Embedded Files
Tom Thumb was the first American-built steam locomotive to operate on a common-carrier railroad. It was designed and constructed by Peter Cooper in 1830 to convince owners of the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) to use steam engines; it was not intended to enter revenue service. It is especially remembered as a participant in an impromptu race with a horse-drawn car, which the horse won after Tom Thumb suffered a mechanical failure. 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.The first railroads were little more than tracks on roads; horses pulled wagons and carriages with their wheels modified to ride on the rails. Trains could not be moved by steam power until the steam engine could be mounted on wheels. The first steam locomotives were built in England, the birthplace of steam power, and the first locomotives in America were imported from England. Soon, however, Americans began to plan their own locomotives.
Design and construction
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. The "design" was characterized by a host of improvisations. The boiler tubes were made from rifle barrels and a blower was mounted in the stack, driven by a belt to the powered axle. The engine was fueled by anthracite coal.
Cooper's interest in the railroad was by way of substantial real estate investment in what is now the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore. Success for the railroad was expected to increase the value of his holdings.
In 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became the first U.S. company granted a charter for transporting both passengers and freight. However, the company struggled to produce a steam engine capable of traveling over rough and uneven terrain, instead relying on horse-drawn trains.
Enter industrialist Peter Cooper: Cooper, who not coincidentally owned extensive land holdings over the proposed route of the railroad (the value of which would grow dramatically if the railroad succeeded), offered to design and build just such an engine. Construction was carried out in the machine shop of George W. Johnson, where the 18-year-old James Millholland was apprenticed. Millholland would later become a prominent locomotive designer in his own right.
America’s first steam locomotive lost a race to a horse
Testing was performed on the company's year old first main track line going southwest between Baltimore and Ellicott Mills(now Ellicott City, Maryland) which sits along the upper branch of the Patapsco River Valley which feeds the lower Patapsco which is the "Basin" (now called the Inner Harbor) and the Harbor and Port of Baltimore which flows southeast to the nearby Chesapeake Bay. Two tracks had been constructed, which led the owners of Stockton and Company, a local stagecoach passenger and freight service to challenge the revolutionary new locomotive to a race, and on August 28, 1830, the famous legendary race was held (but sources differ slightly on the date with variations including August 25 and September 28). The challenge accepted, Tom Thumb was easily able to pull away from the horse until the belt slipped off the blower pulley. Without the blower, the boiler did not draw adequately and the locomotive lost power, allowing the horse to pass and win the race. Nonetheless, it was realized that the locomotive offered superior performance. B&O executives, impressed with the massive power and speed Cooper’s engine had proven capable of, made the decision to convert their fledgling railroad to steam.
Because Tom Thumb was not intended for revenue service, the locomotive was not preserved. Cooper and others associated with the railroad's early days left detailed descriptions, though, which enabled the general dimensions and appearance to be worked out. In 1892, a wooden model was constructed by Major Joseph Pangborn, a western newspaperman and publicist, who also had models made of many other early locomotives.
In 1927 the B&O hosted a centennial exhibition near Baltimore, titled "Fair of the Iron Horse", and had a replica constructed for the exhibition. This replica followed Pangborn's model and therefore differed considerably from the original, being somewhat larger and heavier, and considerably taller (note that the dimensions given above are those of the replica). Also, instead of the blower in the stack, a much larger blower was mounted on the platform to provide a forced draft, and the support frame of the cylinder and guides was considerably different.
The replica remains on display at the B&O Railroad Museum. The museum lists the replica as "operational", and the locomotive makes special appearances each year.
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791 – April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, and served as the Greenback Party's candidate in the 1876 presidential election. Cooper began tinkering at a young age while working in various positions in New York City. He purchased a glue factory in 1821 and used that factory's profits to fund the Canton Iron Works, where he earned even larger profits by assembling the Tom Thumb. Cooper's success as a businessman and inventor continued over the ensuing decades, and he became the first mill operator to successfully use anthracite coal to puddle iron. He also developed numerous patents for products such as gelatin and participated in the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.
During the Gilded Age, Cooper became an ardent critic of the gold standard and the debt-based monetary system of bank currency, advocating instead for government-issued banknotes. Cooper was nominated for president at the 1876 Greenback National Convention, and the Greenback ticket of Cooper and Samuel Fenton Cary won just under one percent of the popular vote in the 1876 general election. His son, Edward Cooper, and his son-in-law, Abram Hewitt, both served as Mayor of New York City.
Business career
Having been convinced that the proposed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad would drive up prices for land in Maryland, Cooper used his profits to buy 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land there in 1828 and began to develop them, draining swampland and flattening hills, during which he discovered iron ore on his property. Seeing the B&O as a natural market for iron rails to be made from his ore, he founded the Canton Iron Works in Baltimore, and when the railroad developed technical problems, he put together the Tom Thumb steam locomotive for them in 1830 from various old parts, including musket barrels, and some small-scale steam engines he had fiddled with back in New York. The engine was a rousing success, prompting investors to buy stock in B&O, which enabled the company to buy Cooper's iron rails, making him what would be his first fortune.
Cooper began operating an iron rolling mill in New York beginning in 1836, where he was the first to successfully use anthracite coal to puddle iron. Cooper later moved the mill to Trenton, New Jersey on the Delaware River to be closer to the sources of the raw materials the works needed. His son and son-in-law, Edward Cooper and Abram S. Hewitt, later expanded the Trenton facility into a giant complex employing 2,000 people, in which iron was taken from raw material to finished product.
Cooper also operated a successful glue factory in Gowanda, New York that produced glue for decades. A glue factory was originally started in association with the Gaensslen Tannery, there, in 1874, though the first construction of the glue factory's plant, originally owned by Richard Wilhelm and known as the Eastern Tanners Glue Company, began on May 5, 1904. Gowanda, therefore, was known as America's glue capital.
Cooper owned a number of patents for his inventions, including some for the manufacture of gelatin, and he developed standards for its production. The patents were later sold to a cough syrup manufacturer who developed a pre-packaged form which his wife named "Jell-O".
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse