Show e oil CAPP 1 affo 0 MF AV yea 1094 jr N 4 ap tn g Z L V 41 4 f ae W 3 W ma 1 F RO ovy 26 z ra lr o 75 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON o ne HE iron horse Is years old 0 on august 8 9 and 10 the citizens ot of honesdale Ho pa will observe its k birthday with a celebration commemorating mem orating the first successful operation of a steam driver driven locomotive on the western hemisphere the locomotive was the stour bridge lion it was built in england and shipped to this country in february ir 1829 9 as the property as ot of the delaware hudson canal company tom pany and on august 8 it was put into operation on a three mile stretch of track near the scene of the companas comp anys operations at no Ho the first trial run of the locomotive dei demon on straten conclusively that steam transportation was practical and that the lion would operate but officials of the company found that the wooden rails covered with a thin strip of iron could not stand heavy duty and the lion was never neier used for practical work but even though the lion was not kept in service to its trial trip belongs the honor of being the first time a practicable locomotive ran upon a permanent railroad track in america and to horatio allen alien who operated 14 it goes the distinction of being the first american locomotive engL engineer neer so at the no Ho celebration a monument to the locomotive will be dedicated and a transportation parade depicting all modes of travel from oxcart to airplane will be held the development of 0 railroads in the united states Is another story of american mag magic le from those three miles of track near honesdale no Ho has grown grom a network or of nearly miles of steel rails which penetrate to every part of the country the progeny of this first iron horse now number more than whereas their ancestor weighed only 8 tons and puffed along at the rate of three or tour four miles an hour some of these colts are giants weighing more than tons and they roar across the country at the rate of 80 miles an hour A century Is a comparatively short time to in the history of a nation yet the past years of railroad history in the united states has seen such marvelous changes as to make its story sound like a tale from the arabian nights to appreciate fully its marvels we must turn to the early days of railroading and in the volume the march of commerce in the pageant of america series published by the yale university press one may read the following interesting estin account of the iron horses beginnings fo for fifty years yeara after watt gave the world hla his steam engine in 1773 other inventors toyed with the abe idea of making a steam engine move itself among americans who experimented with steam road wagons or steam locomotives were oliver evans benjamin dearborn and john stevens many british inventors Ic including eluding richard also IBO experimented with the problem the weakness to ID all their machines was that they could not produce steam as rapidly as they used it nor lid did their engines have enough power to move quickly or to pull more than their own weight in 1829 the progress of british invention justified a competitive trial held by th the e liverpool manchester Man cheater railway at this test tile the rocket an engine invented by george and robert stephenson father and son was the victor the rocket combined two features which enabled it to elial note the faults of its predecessors and competitors it had bad a tubular boiler and a forced draft steph bensons len enson sons 3 boiler exposed the maximum of beating burbace Bur face to the burning fuel and the forced draft occasioned by turning the exhaust steam from tb tbt cylinders into the stack tanned fanned a fire fierce enough to produce steam taster faster than it was used thus although stephenson Stephen Bon alone Is not to be credited with the invention of the locomotive he be was responsible for or setting forth a practicable combination of known principles by which tor for the first time the machine desired by other inventors was obtained consequently his tame fame Is deserved with the winning of the liverpool manchester railway prize of goo COO pounds stephenson became and tor for the rest of hla his life remained the most successful locomotive builder in great britain and all europe our In interest ferest in this english inventor lies iles in the the above photograph shows C A lehman a teacher in the long beach calif schools and the marvelous mac collection of locomotive modis models he has made starting with the model of tom thumb of 1828 used by the baltimore A ohio the models are as follows Ds do witt clinton built for the mohawk hudson in 1831 pioneer first engine used by the chicago northwestern in 1848 typical locomotive of 1850 falcon central pacific engine which met the union pacific no in utah in 1869 fast passenger fler type of 1880 passenger type of 1895 atlantic type used by the pennsylvania in 1905 heavy pacific type of 1910 mallet compound locomotive of 1918 and the latest three cylinder passenger union pacific which has a speed of 80 miles an hour fact that it was an eng english lis made locomotive rather than an american product which made the historic ann whose centennial Is being celebrated in pennsylvania this year the pageant narrative continues english engines came to america through the action of the proprietors of the carbondale railroad the coal tramway of the delaware hudson canal company through their civil engineer Ilor horatio atlo allen alien whom they sent to england the they ordered three locomotives one of them with riveted hues flues of large size from foster and company of Stour stourbridge bridge and the other two with tubular boilers from stephenson and company of newcastle on tyne the stourbridge Stour bridge lion was operated at honesdale IIo Ho by horatio allen alien on august 9 1829 the locomotive proved so EO heavy 8 tons that it was pronounced unsafe on the trail frail bridges and trestles of the carbondale railroad an and d was discarded this trial however was the fir arst t time a practicable locomotive ran upon a permanent railroad track in america and allen alien although it was the only time he ever ran an engine has had the distinction of being the first american locomotive engineer the Stour stourbridge bridge engine received its name from a painting of a lions head on the front of the engines boiler the lion stored in a shed by the carbondale railroad was picked to pieces by souvenir hunters and what was too heavy to carry away was eventually sold by the railroad d tor for old iron later the historical value of this engine caused a search tor for its parts some being recovered the two engines built by stephenson and company arrived somewhat later they were stored in an iron warehouse in now york city exhibited occasionally but never used these engines were similar to the stephenson rocket and it if they had bad been given a trial at once they would have had the historical orical place now assigned to the rocket itself tor for the latter did not make its famous trip until october it 11 1329 the first railroad constructed in america with a definite alin aim of carrying passengers and freight was the baltimore ohio it was chartered in 1827 1927 and the laying of the rails began on july 4 1828 2828 charles carroll the only living signer of the declaration of independence lifting the first of earth the first section of 13 miles from baltimore to Elli cotts mills lillis was opened in may 1830 the promoters experimented with various sorts of power one was a flat car fitted with a treadmill operated by a horse upon its trial trip this contrivance was upset by a stray cow on the tracks and the device was condemned another experiment par peri ment was made with a callear sall sal lear car the meteor a sailboat on wheels peter cooper was the next inventor to offer ideas to tb the balta baltimore m ore ohio railroad ho he was influenced flu fluen 0 bcd ced in p part art by the fact that he be owned some land value of which would be enhanced it if this railroad proved a success cooper built a tiny steam locomotive with a boiler about the size of those that now stand by the kitchen stove and with flues constructed with gun barrels other parts were proportionately small and crude this engine was called the tom thumb with it cooper made rt few trial runs upon the partially finished railroad in 1339 1930 with the data secured from his small model cooper reconstructed the tom thumb and operated it again on august ts 28 1820 over the full 13 miles of the road attaining a speed of four miles an hour pushing a car with 21 24 passengers A few days later there was a challenge race between the tom thumb and an horse drawn car over the double track from Elli cotts mills lillis to baltimore the gray horse led at the start but the locomotive caught up with it and passed it then a belt slipped and the horse reached baltimore first during the he following year horses served as a motive power on the baltimore ohio although abe gray horse had defeated tom thumb tie the baltimore ohio officials believed that the steam locomotive was worth further trial accordingly they offered a prize ot of for the best engine which should be delivered to them for trial by juno june 1 1831 and a prize of for the second best engine the winner of the competition was a watchmaker named phineas davis ot of york pa lie ile called his locomotive the york cut but the B D 0 men because of its appearance called it if the grasshopper another engine which davis built for the baltimore ohio similar to the york was wag called the traveller and it has the distinction of being the first used for freight service among the other historical firsts should be listed the charleston hamburg railroad chartered by south carolina in 1820 which from its beginning was planned tor for the use ot of steam power so to it rather than to the baltimore ohio goes the honor of being the first railroad in america constructed for steam in 1830 this railroad contracted bilth the west point foundry of new york city for a steam locomotive capable of making the astonishing speed of 10 miles an hour tills this engine was called at first the best friend of charleston but it was usually referred to more briefly as the best friend it had its first trial in november 1830 and promptly ran off the track after some changes had bad been made it proved able to make 30 miles an hour without a load and 21 miles an hour when pulling four loaded passenger cars it was put into service in january 1831 and in june of that year it figured in the first locomotive accident in america its fireman was a ne negro ro who did not like the sound of steam escaping from the safety valve so he sat on the valve whereupon the boiler promptly blew up breaking the negros thigh and teaching him some things that he had never before suspected about the power of steam to avoid a recurrence of such accidents the charleston hamburg railroad when it put its second locomotive the west point into service placed between the locomotive and the passenger coaches a car plied piled with cotton bales and another occupied by a negro brass band the theory was wag that the music would tend to divert the passengers minds from the possibility of an explosion and if an explosion did occur the cotton bales baks and the negroes would get the benefit of the blast the next famous iron horse to make its appearance pe arance Is described in the pageant narrative as follows under a charter granted by the new york legislature in 1826 the mohawk hudson railroad company built in 1831 its original line from albany to schenectady a distance of about 17 I 1 miles the primary link in the present new york central system the road was at first operated with horse horsa drawn cars but the success of 0 the southern railroad with locomotives led to the ordering from the west point foundry in april 1831 of a locomotive to which was given the name of the do de witt clinton the first public trial of the engine pulling a train of cars was on august 9 1831 the engine employed wood fuel and the passengers were showered with sparks bp arka from the stack so BO that some gome had their clothing burned in spots while others put up umbrellas to ward ott oft the fiery rain the cars care were coupled with heavy chains about throe feet long ion and when they started and stopped the were jerked off their seats as the chains slack was taken up or the cars crashed together the passengers themselves cut fence rails and wedged wedded them between the cars to reduce the hazards of the journey the baltimore ohio the charleston himburg hamburg and the mohawk hudson were the leaders in experimental railroad construction th the practicability of the new form of 0 transportation needed no further proof to encourage a number of other railroad projects and as soon as the smallest est link was ready tor for traffic it was open to the public thus V b people and goods were moving by rail over tho the completed portions of the new york harlem railroad in new york the camdon camden amboy railroad in new jersey tho the philadelphia germantown Geiman town norristown railway the columbia railroad the philadelphia wilmington baltimore railroad and the reading heading railroad in pennsylvania in now new england by thit that time three railroads radiated from boston one north to lowell one west to worcester and one south to providence in the same year the original railroad the baltimore ohio with about ac miles of track carried about passengers dy by 1835 the steam railroad was an accepted fact act tv the united states |