On
September 16, 1830, a crowd gathered in Baltimore, Maryland, to watch a most
unusual race. A spirited gray horse was
pitted against a tiny steam locomotive, the Tom
Thumb. The owners of a stagecoach
line had challenged the locomotive’s maker, Peter Cooper, to prove his “iron
horse” could pull passengers as well as a real horse could.
Cooper was
an inventor from New York. He had built
Tom Thumb to convince officials of the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod that steam
locomotives were practical. Iron pipe
was not available in the US so he used old musket barrels for boiler
tubing. A mechanical blower ssupplied
air to the fire that boiled water and produced steam. The locomotive weighed one ton, but had less
hosepower than most modern lawn mowers.
In a
preliminary demonstration, Tom Thumb pulled a car with 36 passengers over a 13
–mile track at an average speed of 10
miles an hour. Then came the actual
race. The horse was fastest off the
mark, but the little locomotive soon took the lead. Victory seemed assured – until the boiler
developed a leak. Tom Thumb chugged to
a halt as the horse galloped ahead.
Nevertheless, Peter Cooper’s demonstration concvinced the railroad
officials that steam locomotives were practical, as the railroads began to
prepare for the Age of Steam.
Among
Cooper’s inventions were a washing machine and a a compressed-air engine for
ferryboa
