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| ID # 889 |
Two experimental engines that made trial runs in 1830 were the Tom Thumb (upper picture) and Best Friend of charleston (lower). Peter Cooper built the Tom Thumb in 1829 for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and drove her August 28, 1830, hauling an open car filled with B. & 0. offIcials in a race with a horse-drawn vehicle. A belt in the locomotive slipped, permitting the horse to win, but the test proved that steam power could be used on the B. & 0. to replace horses. The Best Friend of Charleston was the first locomotive to draw a train in America. Designed by E. L. Miller of Charleston, South Carolina. she was built in 1830 at the West Point Foundry in New York for the Charleston & Hamburg Railroad, today part of the Southern system. On trial runs in November and Decemher she hauled four and five carloads of passengers at speeds up to 21 miles per hour.
New York Public Library
New-York Historical Society
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