ALTOGETHER, perhaps a quarter of a million steam loco- 

 motives have been built in America. From the first 

 they have been objects of interest to young and old. They 

 have been depicted and photographed untold times, and as 

 a result a wonderfully accurate pictorial record of their con- 

 struction and appearance has been built up. 



The locomotives themselves, however, as they wore out 

 or fell into disuse were usually destroyed for the value of their 

 scrap metal. This process has been greatly hastened in recent 

 years by the trend toward the use of diesel-electric and other 

 types of motive power. Few remain of the busy multitudes of 

 steam locomotives that served so well in building the Nations 

 on this continent. The picturesque and once popular steamer 

 has today become the vanishing iron horse. 



It is proposed to deal here only with the relics and replicas 

 of the historic steam locomotives used during the pioneer 

 days of railroading on this continent, in the period 1825- 

 1849. Of these, only 11 have survived in even reasonably 

 complete form. With the remaining parts of several others, 

 they are accounted museum treasures. Full sized operable 

 replicas of 7 other famous early locomotives have been con- 

 structed. All these together afford a good idea of the actual 

 construction of the locomotives of long ago. 



Not to be included, are the many nonoperable, wooden 

 facsimiles of early locomotives that merely serve to show the 

 general external appearance of the originals they represent. 

 Many such are to be seen in the railroad collection in the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum located at the 

 old Mount Clare station and roundhouse at Baltimore, Md. 



Also not to be included are the modern, full sized, oper- 

 able replicas of Robert Stephenson's famous locomotive 

 Rocket of 1829, of which several exist in the United States 



