. Wonders and curiosities of the railway; or, Stories of the locomotive in every land . dwin,founder of the great locomotive works in Philadelphia, thatnow bear his name. The accompanying illastration showsthe quaint appearance of both cai-s and locomotive. Thelatter had wooden spokes, and wrought iron tires. Some-times the eccentrics would stick fast so that the enginecould move in neither direction. Whenever repairs werenecessary, they were made in the night, as Ironsides wasthe only locomotive on the road (the Philadelphia, Ger-mantown, and Norristown, opened for travel in the spring of1832
. Wonders and curiosities of the railway; or, Stories of the locomotive in every land . dwin,founder of the great locomotive works in Philadelphia, thatnow bear his name. The accompanying illastration showsthe quaint appearance of both cai-s and locomotive. Thelatter had wooden spokes, and wrought iron tires. Some-times the eccentrics would stick fast so that the enginecould move in neither direction. Whenever repairs werenecessary, they were made in the night, as Ironsides wasthe only locomotive on the road (the Philadelphia, Ger-mantown, and Norristown, opened for travel in the spring of1832). The locomotive weighed only seven tons, but wasthought by the directors to be so heavy that they camenear rejecting it, in which case it is probable that its builderwould never have constructed another. On the occasion ofthe trial trip of the Ironsides it was discovered that thewheels were too light to keep the machine on the track; sothe builder and two machinists pushed it ahead until con-siderable speed had been obtained, when all jumped aboard THE FIRST AMERICAN RAILROADS. 53. 54 WOKDERS AISTD CURIOSITIES OF THE RAILWAY, in order by their weight to keep the wheels down. Moreover,the boiler was too small for the engine, and steam couldonly be generated fast enough to keep it in motion for ashort time, so that for a large portion of the distance fromPhiladelphia to Germantown it was necessary alternately topush and ride in order to cover the distance. On the returnthe connecting pipe between the tank and the boiler becamefrozen and had to be thawed out with a fire made of rails! One of the most curious of the early cars was the Vic-tory figured on page 55, a model of which is now preservedin the office of the Eastern Railroad Association in ISTewYork. It was the first Monitor or raised roof car, and wasrun on the Philadelphia and Eeading railroad in seats inside were arranged like those of an omnibus —around the sides. The car was entered from the side, andat ea
Size: 1262px × 1980px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidwonderscurio, bookyear1884
