K <S>: 



MOSES STARR & SOJY. 



SHACKAMAXON ABOVE FRANKLIN STREET, 

 KENSINGTON, PHILADELPHIA. 



Manufacturers of BOILERS for Steam Boats, Locomotives and Stationary Steam 

 Engines, Boilers for Baths and Kitchen Rangers. TANKS for Locomotive Tenders. ( 

 Ship's Water Tanks, &c, &c. 



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Figure 68. — Advertisement in A. M'Elroy's Philadelphia 

 Directory for 1840. Library of Congress photograph. 



we ordered from Low Moor works, England, giving 

 the outside diameter 4% feet, the thickness to be as 

 heavy as they rolled. They came in straight bars so 

 short as to take two bars for each tire, and not ex- 

 ceeding l?s inches thick. We had expected to have 

 received them bent and welded. This was another 

 unexpected operation to prepare for, but having good 

 smiths we did not meet with any serious difficulty. 



The driving wheels were a subject of much dis- 

 cussion. The rigid manner the road was laid — 

 T-iron secured in cast-iron chairs bolted and leaded 

 to alternate stone blocks and stone cross-ties; in- 

 tended for an everlasting roadway on which the 

 farmers could haul their produce to market with 

 their own teams at slow speeds; every cast-iron 

 chair on its stone foundation being an anvil on which 

 a quick moving wheel would hammer out the rails; 

 this rigidity of road must be overcome by a certain 

 elasticity in the locomotive; the commissioners seemed 

 to have been carried away by Baldwin's combined 

 wheel center and spokes of cast-iron with deep wooden 

 felloes. This, it was argued, gave the required 



elasticity. I proposed slightly recessing a cast-iron 

 rim under the tread, letting the tire have its bearing 

 under the flange and about one inch of its outer 

 edge. Objections were raised to this, but led to 

 making the cast rim of the wheel sufficiently deep to 

 admit of recessing to take in well seasoned segments 

 of white oak forming a bottom, and side-supported 

 felloes of about 2 inches deep within the rim. These 

 segment-felloes, when secured in place, were turned, 

 leaving just so much fullness that the shrinking tire 

 would compress them and have its bearing on both 

 the wood and the cast-iron rim of the wheel. 



The spokes or arms were flat, with ribbed edges. 

 The spans between the spokes opposite the crank-pin, 

 at Mr. Brandt's suggestion, were provided with bosses 

 to receive bolts to secure in place counter-weights 

 which we proposed putting on after the engine was in 

 service. This he did about two years in advance of 

 the Rogers hollow-spoke counter-balanced wheel, 

 which has been frequently referred to as the first 

 effort at counter-balancing. After our wheel pat- 

 terns were ready for the foundry I became so appre- 



165 



