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Show A Cgatury of rj!e : AASA rrP - - . j j h ' i 1 L'V ' -r-T n'lr'.,.,.'., ' ' '. " : Y'k ' ! ! v-. t , illlrpl'r rV 7; V , By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ? ' ? 'U . ri'tisn'K tlio Travel an, I Transport fT "s:': '" "" . ' - fi W buiWini: at A C.'imirv of Pro.-ross -V ;' M. 5 i5" ". w." '.-..W Tr :V '". viVv ' f in CliUM.io is pros,.tol even day a ! S . .V ? Vll . ' 4 V .'V;;-.'.- . ;lj ; XV. I ' A f . '3 pasoant callod "Tlie Win-s of a V'':-'v i,- Century." There, across the st:u-e "C7--'" nwaworf ' N' f . of a Ureek theater, with the hluo J ' " " sttr' waters of Lake Michigan as a hack- V groutul. parados the colorful story f "" -.1 " Y y of the romance of transportation In America during the last '-00 ,..'.... years. , , . .v.. i J ' Indians afoot, on horseback. In - -V tirchhark canoe and on drawing travoix lead - --r- - ' ' r -- the way. Close behind them presses the on- s x-' -.. ' ' coming white man in creaking, lumbering two- " - -f r - . . . ! j - - wheeled carts, in Concord stage coaches, In ' -v' ; . . . " - tJ chaises, in Couestoga wagons, in steamboats and s" x . jff t' 'ii .! -analboats. in fast packet boats and swift Yan- !, 4J v '' - s"" J 1 kee clipper ships. Now the covered wagons are f""" ; " -Z. .rk" ) & J f" v r ..-'-r :.' ?",T1 Tolling out to liregon" and the pony express j . ! :v 'ii'''1 ' X ; 4 ' -s C" ' 3 rider dashes up and as quickly speeds away. . i J.J-i-.Sw''"-" " . . ' ,'. '' "' , . 1 The pages of history turn rapidly and the NVJ .. ii " ' ' - V i . !.,'kvJ horse-drawn wagons and carriages are succeeded r r . .. J ' ' t ; ( by a new marvel, the "horseless carriage." or pg-x , . ,Ci . J 'sj automobile. And almost before man has mas- '" ' "W 4 -f "'y tered this new form of quick travel across the ' ' ' ' " T t ' land, the Wrights leap up from the sand dunes -of Kitty Hawk, in North Carolina, ami the dream ""T''Vv '' J("'"'l of Icarus is a reality. Man is now traveling " : vHr'' " ' . through the air. -W y ri y ; . In the midst of all this splendid pageantry of !-V '"T"v "-"--ti' z1- ""j ' t. . f i.t ' r- the conquest of water, land and air there is one , - ... J" - i '"" ' ;f V hapter which stirs your imagination as perhaps E7,'r: . t v? ' .-' j"g!. i'T-J ' .1 -' - no other one does. That is the "Parade of the J'" JTJ- m --""--"-s7iSSSs -- ' Iron Horse." You view appreciatively th.e his- ' " iS t - -.. : , V : . (.vW'-t'.-. - - - torically authentic costumes of more than a f - . -" , ' ' Vs". , . k.- . :. hundred actors in the pageant. You are amused f jp ' . " j . : s , : x-5'-'-j " ' A f and delighted by the pantomime of some of these t - : t t ,',lwi4j ' -f vT -v actors as they reproduce the thoughts and feel- I . '--wClVv-t?' J-ii' ' ': "j ings and actions of past generations of Amer- j ... ' . ,,, jiV -j ' 'tj; i'"; ' ;: .iiv; leans. And at times you are deeply stirred as I ''V ' " '-t -'y?;;, you say to yourself, "I am seeing history In the jyQ-.. -irnimiiiinin'nii miTTVi ir m MinrnTi. wCry.; By ELMO SCOTT WATSOM ri'iisri'K the Travel and Transport f building nt A Century of Progress t ;j f i in Chicago is presented every day a i f ' -3 pageant called "The Wings of a i,- Century." There, across the stage w I j of a Creek theater, with the blue Xsttr' waters of Lake Michigan as a background, back-ground, parades the colorful story y y of the romance of transportation In America during the last '-00 years. ' Indians afoot, on horseback. In tirchbark canoe and on dragging travoix lead the way. Close behind them presses the oncoming on-coming white man in creaking, lumbering two-wheeled two-wheeled carts, in Concord stage coaches, In chaises, in Couestoga wagons, in steamboats and canalboats. in fast packet boats and swift "an-kee "an-kee clipper ships. Now the covered wagons are "rolling out to Oregon" and the pony express rider dashes up and as quickly speeds away. The pages of history turn rapidly and the horse-drawn wagons and carriages are succeeded by a new marvel, the "horseless carriage." or automobile. And almost before man has mastered mas-tered this new form of quick travel across the land, the Wrights leap up from the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, in North Carolina, and the dream of Icarus is a reality. Man is now traveling through the air. In the midst of all this splendid pageantry of the conquest of water, land and air there is one -chapter which stirs your imagination as perhaps no other one does. That is the "Parade of the Iron Horse." You view appreciatively th.e historically his-torically authentic costumes of more than a hundred actors in the