. American railway transportation . a road having grades andsharp curves. Cooper designed a little engine called theTom Thumb, which weighed barely a ton, but whichsucceeded, in August, 1830, in hauling 4\ tons aroundcurves and up grades at a speed of 12 to 15 miles an 40 AMERICAN RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION hour, and did much toward demonstrating the possibilityof using steam-locomotives on American railroads. The first locomotives constructed in the United Statesfor actual service on a railroad were built in New Yorkcity at the West Point Foundry Works. LocomotiveNo. 1 was the Best Friend, erecte
. American railway transportation . a road having grades andsharp curves. Cooper designed a little engine called theTom Thumb, which weighed barely a ton, but whichsucceeded, in August, 1830, in hauling 4\ tons aroundcurves and up grades at a speed of 12 to 15 miles an 40 AMERICAN RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION hour, and did much toward demonstrating the possibilityof using steam-locomotives on American railroads. The first locomotives constructed in the United Statesfor actual service on a railroad were built in New Yorkcity at the West Point Foundry Works. LocomotiveNo. 1 was the Best Friend, erected in 1830, and putinto service that year on the Charleston and HamburgRailroad. The following year the West Point was de-livered to the same company. The third locomotive tocome from the West Point Foundry Works was the DeWitt Clinton, also built in 1831, and put into use on theMohawk and Hudson Railroad between Albany andSchenectady. Machinists in New York, Baltimore, York,Pa., and elsewhere were studying and experimenting, so ^37. The Old Ironsides, 1832. that within two years from the time when the first trackswere laid American builders had demonstrated their abil-ity to construct locomotives adapted to the requirementsimposed by American conditions. Among the firms whichearly undertook locomotive construction was the onefounded in Philadelphia by Matthias Baldwin, whose first THE MECHANISM OF THE RAILWAY 41 engine, the Old Ironsides, appeared in 1832. Duringthe succeeding seventy years the Baldwin LocomotiveWorks constructed 20,000 locomotives, and is now build-ing 1,500 to 1,800 each year. The influence of George Stephenson, of England, andof his celebrated locomotive the Rocket, was felt inthe United States, but considering the undeveloped con-
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