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Figure 5.—Tue 1843 wooDEN-CAR-SPRING PATENT SHOWING 
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‘The drawing is so 
A SIX-WHEEL FREIGHT CAR. 
well detailed and proportioned that it appears to be based on an actual car design, undoubtedly repre- 
senting the type of car used on the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad. 
Before leaving the subject of wooden springs, one 
canard about their origin should be put to rest. 
E. J. Rauch, an employee of the Philadelphia and 
Reading Railroad under Millholland, alleged in 
October 1893 that his former supervisor had not, in 
fact, invented the wooden spring.’ Rauch claimed 
that about 1850 a hapless workman in the Philadel- 
phia and Reading shops had patented the idea but, 
unable to effect its adoption, sold the patent to 
Millholland for a pittance. The allegation is without 
® Rauch repeated his allegation in a biographical sketch of 
Millholland, published in Railway and Locomotive Engineering 
(June 1903), vol. 16, p. 276. 
repeated in part the wood-spring story. 
It was a friendly recollection but 
This and several other 
errors suggest that Rauch may have drafted his article mainly 
from memory. 
5 BULLETIN 252: 
(From U.S. National Archives.) 
basis, since Millholland, as we have seen, had patented 
the spring several years before joining the Reading. 
Such stories are commonly attributed to famous 
mechanics by lesser mechanics, possibly in the hope 
of reducing great men to common level. 
In addition to the six-wheel freight cars, Millholland 
built two passenger cars for the Baltimore and Sus- 
quehanna in 1846 and 1847. Little is known about 
these cars except that one was splendidly fitted with 
crimson cut-velvet curtains and a body painted dark 
claret. 1° 
Aside from his contributions to railroad equipment, 
Millholland’s 
terprise was the plate-girder bridge. 
single most important engineering en- 
This single- 
10 American Railroad Journal (July 17, 1847), vol. 20, p. 449. 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 
