The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-07-22
The First Railway Engine.


The first engine to draw "A railway
train on this continent was run at
Honesdale, Penn, August s, 1929, on
the newly finished road connecting the
Lackawanna coal fields with tide water
by way of tie Delaware and Hudson
Canal. This was the first road of any
consequence in the Republic to adopt
practically the economic system of in
clined planes and gravity locomotion,
since adopted by engineers wherever
practicable. AT that time railroads
were Just beginning to attract the atten-
ton Of capitalists. The Liverpool and
Manchester road, the pioneer enterprise
OF the kind, had been for some time
building, and was near completion.
George Stephensons experiments with
steam machines for roads were watched
throughout civilization with great inter-
est. In 1928, John Be Jervis, chief en-
cineer of the Delaware and Hudson
Canal, sent his assistant, Horatio Allen,
to England, to investigate the applica-
ton of steam to land transportation.
Allen became convinced that Stephen
sons ideas were destined to revolution
ize commerce. and he therefore bought
Tor the canal company three engines, to
be used on the initial railway in the
United States.
In May, 1929, the first of the engines
was landed here, was put together by
Allen. and exhibited at the foundry for
some weeks. It wa queer-looking
enough, having four wheels, connected
bv side rods. Vertical cylinders On each
side CT the rear end of the boiler COM
municated motion to vast walking
beam, attached to the side rods of the
driving wheels by other long iron rods.
The engine was, indeed, SO covered with
rods and Joints that it resembled huge
grassnopper. Having been delivered at
Honesdale in due season, Allen had 1t
put up on the track, consisting Of hem
lock rails, eight by ten inches thick,
four feet six inches apart, and spikel to
hemlock ties with ten feet space between
them. The engine weighed seven IN
stead of three tons, as had been agreed
upon; the rails had been warped and as
the road crossed the LackawaXen river,
after sharp curve, on slender hem
lock trestle, which, it was believed,
would not support the engine, Allen was
besought not to imperil his life on It.
He knew there was danger, but ambi-
tious to connect his name With the first
railway in America, he determined to
tlke the risk. He ran the engine up
and down the coal dock for a few min
utes, and then invited some one Of the
large assembly to accompany him. No
body accepted, and pulling the throttle
open, he said good-by to the crowd, and
dashed away from the village, around
the abrupt curve, and over the trem-
bling trestle, amid deafening cheers, at
the rate of ten miles an hour.
The Stourbridge Lion, as the engine
was named, from It's place of manutac-
ture, was attached after the trial, to
trains ST coal cars, and drew them salts
factorily on the docks. But it could not
be employed to advantage on so Sight a
railwav, which could not be fitted to the
engine on account Of the expense re-
quired. The Lion was therefore placed
in a shanty on the docks, and staid there
for years. Finally it was taken to
pieces, its boiler carried to Carbonate
and put in the foundry, where it is still
in use. The other two engines shared
the same fate John B. Jeryis is still
living, at eighty and upward, at Rome,
in this State, and Horatio Allen, ov-r
seventy, resides at Orange, n. J. What
marvellous progress men of their age
have seen in their day