| By: | Gary Everhart |
| Dates: | 10/13/2012 - 10/13/2012 |
| Album Info: | On October 13th and 14th, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum pulled out one of its prized possessions, the William Mason 4-4-0. This is the only working Civil War steam engine! According to Wikipedia, "The engine was built by William Mason for the Baltimore and Ohio in 1856, most likely for passenger service. Among the engine's notable features is the "three-point suspension," where unlike most earlier locomotives(i.e. the road's Lafayette), which the front bogie has its wheels closely spaced, the number 25's bogie had its wheels spread apart, with the cylinder mounted horizontally between them. It represented a major improvement in locomotive design which would come to define the "American Standard" locomotive. Another, similarly revolutionary design was the engine's smokebox. Unlike earlier designs, #25 had its smokebox sitting on a "saddle" which carried the cylinders. This design further lowered the engine's center of gravity and made re-boilering easier. The number 25 was the road's first engine to have this smokebox design, as well as the road's first engine to have Stephenson link motion valve gear. The locomotive is named in honor of its builder, William Mason, who built around 754 steam locomotives at his Mason Machine Works firm in Taunton, Massachusetts. It starred in the movies too - "The Great Locomotive Chase" 1956,"Raintree County" 1957, "Wild Wild West" 1998, "Tuck Everlasting" 2002, Gods and Generals 2003 and "Home on the Range 2004". |
