12/17/2023 0 Comments American steam engine inventor![]() Both locomotives are on display at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.īecause Tom Thumb was not intended for revenue service, the locomotive was not preserved. The B&O stopped using horses in 1831.Īftermath Tom Thumb replica alongside B&O EMC EA/EB #51, 1937. Nonetheless, it was recognized that the locomotive offered superior performance. Without the blower, the boiler did not draw adequately and the locomotive lost power, allowing the horse to pass and win the race. The challenge accepted, Tom Thumb was easily able to pull away from the horse until the belt slipped off the blower pulley. It is probable that the race took place on August 28, 1830, although sources also give the dates of August 25 and September 28 ). Two tracks had been constructed, which led the owners of Stockton and Company, a local stagecoach line providing passenger and freight service, to challenge the new locomotive to a race over the 8 miles (13 km) between the Relay House and Baltimore. The first section linked Baltimore and Ellicott Mills (now Ellicott City, Maryland), along the upper branch of the Patapsco River Valley. Testing was performed on the first section, built in 1829, of the company's future main track line to Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia). ![]() 1831 drawing of a locomotive (likely the Tom Thumb) in Baltimore. Millholland would later become a prominent locomotive designer in his own right.ĭemonstration The Tom Thumb replica in action. Johnson, where the 18-year-old James Millholland was apprenticed. : 11Ĭonstruction was carried out in the machine shop of George W. Success for the railroad was expected to increase the value of his holdings. Ĭooper's interest in the railroad was by way of substantial real estate investment in what is now the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore. : 12 The engine was fueled by anthracite coal. The boiler tubes were made from rifle barrels : 11 and a blower was mounted in the stack, driven by a belt to the powered axle. The "design" was characterized by a host of improvisations. Tom Thumb was designed by Peter Cooper as a four-wheel locomotive with a vertical boiler and vertically mounted cylinders that drove the wheels on one of the axles. Soon, however, Americans began to plan their own locomotives. The first steam locomotives were built in England, the birthplace of steam power, and the first locomotives in America were imported from England. Trains could not be moved by steam power until the steam engine could be mounted on wheels. The first railroads were little more than tracks on roads horses pulled wagons and carriages with their wheels modified to ride on the rails. : 11 Locomotives sought by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1831 Background (See Relay, Maryland.) However, the demonstration was successful, and the railroad committed to the use of steam locomotion and held trials in the following year for a working engine. ![]() It is especially remembered as a participant in a legendary race with a horse-drawn car, which the horse won after Tom Thumb suffered a mechanical failure. ![]() It was designed and constructed by Peter Cooper in 1829 to convince owners of the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) (now CSX) to use steam engines it was not intended to enter revenue service. Tom Thumb was the first American-built steam locomotive to operate on a common-carrier railroad. A 1927 replica of Tom Thumb, the first American-built steam locomotive ![]()
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