The Great Locomotive Switch

Moving Pioneer

On Friday and Saturday, January 22-23, 1999, the historic steam locomotives Pioneer and Olomana began journeys from the National Museum of American History to new destinations. Project Manager Susan Tolbert led the Smithsonian team that planned the two-day operation jointly with rigging firm Morris Kreitz & Sons, Inc., of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Members of Ironworkers Local 5 (Washington, D.C.), Ironworkers Local 420 (Reading, Pa.), Operating Engineers Local 542 (Reading), and Teamsters Local 429 (Reading) participated.

The Process Step by Step

MK crew secures lifting beam to the rear of the locomotive.

Forklifts move into position to lift Pioneer onto cradle (left).

John A. Sweat signals forklift operators to raise Pioneer.

Foreman John P. Sweat guides trailer underneath Pioneer.

The engine is protected with blankets and plastic sheeting.

Loose parts are padded for crating.

The truck pulls out of the Railroad Hall.

Pioneer embarks on its journey to Bethlehem, PA.

NMAH staff -- from the Curatorial Affairs Department and the History of Technology Division, assisted by the Building Manager's capable "Skull Crew" of moving specialists -- started rearranging the Railroad Hall on January 19. To make room for heavy equipment needed to move Pioneer and Olomana, the team removed small artifacts to temporary storage and then moved aside exhibit cases, an 1836 railroad passenger car, and such irreplaceable relics as the boiler of the Stourbridge Lion, the first locomotive ever to run in the Western Hemisphere. By Thursday, January 21, the hall was ready.

Early the following morning, Morris Kreitz foreman John Sweat and crew of five arrived with two tool trucks, a tractor-trailer carrying two heavy forklift trucks, and a second highway tractor pulling a specialized "low-bed" trailer. NMAH Security Officers opened two huge doors built into the glassed wall at the east end of the museum, and work began.

Sweat brought a custom-built steel "cradle" to transport the 148-year-old Pioneer. To lift it onto the cradle, riggers secured heavy straps to the ancient locomotive at the forward end of its frame and attached a lifting beam of oak to the back. An 11-ton artifact of such age, made of wrought and cast iron, can be damaged easily if lifted at the wrong points. In this case, two MK riggers drove their forklifts carefully into position to the front and rear of Pioneer, carrying additional oak beams aloft as "spreaders." The lifting straps fore and aft, made of Kevlar and nylon, thus provided a safe and stable arrangement. MK engineers had ensured that capacities of straps, cradle, and forklifts were well in excess of loads and weights imposed.

The forklifts bore the little engine upward, keeping it level. Other riggers moved the cradle on rollers into position under Pioneer. Then, on signal, the locomotive gently descended onto the cradle. Fully tied-down to its new supporting structure, Pioneer then was moved on the rollers to the Railroad Hall's doors and turned to facilitate loading. Day-1 of the move was complete.

At 7:00 a.m. the next day, January 23, work resumed. The two forklifts lifted Pioneer once again, much higher this time. MK's driver backed the heavy low-bed trailer through the Railroad Hall's open doors and under the locomotive. Once Pioneer was down on the trailer, MK's riggers wrapped it in plastic sheets, then covered it again in heavy tarps.

NMAH staff members wrapped up items they had earlier removed from Pioneer: its whistle, headlight, safety valve, steam pressure gauge, link-and-pin couplings, and other parts. These were inventoried and secured within wooden packing crates.

At last, Pioneer emerged from the building that had housed it since 1963. MK's truck slowly moved eastward, assisted up a grassy slope by a cable extended from a winch on another MK truck. Looking like nothing more than a large piece of industrial equipment wrapped in blue tarps, accompanied on the trailer by two wooden crates of parts, Pioneer started on its 190-mile trip to Bethlehem, Pa. It headed up Constitution Avenue toward the nation's Capitol before turning north, on its way to a new home at the National Museum of Industrial History.

The museum in Bethlehem now has a fitting representative of the steam-powered transportation revolution that came in the wake of the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Pioneer -- run in Pennsylvania from the early 1850s until the 20th century -- thus represents some of the most dramatic changes ever to occur in the lives of people living in North America.