29/08/2026
On this day in history – 29 August 1883, the Great Western Railway was party to a steam-powered flying experiment on the Staines West branch between West Drayton and Colnbrook. This photograph of the experiment was sent to the Great Western Trust at Didcot earlier this year by Mr Frank Hall of Ramsgate. Previously we only had an engraving based on this photograph, which had been published in the Pall Mall Gazette.
In August 1883 an inventor, Mr H C Lynfield of Margate, brought his “flying machine”, or more correctly a “steam sailing machine” for testing. Shaped like a four-wheel carriage with two large wheels at the front and two small wheels behind and fitted with sails, it was mounted on a wagon. Another wagon was coupled behind from which controls could be operated.
Under the supervision of GWR Assistant Locomotive Superintendent Mr F H Trevithick, a locomotive was connected to the machine to provide steam for a nine-blade screw. The machine and two wagons were then propelled at 30 – 35 mph at which speed the machine was expected to lift into the air. It did, for a short period, although it was reported the inventor “did not ascend with it”.
Mr Lynfield was happy with the result of the trial and later in the year was telling the press that passengers would soon be taking aerial voyages a mile in the air at 60 mph as regularly as any other form of transport. He wouldn’t be carrying heavy freight though.
The following year, Mr Lynfield was writing to the press to complain that he could not get a hearing about his flying machine at either the War Office or the Board of Trade, and that they had no-one who understood aerial mechanics. The Pall Mall Gazette was sceptical, writing that the first air transit would be made by tethered or captive machines carrying gas for buoyancy or driven by electricity carried up by their tether, the other end of which would run along an overhead cable.
It is interesting to note that the proposed third runway for Heathrow airport would, if built, extend across the route of the Colnbrook to West Drayton line. Thus aeroplanes taking off in the 21st century would cross the site of a historic powered take off in the 19th century.
The Great Western Railway Magazine published a report of the experiment in its April 1934 edition, referencing its introduction of air services in 1933:
A STEAM FLYING MACHINE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO
The Great Western was the first of the British railway companies to operate an air service. This is a matter of quite recent history. As far back as fifty years ago, however, the Great Western Railway was associated with an attempt made to fly an aeroplane with steam as its motive power. The appended excerpt from the Slough and Windsor Express of September 1, 1883, gives particulars of this interesting experiment.
“Mr. H. C. Lynfield, of Upper Grove, Margate, the inventor of a flying machine, conducted an experiment with his invention on Wednesday between Colnbrook and West Drayton. The apparatus, which is described as a steam sailing machine, is of an altogether novel character. It is constructed of light wood, and is shaped like the frame of a four-wheeled carriage, with two large wheels in front and two smaller ones behind. Motive power is to be obtained by steam, which will work a nine-bladed screw, and the inventor’s idea is to propel the machine by steam on land until it attains a speed of 30 or 35 miles, a velocity which Mr Lynfield calculates will be sufficient to lift the machine into the air, when it will be navigated by means of the sails with which it is fitted. He believed air to be the finest roadway under the sun, if he can only use it, and from the result of this experiment on Wednesday he is confident that it is possible to fly in the air at the height of a mile from the ground.
By the permission of the Great Western Railway Company the experiment was made on the newly-finished portion of the railway to Staines, between Colnbrook and West Drayton, and the inventor was accompanied by Mr Trevithick, the locomotive superintendent of the Company at Paddington. The machine was placed on a truck, and connected with an engine, whence the steam was derived, and the gearing was manipulated from another truck. The operator succeeded in getting the machine lifted from the truck into the air, and expressed himself fully satisfied with the result of the trial.”
It is interesting to observe that half-a-century ago, as to-day, the Great Western Railway was revealing a typically helpful and forward-looking policy ; also to note the considerable measure of fulfilment that has followed Mr Lynfield’s prophecy of the air as “the finest roadway”.
