIVE Fitch made because the OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM has the actual Model that John Fitch demonstrated to George Washington.

Don`t get us Cornish going,it was Richard Trevithick that invented the first high pressure steam loco and run a full scale version in Penydarren iron works Wales.The father to all following proper modern steam locos.
James

My wife is a descendant of John Fitch. The family insists he was the inventor, but as said earlier others got credit. I'll see if I can find the family history book we have.

I remember reading about John Fitch a long time ago, and he is generally credited with building the first steamship according to what I read, but the venture was financially a failure. Trevithick in England is generally credited with the first operational steam locomotive early in the 19th century, I wasn't aware that Fitch had built anything associated with a locomotive. Unfortunately, usually the person who makes the first successful attempt at something gets credit, like Fulton with the steamboat, Bell with the telephone and so forth.

As a side note, I seem to recall that one of the first steam vehicles was built I believe in the early 1790's by oliver evans, he built I believe an amphibious steam driven vehicle that could as implied travel on land or the water...didn't go anywhere past the initial model, but it shows that steam driven propulsion was being tinkered with by a lot of people.