Transportation - Overview
Americans have always been a people on the move—on rails, roads, and waterways (for travel through the air, visit the National Air and Space Museum). In the transportation collections, railroad objects range from tools, tracks, and many train models to the massive 1401, a 280-ton locomotive built in 1926. Road vehicles include coaches, buggies, wagons, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and automobiles—from the days before the Model T to modern race cars. The accessories of travel are part of the collections, too, from streetlights, gas pumps, and traffic signals to goggles and overcoats.
In the maritime collections, more than 7,000 design plans and scores of ship models show the evolution of sailing ships and other vessels. Other items range from scrimshaw, photographs, and marine paintings to life jackets from the Titanic.
"Transportation - Overview" showing 2 items.
Steam Locomotive, John Bull
- Description
- Knowing the best locomotives were made in England, Robert Stevens ordered one from Robert Stevenson & Company of New Castle for the Camden and Amboy Railroad which ran across central New Jersey. The "John Bull," named later for the mythical gentleman who symbolized England, was the result.
- The locomotive was built as a standard 0-4-0 Planet class. Never seeing a locomotive before, Isaac Dripps, a young steamboat mechanic, assembled the engine from the parts that arrived in New Jersey in September 1831. It was tested that same month. The locomotive proved vulnerable to derailment. Dripps installed an extra pair of wheels, carried in a frame out front. Stevens called them "guide wheels"; they helped to steer the locomotive in curves and over uneven rails. The innovation worked so well that the Camden and Amboy bought 15 American copies of "John Bull" with the added wheels. By the end of the 1830s, American manufacturers were building locomotives and exporting to Russia and other countries that had vast terrain much like America.
- The steam locomotive "John Bull" ran for 35 years, pulling trains of passengers and cargo between the two largest cities of the time, Philadelphia and New York. A short ferry ride connected Camden with Philadelphia and a longer ferry run connected South Amboy with New York. The locomotive propelled trains at 25 to 30 miles per hour.
- Date made
- 1831
- user
- Camden and Amboy Railroad
- Stevens, Robert
- assembled by
- Dripps, Isaac
- maker
- Robert Stephenson and Company
- ID Number
- TR*180001
- accession number
- 15804
- catalog number
- 180001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Model of the 1839 Steam Locomotive, Gowan & Marx
- Description
- This is a 1/2" scale model of the Gowan and Marx, a 4-4-0 freight locomotive built in 1839 for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. The model consists of an engine with two inclinded cylinders, horizontal boiler, a domed firebox and a four wheel tender.
- As trains grew longer and heavier, railroad companies needed more powerful locomotives. One way to increase power was to build machines with more driving wheels, or powered wheels. However, such locomotives had previously proved too rigid for the rough tracks of early American railroads, derailing often or damaging the track. On the Gowan and Marx, locomotive builders Eastwick and Harrison of Philadelphia introduced the equalizing lever, a spring suspension that distributed the engine’s weight over three points. In this arrangement, each of the four driving wheels could bounce independently as the engine negotiated rough track, greatly improving stability and traction. According to John H. White in American Locomotives: 1830-1880, the equalizing lever, which allowed the successful operation of engines with multiple pairs of driving wheels, “was possibly the most important American contribution to locomotive design.” Eastwick and Harrison’s equalizing lever proved so successful that it was used through the end of steam locomotive construction in the 1950s.
- Steam locomotives are often classified by wheel arrangement, in the order of leading, driving, and trailing wheels. The Gowan and Marx has four leading wheels, four driving wheels, and no trailing wheels. It is therefore classified as a 4-4-0 locomotive. When compared to an earlier 4-2-0 type engine, like Baldwin’s Lancaster, the 4-4-0’s additional pair of driving wheels brought a great increase in power. Intended for slow speed, heavy coal trains, the Gowan and Marx performed extremely well; on one occasion, it pulled a 101-car train of 423 tons at an average speed of 9.8 miles per hour. After 1840, the 4-4-0 or “American type” became the most popular locomotive in the country. The exceptional performance of the Gowan and Marx greatly enhanced the reputation of Eastwick and Harrison. They were subsequently invited to Russia to build locomotives for the Moscow and St. Petersburg Railway.
- Location
- Currently on loan
- date made
- 1962
- Gowan & Marx locomotive constructed
- 1839
- maker
- Shawcraft (Models) Ltd.
- ID Number
- TR*320630
- accession number
- 242186
- catalog number
- 320630
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center