Tom Thumb (locomotive)
The Tom Thumb was an experimental machine, the first steam locomotive of American manufacture. She was the result of first experiments with imported English locomotives, which often did not meet the standard required by the U.S. curve radii. The locomotive was fired with anthracite coal.
On December 28, 1827 the foundation stone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (BO, B & O ) had been placed. How many times around the world, the passenger and freight cars of horses were drawn. They had indeed recognized that rail vehicles allowed fast, reliable, smoother and more comfortable for passengers advancement, yet familiar, the person responsible is not the gradual emergence of steam locomotives. Furthermore, initial attempts had failed with imported from England locomotives, as they were too heavy for the track body of the lighter -built horse-drawn trams. Also, it was not possible with the import machinery to drive the tight curves that were the horse-drawn carriages possible. A new route was eliminated and so it remained only once as it was.
The railway technical autodidact Peter Cooper sat down in America but his ideas through, that the future of transport would be determined by the railroad. He examined the difficulties with the English import locomotives and rail of the Baltimore & Ohio. His result was a smaller and lighter engine, which was made in his Canton - iron plant at Baltimore. Years later, the car was named the " Tom Thumb " ( " Thomas Tom Thumb ").
On 24 May 1830 the scheduled time of horse-drawn trams operating on the Baltimore & Ohio by the newly completed railway line from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mills, today added Ellicotts City / Maryland. Around 21 km pulled this route through the country. She offered Cooper a suitable opportunity to offer proof for the higher performance of his machine over the horse in public.
The improvised race
A steam train ride on the two parallel routed tracks of the horses train to Ellicotts Mills was prepared. The August 28, 1830 set as the date by the railway company. John Hazlehurst Boneval Latrobe, author, inventor and lawyer of the B & O, was on this day, with around 40 passengers in an open carriage, which hung on the locomotive with it. Cooper himself contributed his experimental machine. John Latrobe reported, among other things:
" The most notable was the journey itself curves [ 24 km / h] were without difficulty at a speed of fifteen miles per hour taken; Heights with comparable ease climbed. It was a successful day: The party was in the highest ecstasy and some excited masters of this game enrolled at a top speed of eighteen miles per hour [ 29 km / h] their names and some coherent sentences in log books to see if it would be possible to do so at such a high speed. The return of the mills - a distance of thirteen miles [ about 21 miles] - took fifty-seven minutes ".
Move demanded the coachman of a horse-drawn tram car Peter Cooper out with his machine to a race, which was accepted. With ease, the Tom Thumb overtook the horse, due to technical difficulties ultimately the driver won the race. Nevertheless, this day had the command staff of the Baltimore & Ohio convinced that the locomotive had a much higher performance potential than the horse. Therefore, the decision to found the position to beat the steam train from economic considerations the breach. In a short time it became the company's possible to prevail over opponents.
All horses of the Baltimore & Ohio were retired on 31 July 1831, replaced by steam locomotives.
End and replica
Shortly after the introduction of the railway operation, in 1835, the B & O in Baltimore their earliest shares issued. It was found among other things in a fine figure, the Tom Thumb, which had established the glory of this society.
Since the " Tom Thumb " was not built as an experimental locomotive for the service operation, the race ended her brief, successful career. She did not get to posterity. In 1892, a wooden model of this locomotive was manufactured. From this model, in turn, was formed in 1926 for a railway exhibition of today standing at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum 1:1 replica, which, however, in many important respects from the original differs significantly.