pageant. You are amused and delighted by the pantomime of some of these actors as they reproduce the thoughts and feelings feel-ings and actions of past generations of Americans. Amer-icans. And at times you are deeply stirred as you say to yourself, "I am seeing history In the making." But wheD those locomotives, from Peter Cooper's Coo-per's little "Tom Thumb" on down to one of the modern Titans, come rolling across the stage with ringing bells, puffing smokestacks and screaming whistles, then ah, then ! it's hard lor you to stifle that little-boy urge to stand up and yell 1 For in these black monsters you see the inventive genius of America: you see the symbol of the final conquest of the wilderness; you see the instrument which first bound together to-gether the broad expanse of these United States of America; you see a whole century of the development of the machine age. The first "iron horse," paradoxically enough, was more horse than iron. The first railroad built In America for carrying passengers and freight was the Baltimore & Ohio. Chartered in 3S27, it began laying the rails for Its 13 miles of road from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills on July 4, 1S28, with Charles Carroll of Carroll-ton, Carroll-ton, the only living signer of the Declaration of Independence, lifting the first shovelful of dirt. (Incidentally, this historic scene is graphically graphic-ally reproduced in the Baltimore & Ohio's exhibit ex-hibit In the Travel and Transport building.) The road was opened in May, 1S30. In the meantime the promoters had been experimenting experiment-ing with various sorts of cars. One was a horse-drawn horse-drawn passenger car. (Such as is shown in illustration illus-tration No. 1 above.) Another was a flat car fitted with a treadmill operated by a horse but upon its trial trip it came to grief a cow on the track upset it 1 Another experiment, which was also unsuccessful, was made with a sailboat sail-boat on wheels, called the "Meteor." Then the inventive genius of Peter Cooper came Into the picture. He built a tiny locomotive with a boiler about the size of the one which stands behind your kitchen stove and with flues made of gun barrels. To this he gave the appropriate ap-propriate name of "Tom Thumb" and made some trial runs on the partly-finished railroad in 1830. From this experience he reconstructed his locomotive lo-comotive and on August 28, 1830. the "Tom Thumb" pushed. Instead of pulled, a car with 24 passengers over the entire 13 miles of the road, attaining a speed of four miles an hour. A few days later occurred the famous race between the "Tom Thumb" and a horse-drawn car over the double track between Baltimore & Ellicott's Mills. At the start the gray horse leaped into the lead and held It for awhile. Then the puffing "Tom Thumb" began to catch up it drew abreast the straining animal then passed It. But Just as shouts of triumph went up from Cooper's passengers a belt slipped on the mechanism of "Tom Thumb"! So the gray horse won the race to Baltimore. Rut despite this victory the officials of the new railroad had enough confidence In the future fu-ture of steam locomotives to offer a prize of $4,000 for the best engine which should be delivered de-livered to the road for trial before June 1, 1S.'11. This prize was won by Phineas Davis of York, Pa., a watchmaker 1 He called his locomotive the "York" but the pioneer railroad men took 1. The "Pioneer," a horse-drawn passenger car built by the Baltimore & Ohio in 1829. 2. The "Tom Thumb," built by Peter Cooper for the Baltimore & Ohio and given a trial run in 1830. The smiling passenger on this replica is none other than Amelia Earhart, the famous aviatrix. . 3. The "De Witt Clinton," which was run over the Mohawk & Hudson railroad (now the New York Central) from Albany to Schenectady, N. Y in 1831. 4. The "General," built for the Western 4 Atlantic railroad in 1855 and made famous by the "Andrews Raiders" during the Civil war. 5. Reproduction of the scene at Promontory Point in Utah May 10, 1869, when the tracks of the Union Pacific, building west, were Joined with the tracks of the Central Pacific, building east, thus completing the first all-rail link between be-tween the Atlantic and Pacific. At the left is the Central Pacific's locomotive, the "C. P. Huntington," Hunting-ton," and at the right the Union Pacific's No. 9. 