Figure 37. — The Center-Rail loco- 

 motive as pictured in Sellers' Im- 

 provements. It is the most accurate 

 representation of the engines built 

 for the Panama Railroad in 1851- 

 1852. Meant to illustrate the im- 

 proved inside-connected center-rail 

 engine, the plate was made nearly 

 two years before the Panama engines 

 were built. (Smithsonian photo 

 46943-C.) 



or, even better, figure 37. The working drawings of these engines 

 were retained by Sellers until 1893, when they were lent to the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for its exhibition at the Columbian 

 Exposition. In recent years I have made several attempts to trace 

 these documents, but without success. 



By the spring of 1851 substantial progress had been made on the 

 first locomotive. The erecting was done in several rude sheds 

 hastily built on a vacant lot near Sellers' little machine shop. In 

 late March or early April the first set of driving wheels arrived 

 from England. ^^^ The first engine was finished sometime in July, 

 for on August 3, 1851, Coleman wrote to his sister Anna: "To- 

 morrow we try the locomotive for the last time before shipping it 

 . . . when we tried it last it worked beautifully better than engines 

 usually do at their first trial.""- 



While the first ensrine neared comoletion, abandonment of the 



111 John Finch to G.E. Sellers, March 25, 1851, ibid. 

 11- Peale-Sellers papers. 



80 



