Photograph of patent specification drawing of Brandreth's horse powered locomotive " Cycloped", 1829. (Patent no. 5840)

The concept of this vehicle demonstrated how central the horse was in society, during the run up to the advent of steam-powered mainline railway; an example of how the early railway engineers had to break through a populist expectaion barrier, held by the population, regarding their expectations of the prevailiing transport propulsion..

The machine was propelled by a single horse placed on a treadmill that transferred the animal's kinetic energy to the drive wheels by a series of cogwheels. It became obvious during the trials, that although this was an ingenious piece of lateral thinking, the reliablity, speed and performance results for use in commercial passenger traffic, were disappointing.