The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum is located at 901 W. Pratt St, Baltimore, MD. It has one of the best collections in the U.S., and one of the most attractive display spaces. There is so much, I have two pages on this website. This page covers the roundhouse. The next page covers the yard and car shop.
For much of its life, the B&O collected locomotives and other artefacts for public relations. The collection was stored in various sites until centralised in the Mount Clare Shops in 1953. It was maintained by the Chessie System and CSX, which succeeded the B&O. In 1990, CSX deeded the property and collection to the newly formed museum organisation, which has continued to expand its role and the collection.
The first trains on U.S. railroads were pulled by horses, and B&O’s Pioneer was one of the first horse drawn passenger trains in the country. It carried the company directors on the trip from Mount Clare to Ellicott’s Mills on 22nd May 1830, inaugurating the first regular railroad passenger service in the U.S.
Work had begun on the line in October 1828. The run from Mount Clare was 13 miles and took the horse drawn train about 1.5 hours to complete. Initially, 3 round trips were run daily. A fourth was added on 5th July 1830.
This replica was built in 1892. The Tom Thumb is in the background.
The small brick building on the centre-
Centre-
The roundhouse, designed by the Baltimore architect Ephraim Francis Baldwin, was built in 1884 to service passenger cars. It was the largest circular industrial building in the world when completed, 125’ high and covering more than an acre.
On 16th February 2003, a record-
The Atlantic #2 was an 0-
The locomotive is an example of the grasshopper type, so called because the long vertical driving rods appeared to give them a resemblance to the insect. The type was quickly replaced by rod locomotives and most were dropped from the roster by the 1840s. However, a few continued to operate as yard switchers as late as the 1890s.
The John Hancock, built by George Gillingham and Ross Winans in 1836, is another
grasshopper type locomotive. This 0-
It was displayed at the 1948-
This replica of the 2-
The original was completed in 1830 by Peter Cooper as a demonstrator locomotive. Its success at handling curves on the B&O line led the company directors to hold a competition for American made locomotives. The winner was Phineas Davis’s York, the first grasshopper type locomotive to operate on the line.
The Director’s Car attached is a 1926 replica of the one that travelled on the 28th August 1830 demonstration run of the Tom Thumb.
This replica of the 4-
The original locomotive, built by the Norris Locomotive Works in 1837, was the first horizontal boilered locomotive built for the line. This was an example of a “one armed billy”, probably named after the builder and the fact that it had a single connecting rod to the drivers. It was one of the first externally built locomotives ordered by the company and hauled both passenger and freight trains.
The replica cars attached to the Lafayette are typical of a certain early type of American passenger car, which were simply stage coach bodies applied to wheeled frames. The separate springing made for a smoother ride on the often rough rail track of the time.
As was the case with the stage coach, the lower compartments would have been for higher fare paying passengers than the more open upper decks.
The two views above clearly show the walking beams (the grasshopper “legs”) and gears of this type of locomotive.
By 1838, the company owned 14 grasshoppers, as well as 2 Ross Winans designed derivatives called crabs, all of which had been built at the company’s Mount Clare shops. The Andrew Jackson was still operating in 1892, when it was finally retired and adapted for display as the Atlantic #2 at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Close up of one of the “legs”.
The main limitation on further development of this type of locomotive was the vertical boiler, which constrained their overall size and, hence, their power.
The passenger carriage was not attached when I visited in 2008. The three photographs showing it attached were taken in 2009.
When the B&O terminal moved to a large, purpose-
These two photographs show the replica of the freight agent’s room set up inside the old depot building.
The Stourbridge Lion was built in England for the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company by Foster, Rastrick & Co., at Stourbridge. It was the first steam locomotive to be exported from the UK, and was also the first steam locomotive to operate in the U.S.
It was assembled at the West Piont Foundry, NY, in 1829 and tested under steam in August that year.
With U.S. locomotive design improving through the 1830s, the Stourbridge Lion was soon rendered obsolete. Components were progressively melted down to manufacture other parts and products and, by 1845, all that remained was the boiler.
The boiler was displayed at the 1883 Railway Exposition in Chicago, IL, where souvenir hunters made off with whatever removable parts remained. Restored again, the boiler was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1890 and is currently on loan to the B&O Museum, where it is displayed in a room adjacent to the Roundhouse.
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Herbert Harwood Jr., provides a detailed history of the B&O in Impossible Challenge II, published by Barnard Roberts & Co., in 1994 (click on the cover to search for this book on Bookfinder.com). Impossible Challenge II is an updated, edition of Impossible Challenge I, published in 1979.
John Stover’s History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was published by Purdue University Press in 1987 (click on the cover to search for this book on Bookfinder.com).
Memnon was one of six externally built 0-
Memnon served in the Civil War hauling troops and supplies for the Union. It was finally retired in 1893 and last ran in the 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse. It is one of the oldest surviving freight locomotives in the U.S.
Memnon burned coal (most locomotives at that period burned wood). The drivers are
43" in diameter. It has “blind” (flangeless) centre drivers, which were usually installed
to ease curve-
Memnon was badly damaged when the Roundhouse roof collapsed in 2003 and had to undergo extensive restoration. It was returned to display in February 2008.
The fireman’s and engineer’s controls were so much simpler in the early 19th century!
The 28 ton William Mason is a wood burning locomotive built by the Mason Machine
Works at Taunton, MA, in 1856. It was one of two ordered from the works and is an
example of the most popular locomotive design on U.S. railroads, the American type
4-
William Mason wanted to improve the symmetry of the American locomotive, and his designs produced between 1853 and his death in 1883 were quite handsome without the range of ornamenting more typical of of the day. The Mason Machine Works turned out over 750 steam locomotives until it ceased production in 1889.
