The Impulsoria: A Horse Powered Railway Engine

Do you want to run a railway, but can't afford a steam engine? Do you have 4 horses? Well, have we got a solution for you! The Impulsoria was a locomotive constructed in 1850 that was powered by horses on a treadmill following a design by Clemente Masserano . The locomotive came at a time when steam engines had been state-of-the-art technology for at least two decades, but when some railways still used horse power, and there was at least some debate as to whether the technology of steam was worth the cost. Thus, the locomotive was sort of a hybrid design that could satisfy these customers, at least that was the idea behind the patent. An excerpt from The Engineer and the Machinist describes the Impulsoria in depth, " An ingenious way to use animal power for railway transport—so as to avoid the high costs of locomotives—has recently been invented in Italy and demonstrated on the South Western Railway. It involves placing animals inside a type of coach called an impulsoria. In...