Davis and Gartner, who built the _Atlantic_ in 1832 for the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail Road (see p. 47), built as their next two “grasshoppers”
the _Traveller_ and the _Arabian_. The latter of these was placed in
service on the B & O in July 1834. Neither of these two locomotives is
extant, but a 2-foot-long nonoperable model of the _Arabian_ (figure 65)
is now in the National Museum collection (USNM 233511). It was made in
the Museum in about 1900 by C. R. Luscombe.
The _Arabian_ was similar in design to the three “grasshoppers” that
have survived, but differed from them in many small ways. Its two
cylinders, for example, had a bore and stroke of 12 and 22 inches. This
bore was fractionally less than that of the other three. Also, its
weight with fuel and water, 7½ tons, was about a ton less than that of
any of the others.
The extent to which the Museum’s model represents these slight
differences between the _Arabian_ and the “grasshoppers” that followed
it cannot now be determined. Most of these differences would be
impossible to reproduce on such a small scale. It is entirely possible
that the model represented no particular “grasshopper,” and the name
_Arabian_ may have been selected by chance.
A detailed description of the construction of the _Arabian_ and a
discussion of its performance characteristics appear in the eighth
(1834) and ninth (1835) annual reports of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
Road Co.
[Illustration: Figure 65.—Model of Davis and Gartner _Arabian_,
1834.]