Illustrated Catalogue of Locomotives; Baldwin Locomotive WorksBaldwin Locomotive Works
History
Illustrated Catalogue of Locomotives; Baldwin Locomotive Works
Baldwin Locomotive Works
Baldwin locomotives; Locomotives -- Catalogs
The time had now arrived when the increase of business on railroads
demanded more powerful locomotives. It had for some years been felt
that for freight traffic the engine with one pair of drivers was
insufficient. Mr. Baldwin's engine had the single pair of drivers
placed back of the fire-box; that made by Mr. Norris, one pair in
front of the fire-box. An engine with two pairs of drivers, one pair
in front and one pair behind the fire-box, was the next logical step,
and Mr. Henry R. Campbell, of Philadelphia, was the first to carry
this design into execution. Mr. Campbell, as has been noted, was the
Chief Engineer of the Germantown Railroad when the "Ironsides" was
placed on that line, and had since given much attention to the subject
of locomotive construction. February 5, 1836, Mr. Campbell secured a
patent for an eight-wheeled engine with four drivers connected, and a
four-wheeled truck in front; and subsequently contracted with James
Brooks, of Philadelphia, to build for him such a machine. The work was
begun March 16, 1836, and the engine was completed May 8, 1837. This
was the first eight-wheeled engine of this type, and from it the
standard American locomotive of to-day takes its origin. The engine
lacked, however, one essential feature; there were no equalizing beams
between the drivers, and nothing but the ordinary steel springs over
each journal of the driving-axles to equalize the weight upon them. It
remained for Messrs. Eastwick & Harrison to supply this deficiency;
and in 1837 that firm constructed at their shop in Philadelphia a
locomotive on this plan, but with the driving-axles running in a
separate square frame, connected to the main frame above it by a
single central bearing on each side. This engine had cylinders twelve
by eighteen, four coupled driving-wheels, forty-four inches in
diameter, carrying eight of the twelve tons constituting the total
weight. Subsequently, Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., of the same firm,
substituted "equalizing beams" on engines of this plan afterward
constructed by them, substantially in the same manner as since
generally employed.
In the _American Railroad Journal_ of July 30, 1836, a wood-cut
showing Mr. Campbell's engine, together with an elaborate calculation
of the effective power of an engine on this plan, by William J. Lewis,
Esq., Civil Engineer, was published, with a table showing its
performance upon grades ranging from a dead level to a rise of one
hundred feet per mile. Mr. Campbell stated that his experience at that
time (1835-6) convinced him that grades of one hundred feet rise per
mile would, if roads were judiciously located, carry railroads over
any of the mountain passes in America, without the use of planes with
stationary steam power, or, as a general rule, of costly tunnels,--an
opinion very extensively verified by the experience of the country
since that date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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