There are currently three historic steam locomotives on display at the Museum of American History (part of the Smithsonian Institute) in Washington, DC. Except for the "John Bull", however, they are rather badly lit, in cramped spaces and surrounded by lots of extraneous material (mannequins, ramps, plaques, railings, etc.) that make it difficult to get good photographs.
The Museum of American History is also a fascinating place to visit. There is an incredible amount to see and do there, but you really need to spend at least half a day to get the most out of it. But... arrive early if you want to get good photographs - it can get very crowded as the day goes on!
I have visited the museum on several occasions, and the photos on this page were taken at various different times. You can see other locomotives from the Smithsonian collection on the B&O Museum Roundhouse and Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Train Shed and Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Yard pages of this website.
The "John Bull" was shipped in parts to Philadelphia in 1831 from the United Kingdom, where it was built by Robert Stephenson & Co., in Newcastle. The parts were then shipped from Philadelphia to Bordentown, NJ, where Isaac Dripps assembled them for Robert L. Stevens. It was then named "Stevens" after the engineer.
Stevens was building one of the first railroads in the US from Camden to Perth Amboy. The line was not completed until 1833, and the locomotive helped construct the final section. It then went into regular service on 9th September 1833.
The locomotive was built as an 0-4-0 type, but a leading truck was added to assist road holding along with the characteristically long, low cow catcher (right). As a result, the connecting rods had to be disconnected, leaving the rear axle as the sole driving wheel. The "Stevens" then became, arguably, a 2-2-2-0.
Crews soon began calling the locomotive "the old John Bull", a reference to the personification of England under that name. Eventually, this was shortened to "John Bull" and the name became so widely used that "Stevens" fell out of use.
The "John Bull" rests on a section of the first bridge built entirely of iron in the US. Designed by Richard B. Osborne, it was constructed by the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad in 1845 to carry coal trains over a creek emptying into the Schuylkill River near West Manayunk in Pennsylvania.
Opposition to early railways in the US took many forms. Disgruntled operators on the Schuylkill Canal saw the Philadelphia & Reading as competition, and took to burning the railroad's wooden bridges. An iron bridge was one way of solving this problem.
A double line ran across the 34' long bridge, which remained in service until 1901. It was decommissioned the following year and a section was eventually relocated to the Smithsonian. An historical marker at the south-east corner of High St and York St in Pottstown, PA, commemorates the nearby workshop location where the bridge was built.
The "John Bull" weighs 22,000 lbs and has 54" drivers and 11" x 20" cylinders. A wood burner, it operated at a boiler pressure of 50 psi delivering 1,900 lbs tractive effort.
Soon after entering service, a cab was added to the locomotive by the Camden & Amboy to protect the crew from the weather. Other modifications included addition of a bell and headlight. The cab was removed when the locomotive was overhauled for display at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia by the Pennsy, which had absorbed the C&A in 1871. At the same time, various other changes were made to make it look more "authentic", including, ironically, replacing the original bonnet exhaust stack with a straight one.
"Jupiter" is an American type (4-4-0) locomotive built by Baldwin in 1876 for the narrow gauge (36") Santa Cruz Railroad in California. It weighs 44,000 lbs, has 42" drivers and 12" x 18" cylinders. An oil burner, it operated at a boiler pressure of 140 psi delivering 7,346 lbs tractive effort. It was one of three locomotives operating on the twenty mile Santa Cruz Railroad.
The line was absorbed into the Southern Pacific in 1881 and shortly after converted to standard gauge. "Jupiter" was then sold to the Ferrocarril Guatemala Central Railroad in 1885. The FGC became part of the Ferrocarriles Internacionales de Centroamerica in 1921, on which "Jupiter" ran right up until 1960. In 1963, the Washingtonian O. Roy Chalk bought the FIdeCA.
Chalk brought "Jupiter" to DC in 1964, where it went on display in the John F. Kennedy playground at 7th and O St. Chalk then donated the locomotive to the Smithsonian in 1975. It went on display the following year as part of the 1876 Exhibition at the Arts and Industry Building. On 30th January 1999, it was moved to the American History Museum, where it has been on display ever since.
#1401 Pacific type (4-6-2) locomotive was built by Alco in 1926. Sixty-four of these Ps-4s were built for the Southern Railroad in total. Derived from the USRA "heavy" Pacific type, but with smaller drivers (73" instead of 79"), they were amongst the largest locomotives built for the railroad, only slightly smaller than its Ts-1 Mountain types (4-8-2). Total engine and tender weight when working was 561,600 lbs, including 16 tons of coal and 14,000 gallons of water. The drivers are 73" and the cylinders 27" x 28". With a 70.5 sq ft grate, 290 sq ft firebox, 4,594 sq ft heating surface (including 905 sq ft superheating) and operating at a boiler pressure of 210 psi, it delivered 47,535 lbs tractive effort.
#1401 was one of the second batch of twenty-three Ps-4s delivered to the Southern (the first batch of forty-one locomotives was built in 1923-24). On a trip to the U.K. in the mid 1920s, Southern's President Fairfax Harrison had seen and admired the U.K. London & North Eastern Railway's green liveried locomotives and decided this second batch should be painted Virginia Green, with gold trim and lettering, aluminium painted running board edges and tyres, chrome plated rods, valve gear and cylinder heads, and a silver smoke-box. All brass and metal fittings were highly polished and the locomotives working Southern's Washington to Atlanta section had Crescent Limited lettered on their tenders.
#1401 hauled passenger trains mainly on Southern's Charlotte Division between Greenville and Spencer, NC, until the railroad dieselised in the 1950s, when it was relegated to locals. Its tender capacity permitted runs of about 150 miles between stops, the full length of the Charlotte Division, although one intermediate water stop was normally scheduled. A Ps-4 could haul 12-15 steel passenger cars, about 700-1000 tons, at 80 mph on level track, but the rolling profile of the Charlotte Division kept #1401's average speed down to about 50-60 mph.
#1401 is perhaps best known for joining one of eight double-headed
Ps-4s (with #1385 from Greenville to Spencer, NC) that pulled President Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral train from Warm Springs, GA, to Washington, DC, in April 1945.
#1401 was fully shopped in 1951, retired in 1952 and donated to the Smithsonian in 1953. Taken to the Henry Street Yard in Alexandria, VA, it was cosmetically restored at Shelton Paint Shop in 1961. Southern paid for and supervised the restoration, as well as the cost of transporting the locomotive to the museum in November of that year.
#1401 was dedicated in June 1962, and went on display in 1964 when the new National Museum of History & Technology opened to the public. It is the heaviest exhibit in the museum's collection.