On the day when the railroad started operation, 16 tons of granite from the Bunker Hill Quarry, and loaded on three “wagons,” were easily pulled by one horse, once started. Bryant’s first car had flanged wheels, 6½ feet in diameter, from the axles of which a platform was hung to carry the granite. This platform was lowered to receive the load and then raised by an ingenious gearing device. Naturally, Bryant based the design of his early railroad cars upon the construction of the horse-drawn wagons of his day. Like the wagons, his cars had to be flexible if they were to keep on the track when passing over the two curves of the otherwise straight Granite Railway. In his description of another of his cars appear the road wagon terms--bolsters, truck, and center kingpin, to allow a swiveling motion. Rigidly bolted to cross timbers beneath the truck were two iron axletrees, on which revolved cast-iron wheels. (Some time would elapse in railroad progress before the wheels would be fixed to, and revolve with, the axles in journals.) In early American railroad development Bryant is credited with the invention of the eight-wheel car, the turntable, switch, turnout, and many other improvements. In 1832, he had invented and used in the building of the United States Bank at Boston, his portable derrick, “used in every city and village in the country wherever there was a stone building to erect.” Others profited from Bryant’s amazing ingenuity. Although the Supreme Court of the United States decided in his favor in his most important invention, the eight-wheeled car, he did not collect, and he died poor.[8] [8] For more data on the Granite Railway and Gridley Bryant, _see_: Charles B. Stuart, _Civil and Military Engineers of America_ (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1871); and _The First Railroad in America_ (Boston: Privately printed for Granite Railway Company, 1926).