6. The last word In modern locomotives the Northern Pacific's giant No. 5008. Beside it stands the little "Minnetonka," the Northern Pa. cific's first locomotive, built in 1869. $ one look at the queer machine with its drivers moving up and down in the air like the tegs of a grasshopper and promptly christened It the "Grasshopper." But the "York" proved Its worth and as late as 1SS3 three of these early "Grasshopper" "Grass-hopper" type of engines were still in service on the Baltimore & Ohio. This same year, 1S31, also saw the beginning of another great railroad system, the New York Central, only in those days It was called the Mohawk & Hudson and it had some 17 miles of track between Schenectady and Albany, N. Y. On August 9, 1931, New Yorkers gathered from far and near to see the first public trial of a locomotive to which had been given the name of "De Witt Clinton," in honor of the builder of "Clinton's Big Ditch," the Erie canal, and which drew a string of curious-looking passenger pas-senger cars resembling stage coaches. The "De Witt Clinton" was a wood-burner and the passengers were so showered with sparks from the engine that some of them had holes burned In their clothing, while others put up umbrellas um-brellas to ward off the fiery shower. When they weren't busy doing tills they were trying to keep from being thrown off the seats in the coaches as the train started, taking up the slack In the three-foot chains which coupled the cars together, or stopped, crashing the cars together. Finally the passengers had to cut fence rails and , wedge them between the cars to reduce the hazards haz-ards of this Journey. From 1S31 the evolution of the "iron horse" was a swift one and thr.t evolution is easy to visualize as one watches those other early loc motives follow the "Tom Thumb" and the "De Witt Clinton" across the stage at "The Wings of a Century." Here comes the "Thomas Jefferson." Jeffer-son." named In honor of that great Virginian, drawing the stagecoach type of cars on the Winchester Win-chester & Potomac railroad In 1S30. Here comes the "Pioneer," built by Seth Wilmarth in 1S51, for the Cumberland Valley railroad (now a part of the Pennsylvania system) and the "Thatcher Perkins," which Mr. Perkins built for the Baltimore Bal-timore & Ohio in 1S03 and which drew one of the finest trains of its time. Across the stage, too, puffs the "C. P. Huntington," Hunt-ington," built in 1SG3 for the Central Pacific railroad and destined to have a part on May 10. I11'1.!, in that historic "gold spike" ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah, where was gathered "the most notable group of railroad builders in the world: for there were Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins. Crocker and the chief engineer of the Central racilic, and there were Durant, Seymour, Duff, Dillon and the chief engineer of the Union Pacific; and. In an ever-widening circle, were all others that had made the transcontinental possible; soldiers from Fort Douglass, Mormon bishops and elders from Salt Lake, Chinese from San Francisco, Irish from Boston, Mexicans from the Itio Grande, negroes from Dixie, Indians from the deserts and mountains and the omnipresent omni-present Jewish traders from many lands." Hounding out the parade of the "iron horse" are such locomotives' as the famous "999" or "Empire State Express" of the New York Central Cen-tral which brought many visitors to Chicago for the World's Columbian exposition In 1S93 and which in May of that year set a new world's speed record of 11214 miles an hour, and the little lit-tle "1401" of the Illinois Central which hauled thousands and thousands of visitors in suburban trains to Jackson park, there to see the marvels of the world's fair of '93. Then as a finale come the giants of today the Northern Pacific's No. 5008. the largest locomotive lo-comotive In operation In the United States today to-day ; the New York Central's No. 520T, the Hudson Hud-son type passenger locomotive; the Chicago & Northwestern's freight and passenger No. 30uS; the Chesapeake & Ohio's Pacific type passenger engine; the Baltimore & Ohio's articulated heavy freight engine No. 7450; the Illinois Central's mountain type passenger engine No. 2412; the Pennsylvania's freight and passenger No. 8707 and the Hock Island's passenger No. 5000. They seem to be the last word in locomotive construction. But already those who guide the "iron horse" across the land pre looking Into the future and already they are planning a new type a stream-lined train of stainless steel, made of three cars hinged together with not a break in the contour from rounded prow to rounded stern, driven by a large l'2-cylinder engine en-gine that burns a non-explosive fuel and is capable capa-ble of making two miles a minute! From the little lit-tle "Tom Thumb" and its speed of four miles an hour to this . . . and all in the course of a ceutury ! O by Western Newspaper Union.) |