说起机车,人们自然想到火车头。就目前而言,火车头只能看作是机车的一种通俗而非科学的叫法。但在内燃机车、电力机车出现之前蒸汽机车一统天下,蒸汽机车以煤为燃料,炉膛里大火熊熊,所以称之为火车头既形象也贴切(图1)。 早在十九世纪八十年代,当铁路这个新生事物刚刚引入中国时,官方民间对机车都称之为火轮车,简称火轮、轮车、火车,也有叫汽车的。如1862年陕甘总督左宗棠在《复总署论帖》中说到:“铁路原因火轮车而设……”;1873年8月30日上海《申报》载:“计火车二辆,客车货车二三辆,铁路二三十里 Speaking of locomotives, people naturally think of locomotives. For now, the locomotive can only be regarded as a popular but not scientific name for locomotives. However, before the emergence of diesel locomotives and electric locomotives, steam locomotives dominated the world. The steam locomotives used coal as fuel, and the fires in the hearths raged. Therefore, the image of locomotives was also known (Fig. 1). As early as the 1880s, when the railroad was just introduced to China as a new-born railway, official civilians referred to locomotives as steamers, or simply steamers, wheelers and trains, or cars. For example, Governor Zuo Zongtang of Shaanxi and Gansu in 1862 said in his reply to “the reply of the General Administration that” there is a reason for building a steamboat on a railway. ... “On August 30, 1873, Shanghai’s” declaration “contained:” two trains Bus wagons two or three, railway twenty or thirty years