[Illustration: Figure 53.—Photo of _Samson_, built in England in
1838 by Hackworth, taken in Nova Scotia by a New Glasgow
photographer some time before 1890. Observe chairs provided for
engineer.]
The third and last of the three complete British locomotives of the
1825-1849 period remaining in North America is also the only extant
locomotive of the period on this continent located outside the United
States.[5]
The _Samson_ (figure 53) was built by Timothy Hackworth at New Shildon,
Durham, England, in the summer of 1838, at a cost of about $10,000, for
the General Mining Association of Nova Scotia. (Despite statements that
the _Albion_, also preserved in Nova Scotia, was built by Hackworth
before 1840, it was actually built by Rayne and Burn in Newcastle in
1854.)
The _Samson_ was not, as has so often been claimed, the first locomotive
in Canada. It had been preceded in 1836 by the Stephenson-built
_Dorchester_ employed on the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad,
running between St. Johns and Laprairie, south of Montreal. The
_Dorchester_ exploded and was demolished near Joliette in 1864. Also
antedating the _Samson_ was the _Jason C. Pierce_, built in 1837 by
William Norris for the same railroad, and destroyed in a fire in about
1890.
The _Samson_ was one of three identical Hackworth locomotives built for
the General Mining Association, whose railroad was known unofficially as
the Albion Mines Railway, and the South Pictou Railroad. Each had an
0-6-0 wheel arrangement, 56½-inch gauge, 48-inch cast iron plate wheels,
and vertical cylinders with a bore and stroke of 15¼ and 18 inches. Each
weighed 17 tons. The other two, the _John Buddle_ and the _Hercules_,
were scrapped in 1885 and 1892, respectively.
[Illustration: Figure 54.—_Samson_ at Chicago in 1883, during
Exposition of Railway Appliances. George Davidson, long its
engineer, stands at controls on right.]
The _Samson_ made a trial run in December 1838, and was put into regular
service on September 19, 1839, hauling cars of coal from the Albion
mines at Stellarton to the harbor at Pictou, a distance of about 6
miles. According to one early report, a train of 30 coal cars, weighing
3 tons each, was the usual load pulled to the harbor. The _Samson_ made
about 3 round trips a day at a speed of a little less than 10 miles an
hour. This same report states that up to 1856 the locomotive operated on
a steam pressure of 70 pounds per square inch, and thereafter, until it
was taken out of service in the early 1880’s, on 45 pounds.
The locomotive was operated in an unusual manner. The engineer was
stationed at one end, adjacent to the cylinders and driving gear, while
the fireman was located at the other end, from which the boiler was
fired.
The boiler is about 13 feet long and 4 feet in diameter, and has a large
U-shaped return flue. The cylinders are mounted vertically at the rear,
and the piston rods are guided by Watt’s parallel motion instead of the
usual cross heads and slide bars. The engine has no frame, the axle
bearings being bolted to brackets riveted to the under side of the
boiler. Only the front and middle axle bearings are fitted with springs.
In the course of its working career, the _Samson_ traveled considerably.
In addition to having been brought across the Atlantic, the old
locomotive was brought to Chicago in 1883 for display at the Exposition
of Railway Appliances (figure 54). There it was accompanied by George
Davidson, long its engineer and said to have come with it to Nova Scotia
from England.
[Illustration: Figure 55.—_Samson_, with an original passenger car
of 1840, at the Fair of the Iron Horse, September 30, 1927.]
Ten years later, in 1893, it was again brought to Chicago, this time to
be exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition. At the conclusion of
the exposition the _Samson_, and the _Albion_ that had accompanied it,
were taken by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. to Baltimore for
preservation there. The B & O later included the _Samson_ (and also the
_Albion_) in the exhibition of historic locomotives at the Fair of the
Iron Horse in 1927 (figure 55).
In June 1928, when the two old locomotives were given by the B & O to
the Province of Nova Scotia, the _Samson_ returned to the land of its
youth, only to be placed in storage in Halifax. Later, however, it was
given to the town of New Glasgow, through which it had run almost daily
in its early days, and it is now housed in a small building especially
constructed for it at the town’s railroad station.