The original Old Ironsides was the first full sized locomo- 

 tive built by Matthias W. Baldwin, a jeweler turned ma- 

 chinist, of Philadelphia. It was constructed for the Phila- 

 delphia, Germantown, and Norristown Rail-Road Co., 

 which had been using horse cars in operating a short line of 

 only 6 miles between Philadelphia and Germantown. 



The line's first locomotive. Old Ironsides, was initially oper- 

 ated on the road on November 23, 1832, and was a success 

 from the start, though a few understandable imperfections 

 were noted during the trials and shortly corrected. The fairly 

 new locomotive John Bull of the Camden and Amboy Rail 

 Road and Transportation Co. had been inspected by 

 Baldwin before he undertook the project. Undoubtedly it 

 furnished helpful suggestions to the man whose locomotive 

 building enterprise was ultimately to eclipse anything 

 possibly dreamed of by him. 



The locomotive, contracted for at $4,000 but for which 

 Baldwin was, after some difficulty, able to collect only $3,500, 

 was somewhat similar to the locomotives of the English 

 Planet class quite popular at the time. The two driving 

 wheels, located at the rear, were larger than the carrying 

 ones at the front, the diameters being 54 and 45 inches, 

 respectively. The two cylinders had a bore of 9V2 inches and 

 a stroke of 18. The exhaust steam was discharged into the 

 chimney in order to increase the draft. The boiler, 30 inches 

 in diameter, contained 72 copper tubes IV2 inches in 

 diameter and 7 feet long. 



A complete description of Old Ironsides and detailed ac- 

 counts of its first trials are to be found in "History of the 

 Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831-1923." 



Dav/s and Gar\ner Locomof/ve Arab\an, ]834 



Davis and Gartner, who built the Atlantic in 1832 for the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road (see p. 47), built as their 

 next two "grasshoppers" the Traveller and the Arabian. The 

 latter of these was placed in service on the B & O in July 

 1834. Neither of these two locomotives is extant, but a 2-foot- 

 long nonoperable model of the Arabian (figure 65) is now in 



81 



