Locomotive with two axles

The Ardèche-born engineer Marc Seguin’s locomotive underwent initial tests in 1829. It was one of the first to be equipped with the famous tubular boiler, so-named because the hot air transforms water into steam circulates in tubes within it. Seguin designed this machine because he was disappointed with the mediocre performance of a British locomotive he had bought. Exactly contemporary to the Englishman George Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’, Seguin’s locomotive travelled at 7 km/h in the engineer’s workshop in Lyon on 7 November 1829. Twelve of these locomotives were built, several of which went into service on the Lyon–Saint-Étienne line from 1831. The original locomotive no longer exists, but Gaston Lemonnier made a scale replica in 1987. Augustin and Louis Seguin (Marc Seguin’s son and grandson) bequeathed this model to the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in 1891.