The William Mason is the oldest operating steam locomotive in the U.S. and has had
a long and active career. It participated in the 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse, (apparently?)
the Railroads on Parade exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and, like the John
Hancock, the 1948-
It has appeared in several movies, featuring as the General in Disney’s 1956 movie, “The Great Locomotive Chase”. It was rebuilt as the Wanderer in the spring of 1998 at the Mechanical Shop of the Strasburg Railroad in Strasburg, PA, for a Warner Brothers remake of the movie “The Wild, Wild West”. More recently, it featured in "Tuck Everlasting" (2002) and “Gods and Generals” (2003). It is still occasionally steamed up for Live Steam Weekends at the museum.
The controls are a little more complicated than Memnon’s, and the cab a little more comfortable, although it would not have been so comfortable with a tail wind in winter!
The A J Cromwell is one of two locomotives at the museum that have not yet been restored following damage sustained when the roundhouse roof collapsed in 2003. Both locomotives are exhibited in a glassed off area between the Lafayette and Memnon.
The A J Cromwell was built for freight service at B&O’s Mount Clare works in 1888
under the supervision of Andrew J Cromwell. It is a Consolidation type locomotive
(2-
The J C Davis was also built at B&O’s Mount Clare works under the supervision of
the Master of Machinery, John C Davis. A Mogul type (2-
The J C Davis was one of the more seriously damaged exhibits following the roof collapse.
As is evident in the photograph on the right, the entire cab was flattened, with
only the front wall left in place. It appears that very little can be re-
Most of the appliances and controls inside the cab were damaged but may be salvageable. Damage to the boiler top fittings was similar to that sustained by some other locomotives that were damaged in the collapse. The bell was dented, the bell stand and yoke broken into pieces. The whistle body and stem were bent. A number of gouges, dents and scrapes were sustained by the boiler jacket. The tender received little damage, other than minor buckling and scratching.
Clinchfield #1, also known as “Old Number One”, was built by the Columbus, Chicago
& Indiana Central Railway in Logansport, IN, as #423 in 1882. It is a Ten Wheeler
type locomotive (4-
It saw service in a number of different railroads until it joined the Clinchfield in 1968. It was then restored and ran passenger excursions until it was retired in 1979.
The drivers are 50” in diameter. Boiler pressure was 125 psi and the locomotive had a tractive effort of 15,100 lbs. The cylinders are 18” x 22”.
#592 was one of 6 P-
In these views, the distinguishing features of a “Mother Hubbard” are clearly evident: the driving cab straddling the boiler with a firebox supported either by driving wheels or, as here, by a trailing truck.
The CNJ derived much of its business from its connecting line between Philadelphia
and New York. The P-
On the left is a view inside the fireman’s side of the cab. A very narrow running board runs along the side of the boiler from the area where the fireman stokes the fire.
The centre photograph shows the firedoors and deck plate from which the fireman stoked the engine. Because of the width of the firebox and its grate area of 82 sq. ft., two firedoors were fitted. Firing such a large firebox through two firedoors in such an exposed, narrow space straddling the footplate while just a few feet above the rails, must have been challenging when #592 was running at 90 mph (its top speed)!
The firebox is a “Wootten” type, patented in 1877 by the then General Manager of the Reading Railroad, John Wootten, to burn anthracite coal. Anthracite was ideal for passenger trains as it burned with a high heat and very little smoke. Boiler pressure was 210 psi, and tractive effort was 22,945 lbs, increased to 28,433 lbs in 1919.
On the right is a view inside the engineer’s side of the cab. Like the fireman’s side, it is extremely cramped and must have been uncomfortably hot in summer. The cab was placed astride the boiler because of the very wide firebox, which would have severely limited visibility if a rear end cab was utilised. However, this placed the engineer directly over the whirling side rods while the locomotive was in motion, again, not an ideal position to be in at 90 mph should any of the running gear come loose or break! In fact, because of such safety concerns, the Interstate Commerce Commission banned further camelback production in 1927, although some remained in operation well into the 1950s.
This 3-
This type of locomotive was designed and first produced by Ephraim Shay, a Michigan logger, probably in 1875. His design attracted a great deal of interest. Lima began building this type of locomotive in 1880. The company built 2,768 between 1880 and 1945.
An operating model of the Ely-
You can see another 3-
The boiler was offset to accommodate the side mounted cylinders.
These views show how the wheels of Shay locomotives were geared (there were no gears on the left side of the locomotive). Power was transmitted from the cylinder rods by the drive shaft, which runs the length of the three trucks. The shaft has a universal joint and square sliding slip joints to accommodate the trucks’ swivelling motion. Drive was transferred to the 36” diameter wheels by bevel gears.
Shays developed great power, could handle comparatively tight curves and grades, but their small drivers meant they could not operate at very high speeds. In addition, because the drive shaft was outside the trucks, truck rotation on curved track placed significant stress on the drive shaft. This made curve handling difficult, particularly with heavy loads, and led to Shays being termed "rail spreaders" and "flange hounds”.
Two views of the vertically set cylinders. They were “12 x 15”. The locomotive had a tractive effort of 29,800 lbs.
I don’t normally photograph rolling stock, but this took my fancy. It’s a clearance car built by B&O to gauge internal tunnel clearances. It’s attached to a caboose.
The metal fingers were extended and the car was pushed through the tunnel. The resulting displacement of fingers showed the minimum clearance of the tunnel.
The 2/3 storey building centre-
You can download a (word searchable) PDF version of J. Snowden Bell’s Early Motive Power of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, published in 1912, from the books and manuals page of this website.
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