years after Millholland’s retirement. (The _ first 
locomotive with a Wootten boiler, built by Mi£ill- 
holland’s successor, John E. Wootten, in 1877, was 
essentially an elaboration of Millholland’s plan for the 
Gunboat class, except for the very wide firebox which 
was made for burning waste anthracite coal.) 
In September 1863 Millholland finished the Penn- 
sylvania (fig. 28), a mammoth “pusher” engine. 
This giant 12-wheeled machine was for many years 
the largest locomotive in the world. Nearly twice 
the size of a standard eight-wheeler of the period, it 
weighed over 50 tons, had 20 x 26-inch cylinders and 
a grate area of 31 square feet, and could pull 2500 
tons on the level. The engine was built to assist 
heavy coal trains up the Falls Grade (0.9 percent) near 
Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania was followed by seven 
smaller The first of these, the Aentucky, 
weighing 41 tons, was completed in 1864; the last was 
built in 1872. 
In 1866 James Millholland resigned as master 
machinist of the Philadelphia and Reading to devote 
himself to other business and community interests. 
After a long illness he died in Reading, Pennsylvania, 
in August 1875 at the age of 63. Although his later 
sisters. 
years were undistinguished by mechanical invention, 
he already had made outstanding contributions to 
railroad technology. His original works include the 
cast-iron crank axle, wooden spring, plate-girder 
bridge, poppet throttle, anthracite firebox, water 
grate, drop frame, and steel tires. He was also an 
early user and advocate of the superheater, the feed- 
water heater, and the injector. His general designs 
were followed by the Reading long after his retire- 
ment, and a number of his innovations were adopted 
as standard practice by the railroad industry. 
James Millholland was an original mechanic whose 
designs were distinctive and different from those of 
his contemporaries. His locomotives were plain, prac- 
tical machines; their simple lines favored European 
concepts rather than the gaudy and ornamental styles 
so typical of 19th-century American locomotives. 
One line in his obituary summarizes his career: ‘The 
science of mechanics was his lifelong study, and the 
locomotive the special object to which he devoted 
the energies of his constructive genius.” ?° 
9 Railroad Gazette (August 28, 1875), vol. 7, p. 362. 
Appendix 
I 
[From Engineering News, October 20, 1888, p. 305.] 
The following letter, written by the designer to 
Mr. Herman Haupt, soon after the erection of the 
bridge, gives many details which will be of interest: 
READING, Pa., May 1, 1849. 
Dear Sir:—Enclosed I send you the drawings of the 
three bridges I constructed on the Baltimore & Susque- 
hanna Railroad while engaged as Superintendent of 
machinery and road. The one marked A was built 
at the Bolton depot in the winter of 1846 and 1847, and 
was put in its place in April, 1847. This bridge is 
made of puddled boiler-iron -in. in thickness. 
The sheets, standing vertical, are 38 ins. wide and 6 
ft. high, and riveted together with % rivets, 2% ins. 
from center to center of rivets. You will observe by 
reference to the drawing, that each truss frame is 
32 BULLETIN 252: 
composed of two thicknesses of iron, 12 ins. distant 
from each other, and connected together by 5-16 
iron bolts, passing through round cast-iron sockets at 
intervals of 12 ins.; which arrangement, together with 
the lateral bracing between the two trusses, ensured 
stability. The lateral bracing is composed of *4 round 
iron, set diagonally and bound together at the crossing 
by two cast-iron plates about 4 ins. diameter, the sides 
next to the bracing being cut in such a manner, that 
when the two % bolts that pass through them were 
screwed up, it held them firmly together. There is 
also a bolt passing through both truss-frames and 
through the heels of the lateral bracing, at right 
angles with the bridge, which secured the heels of the 
lateral braces, and by means of a socket in the center 
made a lateral tie to the bridge, giving the bridge its 
lateral stability. 
The lower chords were of hammered iron, there 
being some difficulty at that time to get rolled iron of 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 
