Surviving steam locomotives in US in construction date order

DJSullivan · **Joined:** Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:58 am **Posts:** 89

Can someone direct me to a list of surviving steam locomotives in the US in construction date order? The effort is directed toward identifying under-represented eras.

Thanks.

philip.marshall · **Posted:** Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:49 pm

I don't mean this to sound rude, but if you really wanted such a list you could probably make it for yourself. Data on the surviving steam locomotives in the US is freely available, either from J. David Conrad's Steam Locomotive Directory of North America or Doug Bailey's website http://steamlocomotive.info/ . Just go through either list state by state, copy the relevant data into a spreadsheet (all you need is builder, construction number, and year), and then sort by year. I think you could probably have it done in a matter of hours. When Mr Conrad's book was published in 1988 he estimated the total number of engines in the US, Canada, and Mexico at just 1,875. As data sets go these days that's really pretty small.

-Philip Marshall

DJSullivan · **Joined:** Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:58 am **Posts:** 89

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed to me that the first step before undertaking such a project is to inquire whether someone else has already done it.

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

philip.marshall wrote:

Data on the surviving steam locomotives in the US is freely available, either from J. David Conrad's Steam Locomotive Directory of North America or Doug Bailey's website http://steamlocomotive.info/ .

When Mr Conrad's book was published in 1988 he estimated the total number of engines in the US, Canada, and Mexico at just 1,875. As data sets go these days that's really pretty small.

-Philip Marshall

Philip -

In the back pages of Volume 2 of J. David's books, he listed by construction number, the various numbers in numerical order for the various builders. These obviously would be in date order too. You would have to "mix them in", but would probably be a bit of a head start. Of course, those books go back a few years and there are a number of deletions since publication. There are also some locomotives that weren't in those original books.

Les

Frank J. DeStefano · **Posted:** Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:55 pm

The Stourbridge Lion was the first fully developed locomotive to run on the North American continent in August 1829. It was constructed by a British firm and imported to America. The original boiler and a few beams still exist and currently reside at the B&O Railroad Museum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stourbridge_Lion

The oldest fully preserved locomotive in the US was also built in England and shipped across the pond in 1831 for use on the Camden and Amboy Railroad of New Jersey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull_(locomotive). It currently resides at the Smithsonian Institute.

If you are limiting your scope to engines fully constructed and operated here in the US, my guess would be the B&O Grasshopper locomotive Atlantic (originally the Andrew Jackson later renamed to represent the first model of the series) built in 1836: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_(locomotive)

philip.marshall · **Posted:** Fri Feb 26, 2016 12:25 am

DJSullivan wrote:

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed to me that the first step before undertaking such a project is to inquire whether someone else has already done it.

Yes, you're quite right. I'm sorry for the impatient tone of my earlier reply.

There have obviously been some subtractions and additions since 1988, due to scrapping, new construction, export and import, as well as some new discoveries (engines that were there all along but somehow no one knew about). However, I don't think the difference would be more than 20 or 25 engines maximum. There have been changes in location and status (operational, static display, stored, etc.), but otherwise the steam locomotives in the US now in 2016 are mostly the same ones we had in 1988, so I think Mr. Conrad's list is still substantially complete.

I would be curious to see what the age distribution would look like if it were represented graphically. I expect the median year of construction would be sometime in the 1920s, with long tails on either end: the John Bull and others from the 1830s and 1840s would be all the way over on the left, the Chinese import engines from the 1990s and the new Kloke 4-4-0s would be on the right, and there would be a really big hump in the middle between about 1900 and 1940.

-Philip Marshall

DJSullivan · **Joined:** Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:58 am **Posts:** 89

I've gained great respect for Conrad!

John T · **Joined:** Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:05 pm **Posts:** 1270

This will get you started.

Stourbridge Lion 1829 Foster, Rastrick & Co. of Sourbridge England
Delaware & Hudson Canal Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stourbridge_Lion
http://www.rgusrail.com/mdboroundhouse.html

John Bull 1831 Robert Stephenson & Co. Camden & Amboy RR 2-4-0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull_(locomotive)
John Quincy Adams 1835 Davis & Gartner B&O #6 0-4-0
Changed to #1 Traveler 1892
Music & Arts Foundation Dayton, OH 1953
http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomo ... isplay=589

Andrew Jackson 1836 Davis & Gartner B&O #7 0-4-0
Massively rebuilt in 1893 to resemble the Atlantic.
B&O Museum
http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomo ... isplay=588

John Hancock 1836 Gillingham & Winans B&O #8 0-4-0
B&O Museum
http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomo ... isplay=589

Mississippi c1835 0-4-0
https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22793/lot/205/

Pioneer 1836 Baldwin 4-2-0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_(locomotive)

Rocket 1838 Braithwaite Milner & Co
http://readingrailroad.org/profiles/rdg ... ocket.html

Peoples Railway #3 c1842 4-4-0
http://www.readingrailroad.org/profiles ... m_pr3.html

Lion 1846 0-4-0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_(locomotive)

Memnon 1848 0-8-0
http://www.borail.org/Memnon.aspx